In the western countries, festivals were cancelled this summer due to money issues, in Asia - it's peace, well, actually lack thereof. Organizers of Clockenflap in Hong Kong, one of the most high-profile festivals in Asia, cancelled it because of the continuing protests and unrest in the city. The 60,000-capacity festival was due to run […]
Caspian stay on the well-known post-rock path 'Flowers Of Light', but it's stilly just pleasing music; Moses Sumney is something totally different on 'Virile' - modern take on folk-soul, he directed the video himself (watch below); Trail of Dead decided to make pop-song music - 'Don't Look Down' is such; Modest Mouse seem young and […]
US pop-singer Mike Posner, best known for the song 'I Took A Pill In Ibiza', spent six months walking across US, from Asbury Park, New Jersey, to Venice Beach, California. He stopped smoking and taking drugs beforehand, and decided to walk to "become someone I'm actually proud of", he told the BBC. Posner's 4,588km-journey (2,851 […]
Lauryn Hill released her new song 'Guarding the Gates', for the 'Queen & Slim' soundtrack, Crack Magazine reports. The song has been a part of Hill’s live show for a while, it’s a six-minute soul track with a divine lyric “What a tragedy, you can laugh at me, but I’m in love”. The movie is […]
Chilean singer Mon Laferte bared her breasts in a red carpet protest at the Latin Grammy awards in the US yesterday - she walked the red carpet and uncovered her chest emblazoned with the words "In Chile they torture, rape and kill" ("En Chile torturan violan y matan"), USA Today reports. Laferte was one of […]
Of the ones already published, The Vice's list of 100 best albums of the 2010s is the broadest - going from Drake to Deafheaven, and a whole lot of it in between. It's still pop music, an anglo-centric list, with a few lesser-known albums. Worth a check.
Matt Healy of the 1975 urged band's fans to plant trees in the band’s honor and commitment to climate change, NME reports. The project was about to star at a special event in New Orleans on November 26, and, in a message to fans, Healy wrote: "People are starting to set these up and it’s […]
“I had a dream/I got everything I wanted/But when I wake up I see/You with me” - Billie Eilish sings in her new song, her first new music after ‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’. The lyrics make it seems like a message to lover, but it was written with her older […]
Listening to relaxing music for 45 minutes before going to sleep has been scientifically proven to reduce noradrenaline levels. A 2008 study by a psychologist called Laszlo Harmat found that music “significantly improved sleep quality”, and also reduced depressive symptoms significantly. So, NME has, with help from its readers, made a list of 50 songs […]
American poet, musician, and activist Moor Mother last week released her fourth solo record 'Analog Fluids Of Sonic Black Holes', where she "returns to the lie of a post-racial America", as Guardian hears it. "Some of her poetry, sometimes verging into rap, could be chanted through a bullhorn at a protest", with the beats "stunningly realised: […]
To reimagine the history of Disney songs, Kristen Bell and Jimmy Fallon performed a medley of 17 Disney classics - everything from 'Under the Sea' to 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight' to 'You’ve Got a Friend in Me', as well as a few songs from 'Frozen'. It's fun, he's good, she's GREAT!
Like any other list, it's purpose is to check out the ones listed and start exploring them, and to get to know the ones who made the list. The same applies to Loudwire's list of best metal albums of the last ten years (2010 up to 2019). It goes from Opeth's 'In Cauda Venenum' released […]
Dustin O'Halloran and Adam Wiltzie got together as a musical duo in Germany, work from Brussells now and their new release (they worked for TV, movies and theatre), studio album 'The Undivided Fifth' is "a rich tapestry of complex electronic and neoclassical textures with layers of rich orchestration and analogue synths", PopMatters says. It's an […]
BBC 2's presenter Rylan Clark-Neal has raised £928,000 for Children In Need by singing non-stop karaoke for 24 hours. He sang 231 songs, with help of more than 90 celebrity guests, including Rick Astley, Nicole Scherzinger, and Craig David. He ate spoonfuls of honey every hour to keep his vocal cords coated. "I am in […]
London experimental beatmaking duo TNGHT have this week released their first EP in seven years and second overall, 'TNGHT II'. It's eight songs are avant-guard and serious, as well as entertaining and funny. Listen to it below. II by TNGHT
'I Made A Place' is the first proper album of new Bonnie “Prince” Billy songs in eight years, and the latest Stereogum's choice for Album of the Week. Sonically - "the songs on 'I Made A Place' are quiet and ruminative, and they’re pretty deeply rooted in old-timey folk music", and lyrically "Oldham has always been great at […]
The full list of 100 is here, with the first ten albums on the list being Fontaines D.C. 'Dogrel', Weyes Blood 'Titanic Rising', Angel Olsen ' All Mirrors', Little Simz 'Grey Area', black midi 'Schlagenheim', Sleaford Mods 'Eton Alive', Cate Le Bon 'Reward', Vanishing Twin 'The Age of Immunology', Ex:Re 'Ex:Re', and The Comet is […]
Lijadu Sisters were active from the mid-60s to the 80s at a time when it was rare to find frontwomen in Nigeria’s pop music scene, making idiosyncratic warped funk tunes that still sound unlike anything else. Twins Kehinde and Taiwo Lijadu were cousins of Fela Kuti, and between 1969 and 1979, they released four albums […]
The only Saudi Arabian grind-core band Creative Waste last month played a show at the Bohemian Art Cafe in Khobar, the first public metal show in Saudi Arabia. Band's frontman Fawaz Al Shawaf told Metal Injection that "the ones who organized the show are actually basically newcomers and young. They didn’t even know what grindcore […]
American queer rapper Zebra Katz is back with dark ballroom anthem 'IN IN IN', his first music since collaborating with Gorillaz on their 2017 album 'Humanz'. It's the first track to be shared from the rapper’s forthcoming project 'MOOR'. Listen to the song below.
