UK goth pioneers Bauhaus have returned with their first new song in 14 years. Listen to ‘Drink the New Wine’ below.
The new song was recorded remotely by all four members of the group – Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash, Kevin Haskins, and David J – during lockdown last year. The track was created using the Surrealists’ ‘Exquisite Corpse’ device, with each of the members exchanging audio files without hearing what the rest of the group had done.
Bauhaus’ last album, Go Away White, was released in 2008. Back in 2019, the band reunited for the first time in 13 years. They’re set to head out on tour again this year, starting in May.
Harry Styles has announced a new album called Harry’s House. The former One Direction singer’s third solo LP arrives on May 20 via Columbia. Check out a trailer for the album below, and scroll down for the cover artwork.
Harry Styles’ last album was 2019’s Fine Line. It followed his self-titled solo debut, which came out in 2017, a year after One Direction went on hiatus. Styles is one of the headliners at the 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and is set to tour the UK later this year, with support from Mitski.
Ahead of the release of their new album Famously Alive this Friday (March 25), Guerilla Toss are sharing one more single from it called ‘Live Exponential’. It follows previous entries ‘Cannibal Capital’ and ‘Famously Alive’, both of which made our Best New Songs segment. Give it a listen below.
In a statement, frontperson Kassie Carlson explained that ‘Live Exponential’ “is about living to the fullest and beyond. It’s about having all the experiences possible and using them to build your understanding of yourself and the world around you. It’s about telling yourself you’re special until you believe it and feeling Godly just for yourself. It’s about severing the primal need for outside approval and taking active action to get what you want and need.”
Flock of Dimes has announced Head of Roses: Phantom Limb, a compendium release to her latest album, 2021’s Head of Roses. Out April 15 via Sub Pop, it features unreleased tracks written around the same time as the album, as well as demos, live performances, and covers. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘It Just Goes On’, alongside a video co-directed by Jenn Wasner and Spence Kelly. Check it out below.
“This is perhaps one of the most simple and direct songs I’ve ever made (and, also, one of my favorites!) – so it made sense to try and create a video that was similarly straightforward and heart-on-sleeve,” Wasner explained in a press release. “I haven’t been to many parties over the past few years (for obvious reasons) so it felt particularly surreal to stage this one with some of my actual friends in Durham, NC. The party was fake but the feelings were real. Thanks so much to my friends for letting me invite them to a party and then force them to watch me be an absolute bummer the entire time.”
Head of Roses: Phantom Limb Tracklist:
1. It Just Goes On (Recorded at Sunfair Studios in Joshua Tree, CA)*
2. Go With Good (Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)*
3. Price of Blue (NPR“Tiny Desk” version; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)
4. Through Me (Adult SwimSingles Series contribution; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)
5. Wonder (Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)*
6. Two (Live at Betty’s Version; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)
7. Hard Way (Live at KEXP version; Recorded at Sunfair Studios in Joshua Tree, CA)*
8. The Weakness in Me (Joan Armatrading cover; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)*
9. Like So Much Desire (Live piano version; Recorded at Manifold Recording in Pittsboro, NC)*
10. One More Hour (Live at Betty’s Version; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)
11. Lightning (Acoustic Demo; Recorded in the B room at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)*
12. Amelia (Joni Mitchell cover; Recorded at home in Carrboro, NC & Ko Arts Residency program at The Columns in New Orleans, LA)*
13. Awake for the Sunrise (Live at Betty’s Version; Recorded at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, NC)*
14. Spring in Winter (Solo piano version; Recorded at Manifold Recording in Pittsboro, NC)*
Spoon have released the Wild EP, featuring three new versions of their Lucifer on the Sofa single ‘Wild’. The original track was co-written by Jack Antonoff, who contributes a reworking of the song titled ‘Jack Wild’. Also featured is ‘Trashy Wild’, as well as a remix by reggae and dub icon Dennis Bovell. Take a listen below.
Lucifer on the Sofa, Spoon’s tenth studio album, arrived earlier this year via Matador.
Talking about the inspiration behind the song, Greet Death’s Sam Boyhtari explained:
At the end of 2020 I was living with my partner Larissa in an apartment on the North side of Chicago. I was staying up until 5 or 6 in the morning every night and experiencing some terrible panic attacks. One night Larissa woke up and sat with me on the couch, talking me through an especially awful attack. The living room was dark, there was a CTA station across the street that gave us a little bit of light at night. It was our first time living together, and a time I now look back on very fondly. Larissa would go to work and I would work from home all day in her former roommate’s empty bedroom. At night, we would hang out until she went to bed, then I would put a horror movie on the TV and listen to music through headphones at the same time like a fucking weirdo. Despite the turmoil I was going through, I felt very comfortable in that place. So one day while Larissa was at work and I was alone in the apartment, I wrote a song about it.
