FRIDAY SHORTS

- Matador's latest news update has lots to report on, most notably details and tracklistings on new albums from The New Pornographers (Twin Cinema) and the Double (Loose in the Air). We also get a taste of the new NP's with the title track "Twin Cinema" (MP3) - great song! Other news - the signing of Brightblack, a new Stephen Malkmus e-card, and plenty more.

- I meant to mention this sooner - go to Fluxblog and download "Schrapnell" by Isolee, from his new record We Are Monster. Excellent tune from an excellent album. I'm a fool for not seeing him at APT a few months ago....

- In case you missed LCD Soundsystem on Letterman on Wednesday, PrefixMag has a video of their performance. Slightly surreal, still very cool.

- Staying with DFA, The Juan Maclean's official website has been launched. His debut full-length Less Than Human will be out on July 4, and the site has clips of all nine songs. I can't wait to hear them in full. If you're going to LCD's Webster Hall show on June 10, be sure to arrive early as Maclean is opening up - his first show in NYC since Volume's heyday, if I'm remembering correctly.

- Of course, that's nothing compared to New Order. Their show next week will be their first in New York City since August 1987. 1987! To be fair, they've actually played Jones Beach and the Meadowlands since then - but not since 1993. Stereogum linked to this video of the their recent performance of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on the Jimmy Kimmel show. New Order plays a decent amount of Joy Division live, which makes sense but still feels a little weird to me.

- To keep the New Order hype machine chugging, read Philip Sherburne's wonderful SF Weekly cover story on the band, and here's a Chicago Sun-Times Q&A with Peter Hook (via Coolfer). Can you tell I'm psyched for this show?

- Check out the new issue of Earplug for three free MP3's from Kompakt. We get some Markus Guentner, Justus Kohncke (the stellar "Schwabylon"), and Michael Mayer's remix of Superpitcher's "Happiness." I think I prefer the original on Here Comes Love - without the soaring synths, it's not quite the same for me. I'm hearing really good things, though, about Superpitcher's new mix Today, part of the ever-growing list of new things I need to hear.

- And finally - I cheated and listened to "Entertain" (MP3) from the new Sleater-Kinney album. It's been made officially available and I was in the mood to hear it, having just bought my ticket to see them with Dead Meadow at Roseland. Man, The Woods is gonna rock.