SBTRKT, the moniker of UK producer Aaron Jerome, is back with his first new music in six years. Teased earlier this week with a trailer featuring Seyan Patel and Chaneil Kular (Sex Education), ‘Bodmin Moor’ has now arrived alongside a video directed by production du THE REST. Watch and listen below.
‘Bodmin Moor’ follows SBTRKT’s 2016 non-album compilation Save Yourself. According to a press release, “this is merely the beginnings of a daring new chapter for SBTRKT.”
Chance the Rapper has teamed up with Joey Bada$$ for the new single ‘The Highs & The Lows’. The track, produced by DexLvL, comes paired with a video directed by Chance and filmmaker Troy Gueno. Check it out below.
‘The Highs & The Lows’ is the third in a series of interdiscplinary releases from the rapper, following ‘Child of God’, a collaboration with Gabonese artist Naïla Opiangah and Moses Sumney, and ‘A Bar About A Bar’, a collaboration with Chicago-based painter Nikko Washington. His latest features artwork from Gabonese photographer Yannis Davy Guibinga, and it debuted on Thursday at an art exhibit in Switzerland. The piece will be showcased this Sunday (June 19) for Juneteenth at The Dusable Museum of African American History in Chicago.
Regina Spektor stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night (June 16), performing her recent single ‘Becoming All Alone’. Watch it below.
The song is taken from Spektor’s forthcoming album Home, before and after, which is set for release next Friday (June 24) via Warner. In addition to ‘Becoming All Alone’, the follow-up to 2016’s Remember Us to Life also includes the previously shared single ‘Loveology’.
In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on June 17, 2022:
Just last night, Drake announced that his seventh album, Honestly, Nevermind, would be streaming at midnight. “7th studio album HONESTLY, NEVERMIND out at midnight,” he wrote on Instagram. The follow-up to September 2021’s Certified Lover Boy has now arrived, and it’s executive produced by Drake, Noah “40” Shebib, Oliver El-Khatib, Noel Cadastre, and Black Coffee. Only one featured guest is credited on the album: 21 Savage, who appears on the closing track ‘Jimmy Cooks’. In a lengthy statement accompanying the album, Drake concluded: “I got here being realistic/I didn’t get here being blind/I know whats what and especially what and who is by my side/Honestly…Nevermind. DEDICATED TO OUR BROTHER V.”
Michael Hadreas has returned with his sixth studio album as Perfume Genius. Following 2020’s Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, the music of Ugly Season was written for Perfume Genius and choreographer Kate Wallich’s immersive dance piece, The Sun Still Burns Here, which was performed in various cities in the US throughout 2019. The album came together through sessions with longtime collaborator Blake Mills and Alan Wyffels. Earlier this week, Perfume Genius unveiled its accompanying short film, Pygmalion’s Ugly Season, a collaboration with visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite. Read our review of the album.
Bartees Strange has followed up his 2020 debut Live Forever with Farm to Table, his first LP for 4AD. Ahead of its release, the Washington, D.C. artist shared the singles ‘‘Heavy Heart’, ‘Cosigns’, ‘Hold the Line’, and ‘Wretched’. “Farm To Table is basically about transitions,” Strange said in an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1. “I used to work on a farm in Oklahoma and grew up from working people you know? Like all my family, sharecroppers, farmers…. Now I find myself kind of at the table with all these people I used to look up to. This record is kind of about that transition.”
Flasher – now the duo of guitarist Taylor Mulitz and drummer Emma Baker – have dropped their sophomore LP, Love Is Yours, via Domino. It includes the previously unveiled songs ‘I’m Better’, ‘Sideways’, and the title track. Since the release of 2018’s Constant Image, bassist Daniel Saperstein has left the group, Mulitz has relocated to Los Angeles, while Baker is still based in Washington, DC. “Once we had this implosion, we let go of the pretence and confines that we had pigeonholed ourselves into,” Mulitz said of the process behind the album in press materials. “Going into this record, the vision was pretty simple: we wanted to write songs that came intuitively. We were leaning into that while consciously creating a real space of trust and openness.”
Remember Your North Star is the latest album from Brooklyn R&B singer-songwriter Yaya Bey. Out now via Big Dada, the record was co-produced with Phony Ppl’s Aja Grant and DJ Nativesun. Talking about the album, Bey said in press materials: “I saw a tweet that said, ‘Black women have never seen healthy love or have been loved in a healthy way.’ That’s a deep wound for us. Then I started to think about our responses to that as Black women. So this album is kind of my thesis. Even though we need to be all these different types of women, ultimately we do want love: love of self and love from our community. The album is a reminder of that goal.”