The Range, the moniker of producer James Hinton, has announced his first album in six years, Mercury. The follow-up to 2016’s Potential arrives on June 10 via Domino and includes a new single called ‘Ricercar’, which you can check out below.
“A Ricercar in a musical context is a prelude fugue that kind of sets the tableau of a piece to follow,” Hinton explained in a press release. “I first heard about the concept of a Ricercar in a biography of Bach, who famously encoded his own name in a piece (H having been interchangeable as the name for B-flat at the time). At the time I wrote this song I was listening to a lot of rap from the 90s, specifically DJ Premier beats. As such I was rapidly collecting breaks and had just stumbled upon the Chief Kamanawanalea break by the Turtles and found that if I reordered the sections I could make this kind of palindromic composite break that seemed to propel the song along.”
He added: “This song features a vocal sample from Instagram of a singer covering Tamar Braxton’s ‘My Man.’ The lyrics are quite personal to me and are a good example of what I try to do in a lot of my songs. I tend to try to find a way to say something that I would never be able to say out loud. I think of my editing of lyrics as a pressure release.”
Mercury Cover Artwork:
Mercury Tracklist:
1. Bicameral
2. 1995
3. Urethane
4. Ricercar
5. Nor For Me
6. Relegate
7. A Tree Day
8. Balm
9. Cantor
10. Every Good Thing
11. Violet
Zola Jesus has announced her sixth full-length album, Arkhon. The follow-up to 2017’s Okovi is slated for release on May 20 via Sacred Bones. Lead single ‘Lost’, which samples a Slovenian folk choir, is out today alongside a music video directed by Mu Tunç and shot on location in the Cappadocia area of Turkey. Check it out below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
Talking about the track, Nika Roza Danilova said in a press release: “It’s true. Everyone I know is lost. Lost hope, lost future, lost present, lost planet. There is a collective disillusionment of our burning potential. As we stray further from nature, we drift from ourselves. ‘Lost’ is a sigil to re-discover our coordinates and claim a new path.”
Of the video, she added: “I wanted to shoot the video in a place that carried a lot of energy, with someone that I felt understood the spiritual backbone of the song. It was a surprisingly natural process to make this video with Mu Tunc in Turkey. I put my faith in him and in Cappadocia, a labyrinthine city built within 60 million-year-old caves. Throughout human history these caves have served as a citadel for so many different groups of people who went there to get lost. It is a testament to the resilience of humanity, and the durability of our earth.”
Tunç commented: “The story of ‘Lost’ is a visual litany of devotion. Reflects the exodus of the true self through the mystical environments of Cappadocia. Zola Jesus is for me like an outcast philosopher of today’s confused society.’’
On Arkohn, Danilova collaborated with producer Randall Dunn and percussionist Matt Chamberlain. “When I look back at my work, I see there’s a theme where I fixate on my fear of the unknown,” she said. “That really came into fruition for this record, because I had to let go of so much control. I had to surrender to whatever the outcome would be. That used to be really hard for me, and now I had no other choice.”
The title of the album means “power” or “ruler” in Ancient Greek, and is also relevant in Gnosticism.”Arkons are a Gnostic idea of power wielded through a flawed god,” Danilova explained. “They taint and tarnish humanity, keeping them corrupted instead of letting them find their harmonious selves. I do feel like we are living in an arkhonic time; these negative influences are weighing extremely heavy on all of us. We’re in a time of arkhons. There’s power in naming that.”
Arkhon Cover Artwork:
Arkhon Tracklist:
1. Lost
2. The Fall
3. Undertow
4. Into The Wild
5. Dead and Gone
6. Sewn
7. Desire
8. Fault
9. Efemra
10. Do That Anymore
Melbourne power pop outfit Romero have shared ‘Halfway Out the Door’, the second single from their upcoming debut album Turn It On!. The track arrives with an accompanying video from Megan O’Keefe, which you can check out below.
“I dated this guy on and off for years, who wouldn’t leave me but wouldn’t exactly love me either,” vocalist Alanna Oliver said in a statement. “‘Halfway’ is written about him and my eventual commitment to myself.” Of the video, O’Keefe added: “[Drummer] Dave [Johnstone] had a strong vision and pushed to use my mum’s old Panasonic camcorder to film this video. It makes for a more authentic storyline and the aesthetic of this footage was really fun to play with in the edit. This is an emotional song, the ‘flashback’ footage helps convey that. This video is a beautiful chaos, take from it what you will.”
“’Nothing Gives Me Pleasure’ is about trying to love yourself when it feels like no one else will,” the duo’s Harmony Tividad explained in a statement. “It was written during a time when I was working so hard to get someone specific to love and recognize me. On the path to doing that, I diluted myself so much that I lost sight of my own needs. This video plays with the lengths we go to to feel loved and how so many faces of intimacy may disguise what love actually looks like to us specifically. I have a history of getting lost in the labyrinth in the struggle for affection. In this video I wanted to interface with my own patterns in the attempt to better see and love myself.”
