"I moved into this house in 2000, and I’ve always felt like [it] doesn’t want me to go anywhere" - Fiona Apple described to the Vulture how she recorded her new album 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' in her home-studio. She continued - "So I’m like, 'All right, I’m going to give you what you want, house. I know you deserve to be the record. I’m going to make you the record'. This is where I feel comfortable. My boyfriend at the time, Jamie, really pushed for me to get it set up here so I could record by myself. Once he pushed for that to happen and Amy taught me how to do GarageBand, it was like the universe opened up". She also described how things changed after she withdrew from drugs she’d been prescribed to deal with depression, and after getting sober - "It’s not a constant feeling, and it’s gotten a lot better, again, since I quit drinking - so much better, so much less anxiety".

New album 'We Are Sent Here By History' by Shabaka & The Ancestors is conceptualised as a sonic poem that would tell the story of the end of the world as we currently perceive it. “You behold the things that have been masking the truth; the idea of civilisation and the idea of enlightenment” - as band's leader Shabaka Hutchings tells in the Quietus interview. The first step “has to be linked to the idea of deconstructing masculinity. Deconstructing what it means to be a man masked”, and then we need to “explore the possibilities of appraising a collective reality as opposed to saying we need to drift towards one dominant one”.

"The Beatles began their career emulating and covering their classic rock’n’roll heroes but quickly set about exploring all the possibilities of sound, technology, broad-reaching historical revivalism and mad drug music that success made available to them. As a direct result, they invented pretty much every modern pop genre from EDM to metal and might’ve got the full house if they’d ever let Ringo rap... The Stones, on the other hand... popularised blues rock and, um, that’s it" - Mark, My Words argues in his latest column, wrote after Paul McCartney told Howard Stern his band was better. The other reason NME's blogger wrote about it - there aren't any good feuds anymore.

David Guetta performed a two-hour DJ set from a balcony in Downtown Miami, with eight thousand Miami residents watching and dancing from their own balconies, while an additional 12 million people streaming the performance live online. According to EDM, Guetta raised $780,000 for the World Health Organization, Feeding South Florida, Feeding America, and the French Fondation Hôpitaux de Paris. Watch his performance here.

Classic emo band, now an adult-emo band American Football headlined a lengthy concert on April 11th, online across Minecraft becoming "a place to gather", The Verge journalist who was there reports. "I was surprised at how emotional the show made me, and it was the same for more than 10,000 people watching. Maybe it was because we were all experiencing this moment together, the first big communal event I’ve been to since self-quarantining about a month ago". The band reports they had raised $8,000 for charity. As it turns out, there's a technology that needs to be developed in order to make this kind of shows become bigger and work without glitches, something former Amazon Studios strategist and analyst Matthew Ball wrote about - “the technology simply does not yet exist for there to be hundreds, let alone millions of people participating in a shared, synchronous experience”.

“This was the first time in about 20 years that there’s been, like, a whole movement” says Funkmaster Flex about Brooklyn Drill, the first new sound of New York in two decades. The DJ and radio personality acknowledged to Complex that A-listers like Cardi B and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie have come from the city in recent years, but none of them emerged with a whole scene at their backs. “This ain’t happen since the times of Dipset and G-Unit” says journalist Jamel Robinson, Brooklyn rap’s on-the-ground documentarian. Two stand-out tracks - Pop Smoke’s 'Welcome to the Party' and Fivio Foreign’s 'Big Drip'.

Saturday’s star-studded 'One World: Together at Home' virtual concert raised $127.9 million for health care workers and coronavirus relief, according to Global Citizen. The globally broadcasted performances were organized by the World Health Organization and Global Citizen, in collaboration with Lady Gaga, who also sang during the two-hour live stream. Of the whopping $127.9 million total, $55.1 million will go to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, and $72.8 million will benefit local and regional responders.

Priscilla Rainey has been granted ownership of The Game's independent record label Prolific Records, as well as royalties from his latest album, 'Born to Rap', The Blast reports. The rapper was ordered to pay over $7 million in damages to Rainey in 2016 after she sued the rapper for an alleged sexual assault that took place while filming 'She's Got Game', a reality show starring The Game.

