My source tells me that it is an "Oklahoma Cable Provider giveaway". Anyone willing to send me this disc, email me. I will add it to the discography.

Liz Phair has nearly completed her first album in more than four years in a Los Angeles studio. The follow-up to 1998's Whitechocolatespaceegg is being helmed by a host of producers, including the Matrix, and Phair herself is producing four or five tracks. The songs she previously recorded with Michael Penn will not be among the tracks slated for the as-yet-untitled album, which Capitol Records hopes to release in the first half of next year.

Liz Phair has nearly completed her first album in more than four years in a Los Angeles studio. The follow-up to 1998's Whitechocolatespaceegg is being helmed by a host of producers, including the Matrix, and Phair herself is producing four or five tracks. The songs she previously recorded with Michael Penn will not be among the tracks slated for the as-yet-untitled album, which Capitol Records hopes to release in the first half of next year.

Michael Honaker reports:

"Take A Look" was produced by MICHAEL PENN and is billed on the Capitol promo as from "the highly anticipated new LP in stores early 2003 on Capitol Records".

The promo disc was apparently given out to new broadband internet subscribers (actual company unknown at this point - maybe everyone could check their local broadband isp's and try and beg for a disc if they have one?) around this past September or October, and says this about Liz and the album....

"One of modern rock's most cherished artists, credited as the inspiration behind Alanis Morissette, Liz Phair returns triumphantly to the world of music with her first new music since 1998. She brings along at once her most interesting and assured record, full of the candor, insight and chunky riffage you've come to expect, along with some surprises. Listen to 'Take a Look' from the highly anticipated new LP in stores early 2003."

"Take A Look" is a new song from Liz, apparently issued on a few promotional CDs released by the folks at Capitol Records within the past month or so. The credits list the song as being "from the forthcoming album".

If you want to hear the song, download it here.

Indie-rock "blow job queen" LIZ PHAIR has begun sessions in Encino, California, for her first album since 1998's whitechocolatespaceegg. She's working with the Matrix, the production team behind Avril Lavigne's Let Go.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME...

23 Liz Phair tells it like it is
Few spoke the truth more bluntly than Chicago's Liz Phair. Her 1993 debut album Exile in Guyville was littered with a sexual plainspeak rarely attempted within conventional pop songs. Whether it was Phair expressing an insatiable sexual appetite in "Flower", or reflecting on her sad fate at the hand of boys who "Fuck & Run", the album paled the sensitive listeners in any room, and set the tone for future generations of songwriters. Best Place to Hear Her: Exile in Guyville (Matador, 1993).

Thursday, September 26th, 2002

Liz Phair Determined to Make Worst Album Ever Dahlen readies alter-ego "Kate Thompson," prepares to infiltrate e-team

Will Bryant reports:
Perhaps irreparably dashing optimists' hopes that she might somehow rise above the Sheryl Crow collaboration, the Gap commercial, and the professed love for the überbland alterna-schlocker Pete Yorn, Liz Phair is apparently teaming with a trendy Los Angeles-based collective called The Matrix for three tracks on her excruciatingly procrastinated major-label debut for Capitol. Now I know you're picturing a city-sized beehive of unsuspecting, soulless human drones jacked into some unholy supercomputer that will somehow synthesize Phair's return to the balls-out splendor that was Exile in Guyville, and perhaps you suspect Keanu Reeves in a leather trenchcoat is involved; I can only fervently wish that were the case.

For The Matrix are actually the songwriting/production team of Scott Spock, Lauren Christy, and Graham Edwards, the soulless human drones responsible for Avril Lavigne's cutesy hits "Complicated" and "Sk8ter Boi," and whose recent clients have included Ricky Martin, Christina Aguilera, the Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter, American Idol loser A.J. McLean, and even mainstream alt-rock's noxious Phair-meets-Tori Amos hybrid, Heather Nova. If Gerard Cosloy were dead, he'd be spinning in his grave right now! Hell, Gerard, if you're reading this, give your office chair a couple of spins-- this is madness! Wherefore art thou, Brad Wood? Tae Won Yu? Can we round up enough folks for an intervention?

