No strangers to awesome covers themselves, The Decemberists have been covered by Patti Smith as part of a bonus limited 7″ to her album Twelve. Shame this track didn’t make the actual album amongst Smith’s takes on songs by legends like Hendrix and The Stones. “Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect” is an awesome song and Colin Meloy is a modern legend by Hypeful’s standards.

MP3: Patti Smith - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect
MP3: The Decemberists - Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

What’s black & white and rock all over? Answer: The cover art for two of today’s hot new releases - The National’s Boxer and Voxtrot’s self-titled album. If you’re headed to the record store today looking for new releases, I suggest checking out both of these much anticipated albums from Beggars Banquet.

Check out these tracks and expect further discussion.

MP3: The National - Slow Show
MP3: Voxtrot - Firecracker

I recall Bloc Party confessing their love of pop music in the March 2005 issue of Interview magazine, but it seems like in 2007 they’ve become a lot more vocal about it. Or at least singer/guitarist Kele Okereke has been.

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I came across these three three interesting “audio illusions” that play tricks on your ears at Mighty Optical Illustions. They really are cool audio tricks, but I still want to see a YouTube clip of Mariah opening a garage door with her voice. That’s an audio trick!

MP3: Shepard’s Ascending Tones
This is a recording of Shepard’s paradox synthesized by Jean-Claude Risset. Pairs of chords sound as if they are advancing up the scale, but in fact the starting pair of chords is the same as the finishing pair. If you loop this sample seamlessly then it should be impossible to tell where the sample begins and ends.

MP3: Falling Bells
This is a recording of a paradox where bells sound as if they are falling through space. As they fall their pitch seems to be getting lower, but in fact the pitch gets higher. If you loop this sample you will clearly see the pitch jump back down when the sample repeats. This reveals that the start pitch is obviously much lower than the finishing pitch.

MP3: Quickening Beat
This recording is subtle. A drum beat sounds as if it is quickening in tempo, but the starting tempo is the same as this finishing tempo.

Ever wondered what Tenacious D might’ve been like with Wes Anderson’s sensibilities and charming accents? Well, HBO is giving us the chance to find out with its new series, “Flight of the Conchords”. “Conchords” is about “New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk-parody duo” of Jemaine Clement & Bret McKenzie and their attempts to break into the New York music and dating scene. HBO is offering the pilot episode online for free before it premieres and I found the episode to be much more funny and entertaining than it initially sounds.

“Flight of the Conchords” premieres after (already awesome) “Entourage” on HBO June 17 at 10:30.