Prog-drone band Hashshashin from Australia, on their new album 'Badakhshan', "combine essential concepts from drone, into something simultaneously traditional, naturalistic, and forward-thinking". With it, the Invisible Oranges says, the band "has breathed the esoteric nature of their music into a figure of flesh and bone, a newly-formed hybrid between Earth and Aether". Listen to album […]
Ariana Grande has seven nods at the global awards show, including bids for best artist, best song, best video, best pop and best live. Just behind with six noms for the 2019 MTV EMAs each are Shawn Mendes, Lil Nas X and Billie Eilish, with J Balvin racking up five and Taylor Swift and Lizzo […]
Fact Magazine in cooperation with the British Council made an original mini-documentary that charts the process a musician goes through to compose for film. FACT gets insights from Max Richter, Anna Meredith, Lustmord and Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury about their beginnings, their high points and their relationship with the intimidating global film industry. Watch […]
"Soaring and atmospheric... focused on lighter, more delicate music" - Brooklyn Vegan says about 'Lilac', fifth album by The Early November. "It’s perhaps the most purely gorgeous sounding record in the band’s discography", as well mature-sounding, similar to adult emo albums The Get Up Kids and American Football released this year.
“Bach’s been dragged through jazz and easy listening and every genre of music really, and the music has still survived" - Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame, told the Quietus about his new label Octatonic Records, dedicated to contemporary classical music. The other half of his favourite classical music world are composers from the last 100 […]
"It won’t disappoint those hoping for effortless, lyrically X-rated flexes" - the Guardian says about American rapper's debut album, released on the 10-year anniversary of MA’s brother’s death - "her trauma and grief are woven through soul-inflected tracks".
Growing indie powerhouse Concord has acquired Victory Records, the Chicago-based punk and emo label founded by Tony Brummel in 1989, home to bands like Taking Back Sunday, Bayside, Thursday, Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, etc. Billboard estimates that the Victory company had $4.5 million-$5 million a year in revenue and further estimates that Concord paid somewhere in the range of $27 […]
FKA twigs is a dancer and a singer, but still, she's often referred as "someone's girlfriend" - “I feel like I’ve been indoctrinated to feel like when I’m with a man, things are better,” she says in a Guardian interview - “regardless of whether they are or not. I’ve been made to feel like, if […]
34 percent of music listeners between 16 and 24 years old use stream ripping apps or services to listen to music illegally, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says in its annual report. The report also noted that 38 percent of the younger demographic had used illegal means of listening in the last month, […]
"'The Afterlife' is just as much a psychedelic rock album as it is a jazz album" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about new album by UK space-jazz band, their second this year. "Dan Leavers’ synths make it just as rooted in modern UK electronic music as Shabaka’s sax makes it rooted in modern UK jazz. Save for […]
Young Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has responded to death-metal treatment given to her heated speech at the United Nations (watch the video below). "I have moved on from this climate thing," Thunberg jokingly reacted - "From now on I will be doing death metal only!".
Post Malone last week sold another 149,000 equivalent album units of his latest album, 'Hollywood's Bleeding', which earned him a third consecutive week at #1 on Billboard 200 charts. Post Malone's latest is the only project to rule the Billboard 200 for three straight weeks in 2019. A Boogie wit da Hoodie's 'Hoodie SZN' and […]
The Shins frontman James Mercer and superproducer Danger Mouse are back with a new single, 'Good Luck', by their indie-cool project Broken Bells. Listen to it below.
First of all, it's not as closely pretentious as it might sound, the same way Subrosa managed to incorporate violins and stay raw and sincere the way metal is known to do. The Night Watch are a four-piece from Canada, and Brooklyn Vegan says they make "beautiful, instrumental, violin-heavy folk music that fits equally within […]
The Quietus picked up the best of the leftfield French music for the month of September. It's much easier listen them it would seem, but still unusual music, hard to put in any genre. Like a benign strange guy. Paper eaters in Papivores are really atmospheric, Palm Unit are on the jazzy side, and want […]
It includes Chino Moreno (Deftones), Dr. Know (Bad Brains), Mackie Jayson (Cro-Mags), John Medeski, Robert Thomas Jr. (Weather Report), with the head of the band being Chuck Doom, a longtime Moreno collaborator and a former protege of famed jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, Stereogum reports. The rest of the core lineup includes John Medeski (Medeski Martin […]
“You’ve got to wait for your ideas to come to you, don’t force 'em” - is the best advice composer and multi-instrumentalist Karl D’Silva ever got, he says in the Quietus interview. "When I’m writing, the minute I try and force it I lose the flow and everything closes up, writing for me is at […]
Samuel T. Herring began rapping at age 14 at freestyle battles, and although we know him now as the frontman of Future Islands, he still keeps his rap fire alive. On top of October, he will release his debut hip-hop album 'Back at the House', signed with his little known alter-ego Hemlock Ernst, Exclaim reports. […]
American folk-rock band The Lumineers have a 44-minute visual accompaniment to the group’s new album, which starkly explores three generations of a fictional working class family - the Sparks - in the American Northeast as they deal with addiction and other dysfunction, Billboard reports. Both the album and the movie are named 'III', with three […]
Early on in their career, Big Thief would focus on “blowing the roof off” the tiny venues they were playing, band's Buck Meek says in a big Stereogum interview. But now it’s a bit different. “The bigger the shows get in capacity, I feel like the more intimate we dig in. It catalyzes us to […]
Industrial group Nurse With Wound included a list of 291 ultra-obscure artists on their debut album in 1970. Now, 40 years later, the label Finders Keepers is collecting and compiling one track by every artist on it (here's the cover). There are some quite obscure, like Ghédalia Tazartès, Japanese performance group Tokyo Kid Brothers, Horrific […]
The 100 Club in London is very well known for its punk rock history, but the 6Ts Rhythm and Soul Society nights are celebrating their 40th anniversary, thus making it the longest-running club night in London and the longest-running northern soul night in the world. Guardian tells the 6Ts' story.
Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Sequoyah Murray (a beautiful name, right?!), has a debut album out - "nine exceptionally dynamic songs". It's some sort of electro r'n'b + some world music - "of all the sentiments to pull from this accomplished debut, it stands out for its willingness to embrace the unknown and unexpected because you […]
While Melanie Blake was a freelance journalist, a magazine assigned her to write about life on a 1980s reunion tour. "I went on the tour bus. It was absolutely hell," she tells the BBC - "Everybody hated each other. People wouldn't talk to each other, and then they'd be like, 'Hello Wembley!' and they'd sing […]
Beyonce has been blocked in an attempt to trademark her daughter’s name Blue Ivy by wedding planner Wendy Morales, who claims that she was using the name first, People magazine reports. Beyonce’s legal team argue that Blue Ivy, her eldest child with Jay-Z, is a “cultural icon” and a “mini style star”, "daughter of two […]
Milwaukee-based guitarist and rapper of Philippine heritage, Mestozi is "full DIY, self-releasing and – working with what seems to be very little resources – he’s building gorgeous sad beats; veering between downtempo observational hip hop, off-kilter alt-folk and glitchy, droll, minimal psychedelia. Jazz, even", the Quietus says about his first full-length debut 'Peak Communication'. His […]
Haim have mashed up Lil Nas X and Nirvana during their latest appearance in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge - beginning with Lil Nas X’s ‘Panini’, the group then segued into Nirvana’s ‘In Bloom’. Listen to it from around the two-hour and 14-minute mark here.
Jimmy Fallon likes doing that, and it mostly works just fine. This time around he had a member of rock's biggest band, one of hip-hop's most influential bands, and a groundbreaking song about psychedelic drugs. It turned out - nice, look for yourself below.
Kane Robinson is, right next to Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, one of the pioneers of UK grime scene, where he is known as Kano. Now, he's a TV star in a crime drama 'Top Boy' where he plays a drug dealer. His role is already the subject of awards talk, many critics have taken to social […]
The New York Metropolitan Opera has ended its 51-year relationship with the renowned tenor Plácido Domingo over allegations of sexual harassment by several women. Several other companies had already canceled his concerts, after a total of 20 women have accused the Spanish singer of harassment, inappropriate sexual behaviour and of sometimes using his position in […]
A trial concert in Barcelona with 5,000 attendees resulted in only six new cases of Covid infections, Deutsche Welle reports. The indoor concert by pop-rock band Love of Lesbian was held in The Palau, with a capacity of 17,000 - attendees were not allowed into the stands and instead were restricted to the dance floor. Before the event, they were screened and tested for coronavirus using antigen tests. The crowd was also instructed to wear FFP2 masks, with the organizers limiting bathroom capacity. Social distance was not required. Only six people reported testing positive 15 days later, while transmission in four of these six cases didn't take place during the concert. The six infections are fewer than the average contagion spread for Barcelona at the time.
Spotify's monthly Premium subscriber ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) in the first quarter of 2021 stood at just €4.12, down 7% year-on-year. In Spotify’s prior quarter (Q4 2020), the firm’s ARPU stood at €4.26, while in the prior year quarter (Q1 2020), it was €4.42. Music Business Worldwide recalculated it in US dollars - Q1 2021’s €4.12 per month figure was the equivalent of USD 4.97 per month period based on current exchange rates. Spotify has announced it is set to raise prices in Europe and the US by 1 to 3 euros/pounds/dollars, depending on the plan.
