Arcade Fire to play Grammys

Montreal's Arcade Fire will perform at this year's Grammy Awards in February.

The group has increased its international profile with 2010's The Suburbs, which is nominated for album of the year and best alternative album.

The indie band also is nominated for best rock performance by a duo or group for its track Ready to Start.

"We get a chuckle out of it as a band because it's so surreal," lead singer Win Butler told CBC News. He recalledearlier Grammy nominations for best alternative album for both Neon Bible and Funeral. The group has never won the U.S award.

"We went to the Grammys five years ago. It's not our world, but it's fun to be there."

The news comes the same day the Montrealers got two nominations for Brit Awards the U.K. equivalent of the Grammys. They are in the running for best international group and best international album for The Suburbs.

Grammy organizers announced other artists slated to perform at the Feb. 13 gala, including Eminem, who has a leading 10 nominations going into the awards.

Miranda Lambert, Cee Lo Green, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are also to appear at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles. Lady Gaga has six nominations, Lambert has three and Green and Perry each have four.

Canadian nominees include Toronto rapper Drake, with four nominations, and teen sensation Justin Bieber, with two. Bieber also has a Brit Award nomination for international breakthrough artist.

Gage Averill, an ethnomusicologist from University of British Columbia in Vancouver, is also nominated for a Grammy for best album liner notes for his work on Alan Lomax In Haiti: Recordings for the Library of Congress, 1936-1937, a collection of recordings made in Haiti in the 1930s drawn from the congressional archives.

The project collects the earliest known recordings ofAfrican drumming, French lullabies and Cuban-inspired musicfrom Haiti andis also nominated for best historical album.

The Recording Academy, organizer of the Grammys, saysadditional performers will be announced before the Feb. 13 ceremony.