Guitar hero Eric Clapton has announced the release of a new live album and concert film documenting the 2023 edition of his Crossroads Guitar Festival. The title, available in various configurations, including 4-CD/2-Blu-ray, 6-LP vinyl, 2-DVD (and streaming with Dolby ATMOS mix), arrives on November 29th, 2024, via Rhino.
Clapton hosted and curated the seventh installment of his festival on September 23rd and 24th, 2023, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. It notably marked the event’s return after a four-year break, selling out on both days. Once again, Clapton carefully assembled a powerhouse cohort of influential guitarists representing various eras and styles. The impressive lineup joining Clapton included Stephen Stills, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Sheryl Crow, Eric Gales, H.E.R., Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Los Lobos, John Mayer, The Marcus King Band, Taj Mahal, Roger McGuinn, John McLaughlin, Santana, The Wallflowers, and many more. Bill Murray served as the evening’s Master of Ceremonies.
The two evenings’ sets rotated between blues staples, American Songbook classics, and generational rock ‘n’ roll anthems including “Layla,” “Eight Miles High,” “I Put a Spell On You,” and “I Shot the Sheriff.”
Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival continues a legacy of its own, beginning with the first iteration in New York in 1999 and carried through Dallas, TX in 2004, Bridgewater, IL in 2007 and 2010, New York in 2013, and Dallas, TX in 2019. As always, all profits benefited The Crossroads Centre Antigua, a treatment and education facility for chemically dependent persons founded by Clapton.
Nilüfer Yanya formally announces her new album “My Method Actor”, out September 13th on Ninja Tune. The news arrives alongside the release of her new single, the near-title track “Method Actor,” and follows her recent single “Like I Say (I runaway),” which the New York Times described as, “reveling in contrasting textures” and The FADER called, “a jolting return.” Putting herself in an unnamed character’s shoes, “Method Actor” portrays a mini-life story in under four minutes. The accompanying visualiser was shot in an old hotel in Benidorm, Spain and is a one take video capturing Nilüfer sitting down to share the song’s story.
“It feels like it’s still there — I just don’t know what it is,” Nilüfer Yanya tells me from her home in London, a hand grazing her forehead as her eyes sail to the top left corner of the Zoom window.
We’ve reached an ebb in an otherwise easy, volleying conversation, the subject of faith slipping between whatever words we toss its way.
Questions of faith and destiny have always lived in Yanya’s music, and never more so than on “My Method Actor,” her luxurious paint box of a third full-length album. In her previous work, faith was always misplaced, destiny a bright-red inevitability; a plummet from the skies or rapidly approaching car wreck. On “My Method Actor”, Yanya’s heart rate has slowed alongside her compositions — rather than a pulley dragging her over the cliff’s edge, belief in something more has become a potential guide rope.
“I hadn’t really grown up religious, but there’s been religion in my family. Like, my dad’s Muslim. My mom, she’s not practicing, but she’s Catholic,” Yanya explains. “So I feel like I’ve grown up around religion, but not really being part of anything. And I kind of felt disconnected, in that way of feeling like you don’t belong.”
She continues, “So it kind of makes sense, that maybe I’d crave a kind of… everyone else is doing this, what is it that I can do? And I think maybe it’s just trying to create your own sense of faith or belief in something. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“I think a lot about what / I’m destined for / I’m dreaming of the end,” she sings on the shapeshifting “Made Out of Memory,” perhaps the cleanest summation of Yanya’s obsession with the forked path toward oblivion. As the climate catastrophe burns entire cities off the map and bombs wreak genocidal havoc, Yanya’s previously insular writing has cracked open, her firing synapses illuminating places far outside her own head.
“There are horrible things happening, and you have to keep believing and keep trying to challenge those things and make something good happen as a response,” she says.
If writing these songs is what Yanya is destined for — and if I’m destined to be here writing about them — it can be tough to square. How do you continue to create when creation feels so small in the face of material suffering, of apocalyptic enormity?
“It kind of feels more frivolous and less frivolous at the same time,” she says, laughing. “Like, it must mean something! But then it’s like, ‘Oh, of course it doesn’t mean anything,’ don’t be ridiculous.”
