On the Beaches of Portima, Portugal there were 20,000 people of African descent last weekend at Afro Nation, the first festival in the world to celebrate the African Diaspora. It was festival's first year, and in four days it saw live music from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Jamaica, the UK and the US, performers like Burna […]
"YBN Cordae is one of the most interesting breakout stars of the year" - High Snobiety says in review of Maryland rapper's first official album 'The Lost Boy'. His style "switches from goofy to street smart to introspective at the drop of a hat", he is open about his emotions - "a heartfelt record", and […]
The London paper decided not to use the term "world music" anymore, since they deemed in derogative, instead all the music that isn't western popular music is "global" now. So, their latest Global album of the month is 'Parted Plains' by the American sitar player Ami Dang, and it's the chosen one for August because […]
"Constant internet access and social media as life support allows access to more and more content, but in ever shorter bits and pieces: tweets over breakfast; half an article on the bus; a flick through Instagram at the desk. 'Anima' seems to argue that this creates a society that’s tired, overstimulated, and undernourished" - the Quietus says […]
It's not really much of a surprise Pitchfork labeled Bon Iver's soon to be published album 'i,i' Best New Music (high mark od 8,8 of 10). Let's see why: "Justin Vernon takes the Bon Iver sound and reassembles it like a cubist collage, with his voice right out front... Vernon himself sings with more texture […]
Nick Cave got a letter in his The Red Hand Files box from a fan asking him what his thoughts were on merchandising of art. Cave's answer is heartwarming and funny, a very nice read: "Would I wear a pair of merch socks myself? The answer is well, yeah, I do – when I do […]
"These songs are accessible and confidently constructed, with catchy choruses and unfussy execution... The kind of songs that are powerful and uncompromising but, on some deeper level, are just as unsure and vulnerable as the rest of us... Slicing electric guitars, padded synths, and an intoxicating New Wave-adjacent swagger add up to songs that are […]
Thousands of Beatles fans came to London yesterday, on 50th anniversary of photo shoot that made the cover of Beatles' 'Abbey Road' record. The Beatles were pictured striding across the road the album was named after on 8 August 1969, now, it is one of iconic pop-culture photos. In 1969 it was one of the […]
Technically, Föllakzoid is this: "bass, drums, guitar, locked into a strictly rhythmic 4/4 groove, with occasional slow burning drones and heavily distorted vocals", sonically - "all of Föllakzoid’s music swells and convulses with desert spectres and spirits, it’s music that occupies a world wherein the horizon can never fully be focused on, and all is […]
"I occupy a space which is straight-up between experimental jazz music and these high-level pop sessions" - rising multi-instrumental virtuoso, songwriter and producer Nate Mercereau tells in a PopMatters interview about his debut album 'Joy Techniques', out now. He has played electric guitar for Lizzo, co-wrote with Shawn Mendes, worked with Sheila E. and Jay-Z, and on […]
Sam Barker is one of the co-founders of Leisure System, the game-changing Berghain residency that explored rhythmic complexity, and this fall Barker is releasing his debut solo full-length. 'Utility' features sounds "aimed directly at the brain’s pleasure centers, exploring topics as diverse as dancefloor utilitarianism, transhumanism and the ethical use of narcotics and nanotechnology via a […]
PopMatters has an interesting article where they compare albums 'Blood on the Tracks' by Bob Dylan and 'IGOR' by Tyler the Creator, as the tipping points in each of artist's careers. As PM says: "Breakup albums have a rare power; they mark the moment when an image-conscious artist is suddenly compelled to let his guard […]
Experimental rock New Yorkers Battles have a song out, 'Titanium 2 Step' (listen below), with a new album 'Juice B Crypts', their fourth, coming out October 18. Warp describes the album as “a sensory overload of information” filled with “synthesizer loops, cut-throat drum patterns, and cyclical riffs”, as Fact Magazine reports. It’s the first Battles […]
The Quietus has an interesting list - their writers tell about cover versions that acted as their gateway drugs to the work of the original artist. There's Muse covering Nina Simone, Nick Cave covering Leonard Cohen, and a perfect example - Saint Etienne covering Neil Young.
