Anton Newcombe: Great Hegelian or Greatest Hegelian?

You may not know this, but neo-psychedelic-retro-rock genius, Anton Newcombe, has a lot in common with nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Case in point, they both think Paul McCartney is a "c*%t." No joke: the Brain Jonestown Massacre frontman talks about it here and I believe Hegel addresses it somewhere in the preface of The Phenomenology of Spirit -- you know that Hegel, always gossiping about the Brits and never afraid to drop the c-word! What a guy! But that's not all these two rockers have in common: they also both really like the word Aufheben. Hegel likes it so much that he makes the concept of Aufhebung (or sublation) one of the cornerstones of his philosophy of history -- a simultaneous overcoming while at the same time preserving that constitutes the dialectical progression of history. Similarly, Newcombe likes the word so much that he's picked it as the name for the new BJM record. Aufheben, BJM's thirteenth studio full-length, will be out May 1 on Cargo Records in the UK and "a" Records in North America. Really looking forward to this one. As you can hear for yourself, the first single "I Wanna Hold Your Other Hand" sounds great -- as accessible as BJM have sounded in years. And the studio lineup for this record includes original member Matt Hollywood, along with Will Caruthers from Spaceman 3/Spiritualized. The album art and track listing for Aufheben can be found after the jump, and 2012 tour dates can be found here. I know these guys have a well-earned reputation as being a train wreck live, but the last time I saw them in 2010 it was an amazing show. No drugged-out shenanigans, no kicking the shit out of each other, just mind blowing rock, hit-after-hit. I should also note that on some of the dates in August BJM are accompanied by The Magic Castles, whose self titled debut, which came out last month, has been in heavy rotation on my Sony Walkman WM-FX421.

And, hey, while we're not too far from the topic of Spiritualized, once you've listened to "I Wanna Hold Your Other Hand," head on over to NPR to where the highly anticipated new Spiritualized record, Sweet Heart Sweet Light (out next week) is streaming in full.

Aufheben Tracklist:
1 Panic in Babylon
2 Viholliseni Maalla
3 Gaz Hilarant
4 Illuminomi
5 I Wanna To Hold Your Other Hand
6 Face Down On The Moon
7 Clouds Are Lies
8 Stairway To The Best Party
9 Seven Kinds Of Wonderful
10 Waking Up To Hand Grenades
11 Blue Order New Monday