"An expansive and rich listening experience, full of wandering basslines and disorientating rhythms" - the Quietus says about London dream-pop sextet's new album. "As the album persists the prominence of vocal melodies dissipates, leaving open the previously subtle magnificence of the production running throughout... Its stunning sounds ring out with astounding clarity".
German electronic producer Oval published his new EP 'Eksploio' for Thrill Jockey, a label known more for heavier, guitar-oriented music, but they probably saw a kindred spirit in Oval, as his music tends to teeter on the edge of chaos. PopMatters says 'Eksploio' is "playful chaos, a celebration of everything experimental synthesizer programming can be, and […]
Stoner metal trio Sleep have announced a period of “hypersleep” coming Jan. 1, 2020. They will finish off 2019 with a trio of gigs in Chicago, and those will be their last for an undetermined amount of time - “prep hypersleep facil for indef duration”, they announced od Facebook. Guitarist Matt Pike is currently touring […]
“I haven’t owned a phone since 2006. I’m always on my computer, I’ve always got Wi-Fi … I got rid of [my phone] because I just don’t like them” - Robbie Williams said. It's similar to his stance on social media apps - “I don’t have my password to anything otherwise my career would be […]
Cult indie-pop band Rocketship is back with a new album in 13 years, with a new singer, and critics describe it as a great new beginning. Brooklyn Vegan's guy says "two weeks ago I didn’t realize this record existed but now I can’t imagine this year without it", All Music praises the "wonderfully crafted... music […]
"Ambitious, conceptual, loaded with tunes, deeply heartfelt and personal, and sounding unlike anything else around at the moment" - the Quietus says about William Doyle's new album 'Your Wilderness Revisited'. It's an ecstatic celebration of the neglected suburban estates of Britain, and about processing grief and coming to art in these complex landscapes.
"I previously had said to Sharon I should be doing an album, but in the back of my mind I was going ‘I haven’t got the fucking strength…’ but Andrew [Watt, producer and guitarst] pulled it out of me... I put my heart and soul into this album” - Ozzy Osbourne said about 'Ordinary Man', […]
BBC has an interesting social article about what happened to the music and people in Berlin after the two sides of the city reunified. "It was not people from East Berlin dancing to music that was already around or going to spaces that were West Berlin spaces, but it was really that people from the […]
American alt-blues-rock band The Black Crowes will reunite in 2020 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their debut album, 'Shake Your Money Maker'. So far, dates have been revealed New Jersey and New York, with each show featuring a full performance of 'Shake Your Money Maker' along with a second set of greatest hits, Relix reports. The […]
Tones And I’s 'Dance Monkey' this week bags a 15th successive week in the top spot on the Australian singles chart, drawing equal with the record set by Ed Sheeran's 'Shape of You'. It's the first time an Australian artist has held the record since records began in 1983, The Music Network reports. Tones And I's […]
A beautiful collection of colored vinyl presented in the Guardian. 33 artists were given 33 test pressings of vinyl, who used it as a canvas to paint them however they liked. An auction of their work will be launched on May 20 at HeliumLondon.com, and all proceeds will go to mental health charity Music Support.
