Last week, Sufjan Stevens surprised us with his All Delighted People EP. Now, he’s starting our weekend off right with a free track from his upcoming record, The Age of Adz. Grab “I Walked” here. Asthmatic Kitty has the 411 about his upcoming record, due out October 12:

It’s much too soon to cast descriptive lots, but we can say the new album sounds nothing like the All Delighted EP (although it shares similar themes of love, loss, and the apocalypse). Nor is this new album built around any conceptual underpinning (no odes to states, astrology, or urban expressways).

We can say it shows an extensive use of electronics (banjos and acoustic guitars give way to drum machines and analog synthesizers), and an obsession with cosmic fantasies (space, heaven, aliens, love), to create an explicit pop-song extravaganza, augmented by heavy orchestration, and maybe even a few danceable moments. Enjoy Your Rabbit meets the BQE. But with songs. Verse, chorus, bridge, backbeat. Gated reverb. Space echo. Get your boogey on.

The “Adz” of the title loosely refers to the apocalyptic paintings of outsider artist Royal Robertson (1930-1997), whose work is used for the album cover, interior design, and as general inspiration for the tone of the album.

Unless you have a review copy or grabbed the leak on Amazon you’re going to have to wait until Tuesday to read the new Jonathan Franzen. Thankfully, The New Yorker has a sneak peak of the first two chapters.

If you’re jealous of President Obama for getting his hands on an advance copy of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel “Freedom,” don’t fret: versions of the book’s first two chapters, originally published in the June 8, 2009, and May 31, 2010, issues of the magazine, are available on our Web site. Read “Good Neighbors” and “Agreeable” while you wait—patiently or impatiently—for the book to go on sale Tuesday.

Zachary Cale premiered his new full band line up at Death By Audio last night. A video montage of the set’s first three songs is below. Those that missed out will have more chances to catch Cale’s stellar, Dylan infused song writing in and around Brooklyn soon:

09/30 Union Pool, Brooklyn
10/14 Barbes, Brooklyn
10/19 Union Hall, Brooklyn

We couldn’t be more excited to get a peek at the latest addition to the Williamsburg bar scene. The brains behind Whiskey Town and Whiskey Tavern’s third baby, Whiskey Brooklyn, might not have the most creative name – but if it ain’t broke…

Credit: The Whiskey Brooklyn.

Once an abandoned tonic water factory, Whiskey Brooklyn is housed in an underground brick-walled cellar — the perfect spot to curl up with a tumbler full of belly-warming whiskey as the weather turns cool. We’re also excited about the addition of another U-shaped bar in the ‘burg (“perfect for eye [sexing] across,” Thrillist saliently notes).

The menu is strangely disparate, but delicious-sounding all the same.  Will anyone actually attempt to eat the “Bowl O’ Bacon” and the Hostess cupcake with a shot of White Russian all in one sitting? We don’t know, but we’ll be interested to see if the bar installs an automatic defibrillator to revive the ambitious ones.

The space itself is similarly enterprising: Whiskey Brooklyn has a Barcade-esque gaming room… but it attempts to do the Williamsburg landmark one better with a pair of shuffleboard tables. In addition to the stiff stuff, Whiskey Brooklyn will also offer a full bar menu, including the usual assortment of beers, Picklebacks, Spicy Picklebacks (it sounds like what it is) and a variety of whiskey-inspired cocktails.

Stay tuned for a full review of Whiskey Brooklyn next week.

Whiskey Brooklyn, opening Monday. 44 Berry St., on 11th; 718.387.8444

Over on Melodie McDaniel’s portfolio I found a photo essay of Williamsburg in 1992. The black and white photos are of the Hasidic community, making the ‘burg look like one of the old European Jewish quarters. I’d guess that the same type of photo essay could be done today easily with similar results, those crazy kids have just not picked up the iphone craze.

This new Washed Out video is a like high school yearbook for someone who partied way harder and was way cooler than you in high school. It’s a montage of clips from live shows, touring throughout the country, chilling in lakes and living in hotel rooms.

Let’s all get dolled up and head to the sock hop! The Fader and True Panther are throwing a party to celebrate Magic Kids’ debut release Memphis. With the serious oldies-sounding vibes that the kids are making, you can only imagine the number of poodle skirts and varsity jackets that people are going to be wearing. (OK, probably tank tops and colorful tights, but we’ll still take it!)

The event is at Stanton Public starting at 6:30 and going until 8:30, because, you know, it’s a school night and you probably have studying to do. Promises include giveaways, limited edition tape copies of Memphis, and free beer and pizza. And if you’re lucky, you just might get that final slow dance with the special someone you’ve been eying all summer.

If you haven’t heard Memphis yet, you can head over to Magic Kids’ MySpace, where it is streaming.

UPDATED: Due to rain, the free screening of The Sternberg Project will be held next Monday, August 30 at 8pm.

Zena Bibler of The Dance Film Lab will be screening (for free) her newest site-specific film, The Sternberg Project, at the Sternberg Handball Court on Monday, August 30 at 8pm. The event will also include a short live performance and dance film by Itziar Barrio.

The Sternberg Project will be an interactive, crowd-sourced, multi-media time capsule of July in Sternberg Park and its surrounding area. The project is an assemblage of short videos made on anything from an HD camcorder to a camera phone that capture and create the movement of the park including dances, conversations, home runs, images, narratives, stills, sounds for the month of July 2010.

[More at moviehouse]

Local recording artist, The Zax, met his long time goal of selling more records that Heidi Montag did in her first week at his aptly named website, HelpMeSellMoreRecordsThanHeidiMontag.com– sounds tough, huh? Well, turns out the plastic MTV reality star only sold 658 copies in those first seven days. Ouch.

As of today, The Zax has sold 659 records. And for that, we salute him… it only took him approximately two months.

We caught up with the man behind the campaign via email to figure out, well, what exactly was the point.

What came first- the music or the need to out sell Heidi? The music came first. Released my first record “Sheepshearing” in 2007. My new record is called “LOVE”, been working on it for 2 years in my bedroom in Brooklyn. It’s self produced.

When/where did you first come up with the campaign?
Read on some blog somewhere in like January about Heidi only selling 658 copies of her album in the first week of release. Felt sort of bad about this, but thought it was kind of funny/fitting. The idea for the website hit me ~3 months ago when I was thinking “How the hell am I going to sell any records with no marketing budget.” I remembered “Heidi” and thought it would be a ‘funny’, ‘self-deprecating’ way to maybe market the record. So I bought the domain, pitted myself against Heidi Montag and started blogging about my ‘experience’.

Why do you hate Heidi?
I don’t. Feel bad for her in some ways. I like that she’s putting herself out there, making music and stuff. I respect that. Sort of sad about all the plastic surgery though, thought she was pretty before.

What’s The Zax all about? What’s your mantra?
Fun.

Why should we buy the record now that you’ve won?
Don’t know. Maybe you’ll actually like it. Seems reasonable.

We couldn’t resist. [h/t The Culture of Me]