Andy Butler is back with a new Hercules & Love Affair album. In Amber, the follow-up to 2017’s Omnion, finds Butler reuniting with ANOHNI, who co-wrote and sang on five songs from Hercules & Love Affair’s self-titled 2008 debut. A series of singles preceded the LP, including ‘Grace’, ‘Poisonous Storytelling’, ‘One’, and ‘Dissociation’. “In dance music, the focus tends to be more on celebration, joy, desire, heartbreak,” Butler said in a statement. “But rage? Existential contemplation? Not so much… certain emotions seemed to be off limits. In some ways, In Amber is a record I didn’t know I had in me.”
Sound of Ceres — the audiovisual dream-pop project featuring members of Candy Claws – have issued their third album, Emerald Sea. The follow-up to 2017’s The Twin is narrated by acclaimed performance artist Marina Abramović and was previewed with the singles ‘The Glare’, ‘Arm of Golden Flame’, and ‘Sunray Venus’. “I envisioned myself journeying through these different realms – space, the land, the sea, the heavens – and following Marina’s character,” lead vocalist Karen Hover said in a statement. “I always saw her as a shadow figure that I couldn’t quite figure out.” Ryan Hover added: “The album’s story is an allegory for the emergence of mind and meaning from the matter of the universe, and its eventual fading, with a glimmer of hope at the end.”
Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler have a new collaborative album out titled For All Our Days That Tear the Heart. The record was previewed with the tracks ‘Footnotes on the Map’, ‘Seven Red Rose Tattoos’, and ‘The Eagle and the Dove’. “Right now, I feel like I’ll never make another album again, because I can’t imagine another album happening the way this one did,” Buckley said in a press statement. “It’s amazing that it even happened once. This obscure, organic, odd little thing that just found us.” Butler added: “More than anything, I wanted it to be joyous – properly joyous – because there is such joy in Jessie, there really is. In spite of the darkness and the intensity in these songs, I’m just flying when I listen back to them.”
Harkin, Honeymoon Suite; Horse Jumper of Love, Natural Part; Anteloper, Pink Dolphins; TV Priest, My Other People; Σtella, Up and Away; Foals, Life Is Yours; Nova Twins, Supernova; Logic, Vinyl Days; Mt. Joy, Orange Blood; Violet Skies, If I Saw You Again; ZORA, Z1; Alanis Morissette, The Storm Before the Calm; Lit, Tastes Like Gold; XAM Duo, XAM Duo II; Dylan Moon, Option Explore; Low End Activist, Hostile Utopia; Chloe Alexandra Thompson, They Can Never Burn the Stars.
If you are a reading enjoyer and have enough free time to dedicate to a summer reading book, but can’t decide what genre or author to pick, we will help you out. No matter whether you’ve already packed your laundry bag or are simply counting down the days until you can finally lay out that blanket and unwind, the greatest summer novels will give you an experience like you’re soaking up the rays regardless of what the environment is like. A great book can transform even the little pauses in between duties into a peaceful getaway, whether you’re sitting on a beach in your own garden or on the couch in the living room with the doors open and the fan running. Whether you’re looking for sizzling adventure, spine-tingling suspense, historically accurate fiction, or true-to-life autobiographies that offer you a glimpse into another person’s life, there are a plethora of options to choose from our list below.
Our first choice for your summer book will be “All the Lovers in the Night”, written by Mieko Kawakami. Fuyuko is a shy, solitary, and introverted woman who works as an independent editor. She’ll be thirty-five in a few months, and she has no idea how she’ll ever be in an emotionally or romantically fulfilling relationship with the way things are right now. She is tormented by memories of the past days. Fuyuko Irie despises her mirror because she sees a gloomy lady who can’t bring herself to smile. Fuyuko chooses to change, but there is always a price to pay. It’s an eloquent depiction of a life lived on the edges.
On Gin Lane by Brooke Lea Foster is a must-read this summer if you’re a fan of historical novels. In the summer of 1957, New York heiress Lee Farrows appears to have it all: a gorgeous fiancé, a swaggering fortune, and a beachfront hotel on Southampton’s Gin Lane. Lee’s portrait existence is unexpectedly disrupted when a horrific occurrence happens during the hotel’s opening weekend and she is expected to address her own mortality.
Stop looking for cheap essays that will not even tickle your imagination and instead, take this book to your hands. Sabrina & Corina, a nominee for the National Book Award, was Fajardo-first Anstine’s novel. Once again, she has returned with an intergenerational story about the Lopez clan, an Indigenous Chicano American family in the West. A heartfelt and personal tale. Using lyrical, unpretentious writing, Fajardo-Anstine beautifully captures the complexities of the several female characters in this novel, giving the reader a fresh outlook on how the previous time may help shape the present.
