Demonic voices are dangerously hissing at us as Susie is walking towards the airport’s exit doors. As soon as she leaves the safe space, she enters wind, storm and torrential rain. The voices are overshadowing her chat with the cab driver. Bright green and red lights flicker over her face. The final destination is a ballet school; a red and gold painted building, resembling a far eastern temple rather than a German institution. A panicked young woman is standing at the door. She appears to be out of her mind and yelling something into the night before she frantically runs away. They won’t let Susie in and force her to stay elsewhere. She is not supposed to be anywhere near that town, let alone enter that ballet school. The same night, a spectacular killing occurs. A virgin-like figure dressed in a white nightgown, covered in blood as red as the walls surrounding her ends up hanging from the ceiling after a graphical stabbing in close up. And this is only the beginning.
Suspiria is a spectacle from start to finish. A celebration of femininity, beauty, art and sounds, wrapped up in some gory splatter here and there, all while we bask in its colourful glory, deafened by bloodcurdling screaming. Argento has created a horror extravaganza that does not lack any suspense despite its stylised visuals. The robotic acting and dubbed over voices can seem off-putting at first, but it only adds to its artificiality, thus alerting the viewer even more that something eerie is going on. Throughout the film, we don’t know what we are fearing, fighting or running away from.
The overbearing emotionality and erratic behaviour are intensified by the dubbed voices. At first, it can seem slightly off-putting, but it only adds to its mysticism and blends in with the girls’ behaviour.
The rooms display an eclectic mix of furniture and wall painting. The interior design is a mashup of Art Deco and Art Nouveau, adorned by Mondrian style mirror frames, everything is lit in saturated blues and reds. The girls’ personal spaces are drenched in blue light, which can be seen as a symbol of temporary serenity before the reds take over, luring them out of their safety into danger. Out there is no such structure and the colours get swapped, tricking the girls that the blue is safe only for them to fall into a deadly trap. The entire production design is set out to emphasise primary colours, particularly red without any other hues, rendering it more cartoonish, and it’s therefore adding to the film’s nightmarish qualities. If you’re a fan of David Lachapelle’s photography, you will love Suspiria.
Hair and makeup seem to be the only constant that helps determine the time in which the movie is set. However, Costumes differ from feminine 70s dresses to 20s glittery accessories such as shoes and sparkling scarves, alongside surprisingly conservative but colourful swimming suits and black ballet attire.
The fashionable glossiness is just as much a leitmotiv as is its splatter genre. Ahead of its time, Suspiria is one of the most striking and shocking horror movies as it is a feast for the eyes and ears. Even if you can manage to forget the free-flowing blood, colours or overall design, the haunting soundtrack will keep ringing in your ears way after you leave the theatre.
The third season of Netflix’s hit dramedy Sex Education recently premiered to an overwhelming response from fans around the world. Otis and Maeve are no longer running the sex clinic at school, Jean is pregnant, Eric is dating Adam, and Aimee is beginning to heal from her trauma in season 2. Moordale’s new headteacher, Hope, brings shame upon the once proud student body, including new student Cal, who quickly catches Jackson’s attention.
Season 3 is clearly an ensemble effort, with each character seeing significant individual development. In fact, prior to its release, the new series was promoted under the tagline “Growth is a group project,” something that is very much reflected in the show. The grey uniforms and freshly painted school hallways accentuate the new, darker tone of this season. Many elements of the show’s production still feel familiar, though – including the nostalgic soundtrack. With a new EP from Ezra Furman, whose songs also feature in the first two seasons, season 3 of Sex Education continues leaning into its anachronistic aesthetic, lending the series a unique tone.
Here are thirty memorable songs from the extensive tracklist of effectively-used music in Sex Education.
