Abbie Ozard has announced a new EP, Water Based Lullabies, which will arrive on July 1 via House Anxiety. Lead single ‘Pisces’, which follows November’s ‘Grown’, is out today alongside a video directed by Charlotte Rudd. Check it out below.
“After releasing songs about yearning, loss and change I was set on creating a bad bitch anthem that girls, gays, theys and everyone inbetween could feel empowered by,” Ozard said in a press release. “‘Pisces’ is about recognising your own strengths, taking control of what you really want and setting your standards high. This song was so fun to write, me and James were in stitches when we were writing it but behind the humour there’s a deeper meaning to it all. Don’t settle for mediocrity, know your worth and surround yourself with people that make you feel amazing.”
Everything Everything have shared ‘Teletype’, the latest single from their forthcoming album Raw Data Feel. Following lead track ‘Bad Friday’, ‘Teleype’ arrives with an accompanying visual created by frontman Jonathan Higgs. Watch and listen below.
“This song began in a very experimental way, with Alex and Jon sampling voice and guitar then putting it through a process that randomised each chord in a chaotic and glitchy rhythm,” the band explained in a press release. “A very direct song, straight from the heart, with a fresh new openness that we felt was a good scene-setting for the record.”
They continued: “The video consists of human faces that were completely generated by AI, singing the song. It also includes several grotesque experiments that didn’t work, where the machine thought it was making a person but failed.”
Gang of Youths performed a cover of Wilco’s ‘A Shot in the Arm’ for SiriusXM’s The Spectrum. Check it out below.
‘A Shot in the Arm’ is taken from Wilco’s 1999 album Summerteeth. In an interview with Stereogum, singer Dave Le’aupepe cited the follow-up to that album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, as an influence on the band’s new record angel in realtime.. “I love Summerteeth, but I just can’t get past that album,” he said. “That first track [‘I Am Trying to Break Your Heart’], it’s bare-bones, but sonically it speaks to this otherworldly type of trials that I think that band were trying to get at.”
“And the real thing for me in that fucking song is the drumming,” he continued. “Glenn [Kotche]’s drumming is absolutely phenomenal and outrageous and strange and almost reflective of this – I don’t want to use the word ‘primitive’ pejoratively, but sort of a primitive style of drumming that I think Donnie [Borzestowski] was really moved by. And so we tried to replicate some of those moments. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [is] a fucking huge reference for me, just in general.”
Gang of Youths are currently touring the UK in support of their latest album, with the North American leg of their tour set to kick off next month.
Christian Lee Hutson has released a new track, ‘Cherry’, taken from his upcoming album Quitters. “I wanted to describe that part of growing up in Los Angeles, having a cool older friend who will drive you speeding and have you jump out on the roof of the car,” Hutson explained in a statement. Take a listen below.
Quitters is scheduled for release on April 1 via ANTI-. Produced by Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, the record includes the previously shared singles ‘Strawberry Lemonade’ and ‘Rubberneckers’.
Philadelphia quintet Sweet Pill have announced their debut full-length, Where the Heart Is, with the lead single ‘Blood’. The album is set for release on May 25 via Topshelf Records. Check out the music video for ‘Blood’ and find the LP’s cover art (by Kerry Dunn) and tracklist below.
“In the video for ‘Blood’ I am put against a younger and naïve version of myself only to fall short of victory,” vocalist Zayna Youssef said in a statement. “The song reflects conflict and how keeping it simple might help you prevail.” Guitarist Jayce Williams added: “I had been dealing with a lot of inner struggle, and this was my first attempt at writing an angry song. The idea of fighting a younger version of yourself was something I could strongly relate to when structuring ‘Blood’.”
Where the Heart Is Cover Artwork:
Where the Heart Is Tracklist:
1. Where the Heart Is
2. Blood
3. High Hopes
4. Dog Song
5. Sucker Punch
6. Sometimes
7. Diamond Eyes
8. Fate
9. Red String
10. Cut
We were recording at Rian [O’Grady]’s house and the guys started playing this music which had Francesco [Perini]’s Ray Mananzarek Doors’ sensibilities and Mike [Sutton]’s Neil Young-esque guitar, and then I started reading this poem I had written which pieces together definitions of words I found interesting and had written down. The title is thanks to Ruari [Meehan] who kept saying this over and over and we all thought it was the best thing we ever heard
This video was as planned and thought out as its namesake. My friend Robert happened to be in London with a day to spare, so last minute we rallied up some friends who were graciously willing to spend an afternoon wearing these horrific English Breakfast masks.