Musician and actor Matt Berry goes deep into some interesting comparisons in an extensive Brooklyn Vegan interview: "I spent a week just listening to Joy Division and absolutely nothing else, and he was really influenced by Jim Morrison. There are so many characteristics that I didn't really pick up on before. Is your bathroom so cold, and all that kind of stuff". Another comparison involving Beach House: "When I first heard them they made me feel the same way that the longer Doors song did -- the more atmospheric, 'End of the Night', that sort of stuff". His new album 'The Blue Elephant' is out now. He's done it "differently to the traditional way... you have songs that aren't traditional song structures, and a lot of the time there's no vocal at all. If there is a vocal, it won't appear until halfway through". The last suggestion: "Just listen to it with headphones".
Australia’s take on the hyperpop is variegated and contested, producing some of the most vibrant and delightfully strange pop in the country - Guardian argues presenting the blooming genre. The stand-out artists at the moment at the continent are: Oh Boy, Ninajirachi ("glassy and exhilarating, drawing in club influences"), Donatachi ("all the kind of obnoxious elements of Top 40 pop, but dialled up to 11”), Cookii, Perto, Daine ("it’s [the genre]created a lot of room for people to experiment and still feel like they have mainstream appeal"), Muki, and Banoffee. Spotify playlist.
Mally Mall, the producer who has worked with 2 Chainz, Tyga and Rae Sremmurd, has been sentenced to 33 months in prison for running a prostitution business, the LA Times reports. Between April 2002 and September 2014, the 45-year-old “operated a high-end prostitution business that transported victims across the United States” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Nevada.
"Sons of Kemet have crafted a narrative that sees Black people freeing themselves from the constraints of oppression" - NME argues in favour of the fourth album by the London afro-jazz quartet (gave it 5 of 5 stars). The Skinny deems it best SOK album with "a thrillingly rich tapestry that combines passionate reflections on […]
Black Artist Database is a crowdsourced directory of Black artists and producers and Black-owned record labels on Bandcamp. It was previously known as Black Bandcamp. Easy-to-use tool offers the option to search by name, genre and location.
The awesome YouTube musicologist Adam Neely listened to songs of nine artists, offering advice on how to make the music better, through changes in mix, places of emphasys, and even how musicians should treat their bodies while playing. And a general advice he gave - it's just music, don't take it to seriously.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble 'Soon It Will Be Fire' features Moses Sumney, a nearly sacral piece; UK rapper Berwyn offers a lovely hip-hop ballad 'Rubber Bands'; The Mountain Goats share superbly titled 'The Slow Parts On Death Metal Albums'; Hazel English fulfilled her dream - she moved to California and covered 'California Dreamin'', a way too pretty song and a way to nice a cover not to pick it out; AKAI SOLO and Navy Blue share psychedelic rap 'Ocean Hue Hours'; Resynator is a documentary about "a daughter connecting with her late father through the resurrection of a synthesizer from the 1970s that he invented", featuring The National's Matt Berninger and Ronboy doing 'Only a Broken Heart'; The Pleasure Dome share noisy punk 'Pretty Picture'; Wolf Alice keep on promising - 'No Hard Feelings' comes ahead of their new album, out in June; Shannon Lay goes in the best classic singer-songwriter direction with 'Rare To Wake'.
“You can think of music as being a thing in itself that is just sonic, but I don't think it is. Music is part of a bigger scheme of what your world view is, and what your temperament is at any given time” - Sons of Kemet's leader Shabaka Hutchings says in the Quietus interview ahead of their new album 'Black to the Future'. The recording process was shaped with time in mind - "What we did is we recorded the drums, we played for ten, 15 minutes, before the tuba came in. I might play the melody many times. The idea is that kind of communality, where you want to get out of the individual anxiety of what specifically you're playing, so it can just become a group enterprise, and it can only become a group enterprise after we've been playing circularly for ages”.
Revolutionary American composer Alvin Lucier will get a very special 90th birthday present that will be performed by 90 artists and is about to last for 26 hours. Artists will stage their performances of Lucier’s paradigmatic 1969 work 'I Am Sitting In a Room', an experimental work Lucier made to explore his own voice, consisting of echo and dissonance of his reading voice. Beginning on his birthday eve, Thursday, May 13th, 8pm EST (2am, Friday, May 14th Berlin time, 9am, Friday, May 14th Tokyo time) and continuing throughout all of Friday, May 14th, Lucier's birthday. The marathon on Thursday and Friday will feature members of his family, students and colleagues performing in various spaces, some of which have been part of the composer’s life. New York Times looks back into the artist's career.
