Darkside have released a new track titled ‘Ecdysis!’, which was recorded in the same sessions that yielded their sophomore LP, Spiral. Give it a listen below.
Spiral, the follow-up to Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington’s 2013 debut Psychic, arrived in July 2021. This September, the duo are set to perform their first show in 8 years at Primavera Sound Los Angeles. Read about the Spiral artwork in our Best Album Covers of 2021 feature.
PUP – the Toronto punk band comprised of Stefan Babcock, Nestor Chumak, Zack Mykula, and Steve Sladkowski – have announced their fourth LP. THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND is out April 1 and includes the previously released single ‘Waiting’, as well as a new track called ‘Robot Writes A Love Song’. Check out its Whitey McConnaughy-directed music video below, and scroll down for the album’s cover art (by Jordan Speer) and tracklist.
The new album was recorded and mixed over the course of five weeks in the summer of 2021 in producer Peter Katis’ Connecticut mansion. “As the weeks passed, we seemed less and less rational, objective, and sane,” Babcock said in press materials. “You can hear the band start to fall off the cliff, and because of that, I think this record is our truest and most genuine to date. There is nothing more PUP than a slow and inevitable descent into self-destruction.”
He added: “There’s only so many times you can write a song about how much you hate yourself before you write a song about how fucking good you are at hating yourself. I wanted to write about the horrible state of the world, but through a very specific and personal lens. It’s a lot of me trying to articulate my own coping with existential dread, hopelessness, and what I’ve called ‘Grim Reaping’—which is to me, the idea that we are all reaping what we sow, and right now we’re sowing some pretty fucked up shit.”
THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND features contributions from Sarah Tudzin of illuminati hotties, NOBRO’s McCaughey, Casper Skulls’ Melanie St-Pierre, and Erik Paulson from Remo Drive. It will follow PUP’s 2019 full-length Morbid Stuff as well as the 2020 EP This Place Sucks Ass.
THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND Cover Artwork:
THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND Tracklist:
1. Four Chords
2. Totally Fine
3. Robot Writes A Love Song
4. Matilda
5. Relentless
6. Four Chords Pt. II: Five Chords
7. Waiting
8. Habits
9. Cutting Off The Corners
10. Grim Reaping
11. Four Chords Pt. III: Diminishing Returns
12. PUPTHEBAND Inc. Is Filing For Bankruptcy
A new album compiling unreleased material from Sonic Youth recorded between 2000 and 2010 has been announced. The five-track In/Out/In will be released on LP, CD, and cassette on March 18 via Three Lobed. Today’s announcement comes with the release of ‘In & Out’, which you can hear below.
Of the five songs on In/Out/In, ‘Basement Contender’ was recorded by Lee Ranaldo in Northampton, MA in 2008; ‘In & Out’ was recorded in Pomona, California and Echo Canyon; ‘Out & In’ was recorded by Aaron Mullan in 2000; ‘Social Static’ was recorded by Sonic Youth at Echo Canyon in 2000; and ‘Machine’ was recorded by Aaron Mullan in 2008.
“When you’re in the middle of a tour and all of the musical cylinders (musicians, crew + equipment) are warmed up and firing on 10, and if the room/theater/venue and its acoustics allow, you can sometimes catch magic or maybe a basic track,” Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley explained in a press release. “This magic/music/inspiration doesn’t always occur when you’d like it to show up (you know, during the show!) -however, it sometimes can be caught in small unspoken moments during soundcheck when you least expect it.”
“‘In & Out’ was caught in such a situation – during soundcheck in Pomona, CA at the Fox Theatre in 2010 – Kim and I were waiting for our bandmates to arrive and our linechecks turned into a jam session turned into recording a basic track,” Shelley continued. “Recorded surreptitiously by long-time SY engineer Aaron Mullan and tucked away for guitar overdubs later in 2010, and then submitted to Cory Rayborn for his Three Lobed multi-artist box set ‘Not The Space You Know, But Between Them.’ The two SY songs that debuted and were exclusively available on that box set are now available in one standalone collection – In/Out/In – plus three (mostly) instrumental Sonic Youth jammers from 2000-2010.”
In/Out/In Cover Artwork:
In/Out/In Tracklist:
1. Basement Contender
2. In & Out
3. Machine
4. Social Static
5. Out & In
Ibibio Sound Machine have announced their new album, Electricity, which is set to arrive on March 25 via Merge. The LP was produced by Hot Chip, marking the first time the group has worked with external producers since its formation in London in 2013 by singer Eno Williams and saxophonist Max Grunhard. Along with the announcement, they’ve shared a new single called ‘All That You Want’, which follows the October track ‘Electricity’. Check it out below and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and tracklist.