I’m Coming Clean – Ezra Furman
Love You So Bad – Ezra Furman
Care – Ezra Furman
Restless Year – Ezra Furman
Amateur – Ezra Furman
Body Was Made – Ezra Furman
Can I Sleep In Your Brain – Ezra Furman
Every Feeling – Ezra Furman
Good Book – Ezra Furman
I Can Change – LCD Soundsystem (performed by Ezra Furman)
Mysterious Power – Ezra Furman & The Harpoons
F**K All The Perfect People – Chip Taylor, The New Ukrainians
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – The Rolling Stones (performed by DEVO)
The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades – Timbuk 3
This Is The Day – The The
Destination Unknown – Missing Persons
New Sensation – INXS
Mind Your Own Business – Delta 5
When You’re Young And In Love – The Flying Pickets
Sigur Rós’ Jónsi has released his third solo album, Obsidian, which was announced just yesterday (October 29). The project coincides with his art installation of the same name, which will run through December 17 at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. The record was co-produced and mixed by Paul Corley (Yves Tumor, Oneohtrix Point Never, Ben Frost, Koreless) and Nathan Salon. It follows Jónsi’s 2020 album Shiver, which arrived ten years after his solo debut Go, as well as his score for Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse. Stream Obsidian below.
The exhibition was inspired by the recent eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland. According to a press release, the album “centers on the Icelandic natural wonder. Recorded and produced in tandem with the works on view, the parallel formats inform one another and interweave through their embodiment of volcanic energies. Over the course of 10 tracks, each with evocative titles referencing sights, textures, and aromas of the ashen terrain, Jónsi takes his listeners through narrative arcs between erupting flares.”
When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, Charlotte Cornfield was in the middle of an artist residency founded by Howard Bilerman at the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. It had almost been a year since she had issued her remarkable third album The Shape of Your Name, which was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and as she hinted when we caught up with her over email around the release of her 4-track In My Corner EP that month, she was just starting to write material for her next full-length project. Though she had to cancel her tour when the pandemic hit, the Toronto-based musician was able to use this unexpected stretch of time to focus on writing, calling it “the most focused writing period I’ve ever had.” Cornfield, whose songwriting stands out for its evocative and autobiographical qualities, naturally reflects on the sense of anxiety that pervaded those months on her brand new album, Highs in the Minuses – out today via Polyvinyl/Double Double Whammy – but she mostly uses this space to delve into past experiences that have shaped her with newfound clarity, most strikingly on songs like ‘Blame Myself’ and ‘21’.
After working on the demos with her collaborator and guitarist Sam Gleason, she contacted Bilerman and was able to book some time to record the album at his studio in Montreal. Intent on channeling the energy of a live performance, she recruited bassist Alexandra Levy (Ada Lea) and drummer Liam O’Neill (Suuns) and tracked the whole record in just five days – a contrast to her last album, which she wrote alone and recorded incrementally over the span of several years. Highs in the Minuses works not only because of the raw immediacy of the production, but because of how starkly it foregrounds Cornfield’s skill as a songwriter capable of both gut-punching vulnerability (‘Drunk for You’) and surprising playfulness (‘Pac-Man’). “You’re not capable of telling lies, you tell me/ Everything I wanna know,” she sings on ‘Black Tatoo’. Honesty has always been one of Cornfield’s greatest assets – here, you get the sense she tells us only what we need to know, but holds nothing back.
We caught up with Charlotte Cornfield to talk about some of the inspirations behind her new album Highs in the Minuses, including an Elliot Smith song, the TV show I May Destroy You, and Montreal itself.
Elliott Smith’s ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’
This was deep in the winter of the pandemic – I guess spring here, but it still felt like winter – I was listening to a lot of moody songs, and I hadn’t heard that song before. I was just struck by his phrasing on it, what he did with rhyming and not rhyming and how it felt very conversational, and the words just kind of flowed out of him, but it also felt really emotionally intense. And I just couldn’t stop listening to the song. I think because I was writing around that time, I was writing thinking about that song, and that’s sort of where my song ‘Pac-Man’ came out of. The way that Elliott Smith played guitar was very unique and I can’t even scratch the surface of what he does, but I was really drawn to his chord choices, and whether it was conscious or not, I think I was thinking about that when I wrote ‘Pac-Man’. And trying to be really loose with words, not be too precious about words, and not necessarily try to rhyme but just kind of let them domino out of me.
At first, I was like, well, maybe this could be a sort of Elliott Smith-style acoustic recording, and so on my first demo, I doubled acoustic guitar, I doubled my vocals, but then I was like, no, this song needs to be a big rock song with the band. So I went there with it, but that’s one song that I can say led to the creation of ‘Pac-Man’.
