Country rockers Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson are the latest to be cast for Martin Scorsese’s upcoming film 'Killers of the Flower Moon', Deadline reports. Jesse Plemons would take on the lead role, next to Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. 'Killers of the Flower Moon' follows FBI agent Tom White (Plemons) as he tries to solve the serial murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights. A prominent local cattleman named William Hale (De Niro) and his cousin Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio) were among those implicated in the murders. Isbell will make his feature film debut as Bill Smith, an adversary of Burkhart, while Simpson portrays the infamous rodeo champion and bootlegger Henry Grammer.

"Taking from ambient, soundtrack, harsh noise, jazz, and a host of other types of music, 夢遊病者 simply does not care about fitting into one specific mold" as they "craft something indistinguishable from anything else" - Brooklyn Vegan writes in awe of this extraordinary debut album by the anonymous international avant-garde metal trio. The band as an entity is also quite fluid - their early Bandcamp releases credit them as a Russian/ Japanese/American entity, they use Chinese characters for their name (Sleepwalker in English), the title of the album 'Noč Na Krayu Sveta' is in Slovenian, while the band members are named as PBV, NN, and KJM.

“I remember listening to this song in the car while riding to middle school with my Mom. I think it has one of the strongest melodies ever written" - Jeremiah Fraites of the Lumineers wrote as he released his cover of Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box' on the 27th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, Spin reports.

Pitchfork did a great job of talking to the owners, bookers, and managers of 36 independent music venues in the US to see how they’ve been doing over the past year, and what their fans can do to help. The thing all of them are waiting for is best described by the Washington, D.C., 9:30 Club operator: "The show’s been booked, tickets have been sold, production is finished, soundcheck is done. The artist is excited and ready to go, and the audience is, too. It’s a magic moment".

Flying Lotus has scored and executive produced the new anime series 'Yasuke', which is set to premiere on Netflix on April 29th, and the trailer is out now. LeSean Thomas, a veteran of 'The Boondocks' and 'Black Dynamite', created and directed the series, while LaKeith Stanfield ('Atlanta') voices the titular character. Yasuke takes its name from the first Black samurai to serve a warlord in Japan.

H.E.R. has released a new video for her song 'Fight for You' from the 'Judas and the Black Messiah' soundtrack. The short clip offers a condensed history of the Black Panther Party and the events that led to the assassination of Fred Hampton, the subject of the new movie.

American DJ and record producer Bassnectar is being sued by two women who allege that he groomed, trafficked, and raped them while they were underage, EDM.com reports. The women are suing for damages, past and future emotional distress, and medical expenses. Last year, the popular EDM musician announced that he was “stepping back” from his music career after an Instagram page called @evidenceagainstbassnectar collected dozens of sexual misconduct accusations against him. Now, two of the women who shared their experiences on that page are taking the musician to court.

Sons Of Kemet share groovey 'Hustle' featuring Kojey Radical; Moist go pop-rawk on 'End of the Ocean'; Wavves share a seemingly feel-good song 'Sinking Feeling' about depression; bedroom pop meets hyperpop on Spill Tab's 'Pistolwhip'; Toronto poet Mustafa offers words of peace and hope on sad, sad 'Ali'; Rejjie Snow's 'Relax' says it all with the title.

'You’re History: The 12 Strangest Women in Music' by Lesley Chow is a look at twelve groundbreaking female artists who remain criminally underappreciated, including Neneh Cherry, Janet Jackson, Nicki Minaj, Azealia Banks, Kate Bush, Sade, and TLC. "I wanted to come up with a different value system, celebrating music which has a hot, immediate effect on your body - seizing your impulses as much as your conscious mind" - as the author had told in the Music Journalism Insider interview.

Rolling Stone renewed their list of great one-of albums by artists who published their debut LP and were promptly derailed by death, internal band politics or the simple desire to put something down and never pick it back up. Here's the top 10:

10. Madvillain - 'Madvillainy'

9. The Postal Service - 'Give Up'

8. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - 'L.A.M.F.'

7. Buena Vista Social Club - 'Buena Vista Social Club'

6. Minor Threat - 'Out of Step'

5. The Modern Lovers - 'The Modern Lovers'

4. Jeff Buckley - 'Grace'

3. Lauryn Hill - 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'

2. Derek & the Dominos - 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs'

1. Sex Pistols - 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols'

“My heart breaks for my people of Ethiopia as innocent civilians ranging from small children to the elderly are being senselessly murdered and entire villages are being displaced out of fear and destruction” - The Weeknd wrote on Instagram announcing his donation of $1m in food aid to Ethiopia, amid the ongoing conflict in the country’s Tigray region. This $1 million will provide 2 million meals through the United Nations World Food Program, CNN reports. The singer was born Abel Tesfaye in Canada to Ethiopian immigrant parents, Makkonen and Samra Tesfaye.

