It's the Quietus, so don't expect any of the biggest names, only the alternative once. The best metal from October, as tQ heard it, is Dawn Ray’d album 'Behold Sedition Plainsong' - "one of the most lyrically astute black metal records ever recorded". Another one is Blut Aus Nord's 'Hallucinogen' because it "flows astonishingly well as […]
"Music feels like a barricade at times and anything creative feels like it could be hard to get into. But it can happen for you" - Toby L from the London indie-label Transgressive Records tells the BBC. They started out with just 1.000 pounds, and are still working 15 years later. One of the biggest names […]
'Come Down on Jupiter' sees Orielles reliving a spilled-coffee incident at pie & mash shop in London. It was directed by Rose Hendry who says she "enjoyed the idea of centering the video around an incident with a cup of tea — that felt dramatic to me — something 'mundane' becoming something dramatic", Stereogum reports. The […]
Rolling Stone has a lovely nostalgic article about an "acrylic, mohair and Lycra blend cardigan" that Curt Kobain wore during Nirvana's MTV Unplugged performance and several times on tour with Nirvana before his death in April. It's originally from the 1960s, worth 16 dollars, but since this particular one has a history, it was sold at […]
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame bosses have added Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee and guitarist Phil Campbell to the list of eligible Motörhead stars on the ballot for the class of 2020 nominations following an outcry by fans. The rockers were not included in the band’s original nomination, with Hall of Fame officials only recognising […]
PopMatters is delighted with a collaborative album by composer and clarinetist Ben Goldberg, and poet Dean Young. Goldberg first wrote songs based on a set of poems by Young and recorded them with an improvising band. Then Goldberg played the tunes for Young (without his knowing which tune matched which poem), inspiring him to write new poems […]
"'Crush' is something of a return to Floating Points’ more dancefloor-oriented material... but the LP is also a sonically diverse effort with extended forays into modular synthesis, baroque new age, hyperactive IDM, and more" - Pitchfork says about new Floating Points album (gave it their Best New Music banner; grade 8,3). It is "the most relaxed […]
Bob Dylan wrote 'Wanted Man' for Johnny Cash to sing, in 1969 the two sang it together, and later it became a hit for the country star. The 1969 unreleased demo version is coming out November 1 on the 15th installment of Dylan's 'Bootleg Series', Stereogum reports. Listen to that demo below; June Carter Cash […]
London drill rapper Rico Racks has been jailed for three years for drug offences and issued with an order that forbids him from rapping words such as bandoe, trapping, Booj, connect, shotting, whipping and Kitty - all colloquial terms associated with dealing drugs. It also bans him from possessing articles linked to drug dealing and […]
American post-hardcore band mewithoutYou have announced that they’re calling it a day after 2020 - “we have decided on next year as our last as an active band. We nevertheless have many plans in the interim, the details of which are forthcoming”. MewithoutYou formed in 2000, which means their final year will also mark their 20th […]
NME's Mark Beaumont's new blog entry is about fake social media accounts of pop stars, the latest victim being pop-reggae star Shaggy - "Why not grab at the chance to become a virtual superstar? Initially the internet offered these unsung heroes – with their slightly misspelt surnames and their many, many handle numbers – a […]
Second album by the Canadian experimental indie-rock is like a "joyful, sad, funny, wise conversation with close, thoughtful friend", Exclaim says. Brooklyn Vegan likes the sonic changes - "more atmospheric and more experimental art-pop directions than ever before. It’s both more complex and more gorgeous sounding". Paste Magazine concludes that "Naggar’s deftness at seamlessly weaving […]
At Elton John’s final tour the audience can use a device called PEEX which allows them to mix the instruments the way they like. Individual instrument tracks from backstage are transmitted via radio signals to PEEX and then synchronised with the sound being sent - meaning there is no delay. Audience members can then mix […]
Use of music across major on-demand platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video has more than tripled (up 238%) in the past five years – from 145bn minutes in 2014 to 490bn minutes in 2018, figures by PRS (Performing Rights Society) for Music show. The Guardian reports has several examples - in 2012, the […]
American rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again comes to the top of Billboard 200 chart with his EP 'AI YoungBoy 2'. The album sold 110,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., of that sum, just 3,000 were in album sales, while the rest was overwhelmingly powered by streaming activity, Billboard reports. Rap-balladeer Lil Tjay arrives at […]
Innercity Ensemble is a Polish supergroup (featuring members of Stara Rzeka, Alameda collective and Kapital), playing free-from improvisational music combining elements from jazz, post-industrial, noise-rock, and electronic. The Quietus describes their fourth album (surprise, surprise!! - it's named 'IV') as "bewitching"; actually it's much simpler than that - ambiental fun. Listen below (it takes a […]
Amazon has announced a Las Vegas music festival called Intersect. In two days of December it will be headlined by Foo Fighters, Beck, Kacey Musgraves, and Anderson .Paak. Guardian already dislikes it - "like so many other branded events today, it exists only to exploit artists and audiences... [it] values immediate sensory thrills over deep […]
The list goes from Bromley Davenport's minimalist analog synth, haunting melodies, whirring electronic effects and woozy waltzes in movie 'Xtro' he also directed at spot 35, to John Carpenter's 'Halloween' with minimalist piano at spot 1. Check the full list here.