Ascroft added: “Tess and I met up for a coffee while I was on assignment in London. I told her I would love to shoot a video for her brilliant new record. Right from the start of the conversation she had the idea of wearing these English Breakfast masks. The shoot was very loose which is unlike any music video I have ever shot. Without much communication I got the idea and just ran with it. Tess and I have an unspoken way of working together and have similar tastes/references. We had a fun and fast shoot with some great friends both new and old. And we got some odd looks from passersby to top it all off.”
Florence and the Machine has officially announced her new album: Dance Fever is out May 13 via Polydor Records. The announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘My Love’, which is accompanied by a video from director Autumn de Wilde. Check it out below.
Dance Fever was mostly recorded in London over the course of the pandemic. Florence Welch co-produced the album with Jack Antonoff and Dave Bayley of Glass Animals. Lyrically, the record draws inspiration from the tragic heroines of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, and folk horror films like The Wicker Man,The Witch, and Midsommar, according to a press release, which describes the sound of Dance Fever as “Nick Cave at the club.”
‘My Love’ follows recent singles ‘King’ and ‘Heaven Is Here’. Florence and the Machine’s previous album was 2018’s High as Hope.
Wet Leg stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (March 9) to deliver a performance of their singles ‘Chaise Lounge’ and ‘Wet Dream’. Check it out below.
The Isle of Wight duo are set to release their self-titled debut album on April 8 via Domino. In addition to ‘Chaise Lounge’ and ‘Wet Dream’, the LP features the singles ‘Angelica’, ‘Oh No’, and ‘Too Late Now’. Wet Leg made their US television debut in December, performing on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
“I believe you need to feel the lows in life to feel the highs, and you have to know what sucks to then properly appreciate the good stuff,” Sigrid said in a statement. “‘It Gets Dark’ is an ode to that. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about a single release before.”
Ed Schrader’s Music Beat, the Baltimore duo of Ed Schrader and Devlin Rice, have released a new single. ‘European Moons’ is lifted from the forthcoming album Nightclub Daydreaming, which includes the previously shared tracks ‘This Thirst’, ‘Berliner’, and ‘Echo Base’. Listen to it below.
In an accompanying personal statement, Ed Shrader wrote:
In the past few weeks, I’ve made a big decision. I’ve decided to give you the full me. I’ve decided to speak openly about something that I had never spoken to anyone about. The me that I’ve been repressing in hopes of not making other people feel uncomfortable. But that’s not a life—that’s an inhumane purgatory that I am done subjecting myself to.
That said, I have always felt like a woman and my pronouns are they/them.
The stage and the studio have always been a safe space for me, where I can share my deepest struggles, joys and laughs. In your art, you can’t lie. That’s why I have always chosen riddles and cryptic lyrics in my art. I could never lie, but I could disguise the truth.
With ‘Nightclub Daydreaming’ I continued this precedent, essentially telling my autobiography through fictional characters and surreal landscapes. But these are the stories of my fear, my neuroses, my ecstasy and my journey.
The first single off of the record, “This Thirst,” is about the thirst for my true self, and features the first time I ever referred to myself as a woman: “Who will rock you to the fire / Who’s the priestess to ordain?”
On “Black Pearl,” I sing of two lovers disconnected by an ocean, representing the personal dichotamy between my true self and who I was presenting to the world. In retrospect, you can hear the yearning as I sing “I want to see you really…a foreigner, even home now / I shut in vaults to heal you.” I was the foreigner whom no one had ever met, besides my bathroom mirror. When home alone, I would wear women’s clothing, put on makeup, blast M.I.A. and Yelle, and somehow this felt like a crime that no one would ever accept.
You can hear both my euphoria and trepidation on songs like “Berliner.” Deep down, I was beginning to feel my real self emerging in an undeniable way, and I was horrified by it. It felt as if others held the key to my own self worth through their acceptance, or lack thereof.
On “European Moons,” which we release today, I depict myself as a marionette, at the whims of a puppet master forcing me to present a distorted and untrue version of myself. “my posture’s at your strings / too much of coded sighs / I’d like to see you in the night.” It was my true self that I could only see at night.
I have always felt like a woman and, moving forward, I will begin following that path one day at a time. Only the future knows where exactly that path will lead me, but I’m doing it my way. I will no longer only see my true self at night.
Nightclub Daydreaming is due out on March 25 via Carpark.
