Mysterious UK-based new-soul group Sault have released their new album 'NINE'. The album is going to be available to stream, download, and purchase for 99 days, meaning till the end of September. You can grab a free download of the album over on their website and it’s also available to purchase and stream on Bandcamp.

Despite the return of music festivals, virtual events are here to stay according to new data published by United Talent Agency, the LA Times reports. Three out of four people attended an online event during the pandemic. Of those who participated in a virtual event, 88% said they plan to do so again even when in-person gatherings return. The survey indicated that people are "most excited" for sporting events, concerts and movies.

"He was focussed on entertaining the audience, relying on the seemingly simple concept of giving people what they want. That ​‘by-fans, for-fans’ ethos informed the launch of Kerrang! – the magazine he founded in the summer of 1981 – and it is still the driving force behind what we do now" - UK metal weekly Kerrang! wrote remembering their former editor Alan Lewis who died this week aged 76. Lewis also served as the top editor at NME, Sounds, Record Collector, among other papaers. Dozens of journalists and editors remember working with Lewis - NME collected those lovely tributes.

"The only way forward for me is to leave the band. I hope in distancing myself from them I am able to speak my mind without them suffering the consequences. I leave with love in my heart and I wish those three boys nothing but the best" - Mumford & Sons banjo player Winston Marshall wrote in a Medium blog post officially announcing his departure from the band. The pressure he felt has started after he supported controversial right-wing figure Andy Ngo. Marshall believes it had also started to be "distressing" for his bandmates as well.

A great read in the NPR about the 1971 Joni Mitchell album 'Blue', and women who helped make it, as well as about Miles Davis' 1959 album 'Kind Of Blue' and all the men who contributed to it. The bottom line of the article: "It's interesting to think about why people decide some works of art can change their lives".

"At the beginning of this year, Taiwan was suffering from its worst drought in the past 50 years. Despite a history of frequent rainfall and summer typhoons, reservoirs and lakes across the country were drying up. In an effort to inspire the skies and encourage reflection on environmental conservation, ANKR traveled to the largest reservoir in Dapu, Taiwan, at the time completely dry, to film a live performance in the heart of the basin with fellow Taiwanese musician A.P.R.A." - ex-directory introduces and interviews the former, Taiwanese team of film producers, sound artists, and photographers.

“Jon Lucien’s 'Search For The Inner Self' is my own personal treasure that I will never give up. It’s from the early 70s, on Ampex Records... It’s a great record. Jon Lucien told my friend he only did the track because he needed some money at the time, but he struck gold. It’s got amazing string arrangement, great words. That title alone – 'Search For The Inner Self' – has got to be worth the money" - Paul Weller told The New Cue about a bit of gold he owns.

Rolling Stone has a great long-read about the Chinese (indie-)rock scene, going back decades to Black Panther, Yu Quan, and He Yong. Today, it's Beijing that holds the country's highest-profile rock scene, with Southern cities Wuhan and Chengdu boasting fertile punk and post-punk scenes, due in part to their large university communities. RS emphasizes radical sincerity of Chinese rock, which Ricky Maymi, guitarist of the San Francisco group the Brian Jonestown Massacre, describes this way: “The musicians in the Chinese rock scene are finding a place to put ideas and feelings where otherwise, in their culture, they wouldn’t have a place. This music has real heart, devoid of any kind of irony. That gives it a built-in power, a magic that Western music hasn’t had for a long time".

In just the last 72 hours alone, a bevy of major US tours has been announced. Consequence (has a dedicated live music subsite) picks out a few of the biggest ones:

- Elton John has announced the final leg of his farewell tour
- Lorde has announced the first tour dates behind her new album 'Solar Power'
- J Cole has mapped out a tour in support of his latest album 'The Off-Season' - GZA, Raekwon, and Ghostface Killah are teaming up for the 'Chambers 3 Tour'
- Violent Femmes and Flogging Molly are teaming up for a co-headlining US tour

Producer and songwriter Mark Ronson goes into the art and science of music production in the new docu-series 'Watch the Sound', coming to Apple TV+ on July 30, NME reports. The newly released trailer shows him talking with the likes of Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Beastie Boys Ad-Rock and Mike D, Charli XCX, Josh Homme, Denzel Curry, Angel Olsen, Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker and many mor

Britney Spears appeared in Los Angeles court on Wednesday and formally asked a judge in a passionate speech to end her decade-long conservatorship, calling it abusive and doing her more harm than good. Spears made a strong case for removing her father, Jamie Spears, as conservator, giving examples of how the conservatorship is abusive, including being put on Lithium against her will, Consequence reports. She also claimed that the conservatorship is blocking her from expanding her family - “I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told I can’t get married. I have an IUD inside me but this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to remove it because they don’t want me to have any more children".

