Guardian looks back and Thunderdome 2019, held last week in Utrecht, with 50,000 ravers at a convention centre making it the biggest indoor hardcore dance event ever staged. It all started in October 1992 with four relatively unknown DJs, organized by two plucky 20-year-old schoolfriends from a village outside Amsterdam, to become the world’s greatest […]
Rage Against The Machine are to reunite next year, and they have announced a series of dates for 2020, including weekends on Coachella, and a few dates in South-West USA; Forbes is guessing it has something to do with American presidential elections. RATM haven't played together since their 2011 L.A. Rising show at the Los […]
Critics can't agree on how to categorize FKA twigs, but it's simple - it's pop music, a good sort. The same applies to her new album - "It’s a metamorphosis that twigs embodies on 'MAGDALENE', using discipline as a template for her art after undergoing her most public tribulations. While concise in length, 'MAGDALENE' paces FKA twigs through […]
Guardian has an interesting article about bands that don’t employ a singer so much as someone who declaims their words, Do Nothing, Black Country, New Road, Talk Show, Dry Cleaning, etc. The London paper talked to these bands; Talk Show’s Harrison Swann said it’s "really visceral and the most real thing you can get. You can’t shy away […]
She's a free-jazz guitarist, he plays in Deerhoof, together they "score a frantic fight scene... summon the shapes of acid tracers... flirt with budget psychedelic rock... float through a haunted house... shaping a record that’s surprisingly accessible and emotional for this idiom", Pitchfork writes about the first album by Mary Halvorson and John Dieterich as […]
Over a thousand artists - including Sheer Mag, Chastity Belt, Deerhoof, and Girlpool - have signed a letter No Music For ICE pledging to not participate in Amazon-sponsored events, or engage in exclusive partnerships with Amazon due to corporation's ties with law enforcement in the US. Amazon works with Palantir, a Silicon Valley data mining company that […]
A Linkin Park fan The Unusual Suspect has created a mash-up of ‘One Step Closer’, featuring 139 movies singing the iconic track. TUS merged lines from a host of recognizable characters from movies such as 'The Lion King', 'Wayne's World', 'Pulp Fiction', 'Wonder Woman', 'Kindergarten Cop' saying the words from the song. It works surprisingly good.
A great selection of songs released this week, chosen by Brooklyn Vegan (some were mentioned here before, so we're skipping those): cloud rap pioneer Clams Casino is back with a new song 'Rune', his album 'Moon Trip Radio' is out next week; Brooklyn rapper Junglepussy is in Halloween mood with 'Spiders'; former Titus Andronicus member Amy […]
At the end of August at the London patron pub Amanda Palmer saw her friend Maxim play "this very hilarious song" that was written by his cabaret friend Sarah-Louise and she suggested they make a record of that song and a ridiculous video, Patreon writes. So they did and finished it (unlike Brexit itself). Proceeds […]
"I think that drumming as songwriting is very important - more than any sort of technical proficiency, to have it be as melodic or musical as all the other instruments" - Dave Grohl says in a Rolling Stone interview with Ringo Starr about drumming as songwriting. And then there's this Starr's song - "I think […]
During massive protests in Santiago de Chile on Friday, when around one million people gathered in the streets, thousands of people began singing 'El derecho de vivir en paz' by Victor Jara (the title stands for 'The Right to Live in Peace'), Pitchfork reports. Jara was a theatre director, poet, singer and political activist who […]
"That boy won't stop drinking/He's doing cocaine too/Gotta get that boy out of your head/Cuz you know that boy's a fool" - Liana Gabel says quite seriously in her song 'Fool', but the video is actually really funny (watch below). She even dances to the bitter-sweet story of love and addiction. It's from her album […]
R.E.M. have launched a new web player that allows users to compare a new remix of their album 'Monster' to the original. The player allows users to toggle between 30-second samples of the remastered original tracks and the new remixes (here). R.E.M. are about the release the 25th anniversary deluxe edition of ‘Monster’ this Friday. […]
Early next year indie-rock band the Innocence Mission will release their new album 'See You Tomorrow', and the first song from it they share is 'On Your Side', about people who have passed but still live beside us - “In my dream, I would be in Paris with my mom. In cafes she would sip […]
27-year-old Alabama rapper Jake Hill canceled his show at Houston’s White Oak Music Hall on Monday because of the venue-wide ban on the sale and consumption of meat in place that day because Morrissey was playing the same venue that night, NME reports. "I’m not gonna be told what I can and can’t eat at a […]
Blissed out and contemplative but still very much a hyperactive Dan Deacon - Brooklyn Vegan says about producer's new song 'Sat by a Tree'. The video for it stars comedian/actor Aparna Nancherla, and thousands of bugs (watch below). The song is coming out on 'Mystic Familiar', Deacon's first album in nearly five years, on January 31.