If you are in search of books to read this summer, perhaps an excellent romance like “Bridgerton” would suit you. Romance novels set in the summer heat are the epitome of perfect summer reading. Author Julia Quinn’s very successful ‘Bridgerton’ series is the subject of this proposal. When Quinn was in Dubai for the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in February, she revealed to us how Shonda Rhimes became a fan of her series. Producing executive Shonda Rhimes took books with her on vacation, because she is an avid reader. That’s what occurred to me. She also ran out of textbooks this time.
Anna, which is widely regarded as the “conclusive” memoir of Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, is a biography that tells the riveting tale of her life via conversations with the design powerhouse’s intimate coworkers. The book, which was authored by fashion writer Amy Odell, is now the number one bestselling on Amazon.
If you seek the best books to read this summer, you shouldn’t miss this masterpiece by Wole Soyinka. In the most recent book written by Wole Soyinka, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, four friends, each of whom is brilliant in their manner, make a pact to make Nigeria a better place. In this intricate critique of abuses of power and unethical practices, the writing is electrifying, and the conspiracies go deep.
This book hides a story that will make it one of your best summer reads for sure. Let’s find out why. By focusing on the people who were directly impacted by the spraying bullets, McBride creates an evocative portrait of everyone involved: the victim, the African-Americans and Latinx inhabitants who observed it, the white residents who lived nearby, the local police officers assigned to the case, and the representatives of the Five Ends Baptist Church, where Sportcoat served as deacon during the time of the incident.
With this book on your side, you can forget about having an essay shortener alongside – it won’t be needed anymore. It’s understandably written by Colson Whitehead, even for novices in the English language. “The Nickel Boys,” Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from 2019, serves as a prequel to this new book. Between 1959 and 1964, Harlem is the setting for this criminal novel and family tale.
For the ones that want to have a little fun while reading, the plot of this phenomenal book will be ideal. Grace Hadley, a 19-year-old housemaid, tragically died in a fire at the Hotel Nantucket in 1922, and the resort went from a golden era jewel to a substandard budget-friendly lodging to an uninhabited eyesore, until London millionaire, Xavier Darling, acquired it and completely refurbished it.
An orphaned shepherd kid becomes the unusual center of a power battle that tests all faith in a medieval dominion buffeted by natural calamity. He was raised by his father, a rural shepherd, who informed him that his mother had died in childbirth. Marek’s relationship with the blind rural nurse, Ina, who breastfed him as a baby, is among the few lonely individuals in his life.
A lot of people don’t want to bring The Brothers Karamazov with them to the beach because they think it’s too heavy for summer reading. A good beach book may be intelligent, literary, and interesting all at the same time. It’s also just a plain pleasure to read, and in these trying times, what’s wrong with that? To enter into the story, all you have to do is pick a time and place that works for you.
The public image of gambling has had many ups and downs over the years. Once considered purely a vice, gambling and casinos owe much of their cooler current image to pop culture. When we think of casinos, many of us picture James Bond in black tie, arching his eyebrow over a game of baccarat.
On the other hand, popular culture doesn’t always paint gambling in a glamorous light. Certain songs and movies haven’t shied away from portraying the seedier side of the activity. Gambling is now more accessible and acceptable than ever before, so let’s take a dive into some of the essential gambling references within popular culture.
Ian Fleming’s book Casino Royale was the first in the James Bond series, and some credit both the novel and the subsequent Bond movies with putting baccarat on the map. When Daniel Craig’s Bond featured in the first official Casino Royale movie, more than half a century after the book was first published, the casino scenes reflected the changes in taste that had taken place. While Connery’s Bond smouldered over the baccarat table, Craig’s version had moved on to poker for his tense casino scenes.
A far cry from the glamour of Bond is the 1995 crime epic Casino. Directed by the legendary Martin Scorsese, and showcasing the talents of Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone, this movie showed the uglier side of gambling. The plot follows a couple of mobsters as they make their mark in 1970s and 80s Las Vegas. Greed, power, money, drugs and murder all feature in this dark tale that laid bare the extent of mafia involvement in the scene during that time.
Despite the cool factor bestowed by Bond and other characters in the popular culture, gambling has always suffered from an image problem. The public are all too aware of the connotations of vice, crime and problem gambling. All that is changing now, with the proliferation of legal and secure online casinos that are accessible to all. One of the ways that these safe casino sites boost their image and visibility in a crowded market is with celebrity endorsements, and many of these celebs have found that it is a good way to make some easy money. These days, you can’t turn on the television without seeing some famous personality promoting safe online casinos.