Hot Chip shared the following statement on the new album: “Prior to the sessions, we had run into Ibibio Sound Machine at festivals and loved watching them perform. There are very talented musicians throughout the band, and Eno is a massively charismatic, skilled singer. The sessions were hugely rewarding as Ibibio brought in friends and collaborators to add a wide array of different instruments—some of which were unfamiliar to us. The songs on this record are uniformly great, and we were really happy to be a part of making it.”
Ibibio Sound Machine’s last studio album was 2019’s Doko Mien.
Electricity Cover Artwork:
Electricity Tracklist:
1. Protection From Evil
2. Electricity
3. Casio (Yak Nda Nda)
4. Afro Ken Doko Mien
5. All That You Want
6. Wanna See Your Face Again
7. 17 18 19
8. Truth No Lie
9. Oyoyo
10. Something We’ll Remember
11. Almost Flying
12. Freedom
Kristine Leschper (fka Mothers) has shared a new single, ‘Picture Window’, lifted from her forthcoming album, The Opening, or Closing of a Door. It arrives alongside a self-directed video inspired by the song’s lyric: “It’s like a picture, I think, one where we’re untouched by the future.” Check it out below.
“I was thinking about how effortless it felt to commune with the mysterious as a child, especially in the ‘natural world’ as we call it, as if it is something alien to us,” Leschper explained in a statement. “I was thinking about my sister, our shared experiences of childhood, and I wanted to create a sonic environment that felt like that. It was obvious to me that the video should embody the same character of discovery, that it should slow me down, get me out into the world to look for something unfolding, and I settled in on the quiet drama of a stream. I shot time lapse photographs and compiled them into video sequences, a meditation on time or timelessness. The resulting video is uncomplicated, things are constantly changing and yet nothing happens; I spin indefinitely in a circle, a stream bubbles on into eternity.”
The Opening, or Closing of a Door, Leschper’s first music under her given name, is due out March 4 via ANTI- Records. Back in November, she previewed it with the single ‘Ribbon’.
Lime Garden have shared a new track called ‘Marbles’. Out now via So Young Records, the single follows previous outings ‘Sick & Tired’, ‘Pulp’, and ‘Clockwork’. Check it out below.
“‘Marbles’ is about the realisation that you’re not sharing the same lifestyle as those around you,” singer Chloe Howard explained in a statement. “It’s about overthinking that comparison to the point where you question your own sanity or direction in life. It tells the story of an individual on a journey of self-discovery that the listener is witnessing from afar but with access to their internal monologue. This wasn’t the easiest song to finish writing – we knew we had a strong chorus, but we just couldn’t seem to join the different sections or to get the detached feeling we wanted. In the studio Leila eventually detuned her guitar for the double track in the verses, this created the warped and dissonant feel we wanted.”
Phosphorescent has launched The Full Moon Project with a cover of Randy Newman’s 1988 ballad ‘Bad News From Home’. Listen to it below.
Talking about the new project on Instagram, Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck wrote:
I’ve been thinkin awhile now on how to release more music separate from the modern album release cycle and all its requirements and pressures etc.. Recently my tiny animal brain had an epiphany: ‘How dense are you, bub?’ it said. ‘This is easy. Record it. Then put it out there. Duh.’ And then, ‘Maybe the moon can help. Look to it.’
So starting here at the top of this year of 2022 and I suppose aiming for the rest of my natural life, I’m gonna release a song with every full moon. For now it’s going to be exclusively cover songs as there’s a mile-long list of songs that’ve meant the world to me and I’d like to try my hand at em.
They may be moon related (as the first one is) or they may have nothin to do with the moon at all I’m open to this thing evolving into whatever it wants to be (new songs, working demos, requests, mashups, ??) In honor of the year’s first full moon (The Wolf Moon!), the first track from this project will be released on Monday, Jan 17. I’m so excited.
Phosphorescent released his last album, C’est La Vie, in 2018. It arrived five years after its predecessor, 2013’s Muchacho.
Sofia Kourtesis has shared a new single, ‘Estación Esperanza’, which features a guest appearance from Manu Chao. Out now via Ninja Tune, the track is dedicated to Sofia’s mother (whose face features on the single’s cover artwork) and samples chanting from a Peruvian protest against homophobia. Give it a listen below.