'Cause it's one thing for Phair to take the high road, as she apparently was last time we checked in with her-- selecting Michael Penn to produce her album, which a yellowing copy of Alternative Press in my sock drawer says was once titled An Evening with Liz Phair. At least Penn was still hot off creating the engagingly classy Bachelor No. 2 with spouse Aimee Mann. But sorry, hitching your wagon to the cheese-rock Diane Warrens of 2002 ain't gonna win you any respect in these quarters. Jeezum crow, Scott Litt is like Steve Albini next to these jokers! Man, sometimes I wish this fork had a couple extra barbs on it, cause it sure ain't fun I'd like to be poking!

In the meantime, a proposed soundtrack to the Courtney Love/Lili Taylor indie stinker Julie Johnson, which was to have featured three new songs from Phair, seems to have been quashed by a lack of interest in the film and the financial troubles encountered by its now-defunct production company. Even a straight-to-video release appears distant as the film continues to make the rounds of gay- and lesbian-themed film festivals worldwide (the film casts Love and Taylor as unlikely lovers). It's karma, baby! Get Keanu on the line, there's another Matrix that needs to be taken down.

That says it all...

THE MATRIX - The Avril Lavigne album which The Matrix co-wrote and produced five tracks including "Complicated", is still on top of the Billboard charts. They are currently writing and producing Lindsey Troy for Elektra, Evan And Jaron for Columbia, A.J. McLean for Jive, Liz Phair for Capitol, AKA for J Records, and Darius for Mercury Records. They recently completed writing and producing Ben Jelen for Maverick, Ricky Martin for Columbia, Lillix for Maverick, Stacy Smith, Ana Lovelis for BMG, Anna Victoria for Arista, Nick Carter for Jive. Heather Nova for V2, Evan Christiansen for Let's Hear It Records. They also just completed a remix for Paulina Rubio for Universal and producing Off By One for LMC Records.

There you have it.

IN THE STUDIO

LIZ PHAIR, in L.A., to continue work on her long-delayed fourth album, this time with the producer-writer collective known as the Matrix (currently riding high with Avril Lavigne's "Complicated").

Questions arise:

• What happened to Michael Penn?
• What happened to the earlier recordings for the fourth album?
• Is the album starting from scratch, or will it be a hodge-podge collection similar to whitechocolatespaceegg?
• Will Liz ever finish the album, and if so will the album be released before the end of the decade?

I don't know what to tell you...

"EMI's potential million-selling albums in 2002/3: Richard Ashcroft; Atomic Kitten; Axelle Red; Blue; David Bowie; Dirty Vegas; Coldplay; Snoop Dogg; Doves; Bryan Ferry; Herbert Grenumeyer; Ed Harcourt; Norah Jones; Kennedy; Massive Attack; Manu Chao; Moby; Beth Orton; Liz Phair; Simon Rattle; Slum Village; Roxette; Rolling Stones; Utada Hikaru; The Vines. Sources: Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, EMI."

Should we consider this as yet another set release date? :)

"Liz Phair is also a fan, so much so that she asked Yorn to help with her upcoming An Evening With, scheduled for late summer. 'I felt like he voiced the male persona I would most like to Scotch tape over my current boyfriend,' she says. Though Yorn's role isn't as extensive as has been reported -- he played on some tracks Phair cut with (R. Walt) Vincent but isn't producing the record (Michael Penn is) -- Phair enlisted him to serve as 'an inspiration and a challenge because he's sort of a songwriter whose style is like my own. He was just starting out with all this fire. I felt competitive, and it made me want to kick some ass.'"

Reported back in late May, the new album (still titled An Evening With?) was scheduled for late summer. I think it is safe to assume that the album won't be out by late summer (since there hasn't been any publicity in the media yet). Sigh.