YouTube music theorist Rick Beato goes back into Brazilian guitarist Sérgio Mendes' 'Never Gonna Let You Go', the song he believes is "the most complex pop song of all time". Beato first tried to play it four decades ago and still doesn't know it by heart.

"Maybe I do think that we're all headed towards doom, but it's not personal. You can also have fun. The benevolence of the black hole is just like, celebrate when you can and find warmth, comradery, solace, and cope how you must on our journey into the dark. Also, on a personal level, everybody dies" - singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus says in Them interview about here incoming solo album 'Home Video'. She explains - "whenever I get [in that apocalyptic mindset], I'm like, 'Wait, wait, wait, how useful is this?' Some days it feels useful to think about the future of mankind, and then other days I'm like, 'Man, I'm just a girl. I don't need to think about this'. Am I going to spend three hours spiraling about this or could I go outside and live the life that I would hypothetically like to protect?". She also talks about her "internalized homophobia", queerness, being brought up in a Christian family, and her boygenius bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.

Streaming music services Apple Music and Amazon Music are upping their audio game with their various versions of High-Res Audio, and Global News argues, however, this is not all good news. A critical listen will reveal that the vocals get lost in the mix, reducing the singer to just another part of the song, fighting for attention with all the instrumentation. How many people will even notice the better audio since the last couple of generations of music fans were brought up on MP3s, often heard over boomy headphones, cheap earbuds, or laptop speakers. Also, fans won’t hear anything with wireless headphones since the signal requires more bandwidth than Bluetooth can provide, and iPhones and a few other Android units don’t come with headphone jacks anymore.

On 8th June, the Spanish government announced that nightclubs will be able to reopen this summer, with dancing until 3am. On 25th June, Ibiza will host its first pilot test event, a “Children of the ’80s” party at the Hard Rock Hotel. DJ Mag visited the island to check out how the clubs are preparing for the big reopening.

The short documentary 'Field of Vision - We Were There to Be There', by Mike Plante and Jason Willis, on a legendary 1978 show at a California psychiatric hospital by the Cramps and the Mutants, is now online. "Taking place as cuts to crucial social services loom under Ronald Reagan, two legendary punk bands come together to perform a show for patients and staff at a psychiatric facility". It "threads moments from the Napa State Hospital set with commentary from band members and those who witnessed it firsthand, providing a crucial backstory for the recording of one of the most iconic shows in the history of music, at a critical moment in the future of mental health care in the US".

"[I was on the road] two months at a time or more. And that was wearing on my marriage and my life. Now you listen what you want to on the radio, and if you feel like pulling over and taking a nap, you pull over and take a nap" - 53-year-old bus driver John Rogan tells in a Billboard piece about the lack of drivers the live music industry is about to face. Apart from the fact that some drivers have found a more comfortable lifestyle in trucking. there's another reason for drivers' departures from the industry: Most tours are requiring vaccines for their entire crews, and plenty of them refuse to get the shots. That's not all - driving frozen food pays almost double the amount drivers get while driving hot music stars.

Britney Spears said she was forced into a mental health facility as punishment for objecting during a rehearsal, leaked court documents, which were seen by The New York Times, have revealed. The paper reports that, according to a transcript from a closed-door hearing in spring 2019, "she asserted that she had been forced into a mental health facility against her will on exaggerated grounds, which she viewed as punishment for standing up for herself and making an objection during a rehearsal". According to the documents, the singer's 2019 stint in a mental health facility was against her will after her Las Vegas residency was canceled, The Times reported. Documents also quote Britney Spears as referring to the conservatorship as an "oppressive and controlling tool against her". Today, Wednesday, June 23, Spears will be speaking directly, albeit from a remote location, to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge about her situation, NPR reports.

The live music industry in the UK is facing massive staff shortages as gigs begin to return - industry bodies have written to the UK prime minister Boris Johnson calling for the government to help fill vacant roles, NME reports. They suggest the government "temporarily ease immigration requirements for the large numbers of workers, particularly from the EU, who have returned to their homelands during the lockdowns". A study in 2020 by the UK’s Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence estimated that 1.3 million migrants left the UK between July 2019 and September 2020.

YouTube won a legal victory in the EU this week, after the European Court of Justice ruled that the platform and other user generated content-reliant platforms should not be held liable for users uploading infringing content. "As currently stands, operators of online platforms do not, in principle, themselves make a communication to the public of copyright-protected content illegally posted online by users of those platforms" - ECJ ruled. The court added that such platforms can still be held liable however, if they have "specific knowledge that protected content is available illegally" on their platforms, yet refrain "from expeditiously deleting it or blocking access to it".

