As the Best of the Year lists come in (check out ours here), two Barsuk albums from 2007 are being recognized for their greatness. John Vanderslice's emerald city and Menomena's friend and foe are on the list of nominations for NPR's Year's Best Music (be sure to vote!), and the Grammy Foundation has nominated Menomena's album for Best Recording Package (for the awesomely-executed design by graphic novelist Craig Thompson). Congratulations to all!

JUST IN: Speaking of the phenomenal packaging for friend and foe, check out this article (with lots of cool pictures) on website Sleevage.com.

The nominees for the 2008 PLUG Independent Music Awards have been announced, including several categories with Barsuk artists. Menomena are up for 3 awards: Video of the Year (for the food-crazed rotten hell video), Best Packaging of the Year (for the awesome Craig Thompson-created design of friend and foe), and Song of the Year (for wet & rusting). John Vanderslice is up for Male Artist of the Year, and the Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter album, like, love, lust & the open halls of the soul, is up for Best Americana Album of the Year. Visit the PLUG website to vote!

John Vanderslice played at New York's Sound Fix record store recently, and the performance was captured on video. Several different videos are available on YouTube — be sure to watch the first one, in which JV insists on buying beer for the entire crowd, but they're all great recordings. (You may also notice Ira from Nada Surf up on stage with JV singing and hitting on a box. What a swell guy.)

JV recently did a session on WXPN's World Cafe. Listen as John talks about his new album, emerald city, along with several in-studio performances, available on NPR's website.

Wonderful website Three Imaginary Girls has just posted an exclusive video of John playing on the Fremont Bridge in Seattle, just as the bridge is about to go up. Check out the footage here.

This past weekend, John Vanderslice stopped by radio station WEEM in Pendleton, IN, and did an amazing in-studio performance and interview. The session will be played on the My Old Kentucky Blog Sirius Satellite show, but you can listen now on the MOKB's website here.

David Dye, host of NPR's World Cafe, did a nice piece about JV's emerald city this week — you can listen to the entire story here.

John Vanderslice has been on the road recently in support of his most recent release, emerald city, but he's still found time to do some special performances for radio stations and websites. You can listen to a podcast of an interview and performance at WNYC that ran a few weeks back, or you can check out his recent "Takeaway Show" performances here. Viva la 'Slice!

JV recently went into the Spinner studio for an interview and to record a few songs. You can download the entire session on the Spinner.com website, or subscribe to the podcast.

The online blog tour of emerald city is complete, with nine live in-studio videos of each track from the album posted to a different blog over the past few weeks. Links to the videos can still be accessed here. JV and his band will be touring the US in September and October — dates can be found here.

There's a nice piece up on Videostatic.com about Brent Chesanek, the director who's made three John Vanderslice videos: exodus damage, trance manual, and the new video for time to go.

John Vanderslice and his band made live in-studio performance videos of each of the tracks from his new album, emerald city, and will be posting them on some of JV's favorite blogs. The first one, up today at Stereogum, is for the song kookaburra — check back here every few days as the remaining tracks get posted.

If you've been wondering when your favorite Barsuk band is going to be coming around to your neck of the woods again, wait no longer. A dizzying number of tour dates have just been announced, including Nada Surf's US tour in October, Menomena's third big tour of the year (this time with Illinois in October and November), David Bazan's epic journey (with support Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, September through November), Rocky Votolato (playing some dates with Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter) in September and October, John Vanderslice (celebrating his new album, emerald city) and Smoosh (supporting Bloc Party in September). Check out our shows page for more details.

Hip (and totally awesome) website, Stereogum, has put together a 10th anniversary tribute to the Radiohead classic, ok computer, with contributions from two Barsuk artists. John Vanderslice takes on karma police (which has, as John puts it, "the best bridge ever"), and David Bazan performs his interpretation of the song let down, a favorite at his live shows. Other artists on the tribute include Cold War Kids, Mobius Band, My Brightest Diamond, and more — you can listen and read all about it here.

To help celebrate the new Spoon record, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, John Vanderslice will be opening for the boys from Austin at a special invite-only show in Los Angeles. The first 150 people to purchase the new Spoon record at LA's Amoeba Records will receive a free ticket to the event, which takes place Monday, July 16th at Little Radio. JV's new record, emerald city, will be out the following week (July 24).

The splendid new album from John Vanderslice, emerald city, is now availalbe for pre-orders (release date is July 24). We'll also have a new t-shirt soon, and a few weeks after the CD release we'll have the high quality 180-gram vinyl version (complete with a single-use code for downloading free MP3s of the album). Sample the album now by downloading the free MP3 of the song white dove.

John Vanderslice and tourmate Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) will be interviewed on Gorilla vs. Bear's Blog Radio on Sirius Left of Center tonight (May 9), during which JV will discuss his upcoming album and his love of the NBA playoffs.

John Vanderslice will be playing at the Union Hall in Brooklyn on 4/22 — for those of you unable to get into the sold-out Mercury Lounge show, here's your second chance to see JV, headlining with St. Vincent.

John Vanderslice is a busy man. He's just announced a spring US tour with the Beggars band St. Vincent, starting now and continuing through mid-May. If you'd like to sing lead vocals on any song during their set, just find JV before the show and he'll bring you onstage (alternately, if you bring a bass guitar and learn either 424 or my old flame, you'll be welcomed to the stage as well).

John's also posted hi-res versions of a new remix project of his most recent release, pixel revolt, which was put together by his engineer and creative partner, Scott Solter. And while you're visiting his website, be sure to check out his always-amazing photographs from recent tours.

Look for a new John Vanderslice album later this year.

Mates of State video Fraud In The '80s and John Vanderslice's Exodus Damage are up for MTV awards for Best Videos of 2006 — but they need your vote! Visit the MTV Subterranean site to cast your ballots.

John Vanderslice recently did a session for MP3.com, and captured 5 songs on video. Watch them online here. Also, while touring in Belgium, he did a session for Studio Brussel (national Belgium radio station) — you can listen to MP3s on JV's website.

JV will be doing a nearly five-week tour of Europe this fall in support of his critically acclaimed album, pixel revolt. You can read about it online on Pitchfork, or take a look at the tour dates here.

ManiaTV, the world's first live internet network, will be spotlighting John Vanderslice on August 2nd as their Artist of the Day. Check it out here.

The video for trance manual has been added to the pixel revolt e-card (along with the video for exodus damage and streaming tracks from the album). It's quite a lovely video, and worth checking out.

Listen to the podcast here.

Paste Magazine has posted a great review of JV's most recent Seattle live show (at Neumo's, 4/7/06). Here's a snippet: "With influences from Schubert to Spoon and lyrics that touch on everything from Iraqi whores to escaped bunnies, the Vanderslice oeuvre hits your palate in unexpected ways."

Anticon's Alias made an exclusive remix of John Vanderslice's song exodus damage (from 2005's pixel revolt), available free from Barsuk here. It's spacey, fuzzy and absolutely gorgeous.

John Vanderslice's video for the song exodus damage will be debuting on MTV's Subterranean this week (Feb. 12 at midnight) — Feist will be the show's host. The video is also getting some love from MySpace, where it's currently one of the "Featured Videos".

John Vanderslice's pixel revolt has been nominated for the New Pantheon Music Prize. The New Pantheon Music Prize is a prestigious award created by Tom Sarig, co-founder of the now-defunct Shortlist Music Prize, and nominees are chosen by a select panel of musicians, actors, writers, and music gurus. The award ceremony will take place February 6th and will be simulcast on Network Live.

The new video for exodus damage is now available in a special e-card on our website, where you can watch the video and listen to a couple of tracks from the record. Sweet!