Andre Costantini

​Cat Martino makes glowing, of-the-moment woozefolk full of ethereal drones and spacey loops, running modern indie-scruff through the 4AD dream machine. Best known as a valued touring musician for Brooklyn luminaries like Sufjan Stevens and YIMBY veteran Sharon Van Etten, Martino is about to strike out on her own again with her upcoming second album Yr Not Alone, which balances soul-stirring Feistian bombast and expressionistic Zola Jesus smoke plumes. The title track features vocals from Mr. Stevens himself—but happy hunting for them, since the song smolders with percussive Laurie Anderson-style exhalations, eerie drones that Martino makes via loop pedal, and reverb on reverb on reverb.

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​Perhaps you've heard that Brooklyn troubadour Sufjan Stevens has a new album. It comes out October 12th, and has a poetically appropriate name, The Age of Adz, though for some reason he wants to you pronounce that last word as "odds." You can preorder it now, on CD, LP, or MP3, and get a digital download of the record two weeks before it's officially released. Those two weeks will surely be a happy time, filled with much internet delight and Twitter glee. And then the second week of October will come around, and Asthmatic Kitty, Stevens's label--and by extension you, the consumer--will find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. That dilemma, in the words of a beseeching email recently sent out to a list of Stevens's fans:

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Sufjan Stevens
Bowery Ballroom
Monday, October 5

Chippy night down at the ol' Bowery. Heading downstairs we pass a heated argument between two hungry patrons and a bouncer defending the club's "all exits are final" policy. The men's bathroom is briefly closed due to unfortunate leakage; "hold it," my companion is advised. Upstairs, I mention we're missing the big Packers-Vikings game and am immediately shushed by the dude next to us, who plans to watch later and doesn't want it spoiled. Bring on the soothing banjos.

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​--Sufjan Stevens has announced an intimate fall tour. In what Asthmatic Kitty Records are calling an "east-of-Lake-Minnetonka tour," the run focuses on eastern states, kicking off September 21st at Philly's 250-capacity Johnny Brenda's. Stevens wraps the tour with four New York dates: October 4th and 5th at the Bowery Ballroom, and October 6th and 7th at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg. California indie labelmates Cryptacize will join Stevens on several dates. Tickets go on sale Saturday. To avoid scalpers, you'll need to pick up tickets at will call the night of the show with a photo ID. Check Asthmatic Kitty's site for more details.

--Lollapolooza wrapped up last night with headlining sets from The Killers and Jane's Addiction. Jane's played a dozen songs, including a take on "Jane Says" with guest Joe Perry (Perry's band just postponed their Canadian tour). Tool played an All Points West-similar Saturday set, full of glowsticks and creepy stage videos. The same day, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's set saw Karen O take the stage in a crown constructed of cardboard human hands. After Lollapalooza died down last night, the Josh Homme/Dave Grohl/John Paul Jones supergroup Them Crooked Vultures made their live debut with a sold out gig at Chicago's Metro. The Chicago Tribune reports the band played an 80 minute set of all-original heavy rock.

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SOTC's Jessica Suarez bracing against the winter cold

Back on one of the colder, more snow-choked days of February, we sent SOTC buddy Jessica Suarez deep in the wilds of Crown Heights to hear a song by Sufjan Stevens that, at the time, only a handful of other people on the planet had heard. A theater director by the name of Alec Duffy had won the 2007 Sufjan Stevens Xmas Song Exchange Contest, and in return received a for-his-ears-only recording of "The Lonely Man of Winter," which, starting around January, become the object of some extremely twee listening sessions involving homemade chocolate cookies and loose leaf Jasmine tea. Anyway, now the Wall Street Journal has discovered these listening sessions! "Indie folk and rock singer Sufjan Stevens has avid fans in many countries who are desperate to hear one of his latest songs," writes the Journal. "But to do that, they have to get to Alec Duffy's apartment in Brooklyn." It continues:

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The writer, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy.

"You're the first person to show up" said Alec Duffy, as he took my coat. My listening session was in Crown Heights, just off the Franklin 1/2/3 stop. I slipped on the snow twice, went the wrong direction, and landed at his friend Dave Malloy's doorstep 20 minutes past 8. I was the only person to show up, it turned out. I brought some cookies, the store-bought kind you break apart before you bake them. They put them on a plate for me, then Dave offered me some of their own, homemade chocolate cookies that looked like wet marble rye, but they still tasted fine. Dave made me a mug of loose leaf Jasmine tea, which I sipped while we talked in the living room and waited for the other RSVPs that never came.

There was a reason why I was at a stranger's house for a private listening session. I used to listen and process a lot of music quickly. I wrote 89 of the 200 or so posts for Pitchfork's Forkcast section in the 20 publishing days of February 2007. I cleared the tracks for permission and begged for exclusive video premiers from terrible publicists. Sometimes I hear songs now and wonder why I didn't know about them before. Then I Google the song and see that I wrote 200 words about it two years earlier. Ever since I quit I've been thinking about how to enjoy listening to music again; about how getting an album in the mail isn't as good as finding it. And then I found a listing for a small, four-people-at-a-time listening event in Brooklyn:

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