While Yanya is responsible for the melodies and lyrics on “My Method Actor”, the music was largely written by Yanya’s longtime creative partner and producer Will Archer. It’s a testament to the pair’s synergy that Yanya building her songs atop Archer’s compositions hasn’t discoloured her singular voice, though she says she sometimes gets hung up on the two’s evolving roles.
‘My Method Actor’, released September 13th, 2024 on Ninja Tune
The War on Drugs have steadily emerged as one of this century’s great rock and roll synthesists, removing the gaps between the underground and the mainstream, between the obtuse and the anthemic, making records that wrestle a fractured past into a unified and engrossing present. Led by Adam Granduciel, The New Yorker called them “the best American ‘rock’ band of this decade.”
Recorded on tour between February 2022 through December 2023 in America, UK, Europe and Australia, “Live Drugs Again” follows 2020’s “Live Drugs” and represents The War On Drugs at their ragged, righteous best. Bandleader Adam Granduciel comments, “Live Drugs Again” chronicles the evolution of these songs from the studio to stages all over the world; documenting our continued growth as a live band. This series ensures that these versions, and some of our favourite moments on stage, will live on.”
“Moon Mirror”, Nada Surf’s new record, has everything fans love and expect from them. Bittersweet anthems that begin quiet but explode into soaring harmonies? . Songs that are play-on-repeat heart punches?. Songs that are poetic and thought-provoking while also being absolute belt-at-the-top-of-your-voice-with-the-windows -down masterpieces? It’s all here.
For the past 30 years, Nada Surf has had the same core line-up: Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca, and Ira Elliot. “Moon Mirror”, is their first for New West Records, was produced by the band and Ian Laughton at Rockfield Studios in Wales. For the recording, Matthew, Daniel, and Ira were joined by their friend and longtime keyboard player Louie Lino.
“Moon Mirror” is a thrilling and moving leap forward for Nada Surf. The songs on the album are true to the human experience—as meaningful and mysterious and sometimes absurd as it is. There’s love, yes, but also grief, deep loneliness, doubt, wonder, and hope. These are not the songs of a band in their 20s. There is hard-won wisdom here, and hard-won belief in possibility—the kind that comes from falling down and getting back up.
Matthew Caws – Vocals, Guitar Daniel Lorca – Bass Ira Elliot – Drums Louie Lino – Keyboards
“Feed My Release,” a new single and visualizer from “Below a Massive Dark Land”,her forthcoming second album. Naima says of the song, “‘Feed My Release’ is mostly about regret. It’s a simple song I thought wasn’t worth recording for a long time until I started singing it with violinist Oliver Hamilton, and his harmonies brought it to life. Then, Holly Whitaker joined along with her amazing voice, as well as Cassidy Hansen, Clem Appleby, and Meitar Wegman, adding their parts, and the song in its current form was born! It’s a very collaborative arrangement & recording; everyone’s contribution to it is really their own.”
“Below a Massive Dark Land “ will be available Friday, September 27th, 2024, worldwide through Sub Pop and Memorials of Distinction. “Below…” is the follow-up to “Giant Palm“, one of 2022’s most critically acclaimed debuts.
Naima’s previously announced international tour dates for the summer and autumn of 2024 to support “Below a Massive Dark Land” Friday, December 13th in Paris at La Boule Noire. Along the way, Naima will perform solo (September 8th-15th), as a duo with Oliver Hamilton (November 6th), and with a four-piece band (November 7th-December 13th).
“Feed My Release” by Naima Bock From the upcoming album ‘Below a Massive Dark Land,’ out September 27th on Sub Pop Records
One of Mali’s most cherished and acclaimed bands, Songhoy Blues have today announced the release of their fourth album, “Héritage“. Released on Friday 17th January 2025,the 11-track album sees them reaching into the past to bring forward something more traditional, contemplative, soulful and unquestionably the band’s most transcendent release to date. It features some of Mali’s most renowned musicians & vocalists, including Afel Bocoum, Rokia Koné, Neba Solo, Madou Diabaté and more.
Talking about ‘Issa’, the first track to be taken from the album, Songhoy Blues shares:
“ISSA” means the river in the Songhoy language, to which we pay a vibrant tribute. This is why we are appealing for the river to be kept clean, for it to be known that it plays an important role in the lives of the people in the areas of fishing, agriculture and livestock farming. It is also used by living beings who also have the right to life, so let us avoid throwing toxic waste into the river because it covers a world for which we are the spokespeople. Water is the source of life for all species, so let’s keep our rivers clean. We are so thankful for the 2 rivers that flow through our country.