A group of Cuban musicians has released a rap/reggaeton song 'Patria y Vida', which has been viewed more than four million times on YouTube, blasting the dire economic situation on the island, BBC reports. The title 'Fatherland and Life' plays on one of Fidel Castro's favourite revolutionary slogans "Fatherland or Death". The official Havana has released its own pro-revolutionary song in response, an electro samba 'Patria o Muerte por la Vida' ('Homeland or Death for Life'), which got over 900 thousand views on YouTube.

"Sometimes when I am a bit bummed, I don’t look for music to lift me up; I look for music that captures my mood. For some reason, I find solace in listening to songs from my sad bastard brethren" - Medium writes introducing its playlist of sad music. The songs are predominantly about heartaches and hearts breaking, mostly singer-songwriter stuff - Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Whiskeytown, Lucinda Williams, etc.

Rod Wave has reached the top of the Billboard 200 chart with his new album 'SoulFly', which opens with 130,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 1, Billboard reports. It's his first No.1, while the album also notches the biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop album in 2021 in terms of units earned. SEA units of 'SoulFLy' comprise 126,000 (equaling 189 million on-demand streams), album sales comprise 4,000 and TEA units comprise less than 1,000.

"People are afraid of me because I'm different. But really, I'm just your typical gay black country rap sneaker entrepreneur. I put my pants on like everyone else: one ass-less chap at a time" - guest "Lil Nas X" told "Britney Spears" on Saturday Night Live. About his satan video, he said  - "you know that wasn't the real satan, right? It was a dude in a Halloween devil costume, because the real satan doesn't do like music videos, so, maybe chill!". Then to even things out, he also gave god a lapdance.

Morris "B.B." Dickerson, War co-founder, bassist, and vocalist died on Friday (4/2) at a Long Beach, California hospital, "after a long, undisclosed illness", reports Billboard. Dickerson co-wrote War classics as 'Low Rider', 'Why Can't We Be Friends', 'The Cisco Kid', 'Summer', and he contributed lead vocals to their psychedelic soul masterpiece 'The World Is A Ghetto'.

Pianist Rebeca Omordia has spent years looking for classical music composed by African authors, uncovering finally more than 200 composers of African art music. The most attractive features of African art music is its extraordinary variety. Some composers from Ethiopia and South Africa, for example, wrote music in a western classical style while incorporating traditional melodies and rhythms with results that are unique and uplifting in equal measure, Guardian reports. The result of Omodria's research is African Concert Series, an online series of African music she discovered, which ended this week.

"The band’s debut album arrives fully formed, ready to evacuate the contents of your brain and replace them with the odd images, bizarre obsessions, vivid sense memories, and banal judgements that live rent-free in the mind of another" - Pitchfork writes in its review of Dry Cleaning's 'New Long Leg'. Guardian deems it a "work of a terrifically focused group... a debut to be excited about". Exclaim like the paradox of it - "record that absorbs and spits back the unending noise of the world and asks that you take a second look, every common thing somehow made brand new".

Author and critic Nelson George met Andre 3000 of Outkast and had asked him about new music, but Andre expressed no interest in putting out a collection of new songs. His reason is very simple: “You write about what happens to you. Last week I got glasses. That was the big that happened to me. I don’t think people want records about my new glasses”. George believes middle-aged rapper is an oxymoron: "The youthful concerns of hip hop in the ‘90s, like the youthful concerns of trap music now, are very much tied into hot cars, fly girls and guys, the drugs of the moment, and the most current slang. Hip Hop freezes the MC, and the audience, in time because it’s composed of very specific references tied to its moment of creation. Its contemporary nature is a great strength, but a weakness too".

"Over the last year or so, country's rappers and MCs have taken up grime and drill as idioms, reimagining and ushering them into electrifying new directions" - Pitchfork says presenting the new generation of Brazilian women in these genres. "Brazilian artists have redrawn grime and drill’s borders, threading in loops and kicks from different branches of baile funk and samba right alongside the speaker-knocking bass of 8-bar and the icy synths of eskibeat, all while they rap about life in the favelas". The ones that stand out now are: N.I.N.A. - a DJ-turned-rapper and forthright social critic; Thai Flow - the Rio de Janeiro-based raper with a great flow; Áurea Semiseria - influenced by samba and gospel rap; Peroli - bringing grime and funk closer.

Factory New is a "virtual" record label with a roster comprised exclusively of virtual artists. Their first ‘signing’ is AI-powered robot rapper, FN Meka, who has 9 million followers (and over a billion views) on TikTok, MBW reports. FN Meka is voiced by a human, but everything else about him – from his lyrics to the chords and tempo underpinning his music – is based on AI. Anthony Martini, co-founder of FN, asks himself quite sensibly - “what is an ‘artist’ today? Think about the biggest stars in the world. How many of them are just vessels for commercial endeavors?”.

Acts of all levels use Bandcamp, but it has particularly suited working- and middle-class artists with few resources simply looking to make a decent living off their work, filling a void that has become more pronounced as the music industry has gone digital - Billboard writes about the beloved streaming service. They proved this in the last year with Bandcamp Fridays, when Bandcamp waives its cut of sales - 15% of digital, 10% of physical - and passes along all revenue to artists. With this initiative, Bandcamp directed $48.3 million toward artists and labels from over 800,000 customers, and that’s on top of the $148 million it has paid out from normal sales during that time frame. To date - Bandcamp was started in 2007 - it has paid out over $702 million to hundreds of thousands of artists and more than 9,000 labels that can receive the money relatively quickly.