King Princess has released a video for her new single ‘Prophet’ which sees her perform the song as a construction worker, lounge singer and American footballer. Throughout the video, a stalker films her playing football, is one of the waiters at the lounge bar King Princess sings and, at the end of the video, her […]
“Laced with leftfield house and cut-up sound collages... Lost words, twisted presets, voice collage, simple sounds - things that have been lost to technology’s current determinism” - Dais Records says about new album by Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire. 'Um Dada' is his first solo work in over 35 years, and it is about "play", Fact […]
Neuroscience News reminds of some of the health benefits of heavy metal music: heavy metal fans are happier in their youth and better adjusted in middle age compared to their non-fan counterparts; fans who were made angry and then listened to heavy metal music did not increase their anger but increased their positive emotions (seems […]
Bon Iver' have released three new songs from 'i'i', the band’s fourth record, coming out August 30. Listen to 'iMi', featuring James Blake, Velvet Negroni, and others, 'We' and 'Holyfields,' below.
San Francisco music festival Outside Lands will allow cannabis sales and a designated smoking area on site for the first time ever. This weekend, festival-goers will be able to buy up to seven grams of non-concentrated cannabis and two grams of cannabis concentrates across all vendors at Outside, Consequence of Sound reports. Music to get […]
David Berman, the songwriter and poet best known for co-founding the indie rock band Silver Jews, has died at the age of 52, his publisher Drag City confirmed. The cause of death is unknown at this time. Last month, Berman released a new album with the band Purple Mountains, after a 10-year hiatus, Billboard reports. NPR has […]
NME saw New York hardcore band Show Me The Body live, and liked them a lot, for their sheer energy and honesty. They played three concerts in London, one at a desolate warehouse, but “That wasn’t a side show. We wanted to make sure that everyone who wanted to see us was able to” - […]
"Newness isn't always the point. There's a place for growth and craft within a form, and that, too, can be great. Every time I think lo-fi indie rock is dead as dead can be, bloated on the beach, I discover at least a dozen people running around, reattaching limbs, shocking life back into it. And […]
“Sometimes I don’t understand why I’m not bigger than I am. I feel very comfortable in my section of pop. I’m beginning to feel like the people who know, know. And the people who don’t? They wouldn’t get it anyway” - pop singer Charli XCX says in a big Pitchfork feature. She is preparing a […]
Tool have released the first song from their new album 'Fear Inoculum', their first studio material in 13 years, the Kerrang reports. The title track is similar in mood to 'Reflection' from 2001 album 'Lateralus' (listen below). In Revolver magazine interview the band discusses getting older and wiser - "It's making those choices that are […]
“No one captures digital sensuality like [Gremmler], elegant and expressive !!!!" - Björk said of new video for her 2017 song 'Losss', another from the mind of Tobias Gremmler. Björk said they “based the visuals on the conversations between our inner optimist and pessimist, when I recorded this I tried to sing in a deeper […]
NME was at the Visions festival where they found that the new breed of British guitar bands prioritise intensity and weirdness. Scalping "blends techno, blackened punk and noise in a refreshing, boundary-crossing direction", Black Country, New Road play rip-roaring punk, Orville Peck is a kind of masked cowboy-cum-Elvis impersonator, Squid - "punk but not without […]
Influential and famous British record company Factory Records - home to Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, James - is celebrating its 40th anniversary with two box-sets and two major exhibitions, NME reports. Box-set ‘Use Hearing Protection’ compiles the first 10 records and memorabilia to receive a Factory Records catalogue number - including Joy Division’s […]
Polish industrial techno producer Zamilska returns with her third album 'Uncovered', and it's her best yet, the Quietus says. Her intention, tQ feels, is "to create a sense of suspension, to hold you within a moment of tension between outright silence and cavernous booms". Listen to the album at BandCamp.
123 artists have submitted a brief fo San Francisco court in the closely watched copyright case over the opening guitar riff of Led Zeppelin's ‘Stairway To Heaven’. The case was brought to court by a descendant of Randy Craig Wolfe, former band member and songwriter of Spirit, whose song 'Taurus' Led Zeppelin have allegedly ripped […]
Two British electro music greats, Burial and The Bug, have reunited for a second collaborative EP, 'Flame 2' where they explore UK drill and dancehall. The two songs are dark, slow, atmospheric, with a signature dub layer. Listen to 'Flame 2' at Boomkat.
Plenty of records set by Taylor Swift on Billboard 200 chart this week, according to Billboard. Re-recorded version of her 2008 album 'Fearless', titled 'Fearless (Taylor’s Version)' scores the biggest week of 2021 for any album with 291,000 equivalent albums. She's the first woman with three new No. 1 albums in less than a year - in August 'Folklore' debuted at No. 1 with 846,000 units, while 'Evermore' arrived at No. 1 in December with 329,000 units. 'Fearless (Taylor’s Version)' is the only No. 1 album of its kind: a re-recording of an artist’s (own or another’s) previously released album. Album sales of 'Fearless (Taylor's Version)' comprise 179,000, making it the top-selling album of the week. The three largest weeks for an album in the last eight months all Belong to Swift. She is also the first woman with three new No. 1 albums in less than a year. Swift also becomes the first woman in the 65-year history of the chart with three new No. 1s in less than 12 months; Donna Summer held that record since 1979/1980.