The Weeknd's new album 'After Hours' earned 75,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the last week, making it a full month at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It’s the first album to notch four consecutive weeks at No. 1 since Drake’s 'Scorpion' in 2018, Billboard reports. Also from Billboard, country music streaming hit a historic new high in the U.S., with a record 1.244 billion on-demand audio streams of songs in the genre in the previous week.

The Rolling Stones, Billie Eilish (covering Bobby Hebb), Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga (covering Charlie Chaplin’s 'Smile'), Elton John, Stevie Wonder (covering Bill Withers), Lizzo (covering Sam Cooke), Kacey Musgraves, The Killers, Kesha, Billie Joe Armstrong, Eddie Vedder, Common, Christine and the Queens, Taylor Swift, Jimmy Fallon & The Roots (covering Men Without Hats‘ 'Safety Dance'), John Legend, and many other have performed at Global Citizen’s One World: Together at Home live stream. Watch them all at Global Citizen's YoutTube.

Cannabis Corpse host a special edition of their 'Wake and Bake' show on Gimme Radio; vocalist and bassist Phil “Landphil” Hall will be on hand to talk weed and metal (at 11:00 a.m. New York time, 5 p.m. Stockholm, 11 p.m. Singapore time)

Deerhoof is hosting a listening party of their new album 'Future Teenage Cave Artists' and chatting, on YouTube (4 p.m. / 10 p.m. / 4 a.m. on Tuesday)

Tim Burgess of The Charlatans is presenting listening party of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti‘s 'Before Today' and The Pogues‘ 'Rum, Sodomy & The Lash'; he'll comment on them with the artists who made those albums (4/5 p.m., 10/11 p.m., 4/5 a.m.)

Cypress Hill is performing on LiveXLive at to benefit Crew Nation (7:10 p.m. / 1:10 a.m. / 7:10 a.m.)

Snoop Dogg is DJing on Merry Jane’s Instagram (7:20 p.m. / 1:20 a.m. / 7.20 a.m.)

Willie Nelson is hosting a weed variety show Come and Toke It, joined by Kacey Musgraves, Billy Ray Cyrus, Tommy Chong, Angel Olsen, and Beto O'Rourke (5:20 p.m. / 11:20 p.m. / 5:20 a.m.)

Complex did a great job of highlighting seven companies and apps that are empowering both musicians and fans to create and connect in time of quarantine. So, what does everybody need? Qello - founded in 2010, grown into an impressive hub of live music since. Stationhead - a social radio, and music streaming app. Splice - offers well organized, diverse sample libraries. Songfluencer - works directly with artists and labels to disseminate music to influencers on Instagram and TikTok. LÜM - allows fans to find artists early, listen to them on the app, provide direct support through virtual gifting, and be acknowledged for their finds. Resonate streaming service launched in 2015, seeks to put artists and human curation back at the forefront of music. Tracklib - offers pre-cleared samples at a wide-range of prices.

“When jazz first came out, the older cats thought it was too wild and wouldn’t last. When rap came out, the older heads said it wasn’t gonna last and we all said they were stuffy" - Ishmael Butler of the Shabazz Palaces says in NME interview about emo-rap being disregarded. "Being caught in the past is the most frightening thing I could possibly imagine, man. Socially, musically, romantically – that’s just death to me" - he added. Butler shared some thoughts about the big lockdown - "Fear is used to make money. Fear is used to control people’s minds. And these are things I’m really starting to see with coronavirus... I know that people are trying to capitalise on people’s fears about large gatherings as it will lower their costs". Shabazz Palaces new album 'The Don of Diamond Dreams' is out now.

Baltimore rapper Jayy Grams has a great new song and video 'Hood Tales' about violence; 'In a Good Way' by Faye Webster is a simple love song, emanating strength through simplicity; 'Leader Of The Delinquents' by Kanye West's collaborator Kid Cudi is smooth and jazzy hip-hop; Wailin Storms play doom-grunge on 'Rattle'; 'But There’s Still The Moon' is some smooth soul by Tasha; Dougie Poole is a "weird country" singer from Brooklyn, proving the fact with 'Vaping on the Job'; Angel Olsen debuted two new songs on her recent livestream; Canadian Powfu's 'Death Bed' first exploded at Tik Tok, it's a type of song UK grimers would really appreciate.

