The reconfigured Folk Implosion will take their aptly titled new album, The New Folk Implosion, out on an eighteen-date North American tour starting February 27th in San Francisco.

With departure of co-founding member John Davis, Lou Barlow has added guitarist Imaad Wasif and drummer Russell Pollard -- who also perform as Alaska -- to the band. The band has changed direction, too, recording its latest set live, a deliberate departure from 1999's lush, computerized One Part Lullaby.

"I really like the way it sounds," Barlow says. "I wanted there to be more of a live band behind it. After I'd finished One Part Lullaby, and had some distance from it, I thought it was a little too produced, a little too layered. I just wanted to strip some things away. I think you can great sounding stuff on the computer. But this way, when we went into the studio, I forced myself into really working the songs out."

The group will debut the video for the album's first single, "Brand of Skin," this week on imusic.com. The clip was created by animation team the Brothers Chaps (siblings Mike and Matt Chapman who run the popular Web site homestarrunner.com) using Barlow's own drawings. "It turns out that they're really old school Sebadoh fans," Barlow says, referring to his other band, still grounded by hiatus. "I'm not an artist by any means, but I've been doing a lot of drawings and just dumping them on one of my Web sites. I just sent the drawings to them and they've been animating them."

Barlow, Pollard and Wasif will also make a brief appearance in the upcoming independent film, Laurel Canyon, as a British rock band. The film's producer was a fan of Lullaby and asked Barlow to contribute music, and when he passed, the band was asked to appear in the film. "I thought, 'Oh God, I really don't wanna do this,'" Barlow says, "but we were seriously strapped for cash at the time, so we thought, 'Well, this sounds scary, but we might as well try it.' You can practice all day and get what seems like an English accent. But then you're standing there and they yell, 'Action!' and there's fucking fifty people staring at you. And you're in the room with Christian Bale and Kate Beckinsdale, who are English, but they're playing Americans. It was like a parallel universe."

In addition to the U.S. dates, the band will also hit Europe later this year.

Folk Implosion tour dates:

2/27: San Francisco, Bottom of the Hill
2/28: Eureka, CA, Babetta's
3/1: Portland, OR, Dante's
3/2: Seattle, Crocodile Café
3/6: Boise, ID, Neurolux
3/8: Salt Lake City, Liquid Joe's
3/9: Denver, Bluebird Theater
3/12: Minneapolis, 400 Bar
3/13: Chicago, Abbey Pub
3/14: Detroit, Magic Stick
3/15: Toronto, Horseshoe Tavern
3/17: Montreal, La Salsa Rosa
3/18: Cambridge, MA, Middle East Café
3/19: New York, Knitting Factory
3/21: Hoboken, NJ, Maxwells
3/23: Baltimore, Ottobar
4/6: San Diego, Casbah
4/9: Los Angeles, Troubadour

ANDREW DANSBY
(January 29, 2003)