Scottish post-rock quintet Mogwai have completed their third album, tentatively titled Nevermind That Sh--, Here Comes Mogwai!, according to a spokesperson for their U.S. label, Matador Records. Due April 10, the album features Super Furry Animals singer Gruff Rhys on one track and Chavez guitarist Matt Sweeney on another. The band also brought in horn and string sections for the first time on the new LP, which a spokesperson said the group jokingly referred to as "the most expensive post-rock album ever made." The album was recorded at Tarbox Road Studios in Cassadaga, New York, with Dave Fridmann, a member of Mercury Rev who has lent his lush, orchestral production style to the Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Elf Power's A Dream in Sound and the Rev's epic 1998 LP, Deserter's Songs, among dozens of others. Fridmann also co-produced and engineered Mogwai's previous album, 1999's Come On Die Young. The most recent release by the band, which is led by guitarist/vocalist Stuart Braithwaite and bassist/guitarist Dominic Atchison, was the Mogwai EP + 2 EP in October 1999. Adding the two tracks from their "No Education = No Future: F--- the Curfew" government-protest single to four new tracks, the EP signaled a more refined direction for Mogwai that is continued on their upcoming album, according to their spokesperson. Mogwai's 1997 debut, Young Team, balanced somber, sensitive pop and explosive guitar-crunch assaults, establishing the Glasgow band as the leaders of a burgeoning Scottish rock underground that also included Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian and the Delgados. It was quickly followed by Ten Rapid, a singles compilation, as well as the remix collection Mogwai Fear Satan: Kicking a Dead Pig, which featured versions of their tracks by [u]-ziq, Kid Loco and My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields.

• Mogwai
• The Flaming Lips
• Elf Power

The Elephant 6-associated band Elf Power has already leapt into the top 15 of the "CMJ" radio chart with its just-released new album, "The Winter Is Coming," and is gearing up to launch a tour in support of the new LP on October 31 in Houston.

For "The Winter Is Coming," Elf Power -- composed of multi-instrumentalists Laura Carter, Andrew Rieger and Adrian Finch, along with bassist Bryan Poole and drummer Aaron Wegelin -- opted to trade in some of the lo-fi, indie-rock aesthetic that has typified most releases from the Elephant 6 Collective, a loose affiliation of like-minded bands such as the Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control.

The difference from previous Elf Power records, including 1999's "A Dream in Sound" and 1997's "When the Red King Comes," is obvious on the first "Winter" track, "Embrace the Crimson Tide," which features a lead guitar bit partially inspired by, of all things, Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun."

"It wasn't intentional," Poole said, "and we caught it pretty early on. [Frontman] Andrew [Rieger] brought it in and he started playing it, and it was either me or somebody else [who pointed it out]. I think I picked up the guitar and was like, 'Aw, I think I know this. What is it?' I kind of figured it out and I said, 'You know that's Jimi Hendrix?' And Andrew was like, 'Yeah, yeah. I thought it was, but I didn't mean to do it.' He only noticed it a couple of days after he [recorded] it, and we were just kind of like, 'Oh, screw it.'

"We lifted, kind of intentionally, for 'A Dream in Sound,' a bit of Captain Beefheart off of 'Trout Mask Replica,'" Poole continued. he said, laughing. "But I don't think anything is wrong with that, per se. It's not like we're ripping off 'Third Stone from the Sun,' but it is, yeah, that melody line for sure." [RealAudio]