Even if they are not actively endorsing a particular casino site, many celebs these days are enthusiastic and open gamblers. Canadian megastar Drake is known for his high-rolling casino nights, and Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul famously faced off against Cristiano Ronaldo in a game of poker. There’s no doubt that the involvement of famous names has elevated the profile of gambling in the public consciousness, especially when it comes to poker.
The era of songs about gambling seems to be mostly over, with most of the most recognisable ones belonging firmly in the category of golden oldies. There are some great tunes out there, covering the whole spectrum on the topic. Elvis was firmly on the side of glitz and glamour when he sang Viva Las Vegas back in 1968, but other songs are more ambiguous. Both Luck be a Lady – popularised by Frank Sinatra – and Billy Joel’s Easy Money tell tales of gamblers dicing with desperation.
More recently, Lady Gaga used a lot of gambling imagery in her smash hit Poker Face. This song is avowedly not about gambling, and all the language is used as a metaphor for flirting – and a bit more than that. What’s interesting about the song is that it showcases exactly how entrenched in our common language poker terminology has become.
Gambling features in a huge number of popular television shows, and it is a common conceit within sitcoms. Witness Monica and Rachel losing their apartment to Chandler and Joey after Monica’s competitive side couldn’t resist making the stakes too high. Barney from How I Met Your Mother was also portrayed as slightly addicted to gambling. On the more serious side, the hugely popular historical crime drama Peaky Blinders is largely about the gambling underworld of the early twentieth century.
Aside from these and numerous other examples, there are and have been many shows dedicated to gambling as a topic. This can range from televised poker competitions, to game shows, to docu-series that follow the lives of people who work in and frequent casinos.
There is no doubt that we find gambling to be a fascinating topic, as proven by its prevalence in popular culture. It can also be an engaging story-telling tool, or a convenient plot device. When you factor in the popularity of gambling with stars of movies, music and sports, it’s little wonder that we see and hear so much about it.
FKA twigs has released her new single ‘killer’, which she recently debuted during her ‘Tiny Desk (Home) Concert’ for NPR. Co-written with Jimmy Napes, Amanda Ghost, and Jonny Coffer, the track was produced by twigs and Coffer and features additional production by El Guincho. Check it out below.
Speaking about the new song, twigs said in a statement: “It’s dangerous to be a woman in love”- when at its worst the effects of heart break can define one’s trajectory much more than the beauty of the love itself, in my song ‘Killer’ I explore this concept. The navigation, the hunt and the kill. The death of promises, dreams and the future that was once promised. But like the wildest plucked roses, I find myself more beautiful delicately wilted, in shadow, forced solace, darkened at the edges and achingly thirsting to be tended to again.’”
FKA twigs dropped her mixtape CAPRISONGS back in January. She’s since unveiled videos for the tracks ‘meta angel’, ‘thank you song’, ‘oh my love’, and ‘which way’.
Steve Lacy has announced he has a new album on the way. Gemini Rights is set for release this summer via RCA, and it includes the new song ‘Mercury’, which was written, performed, and produced by Lacy. Check it out below.
“‘Mercury’ was done for like a year,” Lacy told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe. “The track was done for a year and then I didn’t write it till like a couple weeks before we finished the album. All of the singles, they all have a dual side, they all switch up, so like Mercury’s the first half and then the second half is something else, and then the singles do the same thing.”
Lacy issued his debut studio album, Apollo XXI, back in 2019. He’s since shared compilation record The Lo-Fis as well as collaborations with Thundercat (‘Black Qualls’), Love Regenerator (‘Live Without Your Love’), and Ravyn Lenae (‘Skin Tight’).
Flying Lotus has released two new tracks, ‘The Room’ and ‘You Don’t Know’, both of which feature vocals from Los Angeles-based soul singer Devin Tracy. Take a listen below.
Since releasing his last studio LP, 2019’s Flamagra, and the accompanying Flamagra (Instrumentals), Flying Lotus has composed the score for LeSean Thomas’ anime series Yasuke and shared the title theme for the documentary series They Call Me Magic. Earlier this year, he also announced his second feature film, a sci-fi horror movie called Ash.
Claud is back with a new single called ‘Go Home!’. The track “is about falling into that hole of feeling awkward and uncomfortable in your own skin that all you crave is going home and sliding into whatever is familiar,” the artist explained in a statement. Listen to it below.
Claud’s debut album, Super Monster, came out last year. They recently completed a run of shows opening for Phoebe Bridgers, whose label Saddest Factory Records released the LP.
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