After her song “I’ll Kill Her” - a hilarious rant of jealousy at its worst - was featured at a 2007 Stella McCartney fashion show, quirky French singer-songwriter Stéphanie Sokolinski, better known as SoKo, seemed to blow up everywhere but in North America.

The actress-turned-singer released a five-track EP entitled Not Sokute that year and toured extensively for a year and a half.

She played sold-out shows in Scandinavia, Britain, and Australia, and opened for everyone from Babyshambles to M.I.A.

But in January 2009, she surprised and confused fans when she announced on her MySpace page that she was quitting music and is “dead.”

In the same post, she wrote that she was scared of the music industry and wanted to return to her first love of acting.

And despite revealing that she had recorded a double album, she said she did not want to release it.

But this is the music industry and sometimes artists get carried away. I mean, how many times has Jay-Z “retired” anyways?

So I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a bit when she announced in August that same year that she had “reborn” and was starting to write songs again.

On one of these songs, “I’m So Ready To Be A Good Man”, she testifies that  “in my battle with the demons I just had to die coz they’re way too evil and I couldn’t fight”. Whatever SoKo, whatever.

But with this week’s announcement that SoKo will be doing a handful of shows on the East coast this fall, including an October 26th date at Toronto’s Drake Hotel, I’m hoping this signals the possibility that she will release an album in the near future.

She better, or… I’ll kill her?

It’s not often you get goosebumps from watching a band or artist perform — it’s probably only happened a handful of times for me in the last five years (Bon Iver, Sigur Ros, and Owen Pallett are the first that come to mind).

But Stevens’ gentle earnestness coupled with his impressive musicianship packs a pretty strong emotional punch.

In fact, my friend Mimi told me yesterday that she can’t seem to listen to “Casimir Pulaski Day” anymore without sobbing.

And come to think of it, that song should probably have the same effect on me and millions of other people who can recall having learned the tragic news of a loved one’s impending death.

But I’ve realized that music does not make me cry, just bad movies. I once cried three times while watching I Am Sam, in theatres, no less, on a third date situation.

The age-old Hollywood formula of “Loveable Retard + Cute Kid = Waterworks” seemed to apply to me. By some inexplicable reason - a damn miracle, actually - there was a fourth date, despite my shameless display of sentimentality.

So when Asthmatic Kitty brought announced yesterday that Stevens will embark on a 24-date tour this October and November, you can almost hear the enthusiastic shouts of joy from myself and thousands of other Sufjan fans.

The tour kicks off on October 12th at Montreal’s Metropolis Theatre and closes with two dates at New York City’s Beacon Theatre on November 14th and 15th.

And yes, my dear fellow Torontonians, Sufjan will be making a stop in our city on October 13th at the legendary Massey Hall.

Pre-sale tickets for all 24 dates go on sale today at 1 pm via Asthmatic Kitty’s site, but if you’re reading this hours after the fact then you can try again when they go on sale to the general public at Ticketmaster this Friday at 12 pm.

According to Asthmatic Kitty, “the performances will feature fully realized versions of the songs initially debuted during a late 2009 tour of small clubs in which Stevens workshopped several works-in-progress,” while touring with “his large ensemble performing alongside a full production including projections.

Here’s some footage of what is, in my humble opinion, Sufjan’s strongest new song, “Impossible Soul”, which was taken by my friend Jeannie last October at the Music Hall of Williamsburg show in Brooklyn.

San Francisco’s Thao Nguyen and Mirah are each gifted singer-songwriters in their own right, but together they form like Voltron to create an indie-folk powerhouse.

Thao’s raspy and often jarring voice combined with Mirah’s delicate vocals creates a beautiful juxtaposition of ying and yang.

After a successful stint at April’s Noise Pop Festival, the two will join forces, along with their respective band members, to create one great big superband this summer.

Torontonians can catch them at the Horseshoe when they play on June 26th.

Here’s an intimate look at the two performing Thao’s “How Dare You”, courtesty of Yours Truly.

Last June, Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch released God Help The Girl project, which featured songs he wrote for his yet-to-be-released musical film, which is set to shoot sometime in 2011.

With a revolving cast of mostly female vocalists, which included Catherine Ireton, Smoosh’s Asya, Brittany Stallings, Dina Bankole, Celia Garcia and Alex Klobouk, God Help The Girl still felt very Belle and Sebastian in both lyrics, melody and instrumentation.

But any insights into the going-on’s of the musical itself were few and far between, as Murdoch’s lyrics seemed more focused on imagery than plot points.

Rough Trade has just released the album’s third single/video, “Baby You’re Blind”, which features Linnea Jönsson of Sweden’s Those Dancing Days.

The 7” features a new version of “A Down and Dusky Blonde” with lead vocals by Dina Bankole.

And more great news for B&S fans: the band is working on their official follow-up to 2006’s The Life Pursuit”, and will tour throughout Europe, Asia, USA, Mexico, and yes, Canada, this year. Tour dates will be announced soon.

Belle and Sebastian made this announcement Tuesday on their website:

With more shows being added all the time, we thought it timely to offer an update on this year’s touring calendar. It’s beginning to look like a pretty busy year and we still have more shows up our sleeve…

For various reasons we cannot announce all the shows at the one time, but (all going to plan) in addition to these listed below we will be squeezing in shows in Canada, Mexico and the USA as well as a trip to South America between now and the end of the year. Of course we will also have some more European festivals and a few UK shows to announce later in the year too…