Rufus Wainwright teams with acclaimed producer Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Crowded House, Suzanne Vega) for this single he’s calling his first pop release since 2012’s Out of the Game. “Trouble In Paradise” is about the fashion world but also applies to the state of the planet,” says Rufus, adding that it’s got “a sense of sophistication and an animalistic instinct.” Stay tuned for more in 2020.
Meet Stimmerman, a punk-infused solo artist who knows how to combine heavy guitar riffs and a whole lot of attitude. It’s not hard to see what we’re talking about if you listen to, for instance, her latest single “It Shows,” which has one of the sickest, distorted, punk rock guitar riffs you’ll hear this year, The song comes from Stimmerman’s forthcoming “Goofballs” album which just so happens to be the first full-length released under the Stimmerman moniker.
The album traverses the subjects of loss and survivor’s guilt, related to her experience seeing a good friend pass away due to a fatal drug overdose at a young age. Side A of Goodfalls is about looking back at the environment in which her relationship began with the friend, a reality filled with the pressures of children having to reach a certain level of success, mature faster than they should be, and the general difficulties of being an adolescent living in Brooklyn. Side B is more of an introspective look at grief and culpability, and coping with her friend’s passing. The name of the album Goofballs has a double meaning, where from one point of view, the album explores more of Stimmerman’s sense of humour, but on the other hand, it also is a reference to the meaning of goofballs within the drug culture where it’s meant to describe the class of drug barbiturates.
Stimmerman, real name Eva Lawitts, is a native New Yorker, active in the music industry for many years. She has played on various records by various artists and toured with many musicians, including Vagabon and Princess Nokia. She is also half of the team behind the creation of Wonderpark Studios in Brooklyn and previously released the debut EP Pleasant Vistas In a Somber Place.
This week North London band Sorry shared a new song, “Right Round the Clock,” via a video for the track. The new single is taken from the band’s forthcoming debut album, “925”, which is due out in spring 2020 via Domino Recordings. The exact release date and other album details are to be announced. The band’s Asha Lorenz directed the video alongside frequent collaborator Jasper Cable-Alexander.
Lorenz had this to say about the video in a press release: “The video is supposedly a daydream hallucination we did with our friend Jasper. Bit sexy bit silly, make what you like of it hope you enjoy!”
Sorry is led by childhood friends Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen and the lineup is rounded out by Lincoln Barrett on drums and bassist Campbell Baum. Previously the band’s track “Jealous Guy” (not a John Lennon cover), was their debut.
British experimental musician Anna Meredith has released a new album, “Fibs”, via Black Prince Fury . Now that the album is out, we can highlight one of our favorite album tracks that wasn’t already a pre-release single: “Killjoy.” The eagerly anticipated second studio album, Fibs, due for release on 25th October via Moshi Moshi/Black Prince Fury.
Arriving three and a half years on from the release of her Scottish Album of the Year Award-winning debut studio album Varmints, FIBS is 45 minutes of technicolour maximalism, almost perpetual rhythmic reinvention, and boasts a visceral richness and unparalleled accessibility.
Previously Meredith had shared Fibs’ first single, “Paramour,” via a hypnotic video for the track featuring a Lego train traveling around Meredith and her band as they perform the song. It’s surely one of the best music videos of the year. Then she shared another song from the album, “moonsmoons,” as well as an Augmented Reality app for the song that uses Spatial Audio so that you can place various instrumental parts of the song in various areas in whichever space you are in. Then she shared “Inhale Exhale,” in which she sang the song in a carwash.
FIBS is the follow-up to her acclaimed 2016-released debut album, Varmints. Since then she has kept busy, doing the soundtrack to the Bo Burnham-directed film Eighth Grade and working as a classical composer. And, a press release points out, that she “was recently named a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s birthday honors list for services to music, making her Anna Meredith MBE.”
Of the album title FIBS, in a previous press release Meredith said fibs are “lies – but nice friendly lies, little stories and constructions and daydreams and narratives that you make for yourself or you tell yourself.”
released October 25th, 2019
Dan Bejar returns in January with his latest album, “Have We Met”, which he’ll support with an extensive 2020 tour.