Minimalist composer Terry Riley and string ensemble Kronos Quartet made not a world music album, but rather a universe music album 'Sun Rings' - it incorporates various sounds from space, acquired by plasma wave receivers built by NASA and flown on a variety of spacecraft over 40 years. "The combination of the strings and bubbling interplanetary […]
K-pop actress-singer Sulli rose to prominence as a member of girl band f(x), but she came to be known for speaking out on mental health issues, cyberbullying and women's rights - issues that remain sensitive in a conservative society like South Korea, BBC reports. Guardian goes a step further - London paper reports about anger […]
Canadians anders and FrancisGotHeat made a trap song 'Sticky Situation' that samples sounds from actual weed plants, Exclaim reports. Samples of cannabis were created by running a range of electrical currents through the plants themselves, which were then turned into MIDI data. From there, the recordings were converted into instrument sounds for FrancisGotHeat to manipulate […]
Dublin four-piece Lankum remade traditional songs for their newest album, giving them progressive and ambient touch. The result? - "nothing less than a thorough exploration and devastation of folk’s most conventional tropes is Lankum’s impressive game" - Guardian says in a review.
Consequence of Sound gave a clean A to Swedish hard-core punks' Refused new album 'War Music', because - "No-holds-barred sociopolitical punch to the face... Masterful balance of melody and aggression... Dynamic vocals with monstrous riffs and rhythm". What CoS appreciates the most, it seems, is the context - "the lack of protest music coming from […]
Consequence of Sound, with a little help from Seth Rogen, has found a great and hilarious story, about a guy hired by Snoop Dogg - to roll him joints. Snoop said, in Howard Stern interview, that he calls the gentleman a “P. B. R.: Professional Blunt Roller”, pays him “$40 to $50,000 a year", is […]
"I learned a lot of random things putting this book together and just how many women were in the room, how many women pioneered so much. And then, you know, it's always just kind of passed off to a guy and then, you know, he'll run with it" - author Kathy Iandoli says about her […]
Cuban ballet dancer Alicia Alonso, one of the greatest 20th Century ballerinas, has died age 98, with president Miguel Diaz-Canel saying "Alicia Alonso has gone and left an enormous void but unbeatable legacy", Independent reports. BBC has a short biography. After the 1959 revolution, she helped found the National Ballet of Cuba with then leader […]
"Frontman Joey Vannucchi wrote, recorded, and produced the whole thing himself in his apartment in Harlem, and they self-released the record" - Brooklyn Vegas says about new album by From Indian Lakes. It's kinda strange, sonically - "instrumentally, it’s still an indie rock record, but synths are the driving force... has an alluring synthy atmosphere […]
Part of 'I Feel Saved' can be heard in the trailer for the new movie 'Age Out' (watch/listen below), directed by A.J. Edwards. The movie is scored by Colin Stetson (his unmissable sax is heard towards the end of the trailer).
DJ Premier announced a new Gang Starr album, titled 'One of the Best Yet' and due November 1, Hot New Hip Hop reports. It's band's first in 16 years, nine years after band's MC Guru died, and DJ Premier said he was "just very happy to be making music with Guru again". The album features J Cole, Q-Tip, Royce […]
The National frontman Matt Berninger is releasing a solo album 'Serpentine', produced and arranged by Booker T. Jones of Memphis soul group Booker T. & the M.G.’s, Rolling Stone reports. The first song out from it is 'Walking on a String', a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, which appears in Zach Galifianakis’ Netflix film 'Between Two […]
Lego released a streaming-only album 'White Noise' which was made by the Lego pieces being poured out of tubs, sifted through and clicked together. Lego’s “head of creative” Primus Manokaran describes the streaming-only album as “a collection of soundscapes” designed to promote relaxation and mindfulness. Manokaran told Guardian that producing the album was “like composing with 10,000 tiny instruments”.