Ticketmaster is set to start offering refunds in May for over 18,000 shows affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Billboard reports. Once a postponed live performance has confirmed its rescheduled dates, fans who have purchased tickets via Ticketmaster will be emailed to offer the option of refunding their purchase. If the refund is not accepted within 30 days, the ticket will remain valid for the rescheduled dates. If the show is cancelled, it will be refunded automatically. Live Nation, who merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, are also running a scheme called ‘Rock When You’re Ready’, which allows fans to receive 150% credit for their tickets to be used on a future Live Nation event. They can also donate tickets to health workers, via a scheme called ‘Hero Nation’. In total, so far, the company has 55,000 events on its platform representing $2 billion in ticket sales for all of 2020.

NME reports from Plan B, a Malmö venue - the only one in Europe, legally at least, that continues to put on shows. In a room that can hold 350, capacity is restricted to 40 punters – plus a sound engineer, two members of staff and the band, bringing the number up to the guidelines of 50 people in total. Punters are not allowed to walk up to the bar; card machine-wielding staff operate a table service of sorts by milling around the crowd taking orders. Shoegaze trio Spunsugar played - "everyone starts off a little shy, hanging near the back and the sides before slowly being drawn forward. Heads nod and feet tap enthusiastically; there’s even a little dancing. What began with an air of uncertainty ends in triumph, joy, and chants for 'One! More! song!' Everyone orders more drinks".

Grimes was a renowned bassist and skilled at many other instruments, playing with numerous musicians in the ’50s and ’60s, including Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Haynes, Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Sunny Murray, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, and McCoy Tyner. By the end of the ’60s, however, he found himself broke in Los Angeles with a busted bass, and completely disappeared from the music scene. Many thought he had died but in the early 2000s he was found still living in Los Angeles, in a rented room doing odd jobs to make ends meet. He was given a new bass by William Parker and reemerged with new passion staying busy as a musician from then on. WBGO has his story.

Fiona Apple‘s highly anticipated new album 'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' came out at midnight, and Pitchfork gave it a rare perfect 10, their first since Kanye West’s 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' ten years ago. Why? - it's "unbound, a wild symphony of the everyday" - it features handclaps, chants, echoes, whispers, screams, breathing, jokes, and at least five dogs - "an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it". Guardian, similarly, gave it five of five stars (not so rare in their case) - call it "astonishing; as if she has returned to reinvent sound... a sudden glorious eruption". Independent, five of five stars also - "the melodies are wonderful. The lyrics, too – conversational yet precise". Consequence of Sound (an "A", this is becoming a pattern) - says it's "prescient, mordant, and unyielding judgement day for the wicked world around us and a wild birth of urgent, unconventional sound all wrapped into one".

The clip features Johnny Flynn as David Bowie in conversation with Marc Maron, who portrays his publicist Ron Oberman, Variety reports. “All it takes is one believer to change the world, right? And we’ve got two,” Maron says. “You believe in yourself, don’t you?”. Producers insist the upcoming film is not a biopic, with writer and director Gabriel Range saying in a statement - “I set out to make a film about what makes someone become an artist; what actually drives them to make their art”. If focuses on Bowie’s transformation into Ziggy Stardust in the early ’70s.

Listening to music can help people manage anxiety, become motivated and stay productive, the catch is - to make the right playlist, the Guardian reports. The songs at the beginning of the playlist should match how you're feeling, and then gradually you should alter the songs to get you into a state of productivity. Then, you should go faster, to a "power song" - in one study that examined the relationship between music tempo and productivity, most test subjects performed best while listening to songs paced at around 121bpm. Lyrics are tricky - it's best to avoid too familiar songs and choose instrumental music or songs with innocuous or subtlely performed lyrics. Still, it's music so it needs to be enjoyable. Get to work!

The soundtrack for the 1997 Studio Ghibli's animated classic 'Princess Mononoke' will be available on vinyl for the first time on July 24, The Vinyl Factory reports. Three different editions of the soundtrack are being released - the original score by composer Joe Hisaishi as it appeared on film; a 1998 symphonic suite that Hisaishi arranged for performance by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra; and the promotional 'Image' album, common in Japan, in which actors perform songs as their characters to give a sense of their personalities.

