Though harmonious Swede sisters First Aid Kit first established notoriety through a viral video, their first two releases on Wichita Records showcased a group rapidly improving and growing more confident with their own arrangements. Their new LP is out this week, and recently their new album’s closing track,”King Of The World,” surfaced online. The track features a I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning shading section from Bright Eyes figurehead Conor Oberst; listen below.

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If you’re into Conor Oberst’s work, you’ve likely heard “Shell Games” and “Haile Selassie” — and maybe those 30 second samples — but today the tease is over: Stream The People’s Key (2/15, Saddle Creek) in full at NPR. The folks at NPR call it “the best record Bright Eyes has ever made” as well as “the best record the band’s frontman, Conor Oberst, has ever been a part of…” Agree, Desaparecidos fan club?

Bright Eyes’s Conor Oberst told the Omaha World-Herald back in 2009 that he’d do just one more album under the Bright Eyes name in 2010 before retiring it. The People’s Key sounds like that album, though it won’t be out until February 2011. Some other key details: The Bright Eyes line-up is still Conor Oberst, folk monster Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott. The record was recorded at ARC Studios in Omaha, and it will come out via Saddle Creek (Oberst released his recent solo albums with Merge). And they’ll support The People’s Key with two big shows next year at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall and London’s Royal Albert Hall. What does The People’s Key sound like? Bright Eyes/Rilo Kiley drummer Jason Boesel Tweeted this: “Just heard half of the new Bright Eyes record. Best sci-fi emo album of the last 20 years!!!” Here’s the full tracklist:

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In his open letter to an Arizona promoter about SB1070 and the state boycott, Conor Oberst mentioned a similar law passing in Fremont, Nebraska. Writes Oberst:

Our situation requires immediate legal action and a campaign for public awareness (there has been very little press on this). Charlie, I promise you, if this Fremont law had been passed Statewide instead of in a rural town of 25,000 people, I would be the first to call for a boycott of my home state.

Oberst was serious about taking action immediately. He — along with Cursive, Lullaby For The Working Class, and a reunited Desaparecidos — will play two shows in Omaha on July 31. Both shows benefit the Nebraska ACLU, who are challenging the law in Fremont. It’ll be the first show for the band since 2002, the year Desaparecidos released their only record, Read Music/Speak Spanish. Get tickets here.

Conor Oberst is all grown up — after listening to Monsters Of Folk you might even think he’s your dad — but Omaha’s favorite indie-rock son still slides into his Bright Eyes angst rather easily. See, for instance, “Happy Accident,” which appears on the reissue of the 2004 One Jug of Wine, Two Vessel six-song Neva Dinova “split” (in stores 3/23, but shipping now via Saddle Creek). As mentioned last month, the 2010 version includes four new collaborative tracks, bringing the count up to 10. “Happy Accidents” and its music box, sensitive lyrics, etc., is one of them, and it wears its vintage Bright Eyes camo well. Listen:

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The original collaboration record One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels came out back in 2004, but the groups reunited last fall to write and record new songs at Mike Mogis’s Omaha studio. The ten-track album will be out March 23. More at Saddle Creek.

The last time a video featured Conor Oberst in a public performance period piece, he was getting clobbered by trash and tomatoes. But that was before he and Mogis recruited Yim Yames on drums and M. Ward on piano to form the hydra-headed Paste-rock superbeast Monsters Of Folk, so this time around the reception is much lighter on the hostility and much heavier on the soldier’s uniforms and roller-skating. Naturally.

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In a very special Halloween edition of the ‘Gum Drop, David “Moose” Adamson, aka Jookabox, told us “Evil Nite” — “a song about the infection taking hold of a pure soul in limbo” — is an early version of “Zombie Tear Drops” from his Indianapolis crew’s zombie-inspired Dead Zone Boys (Asthmatic Kitty, 11/3). We kept digging. In fact, we dug so deep we didn’t have room for the entire discussion in the newsletter. No worries, you can read his thoughts on Varg Vikernes, George Romero, Star Wars, “The Monster Mash,” and, of course, zombies here.

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Conor Oberst, M. Ward, Jim James, Mike Mogis, and Centro-matic’s Will Johnson donned their best late-night suits and played Seattle’s Paramount Theatre last night. Photographer Laura Musselman was on hand and delivers this set of shots.

Monsters Of Folk are four dudes better known for other projects, they are the Them Crooked Vultures of the NPR-section of contemporary music, they are like the Traveling Wilburys but not as iconic, all of this is true. But also they are four dudes best known for playing guitar while they sing, which you’re reminded of as soon as The Tonight Show‘s camera pans past M. Ward bent over a piano and Yim Yames who keeps plucking that chicken bass. Conor gets to play it close to the vest with acoustic strums and totally necessary sunglasses (who’s gonna be the Orbison if not), and his other Bright Eye Mike Mogis holds it down on electric because just listen to that guitar solo. Centro-matic’s Will Johnson is their new drummer. The supergroup performed their album’s lead single “Say Please” last night, sounding nice and tight and looking like the best men at a wedding you wish you were invited to.

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