Destroyer came to be when, in 1996, Dan Bejar released the influential lo-fi compilation “We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge”. Despite the poor sound quality of the recordings on the album, it managed to garner critical success thanks to its catchy melodies and Bejar’s use of obscure and sometimes downright confusion lyricism.
The follow-up, 1998’s “City of Daughters”, saw Bejar joined by John Collins. who complimented the record, and noted that it still managed to sound “homespun” despite the fact that the band had used a professional recording studio this time. Also praised was the return of Bejar’s trademark poetry, something which would become a recognisable constant throughout the band’s later output.
In 2000, they released “Thief”, an album which saw them attempt to deliver their trademark songwriting style with the help of a backing band. The album’s lyrics, many believe, conveyed Bejar’s thinly-veiled feelings of the music industry. Again, the album received generally positive reviews from major outlets.
Since then, the band has continued to progress as an entity; first by developing their character sound with “Streethawk: A Seduction” in 2001, and then returned to their roots with the rougher-sounding “This Night” in 2002. The album was mixed in less than a week and polarised critics, although Bejar himself credits it as being his favorite Destroyer record.
Many of the band’s diverse and unique influences have managed to make their impact on Destroyer releases, including Miles Davis and Roxy Music. Over the span of their nearly twenty-year career, this has allowed them to produce wildly different and adventurous works, while still managing to keep them firmly tied in to Destroyer’s philosophy and style.
From the album “Have We Met,” out January 31st, 2020.
Coldplay are releasing a new album, “Everyday Life”, on November 22nd via Parlophone/Atlantic and this week they shared its first two singles: “Orphans” and “Arabesque.” The album was announced via postcards sent to fans and has been touted as an experimental double album, with one side titled “Sunrise” and the other “Sunset.” “Orphans” is a bit Coldplay-by-numbers, but “Arabesque” is much more interesting. It’s nearly six minutes long and has an Afrobeat vibe, which makes sense considering Fela Kuti and is band contribute horns to it (it also features Stromae). If the rest of the album sounds more like “Arabesque” than “Orphans” then it could turn out to be pretty experimental by Coldplay standards.
We’ll have to wait and see. But for now “Arabesque” is one of their coolest, most interesting songs the band has released in years.“Orphans” and “Arabesque” are available now on a seven-inch single via Third Man. Coldplay will be performing on Saturday Night Livefor the sixth time on November 2nd.
The album’s cover art is “based around a 1919 photo of guitarist Jonny Buckland’s great-grandfather’s band.”
Coldplay released their last album, their seventh, A Head Full of Dreams, back in December 2015 via Parlophone/Atlantic and released a follow-up EP, Kaleidoscope EP, in July 2017,
Taken from the new album, “Everyday Life”, out November 22nd.
We are very excited to report that Coldplay’s eighth album, Everyday Life, will be released on Friday, November 22 on CD, vinyl, cassette and digital formats. The 53-minute double album is divided into two halves, Sunrise and Sunset. The album’s cover image is based around a 1919 photo of Jonny’s great-grandfather’s band.
King Princess the songwriter Mikaela Straus, now aged 20, launched her recording career early last year with “1950,” a hit that begins with a blunt statement about her sexual orientation: “I hate it when dudes try to chase me.” Then it delves into an infatuation “tell me why my gods look like you” while imagining the repressed 1950s, when homosexuality was expected to stay closeted.
The music had the same dual perspective, melding current and retro. King Princess is signed to Zelig, the label run by the producer Mark Ronson; she sang on his album, “Late Night Feelings,” and she shares his penchant for blurring past and present. In “1950,” subterranean bass throbs and digitally tweaked drums and backup vocals merge with the vintage warmth of hymn like piano and reverb-heavy guitar chords, while the song’s structure could have come out of a 1960s pop factory like the Brill Building. King Princess, who describes herself as genderqueer and placed her sexuality upfront even more so on the songs that would join “1950” on her 2018 EP, “Made My Bed” and exulted in the enduring power of desire and love.