The trailer gives a glimpse into the highs, the lows and the empowerment the iconic trio faced as they rose to fame, Spin reports. Cheryl “Salt” James is played by G.G. Townson in the three-hour miniseries, Sandra “Pepa” Denton is portrayed by Laila Odom, while Monique Paul is DJ Spinderella. Mario Van Peebles will direct the miniseries.

"'Negro' is a collision course of Black punk experimentation, intersecting between jazz and rap. It's a gripping listen: The album revolves around Black anguish, as Siifu raps about police corruption and community rage" - MTV says about Pink Siifu's new album. "Black frustration needs to be heard. It’s OK to be angry. There’s a lot of stuff going on. This album is controlled chaos” - Pink Siifu himself explained. Pitchfork goes further in defining it - "the album siphons the repressed ire of Black America... It is a bracing record that is at once crushing and liberating", but, "the point is not the wrath but the bond shared by those expressing it".

Fact Magazine has started a great new segment How To Make a Track, showing how the world’s best producers make their music in their studios. In the latest episode, Fact visited the Berlin studio of Hayden Payne aka Phase Fatale, a Berghain resident with a love of ’80s post-punk, industrial and EBM, who showed his fascination with the effects of different sonic frequencies.

Queen guitarist Brian May has suggested, in NME interview, the coronavirus pandemic could have been avoided if everyone ate a vegan diet - "That's a central issue here, this pandemic seemed to come from people eating animals and it's becoming more well known that eating animals is not the greatest thing for our health". Similarly, animal rights activist Paul McCartney has called for a ban on all Chinese wet markets while blaming the meat and produce trade posts for the spread of coronavirus, LA Times reports. Speaking with Howard Stern in a new interview, McCartney also called the practice of Asian live animal markets "medieval," comparing their activities to slavery.

Last weekend's virtual Farm Aid benefit live concert, hosted by Willie Nelson, raised more than $500,000 to support American family farmers and ranchers affected by the coronavirus crisis, Billboard reports. It featured at-home performances from Willie Nelson and his sons, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and Dave Matthews. Previously, 33-hour ReConnect livestream in March raised $185,000 for various relief nonprofits; Twitch's 12-hour Stream Aid event, featuring artists like Steve Aoki and Diplo, raised $2.8 million for the World Health Organization (WHO); iHeart Living Room Concert For America raised another $10 million; upcoming One World: Together at Home special, which airs April 18, has already raised $35 million to support healthcare workers.

"It's difficult to imagine us getting together in the thousands anytime soon, so I think we should be prepared for that this year" Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN. Earlier, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio called large public gatherings "one of the last things that we bring back... The last thing I want to do is gather 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one place, that's like the exact opposite of social distancing".

"It’s not just that songs seem to have taken on new, apposite resonances given the current situation, but music that you unexpectedly find yourself leaning towards, because you find it chimes with your mood: it’s comforting, elevating or transporting" - Alexis Petridis says in an analysis of fans' music listening habits. His Guardian colleague Ben Beaumont-Thomas sees a change coming in rap lyrics - "like a bond market, the most shallow rap lyricism needs constant activity to keep it alive – without an engine of expenditure, or antipathy stoked by confected beef, their subject matter collapses".

Lee Konitz, the celebrated jazz saxophonist and last surviving performer in Miles Davis’ 'Birth of the Cool' sessions, died Wednesday (April 15) due to complications with COVID-19, NPR reports. He was 92. He was mentored by the esteemed blind pianist Lennie Tristano, befriended his fellow saxophonist Charlie Parker, and worked under bandleaders such as Stan Kenton and Claude Thornhill. Most famously, he played with Davis’ nonet on their “Birth of the Cool” Capitol recordings, a landmark in post-bebop jazz.

"The most uniquely stirring pop music in recent memory" - Stereogum writes in a review of Colombian-Canadian singer Lido Pimienta's new album, which also mixes folk genres with modern and orchestral production. Songs at 'Miss Colombia' "brilliantly deconstruct and reimagine the country’s signature sounds" with "powerfully original music, refracting the cultures that formed her through the prism of her own inspiration". Pimienta described the album as "a cynical love letter to Colombia", a stand taken after a mishap at the 2015 Miss Universe when the name of Miss Colombia was read as the winner when actually it was Miss Philipines who won.