Al Schmitt, one of the most revered engineers and producers in the annals of the music business, winner of record 20 Grammys, has died aged 91. In 2015, he also became the first to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Among his recordings are Henry Mancini's 'Moon River', Neil Young's 'On the Beach', Toto's 'Africa', Ray Charles' 'Genius Loves Company', and 150 other gold or platinum records by Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Josh Groban, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
Sons of Kemet share 'To Never Forget The Source', the "central (ideological) axis-point" of their new album 'Black To The Future'; Jhariah are genre-less, operatic, grandiose, and fun on 'Flight Of The Crows'; Kele shares a subtle piano ballad 'Nineveh'; The Felice Brothers go slightly bizarre yet sweet on 'Inferno'; Q-Unique of Arsonists combines rap and rock on grand soul-rap 'Verrazzano Villains' featuring the Wu-Tang Clan's Cappadonna and three members of Taking Back Sunday; duendita goes lightly to surprise with 'bio'; Black Midi display a change of direction with jazzy-rock 'Slow' (not that slow at all).
Foo Fighters, Radiohead art director Stanley Donwood, Phoebe Bridgers, Khruangbin, Dinosaur Jr, Enrique Iglesias, LCD Soundsystem, and Neko Case and more artists have contributed designs to a series of one-of-a-kind folding bicycles from British company Brompton, according to Cycling Weekly. The bikes will be auctioned to raise funds for Live Nation’s Crew Nation, a global relief fund for live music workers. The auction begins May 28 and will run until June 12.
The entertainment industry appears to have massively capitalised on memes - Vice points out in an interesting article about how memes are new songs, and live streams. At first, memes were created using some other content intended for something completely different, but over the last year, there’s been a more formulaic approach where tunes are either made with the focused intention of being recreated as memes on Reels and TikTok, or beats are added to popular memes. What happened was that the audiences now expect memes from the producers now, not music, as few producers attest to. "The advantage is that you have better reach, but then people always expect you to incorporate humour into your music” - Anshuman Sharma said, while Sarthak Sardana added - “after I started making memes, my Instagram interactions went up by 3x, but the kind of following I got wasn’t into music”. Rosh Blazze got 7.2 million views for his remix - “now, my audience only wants to listen to my meme remixes, and sees me more as a video editor than a music producer”.
Australian musician Anita Lane, a flower of Melbourne 1980s post-punk scene, and the former member of The Bad Seeds and The Birthday Party, has died aged 62, Louder Than War reports. Lane co-wrote early Birthday Party tracks ‘A Dead Song’, ‘Dead Joe’ and ‘Kiss Me Black’, as well as Bad Seeds songs ‘From Her To Eternity’ and ‘Stranger Than Kindness’ with her then-boyfriend Nick Cave. Lane went on to have a long and distinguished career, working with the likes of Kid Congo Powers, Gudrun Gut and Einstürzende Neubauten. Lane also released a number of solo albums.
"Genre doesn’t classify the style of music we listen to - it segregates the artists who make it. Our problem is that we’ve conflated these two to mean the same thing" - Sameer Gadhia of the American pop-rock band Young the Giant writes in the Rolling Stone about the issue of "artists of color" in alter-rock. He is about to change the narrative with his SiriusXM Alt Nation feature, 'Point of Origin', where each month, "I spotlight an artist of color from the alternative space and trace their point of origin to their childhood".
New St. Vincent album 'Daddy's Home' sees her looking back at the early 70’s sound which is the music her father played her in her own youth, which makes for a full circle with her father coming out of prison recently (was there for 10 years for stock fraud). In her Consequence interview she talks about the music at the foundation of the album: "The music that was happening there in the early 70s, post the idealism of the flower children, pre the either nihilism or escapism of punk and disco, there was music that was this confluence of people telling it how it was lyrically, and all of this really great fusion of rock music but with jazz harmony into it, and funk in there and soul. It was just really secretly sophisticated, but utterly musical output". The album is out May 14.
Greenwich Village folk musician Eric Andersen was friends with Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Joni Mithcell, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol, but never had a big career, which a new documentary 'The Songpoet' tries to find an answer to. Rolling Stone interviewed the songpoet about his past, and success that was within his grasp plenty of times but he never managed to get hold of it. Andersen says Warhol once gave him "a beautiful painting and signed it. I sold it dirt cheap to a German buyer. Fast forward, years later, I open The New York Times and there’s a full-page ad with my fucking painting for sale for something like $12.5 million". His album 'Stages' was lost for 20 years, and Andersen believes it was lost intentionally - "instantaneously and unwittingly, not through will or a life choice, you instantly become a Buddhist - because if you get attached to this, it will destroy you. Even though it’s your work". Just when Brian Epstein was about to take him and manage him, the Beatles manager had died. Plenty of his musician friends, however, are dead - "the music business isn’t especially conducive to good health" - Andersen is alive, living with his wife in the Netherlands.