"I no longer have any need for drugs, the Maharishi or the Beatles. I am myself and I know why" - John Lennon has said at the time when his 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' coming out, which was also when he was going through then-fashionable but now-discredited “primal scream” psychotherapy technique. The new technique was the work of psychotherapist Arthur Janov who believed that unlocking repressed childhood pain required a physical release - maybe even screaming. GQ brings the story of the cult-like therapy and its connection to the album (deluxe edition came out last week).
Mike Mitchell, who recorded one of the most famous guitar solos of all time for Kingsmen’s 'Louie Louie' (a loose rendition of Richard Berry’s 1957 song), has died aged 77, Rolling Stone reports. With Mitchell’s rock’n’roll guitar solo adding a crazed energy to the three-chord recording, the song is a cornerstone of the garage rock sound. It also features a famous error by the band's vocalist Jack Ely as he comes back in too early after Mitchell’s solo. The band had a decades-long touring career with Mitchel as the permanent, and the only founding member left.
"Though female country stars didn’t compete for the night’s top prize – Luke Bryan was named entertainer of the year – they owned Sunday’s ACM Awards" - Denver Post argues about the nature of last night's ceremony. "Carrie Underwood brought the Academy of Country Music Awards to church. Maren Morris won two honors, including song of the year. Miranda Lambert performed three times and held onto her record as the most decorated winner in ACM history. And Mickey Guyton, the first Black woman to host the awards show, gave a powerful, top-notch vocal performance".
Russian electro group Love Object share a dance bomb 'Transparent Woman (Prozrachnaya Zhenschina)' with added cinematic video; psychedelic prog meets post-rock on Elder frontman Nick DiSalvo's 'The Reflecting Pool' which announces his solo debut; Andra Day shares a smooth banger 'Phone Dies' produced by Anderson .paak; Alfa Mist shares jazz-electronics-psych mix 'Teki'; Rodrigo Y Gabriela have covered Astor Piazzolla's flamenco instrumental 'Oblivion'.
"Cannabis is a very different social lubricant from alcohol. It heightens sensitivity to the emotional states of both yourself and those around you, rather than numbing everything into a blur. The intimacy and introspection that weed brings to a party is a different kind of energy that makes is well-suited to the need for post-pandemic healing in spaces of social reunification" - Rave New World newsletter writes ahead on 4/20 weed parties about to happen next week.
“I wouldn’t have a job right now if it wasn’t for Twitch” - DJ Ardalan says to Vice in a long-read about the transfer of DJs from clubs to Amazon's streaming service. For electronic dance music, Twitch has become a juggernaut. Paid partnerships with individual acts like Soul Clap, Seth Troxler, Justin Martin, and Ardalan show how Twitch is investing to attract more DJs to its platform.
A group of 277 attendees at the notorious Fyre festival are to receive settlement payouts of $7,220 each, according to the latest lawsuit ruling, at the US bankruptcy court in New York. The 2017 event drew global attention after the supposedly luxury music experience, promoted by supermodels and set to feature artists such as Major Lazer and Migos, turned out to resemble a disaster relief camp with windswept tents and decidedly non-gourmet food. Attendees had spent between $1,000 and $12,000 on tickets to the festival, which was cancelled on its opening day. Organiser Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for fraud in October 2018, The Verge reports.
"Their elaborate and very loud efforts to build tension, achieve overwhelming catharsis, and write their most memorable melodies yet feels more like a conversation with a medium they love. It doesn’t hurt that their newfound transparency makes the music feel refreshingly human and relatable" - Pitchfork reviews the new album by the elusive hipster-hardcore band The Armed (tagged it Best New Music, grade 8.2). 'Ultrapop' is also Stereogum's Album of the Week, described as "punishing, bombastic, catchy, genuinely surprising collection of songs... It sounds like everything hitting at once. It rules so hard". Treblezine appreciates the album's "juxtaposition of delicate dream pop and metal".
InsideHook offers a brief rundown of some of the best musician archives on the web, from indie superstars like Radiohead, Courtney Barnett, and Fugazi to icons like Neil Young, Johnny Cash, and the Dead, with some Def Leppard in between.