Boston journalist Larry Katz has digitized his collection of 1,000+ interviews he made in three decades with musicians such as David Bowie, Prince, Bob Marley, Alanis Morissette, Mariah Carey, and, obviously, hundreds of others. Find the amazing collection here.
In Australia, the road to recovery for live music is happening six to nine months ahead of the world, promoters say, according to Rolling Stone. Clubs are pumping in Brisbane, where venue capacities have been entirely lifted. Artists like Courtney Barnett, Keith Urban, Guns N' Roses and others are announcing tours on a daily basis. Festivals have resumed with all-local lineups, venue capacities are slowly lifting, and dancing is now permitted. By late April, Australia recorded 910 deaths due to Covid, with fewer than 30,000 confirmed cases among its population of 25 million. Community transmissions have been close to zero for months. Visitors aren't really welcome yet - a 2-week quarantine in a hotel room is compulsory.
"‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’ has all the qualities of a blockbuster pop record - incessant hooks, A-list producer credits" - DIY Magazine writes about the pop-rock debut album by the Norwegian singer. Dawn Richard comes from the opposite side of pop music's spectrum, with critics really appreciating her R'n'B/house: "The beats are decadent, but so too are the liberties she takes as an independent artist beholden to nothing but her own satisfaction" - Pitchfork.
Tom Morello, DIIV, Talib Kweli, and 180 other musicians signed an open letter calling on Spotify to make a public commitment never to utilize, license, sell, or monetize a patent for technology that could monitor and record users’ speech and background noise to help curate and recommend music, Pitchfork reports. “Spotify claims that the technology can detect, among other things, ‘emotional state, gender, age, or accent’ to recommend music” the letter reads, outlining the five major concerns that the coalition has regarding the technology: “emotional manipulation,” discrimination, privacy violations, data security, and the exacerbation of inequality in the music industry.
Bobi Wine, the "ghetto president" of Uganda, is a singer, actor, and, now, a politician, whose music has inspired his nation with dreams of a better future. Wine's political career has turned his music into a crime, and his supporters into Museveni's (Uganda's sitting president) targets. Yet, even in the face of a brutal regime, Bobi Wine's music is still the most dangerous weapon in Uganda - High Snobiety writes presenting the rebel, and talks to him.
Cinephiles Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney, who recently released a collaborative album 'Superwolves', made a selection of the best music films for Vice. The boys chose 'Gene Vincent: The Rock And Roll Singer' (1970) - "a tough watch, but a revealing study of a rare talent", 'Cisco Pike' (1972) - "music-infused crime film has earned a sizeable cult following", 'Oulaya’s Wedding' (2017) - "astonishingly familiar feelings and ripping tunes", 'Payday' (1973) - "down and dirty character study of a country star indulging every vice under the sun as he hurtles towards annihilation", 'The Decline Of Western Civilization' (1981) - "a documentary about energy that's so loaded with power that it will never die", and other films.
YouTube generated $6.005 billion from advertising in the three months to end of March this year, which is up by nearly $2 billion, or by 49%, on the $4.038 billion YouTube generated in the same period of 2020, Music Business Worldwide reports on staggering numbers by the streaming platform. Compared to 2019 the numbers are even more impressive - in Q1 2019 YouTube had $3.025 billion in revenues. If YouTube can maintain that +49% growth across the course of 2021, it will turn over more than $29 billion this year. The number MBW isn't giving is how much of that $6 billion YouTube made during the three first months of the year is going to artists.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are selling the publishing rights of their catalog to Hipgnosis Songs Fund for upwards of $140 million, Variety reports. The transaction marks the latest catalog sale from a major legacy artist and one of the highest profile acquisitions to date for Merck Mercuriadis’ fund.
Spotify's former chief economist Will Page published a new study Twitch's Rockonomics which claims that artists make roughly 10 times more on Twitch than streaming providers. However, Twitch is very specific, and very different from Spotify - artists use Twitch to livestream content to their fans, charging monthly subscriptions (for $5, $10, or $25), earn digital tokens called Bits, or generate ad revenue. In general, Twitch aims super-fans willing to pay more for artists they like...