"'Spiritual Instinct' cracks Alcest’s form wide open and successfully goes in all kinds of new directions without being a drastic departure like 'Shelter' was. And that’s even better" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about the French blackgazers' new album. Other critics like it too: "A personal experience to rebuild, restructure and better" - Sonic Perspectives; "To return and release […]
“The specter of dispossession is haunting us all. Everywhere the imperial world represses the ghoulish histories that sustain our pasts, presents and futures", Algiers' bassist and keyboardist Ryan Mahan says about band's new single 'Dispossession' (watch below). Lyrics on this song and their new record ‘There is No Year’, Mahan says, are "like a neo-Southern […]
This week the English singer-songwriter is releasing his third album, and critics really like it so far: "Gorgeous third album" - Telegraph (five of five stars); "Kiwanuka has uncovered as much of himself as he ever has, and he’s fully engaged and in tune with his own identity" - The Line of Best Fit; "Effortlessly […]
"When it comes to making records promiscuity has become a talent-killer. That’s why Kanye was right to ban anyone working on his album from having pre-marital sex during the recording period of ‘Jesus Is King’ – not for ridiculously pious religious reasons but to stop the music being smug, bland and self-satisfied" - Mark, My […]
"It’s the sound of the good times melting away and the twisted corners of the club coming alive and pulling you into their grasp. Depending on your stance, that’s either a complete nightmare, or some chaos you should embrace – this new song straddles the line carefully between the two" - NME writes about Tame […]
In a more than pathetic move, Morrissey was selling albums by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop at his October 26 show in Los Angeles, all signed - by himself. He was selling David Bowie’s 'Aladdin Sane', Patti Smith’s 'Horses', Lou Reed’s 'Transformer' and Iggy and the Stooges’ 'Raw Power' for - $300, and somebody even bought some. He was […]
She's an experimental guitarist with a jazz background, he is a drummer steeped in New York's noise-rock scene, together, Jessica Ackerley and Rick Daniel make up ESSi, post-punk noise band, who's just released their first album. Listening to 'Vital Creatures', it can seem baffling that only two musicians are playing on the album. But the two […]
The Los Angeles-bases violinist/vocalist Sudan Archives releases her debut album 'Athena' this week, inspired by Sudanese fiddlers, R&B, West African rhythms, experimental electronic music, but, sonically, it leans mostly towards r'n'b. Her first strength, the Quietus writes, is her violin - "it’s apparent that she has absorbed the potential of the violin and fits it […]
Bruce Springsteen documentary 'Western Stars' earned $560,000 from 537 theaters over the weekend in the US, and combined with grosses from preview sneaks, his directorial debut has earned $1 million. 'Western Stars' shows Springsteen performing all 13 songs on his first studio album in five years, archival footage, personal narration, and guest appearances, and is […]
Jessica Mauboy debuts at No. 1 on the Australian albums chart with 'HILDA', and Tones And I extends her streak atop the singles tally with 'Dance Monkey', which makes it the first time in 15 years and just the third time in history that the Australian female solo artists top both charts, Billboard reports.
“We need this to get weird. It’s good to be controversial” - Prince told his biographer Dan Piepenbring when they started what is going to be Prince's unfinished biography The Beautiful Ones, out this week, Star Tribune says. The actual autobiography segment of this book ends at the end of Prince’s teens, and those 28 […]
"'Seeker' is an exciting and treasurable return for Cronin... The LP reveals how wide-ranging and bravely impassioned Cronin remains, allowing him to still rank among the best singer-songwriters out there" - Consequence of Sound writes about Californian's latest album. He wrote the album in Californian mountains, surrounded by forest, which he had to leave early due […]
"Murder Capital show was the most exciting performance I had seen by a new band this century" - the Quietus reporter writes about after seeing Irish punk rock band playing live. So, what makes them that good? - "theatrical but natural, vulnerable and aggressive, and with a control of dynamics and tension that would put […]
Post Malone’s 'Hollywood’s Bleeding' earned 93,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. last week, and becomes the first album released in 2019 to score four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. 'Hollywood’s Bleeding' spent its first three No. 1 weeks at the end of September, and beginning of October. The last album […]
DJ Khaled nabbed his third No. 1 album on Billboard 200 chart this week, Billboard reports. Rappers and producer's 12th studio album, 'Khaled Khaled', recorded 93,000 equivalent album sales during its first week out, including 76,000 in SEA units (equaling 106.87 million on-demand streams of the album’s tracks), 14,000 in album sales. and 3,000 in TEA units.
