Sidewalk Hustle

via Pitch­fork

Hur­ray!  Accord­ing to Pitch­fork for­mer Test Ici­cles mem­ber Dev Hynes aka Light­speed Cham­pion has announced the release date and track-listing for his sopho­more album  Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You. Hynes as Light­speed Cham­pion turned heads, and impressed every­one when he released Falling Off the Laven­der Bridge in early 2008, with his rad­i­cal depar­ture from the Dance-Punk sounds of his for­mer band to cre­ate a very soul­ful, acoustic gui­tar dri­ven album, heav­ily influ­enced by the musi­cal stylings of the Amer­i­can Mid-West. This may not seem like all that big a deal until you fac­tor in that Hynes is from Lon­don Eng­land but moved to Omaha, Nebraska to record his debut album with Sad­dle Creek pro­ducer Mike Mogis, most famous for his involve­ment with the band Bright Eyes.  One rarely sees a shift from a global metrop­o­lis to Mid­dle Amer­ica for cul­tural influ­ence, but hey, if it works, why not?  What­ever the motive for the musi­cal genre shift­ing, the choice paid off and Light­speed Cham­pion is ranked highly in my iTunes, and con­tin­ues to be in heavy rotation.

Life Is Sweet! Nice to Meet You, fea­tures 16 tracks recorded and mixed with Ben Allen, who recently worked with Ani­mal Col­lec­tive and Gnarls Barkley. Accord­ing to a press release, “Lightspeed’s early lean­ing towards Amer­i­can coun­try dress­ings is traded here for a palette that draws on clas­si­cal music and even musi­cal the­atre… jolt­ingly ‘70s gui­tar and synth sounds, clas­si­cal piano, Greek cho­ruses shout­ing reprisals, and at least one ukulele-driven moment.”

The album’s lead sin­gle, “Mar­lene,” will be released on Jan­u­ary 25 and the full album will be out Feb­ru­ary 1.

Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You:

1. “Dead Head Blues“
2. “Mar­lene“
3. “There’s Noth­ing Under­wa­ter“
4. “Inter­mis­sion“
5. “Fac­ulty Of Fears“
6. “The Big Guns Of High­smith“
7. “Romart“
8. “I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone“
9. “Madame Van Damme“
10. “Smooth Day (At The Library)“
11. “Inter­mis­sion 2″
12. “Sweet­heart“
13. “Etude Op.3″
14. “Good­night Michalek”“
15. “Mid­dle Of The Dark“
16. “A Bridge And A Goodbye”