Shortly after their appearance on Gilmore Girls, Sonic Youth, the dinosaurs of indie rock, released their 21st full-length album, which is supposedly their last contractually required album on Geffen Records. The youth are back to their original line-up, with Jim O’Rourke missing on bass and keyboards, having moved on to other projects and rumored to be continuing studies into Japanese film and music. The album is brilliant (IMHO) and features over 50 minutes of the type of melodic rock and roll that Sonic Youth became so well-known for during the late-80′s / early-90′s.

• Stylus Magazine (91/100). “It’s not just their most energetic, immediate, and pop record in a dog’s age, it’s also—and I love this—their most honest. The Yoof seem to have finally realized their fixed spot in the landscape of modern rock and have all but jettisoned, except where absolutely necessary, the high art pretensions that have weighed down much of their recent output—save Murray Street, the exception that proves the rule—in favor of streamlined, bell-clear FM-radio rock: Badfinger, Thin Lizzy, Big Star.”
• Entertainment Weekly (83/100). “From Kurt Cobain to Steve Albini, Sonic Youth have played with loads of way-hip musicians. But one they’ve missed is Roger McGuinn, ex-leader of folk-rock progenitors the Byrds. They really ought to, especially since the now-middle-aged Youth’s latest album sounds an awful lot like that band in places.”
• Dusted Magazine (70/100). “Every few years, this Sonic Youth puts out a new album. These albums generally appear near summer’s commencement. Some have harbored jarring, experimental flourishes. This one, not so much. Although not the less-than-inspired retread that was Sonic Nurse, it’s a fitting overview of everything that’s always worked for Sonic Youth in the past (a description that also fits the long track “Pink Steam” by its lone). It’s, in a word, firm. The hooks are tight. The melodies are just as “compelling” to the heart as all that SYR jibber-jazz is to the heads of those who appreciate it.”

[Rather Ripped @ Metacritic | Buy it @ Insound | Sonic Youth | Sonic Youth @ Wikipedia]

Shaw-Han Liem, also known as I Am Robot And Proud, has created a fully-featured co-op shopping portal for indie musicians, artists and craft-makers, named The Blue House. A one-stop shop for some of the best fringe music and crafts (1″ buttons, hand-screened posters and artwork), fans of the independent arts are able to purchase items from sellers around the world, through one easy interface, with all money going directly to the artists (via PayPal). A digital-distribution section, where customers will be able to directly purchase whole albums and singles via MP3 (and possibly OGG or other formats) is currently in the works, hopefully being completed by years end. (?)

[The Blue House]

The Sundance of indie gaming, the Indie Games Festival (IGF), has just announced their 9th annual festival and awards program. The festival, started in 1998, is on it’s 9th year of encouraging innovation in game design and development, and continues to offer independent game developers much-needed support and press. The IGF is currently accepting submissions for their main awards category, as well as their mods and student categories. The IGF awards ceremony takes place March 7, 2007 and is always one of the highlights of the annual game developers conference (GDC). Good luck to everyone.

[IGF 2007]

While I don’t always agree with Pitchfork’s reviews (hey who does?) they are always able to write a great feature. This time they have their top 100 picks for most awesome music videos. Some golden nuggets and old-favorites, from A-Ha to Boards of Canada to Twisted Sister to Yo La Tengo. All videos are watchable through the site and you should get in there early as it’s only a matter of time before some label exec moves in and demands Pitchfork stop offering them free advertising.

[100 awesome music videos | Via Waxy.org]

Garage Games have announced the full release of the Torque Game Builder, unofficially known as the Torque 2D engine. With a focus on simplicity, the package features user-friendly editors to manipulate a powerful engine, with features such as animated sprites, special effects system, real world physics, flexible tiles, and a hardware-accelerated 2D rendering graphical engine. With the announcement also comes the addition of the TGB Pro package, which costs a touch more, but gives the user direct access to the TGB and TorqueScript source code.

[Torque Game Builder]

Tray Games has announced their first annual Developer Challenge, a competition to determine the years best “pick up and play” casual game, using the Tray Games multi-player platform. Launched together with Tray’s new developer support site, the Challenge offers a $10,000 Grand Prize.

“This is a great opportunity for developers to explore the possibilities offered by multi-player game play at the scale of a casual game,” says Joe Pantuso, CEO of TrayGames. “We expect to see creative entries that push the edges of current game genres. This challenge gives us the opportunity to promote the capabilities of the TrayGames platform and attract new developers to the idea of producing games for the Network.”

The $10,000 Grand Prize consists of a publishing contract for the winning game with an advance. In addition to the Grand Prize winner, all finalists will be awarded publishing contracts with revenue share and advances attached to them. All Challenge submissions that are accepted for publication will be available to play on the TrayGames Manager.

Deadline for Challenge entries is September 5, 2006.

[Tray Games' Developer Challenge 2006]

Danish musician, artist and graphic design wonder-kid Anders Ahoerj recently announced the first collection to the t-shirt line of his fashion label Woven Flesh. The collection, entitled “Hunter & Prey”, features cages, knives and the many different creatures living in a far away forest done in the sickly sweet cartoon style we’ve come to love and expect from the creative force behind Venom Yum.

[Woven Flesh]