She carries that approach candid and forthright while grounded in past generations’ pop onto her full-length debut album, “Cheap Queen.” She sings about self-doubt and self-confidence, passion and longing, connection and betrayal; barely out of her teens, she’s a young person sorting things out for herself, and human inconstancy isn’t bound by gender. While King Princess writes about 21st-century romance one new track is “Watching My Phone” — the music places her songs on a longer timeline, full of ghosts from previous pop eras.“Cheap Queen” is King Princess’s debut album on Mark Ronson’s imprint, Zelig.
In “Homegirl,” the singer is captivated by a woman who also draws male attention: “We’re friends at the party/I’ll give you my body at home,” she promises. The tune is a waltz, set in King Princess’s huskier lower range; strummed acoustic guitar and simulated vibraphone make the song hover and sway like K.D. Lang looking back to Patsy Cline. In “Prophet,” minor-key electric piano chords, distant chimes and a film-noir backbeat gently push King Princess’s breathy confession: “I can only think about you.”
She reaches back to folk-rock for “You Destroyed My Heart,” which decides, “Now I want somebody good.” And “Ain’t Together” about an iffy long-distance relationship echoes late-1960s baroque pop, with a relaxed tempo, backup voices going “doo-doo-doo-doo” and major-to-minor-to-major harmony shifts as King Princess insists, “I can’t let this fall apart.” While the lyric video toys with masculine and feminine roles — football player, cheerleader the music is all about yearning.
Straus is the daughter of a recording engineer, and she grew up around studio equipment and musicians. Ronson is credited for some post production work in two songs, but throughout the album, King Princess is her own producer (with collaborators including the guitarist Nick Long and the engineer Mike Malchicoff) as well as a major part of her studio backup band; she programmed beats and played keyboards, bass, drums and guitar. Most of the songs are midtempo, keyboard-centered ballads, harking back to Fiona Apple (with whom Straus has remade one of Apple’s songs, “I Know”) and perhaps Stevie Wonder, Carole King and the piano-centric moments of the Beatles.
She also knows her way around the hip-hop arsenal of loops and samples. The title song on “Cheap Queen” revolves around sampled movie dialogue with looped keyboard chords and programmed drums as King Princess considers her ascending career and its new ethical quandaries: “Since everyone wants me it’s harder to be myself,” she sings.
Nonesuch Records releases the cast album for the critically acclaimed Broadway production of David Byrne’s American Utopia, with music and lyrics by David Byrne; it is available now. The two-CD set will be released on November 22nd, a vinyl edition will be available this winter.
“Dazzling, rapturous and jubilant,” exclaims the New York Times of the show. “Byrne puts the central tenet of making contact with a world outside your mind into dynamic, sensory practice onstage.”
“Astonishing,” raves Hollywood Reporter. “A knockout celebration of music, dance and song. Pure bliss.”
“A heady swirl of hope for our anxious times,” says Rolling Stone. “The concert-theater-dance spectacle finds solace in human connections … a tonic for our tumultuous times…”
American Utopia began as an album, also released by Nonesuch, which received a Grammy nomination and was the first by Byrne to reach #1 on the Album Chart; it was also his first to reach the Top Five on the Billboard 200 chart. The concert tour in support of American Utopia, which inspired the Broadway show, included songs from the new album along with music from Talking Heads and Byrne’s solo career. Byrne and the ensemble performed more than 150 dates in twenty-seven countries over nine months. The British publication NME said it “may just be the best live show of all time.”
Byrne performs a song from David Byrne’s American Utopia on Jimmy Kimmel Live! during a special broadcast from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) October 22nd. Additionally, Byrne and the Broadway ensemble will be musical guests on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 19th.
David Byrne’s American Utopia features David Byrne with Jacquelene Acevedo, Gustavo Di Dalva, Daniel Freedman, Chris Giarmo, Tim Keiper, Tendayi Kuumba, Karl Mansfield, Mauro Refosco, Stéphane San Juan, Angie Swan, and Bobby Wooten III; Davi Viera also performs on the album. The show’s design team includes Rob Sinclair (lighting) and Pete Keppler (sound). Karl Mansfield and Mauro Refosco are Musical Directors. Choreography and Musical Staging is by Annie-B Parson. Alex Timbers serves as Production Consultant.