Indigo De Souza share an energy-driven indie rock song 'Kill Me' and an impressive video to go with; Kamasi Washington released 'Sun Kissed Child' from 'Liberated / Music For The Movement Vol. 3'; La Luz shares some light-weight blues on 'In The Country'; Sally Shapiro want to go dancing on 'Fading Away'; Dean Blunt is very moody on 'The Rot'; Jeffrey Lewis' title of his new song 'Now We've Beat That Stupid Virus We Can Get Back to Our Stupid Lives' says it all.

The Street Music Research Unit is a new initiative from the University of Adelaide in Australia studying street music in all its forms, historical and contemporary. The Unit is interested to learn why people busk, and where they busk and the role that festivals, government regulation and technology play in buskers’ livelihoods.

The strategies of the Big Three record labels - Universal Music Group (UMG), Warner Music Group (WMG), and Sony Music Entertainment (SME) - dictate the future, even for companies outside of the major label system. They are investing billions of dollars to keep your attention for as long as possible. Their moves signal the best opportunities, and the areas getting slept on - Trapital's Dan Runcie goes behind the moves of the labels which hold 69% of the recorded music revenue.

"Instead of enduring pain, it’s best to excise those demons entirely — through her music, Backxwash confronts the darkest parts of herself and depicts how impossible it can be to leave those parts behind" - Stereogum reviews the latest album by Canadian alternative rapper. "In expressing her pain so directly and viscerally, Backxwash’s music offers a sense of genuine catharsis and connection. It is, in its own haunting way, strangely comforting" - The Quietus adds. Collaborators on the album - clipping., Speedy Ortiz, Code Orange, Code Orange, Black Dresses - speak plenty of the sonic side of this record.

A month ago, during the latest Palestine-Israeli crisis, the K-pop Twitter account @sceneryfortae, dedicated to BTS' member V donated an undisclosed amount to iF Charity, a UK-based organisation that has been working to address the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip since 2002, and posted the screenshot of the receipt with the hashtags #SaveSheikhJarrah and #SavePalestine. The tweet set off a wave of similar acts of solidarity across Taehyung’s global fanbase, who donated various amounts to organisations worldwide. This set off a wave of actions - numerous accounts have been spreading awareness about the plight of Palestinians and pointing their followers towards resources to educate themselves, petitions to sign, and on-the-ground organisations to donate to. Huck Magazine goes to explain the power K-pop fans have demonstrated on the politics scene in the last few years.

Almost a century before Lil Nas X caused a stir at parts of the country music community with his song 'Old Town Road', author 'Harold Hersey' wrote 'The Lavender Cowboy', a song about a cowboy with only two hairs on his chest that saves the girl and gets the honor of being buried in the prairie with cacti commemorating his passing. Country Queer explores the life story of that song.

"Anime in particular is extremely popular across Latin America, but it has a special significance in Mexico, with a history dating back nearly 60 years" - Bandcamp goes to explain the influence of anime on Mexican underground music. "In 1964, 'Astroboy' was the first Japanese animated series to be dubbed and broadcast in Mexico, becoming a fixture of network television and followed in subsequent years by 'Speed Racer' and 'Captain Tsubasa'... Large Japanese diasporas in Peru and Brazil were also quick to embrace anime, as rapidly growing syndication blocks paved the way for Latin America’s golden age of anime and manga in the ‘90s".

The Face looks into the revival of pop punk with artists such as Machine Gun Kelly, Meet Me @ The Altar, Pinkshift, Lil Uzi Vert, and others, yet this time around the ecology of the genre is different. The artists breaking through 15 years ago were almost exclusively straight, white and male. But the new wave of pop-punk artists coming from many sides of society are eager to make the scene a safe space.

There's Madonna, Beyonce and Britney Spears on Rolling Stone's list of 30 sexiest videos of all times, yet the number 1 spot is being taken by Chris Isaac's 'Wicked Game' because "the smoldering passion exhibited by Isaak and Christensen had a vulnerability about it that still makes the video’s simple concept eye-popping decades later".

After reaching the top 10 on Billboard 200 chart three times, Polo G lands his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 this week as 'Hall of Fame' opens atop the tally, earning 143,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 17, Billboard reports. Migos’ 'Culture III' starts at No. 2, TWICE’s 'Taste of Love' debuts at No. 6, Bo Burnham’s 'Inside (The Songs)' jumps 116-7 after its first full tracking week of activity, and Maroon 5’s 'Jordi' bows at No. 8.