Nine Inch Nails + Health share an interesting bit of industro-pop called 'Isn't Everyone'; English Teacher combine post-punk and talky vocals on 'R&B'; The Limiñanas go electro garage psychedelic on 'Saul'.
NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has recorded audio of the Ingenuity helicopter in action, making it the first spacecraft to record the sounds of another spacecraft on another planet. The recording was taken during Ingenuity’s fourth test flight on April 30, C-Net reports. In the video, a low rumble caused by the wind on Mars can be heard as it blows past the rover. From that rumble comes a hum of the helicopter’s blade whipping through the thin atmosphere.
"If you choose to be a musician, you have to understand that it's only worth it if you become the best musician you can be" - parents of classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglić told their son when he set off from Montenegro to Royal Academy of Music in London. He mastered the classical guitar, only to face a new problem - there aren't so many famous guitar concertos. He asked for new compositions for classical guitar - from British film and TV composer Joby Talbot, and 'Lord of the Rings' composer Howard Shore - and got them. NPR tells the pretty story of the Montenegrin.
The US chart authority, Billboard has created a ranking of the most popular songs in the U.S. based on Twitter conversations, Bloomberg reports. The chart, called “the Billboard Hot Trending Powered by Twitter”, is unusual for Billboard in that it’s not measuring what people are listening to, but what they talk about.
A quintessential blog post at The Melt about "Spago Rock", defined by Mike Pace of Oxford Collapse: "A style of music that could be loosely defined as organic soul with synthetic instrumentation. If the yacht rock sound encompassed the mid-’70s to early ‘80s and centered around good times n' vibes, Spago Rock takes place from roughly 1986-1992, when many legacy artists matured and mellowed into their 40s, yet still wanted to be seen as contemporary and relevant. Artists who cut their teeth woodshedding in the analog days were now embracing the latest in digital studio technology, crafting immaculate electronic-based sophisti-pop while never truly abandoning their rock roots". Pace's new project Simmons & Matteo is the new phase of that genre.
Pearl Jam have launched Deep, a digital collection of their official site which allows visitors access to 186 bootlegs and 5,404 tracks spanning from 2000 to 2013. Each gig is accompanied by show descriptions written by members of the band’s Ten Club fan club. Fans will also be able to create gigs via the Custom Setlist Generator with the dream setlist turned into a streamable playlist. Pearl Jam are planning to start European tour in June.
“What is heritage?. It is the culture you inherit. So if you’re moving to different societies, you’re inheriting these things that become your heritage, become what your music sounds like, become what you move around like” - Pakistan-raised Brooklyn-based musician Arooj Aftab says in a Pitchfork interview about her latest, great album 'Vulture Prince'. She compares singing in Urdu versus English - "it lives in a different place in your mouth, in your entire body. Everything changes a little bit—the intonation and inflection, the accent, the diction". She also touches the sensitive issue of her late brother - “you accept your losses as part of your life, instead of pointing at them”.
“I’d like to have something to give to my daughter" - says a homeless LA man. Eddie Johns, however, could, however, have something for his daughter to inherit. Daft Punk have namely sampled Johns' 'More Spell on You' on their breakout hit 'One More Time'. The author was never credited or paid a dime. LA Times brings the sad story.
20,000 fans stood shoulder to shoulder for their first star-studded concert in over a year on May 2nd at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Foo Fighters, Jennifer Lopez, J Balvin, and Eddie Vedder performed for Global Citizen’s Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite The World, at the first large-scale music event for a Covid-compliant audience in the US. It wasn't exactly like before - the show’s attendance was far lower than the 70,000 the L.A. stadium can seat, attendees had to show proof of vaccination, they were masked and alcohol and concessions weren’t available. The goal of the concert was to raise money to send vaccine doses to India, Africa and other places. Rolling Stone is happy to report from it.