A great and fun story about creativity, putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, and having fun on the way. Son, John Mayer first released a snippet of his new song 'Use Me'. British musician Mary Spender just couldn't wait to the finished song, so she just finished it herself in John Mayer style. YouTube musicologist and jazz music bassist Adam Neely wanted to add his touch to it, so he reharmonized the version Spender wrote, explaining, of course, on the way, the whys and the hows. Great fun!

Toronto organization Over the Bridge has created “new” Nirvana, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Doors songs using artificial-intelligence software to approximate their songwriting, Rolling Stone reports. In "new" Nirvana case, everything other than the vocals - the work of Nirvana tribute band frontman Eric Hogan - from the turns of phrase to the reckless guitar performance, is the work of computers. The tune, titled 'Drowned in the Sun', is part of Lost Tapes of the 27 Club, a project featuring songs written and mostly performed by machines in the styles of other musicians who died at 27: Cobain, Jimi Hendrix ('You're Gonna Kill Me'), Jim Morrison ('The Roads Are Alive'), and Amy Winehouse ('Man I Know'). Each track is the result of AI programs analyzing up to 30 songs by each artist and granularly studying the tracks’ vocal melodies, chord changes, guitar riffs and solos, drum patterns, and lyrics to guess what their “new” compositions would sound like. Over the Bridge helps members of the music industry struggling with mental illness.

Scooter Braun has sold the entirety of his Ithaca Holdings to South Korea’s HYBE, formerly known as Big Hit Entertainment, and the home of K-pop superstar BTS. A regulatory filing in Korea shows that HYBE has agreed to pay a total of $1.05 billion for Ithaca, Music Business Worldwide reports. This deal brings together a range of services including management, label services and publishing for global artists BTS, TXT, SEVENTEEN, NU’EST, GFRIEND, ENHYPEN, ZICO, Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, J Balvin, Demi Lovato, Thomas Rhett, Florida Georgia Line, Lady A and more.

Spanish singer-songwriter and rapper C. Tangana makes a detour on his newest album 'El Madrileño - on his third long-playing release the Madridian adds flamenco and folk elements to his hip-hop. He didn't do it alone - twelve out of fourteen tracks are a collaboration with other renowned artists from many countries and ages. Speaking to Rolling Stone he said - "it can please anyone in the world and you don’t have to be very intellectual for something to surprise you at a sound level".

"The Alchemist creates a gorgeous soundscape that sounds like it pulls from warped jazz and soul samples, psych-rock guitar, trippy film scores, and more... woods and ELUCID have responded to that by rapping in a way that's just a little harder and more direct" - Brooklyn Vegan writes in praise of the collaborative album by New York rap duo and California producer. Stereogum goes into the metaphysics of the album: "It’s still about power and control and the way systems are rigged to continue use people as batteries".

"One of the most ​immersive novels I’ve ever read….This is a thrilling work of polyphony—a first novel, that reads like the work of an old hand” - Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about debut novel by Dawnie Walton 'The Final Revival of Opal & Nev'. It's about the meteoric rise and break-up of a fictional 1970s rock duo, which made Washington Post reviewer to write - "at times, I held my breath, wondering if the novel could sustain its tightrope act — balancing its array of voices, its fictional history with actual history". Kirkus reviews writer praises the "intelligently executed love letter to Black female empowerment and the world of rock music".

“A lot of young Black kids don’t have healthy outlets, writing has become mine. It’s beautiful to take tremendous pain and turn it into something powerful” - LA-based rapper and producer Navy Blue says in an extensive Pitchfork interview. He released his first two albums in 2020, and the reaction of his fans is what makes a difference to him: "What really touches me is just how many people are touched by the music. The messages I get talking about 'I felt this too' are priceless to me. That’s when I realized what I’m doing is special because that means more to me than making money off of it. Of course, being able to take care of people and buy nice things is great. But you need to be able to help yourself while also helping other people. Being honest in my music is how I learned to love myself".

Coldplay, HAIM, Michael Kiwanuka, Damon Albarn, Kano, Idles Wolf Alice, will perform at a Glastonbury ticketed livestream event on May 22, Music Ally reports. Performances will take place at various festival landmarks, and sets will broadcast as part of a five-to-six hour production directed by Paul Dugdale. The four airings have been staggered for different timezones - at 7 p.m. in BST, EDT, PDT, and AEST. Tickets cost £20 from WorthyFarm.live, the capacity is unlimited, with funds supporting the festival and its charities. Performers waived their fees. On the other side of the Atlantic, and a few months later everything is happening old-school way. Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival will return to Manchester, Tennessee, from September 2-5, 2021, with Grand Ole Opry, Megan Thee Stallion, Foo Fighters, Tame Impala, Lizzo, the Creator, and Lana Del Rey headlining, according to NPR.