Thanks to you, Issa, for making many things in life possible.
“Héritage“, sees one of Mali’s most lauded groups move into a more acoustic & creative re-imagining of the “desert blues” style that has brought them global acclaim; it represents a marked contrast to the heavier sound of their prior album, and deeper exploration of their musical roots.
Charismatic, articulate and creative, the band burst onto the scene in 2013 with a powerful style and stage manner once described as “Timbuktu Punk”. Their music deals with issues of life and love in Mali, typically through the filter of five-note scales, rock rhythms, gritty vocals, and glittering guitar. While these elements remain present in their new album “Héritage“, they share the stage with more prominent & intimate grooves, sounds, instrumentation & vocal stylings from different ethnic traditions from around the country.
The Songhoy are an ethnicity living along the bend of the Niger river in northern Mali (their language is Songhai, hence the two spellings that are often used interchangeably) and Songhoy music is one of the backbones of the “desert blues” sound. With “Héritage“, Songhoy Blues pay tribute to some of the great musicians of the past, whose work continues to inspire them, giving “a big thank you to the ancestors who bequeathed works of art so that future generations could orient themselves’.
The experience of being in Bamako, an intensely musical city, with a melting pot of music, has led Songhoy Blues to rethink their own understanding of the concept of tradition. It does not come from one single source. “The mixing up of cultures didn’t begin today” comments lead guitarist Garba Touré. Migration and forced displacement also bring new perspectives to the notion of heritage in their music.
“Héritage” was recorded in the Remote Records Studio and Studio Moffou in Bamako, with co-producer Paul Chandler, and draws on the remarkable wealth of musical talent in the city. The album presents new compositions and reworkings of old classics. It is infused with the ethereal sounds of various traditional instruments, all in the hands of great Malian masters: kora (harp), soku (one-string fiddle), kamalengoni (8 string youth harp), flute, Senufo xylophone, and calabash percussion, plus guest vocalists.
Floating in and out are traces of takamba, the wondrous dance of the Tuareg; plus wassoulou music, Mande griot music, Senufo dance and more. Unexpectedly, a steel guitar wanders in, sounding eerily like the voice of the desert. All these tone colours are brilliantly woven into a rich tapestry which is both familiar and unexpected. All their songs have some element of social critique. “We are artists, we observe our society and we comment on it, giving advice and critiquing where necessary. This is our role.” says the guitarist Touré.
Nadia Reid returns with a new track, “Changed Unchained“, her first new music for four years and first for new label Chrysalis Records. Along with the track, Reid has announced details of a March 2025 headline tour of the UK and EU.
Joan Shelley returns with the “Mood Ring” EP is released by No Quarter on October 4th Shelley says the title track was inspired by: “the idea that heat and time are interlinked. That they tug and warp each other in space. I had read about block universe theory and it bothered me—if it were true, how do we really change anything? The song wove its own little message in response: this sense that all of us, our web of connections and the friction of our relationships, are the fuel that propels us through time… and that inevitably we are consumed by it. But what a spectacular thing to get a chance to ignite this vast, incomprehensible space with our lives. To have gotten an invitation to be here at all.”
releases October 4th, 2024
James Elkington – percussion, keys, bass, vocal harmony Nathan Salsburg – acoustic guitar, electric guitar Julia Purcell – harmonium Lou Krippenstapel – violin Jim Marlowe – Moog Joan Shelley – acoustic and nylon string guitars, baritone ukulele, kalimba, piano, vocal harmony
Among many highlights, Laura Barton profiles the remarkable redemption story of Christopher Owens, the former frontman with indie-rock classicists Girls, and whose new album “I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair” is one of my favourite records of the year so far. Elsewhere, I’m very happy to have found time to write a feature on psychedelic drone outsiders Spacemen 3, who according to one admirer, were nothing less than “the greatest English band of the late ’80s”. There’s more, of course – Van Morrison, Michael Kiwanuka, Peter Perrett as well as Steve Cropper, Suede, the Lijadu Sisters, Chuck Prophet and a rare meeting of minds between Gruff Rhys and Bill Ryder-Jones.
The Fat Angel Sings 