“‘Estación Esperanza’ is all about hope,” Kourtesis said in a press release. “I’m hopeful my mother will get better, I’m hopeful the world will begin to heal, I’m hopeful this song will bring you light on dark days. I first wrote this song after listening to Manu Chao. To me Manu Chao has always represented hope, his lyrics were like a bible to me growing up. This song is for him, my mother and all those activists working hard to make this world better.. never lose hope!”
Also today, Kourtesis has announced her debut UK headline shows, which include dates at London’s Electrowerks and Manchester’s YES Pink Room. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10am.
Sofia Kourtesis released her latest EP, Fresia Magdalena, last year.
Jon Lind, a Grammy-nominated songwriter who wrote hits for Earth, Wind & Fire, Madonna, Vanessa Williams, and others, has passed away. Billboard reports that Lind died Saturday after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 73.
Born in 1948, Lind grew up in Brooklyn and started out as a folk singer in the late 1960s, sharing the stage with the likes of Judy Collins and Harry Chapin as a teenager. He went on to attend New York City’s Mannes College of Music, where he formed the Fifth Avenue Band, which signed with Warner Bros. in 1969 and was managed by Bob Cavallo. After spending time in bands signed with A&M and Capitol, he switched to full-time songwriting at the suggestion of Cavallo, who by then was the manager of Earth, Wind & Fire. “I was in the waiting room in Bob Cavallo’s office, strumming my guitar, playing a new ‘fragment’ of music I’d written,” he told Songwriter Universe in 2012. “[Earth, Wind & Fire leader] Maurice White popped his head in and said, ‘What is that?’ He suggested I ‘lay it down’, and get it to him. I did so, and over the next three months and he turned it into ‘Sun Goddess.’”
The song was covered by Ramsey Lewis and later Earth, Wind & Fire, officially launching his professional songwriting career. Lind went on to write Earth Wind & Fire and the Emotions’ ‘Boogie Wonderland’ alongside Allee Willis, as well as ‘Save the Best for Last’ by Vanessa Williams and ‘Crazy for You’ by Madonna, both of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. ‘Save the Best for Last’, which Lind wrote with Wendy Waldman and Phil Galdston, also earned him a Grammy nomination in 1992. Among the other artists who have recorded Lind’s songs include Cher, Cheap Trick, Aaron Neville, Jennifer Holliday, Rick Astley, and Pete Townshend.
“The songwriting community lost a great songwriter and a beautiful soul in Jon Lind, who leaves a legacy of iconic songs both as a songwriter and supremely talented A&R man,” ASCAP said in a statement. “The ASCAP family mourns his loss but his humor, his music and his wonderfully generous spirit live in our hearts.”
Tindersticks have announced a new career-spanning compilation titled Past Imperfect – The Best of Tindersticks ’92 – ’21, which is set for release on March 25 via City Slang. Along with the news, they’ve shared the new song ‘Both Sides of the Blade’, which comes with a video starring Suzanne Osborne. The clip was directed by frontman Stuart A. Staples, who wrote the track for Claire Denis’ film Avec amour et acharnement. Check it out below.
“One of the greatest things I feel in approaching this milestone,” Stuart said of the band’s 30th anniversary, “is that all of the mistakes we’ve made are our mistakes. If there’s something wrong, there’s something wrong because we decided in the moment that this is what we should be and we physically made it that way. I’m kind of proud of that. We’re still here, we’re still connected, we’re still pushing and it’s been totally on our own terms. I can’t really think of many other bands that are in that situation.”
The first half of Past Imperfect features the original lineup of the band with Staples, drummer Al Macaulay, guitarist Neil Fraser, and multi-instrumentalists David Boulter and Dickon Hinchliffe. The second half includes work from the present-day lineup of Staples, Fraser, Boulter, drummer Earl Harvin, and multi-instrumentalist Dan McKinna.
Past Imperfect: The Best of Tindersticks ’92-’21 Cover Artwork:
Past Imperfect: The Best of Tindersticks ’92-’21 Tracklist:
1. City Sickness
2. Her (’92)
3. Tiny Tears
4. Travelling Light
5. My Sister
6. Rented Rooms
7. Can We Start Again
8. Dying Slowly
9. Sometimes It Hurts
10. My Oblivion
11. Harmony Around My Table
12. Show Me Everything
13. This Fire of Autumn
14. Medicine
15. What Are You Fighting For
16. How He Entered
17. Were We Once Lovers
18. Willow
19. Pinky in the Daylight
20. Both Sides of The Blade
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