David Byrne’s American Utopia is the once-in-a-lifetime Broadway event that delivers “an experience unlike anything else” and marks a major cultural milestone in the worlds of music and theater. David Byrne shares the spotlight with a diverse ensemble of eleven musical artists from around the globe to deliver “a marvel of staging and motion” that’s a “thought-provoking example of the power of live music” .
David Byrne’s recent works include the launch of Reasons to be Cheerful, an online magazine focused on solutions-oriented stories about problems being solved all over the world (2019);
Byrne curated Southbank Centre’s annual Meltdown festival in London in 2015. A co-founder of the group Talking Heads (1976–88), he has released eight studio albums as a solo artist and worked on multiple other projects, including collaborations with Brian Eno, Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, and Jonathan Demme, among others. He also founded the highly respected record label Luaka Bop. Recognition of Byrne’s various works include Obies, Drama Desk, Lortel, and Evening Standard awards for Here Lies Love; an Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe for the soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor; and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Talking Heads. Byrne’s work as a visual artist has been published and exhibited since his college days, including photography, filmmaking, and writing. He lives in New York City.
After releasing the impressive classic rock-leaning MCIII in 2015, Mikal Cronin pivoted to spending a few years playing and recording with his old friend Ty Segall’s band. When he did turn back to his own muse, he spent time holed up in a cabin in the California hills reflecting on recent heartbreak and writing songs.
With the help of producer Jason Quiver of Papercuts, Segall and members of his band including guitrarist Emmett Kelly of Cairo Gang, Cronin set about putting them on tape. Much like the expansive, dense music on MCIII, Seeker isn’t anything close to resembling his early power pop in the garage sound. This is huge, imposing music that’s clothed in full arrangements of layered guitars, swelling background vocals, various keys and orchestral strings with Cronin singing with fierce passion and rueful regret. It builds on the sturdy frame of MCIII and delivers bigger emotions, trickier melodies and more sound.
The opening one-two punch of “Shelter” and “Show Me” is a perfect table setter; two wide-screen ballads that let the listener know that Cronin is aiming for the heights and hitting them with ease. Both songs have the clastrophic, almost murky feel of the darker side of AOR; “Shelter” comes across like a mix of Led Zeppelin mystery and Tom Petty swagger, “Show Me” is like a distant cousin of Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” as played by Neil Young & Crazy Horse circa Zuma. The rest of the album doesn’t stray too far from these classic rock influences and the ghost of Petty hangs heavily over songs like the chiming “Fire” and “Caravan,” which sounds like the dark timeline Traveling Wiburys thanks to the minor chords and evil boogie beat. “I’ve Got a Reason” goes one generation further back and lifts the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” while adding a layer of metallic grit and Cronin’s pleading vocals. No matter the stylistic variation found on Seeker — and it goes from spare acoustic ballads (On the Shelf“) to raging rockers that deserve to be cranked real loud (“Guardian Well”) — Cronin’s songs are hard-hitting, sticky and emotionally wrenching, the band plays with passionate fire and the production goes a long way toward capturing a live in the studio feel that’s loose and rambling. Fans of Cronin’s early, less complicated work might long for a return to those days, but those days are long gone. For anyone who thought MCIII was heading in a direction that sounded promising, “Seeker” arrives at the destination in a tumbling, exciting cloud of dust, sound and craft.
Mikal Cronin keeps close company with garage-rock wonderkid Ty Segall, so it’s no wonder the like-minded musicians often tread onto each other’s turf when it comes to songwriting. But unlike Segall, Cronin has always been at his best when he’s crafting pristine pop melodies—and weaving impassioned harmonies behind them. “You Gotta Have Someone” perfectly illustrates the sharp dichotomy behind Cronin’s songcraft. It’s got a bubbly melody and cordial, carefree lyrics—but it also has its fair share of scuzzy, distorted guitars to boot.
Taken from the 7″ single “Tide” which came out December 2011 on Goner Records.
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Posted: October 24, 2019 in FESTIVALS, MUSIC
Tags: Butlins Bognor Regis, Rockaway Beach
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