Fountains Of Wayne is assembling an album of B-sides for release next year on S-Curve. According to a spokesperson, the as-yet-untitled set will cull “almost every B-side the band has released since its first single in 1996,” as well as several new songs written specifically for the project. An album of new material is also in the works, the band’s first since its 2003 breakthrough, “Welcome Interstate Managers.”
Album track “All Kinds of Time” is currently being featured in commercials for the National Football League airing on television and in stadiums. “I always pictured a bunch of slo-mo ‘NFL Films’ footage in my head when I wrote this song,” says group member Adam Schlesinger. “Too bad the commercials aren’t long enough to include a little room for that guy with the low voice to do a little rap in the middle,” he adds, referring to narrator Harry Kalas.
As previously reported, Schlesinger’s other band, Ivy, will release its new album, “In the Clear,” March 1 via Nettwerk.
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— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
R&B act 112 is at work on its fifth studio album. The as-yet-untitled set is due in the spring via Def Soul and will feature production from Jermaine Dupri, Scott Storch, Track Boyz and 112 member Daron Jones, among others. Sessions in Miami and Atlanta yielded more than 40 songs, although only 14 are expected to appear on the finished album.The set will be the follow-up to last year’s “Hot & Wet,” which debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and No. 22 on The Billboard 200. 112 will also be seen portraying the Four Tops on an upcoming episode of “American Dreams,” which will air Jan. 2 on ABC.
— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
Louisville rock quartet Shipping News will release a new album, “Flies the Fields,” March 22 via Quarterstick. The eight-track set finds features the debut of new member Todd Cook (For Carnation, Parlour), joining multi-instrumentalists Jason Noble and Jeff Mueller and drummer Kyle Crabtree. Pit Er Pat vocalist Fay Davis Jeffers guests on the track “Untitled w/Drums.”Shipping News plans to hit the road in April for an East Coast/Midwest swing, to be followed by late May/early June by shows in the West. In related news, Parlour has finished recording a new EP for release in April via Temporary Residence and plans to hit the road in the first quarter of the new year.
— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.