One thing I found interesting is that there’s obviously a lot of vulnerability and honesty in Elliott Smith’s music in general, but this song is also kind of about being honest, which is something that also comes through on your record.
Yeah, for sure. It’s interesting that you pointed out the lyrics to ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’, because it even has that line, “Why should I lie?” And I just so appreciate that, because it’s kind of bold to say that. And I think I am really into, not necessarily telling the truth, but being honest to my experience and trying to capture the feelings as accurately as possible. So a song like that, when I hear it, this is exactly what I want to do. But at the same time, you can have fun with it and not be so intense and heavy and verbose, but also kind of clouded in a dream state or whatever. Honesty – I just find it’s a very powerful tool, and it has been for my songwriting over the years something that I keep turning to.
There’s even a line on this album about embracing your “honest representation of self.”
That’s from the song ‘Blame Myself’, and that song is a reflection of who I was in high school and trying to have empathy for being young and making mistakes and figuring things out. That was a really pivotal time for me: the first time I played a song for people that was a love song, and the reaction I got. That was just interesting to look back on, and the line is like, “I’m happy as I embrace my honest representation of self,” so I’m kind of looking back at myself and being like, who I am now is very true to who I was then.
Pavement’s ‘Cut Your Hair’
I definitely noticed that reference in the lyrics for ‘Out of the Country’ [“Heat burning holes into the asphalt/ The construction guys made me laugh my ass off/ I’d say, ‘Hey come on, focus on the pavement’/ And then I’d walk home just wondering where the day went/ And who was gonna cut my hair”], which I thought was very funny.
That one is actually, in addition to being Pavement reference, I have a song on my first record Two Horses called ‘Construction on the Street’. There’s one line in that song where I’m listening to Pavement and wondering where the day went, so I’m like double referencing. I was just having fun with words, honestly, but I think Pavement was a big influence on this record, for sure. This record feels like there’s some moments that are a lot scrappier and more uptempo than my last record, which is a very sort of melancholy, downtempo record. And this one I was just like, I don’t want to hold back, I want to tap into that teenage thing, so ‘Blame Myself’ and ‘Out of the Country’ in particular are these more scrappy songs that are very Pavement-influenced. And I do really love Steven Malkmus’ wordplay and wit, and the way that he captures really intense emotions but through this dry lens. And of course, the songs are super catchy.
An old Musicmaster guitar she borrowed from her friend Leif
My friend Leif Vollebekk, who’s a really great songwriter from Montreal, he lent me his guitar. And I don’t know what year it’s from, but it’s a Gibson Musicmaster, and it looks like an SG but it was before the SG existed, so it was something like an early ’60s guitar that he bought in Australia while he was on tour. And before I went into the studio, I was stressing about what guitars I was going to use, because I knew I wanted to play electric for most of the record, but I felt like I wasn’t confident about the sound I was getting from the guitars that I had. And he was like, “You should just take my Musicmaster.” It’s the most gorgeous guitar and it’s got this really specific, old tone to it, and I think it brought so much life to the record. The studio that we recorded at, Hotel2Tango, is full of vintage gear, so they were just beautiful, the amps and drums and everything that we were playing through. And having this guitar, it felt like this awesome instrument to be able to express myself on, and I’m really grateful to Leif for lending it to me because it’s really everywhere on the record. It’s on most of the record, except for the piano tunes.
Yo La Tengo’s ‘Sugarcube’
I know your In My Corner EP included a cover of a different Yo La Tengo song, but tell me why you chose this one.
I love Yo La Tengo, and I was listening to them a lot while I was writing the tunes for this record. I love the simplicity of the recordings, how the choices that they make are really minimal but also bold at the same time. When we were recording ‘Blame Myself’, we were trying to figure out the drum groove, and Liam, who played drums on the record, gave us ‘Sugarcube’ as a reference. He was like, “What if we did this shaker thing?” And then we all listened to ‘Sugarcube’ and we’re like, “Yes, that’s the vibe.” And even though ‘Blame Myself’ sounds much different than ‘Sugarcube’, that was a really important reference for us.
The Roches’ ‘No Trespassing’
This song I had never heard before, and I don’t even think it’s on Spotify. I had heard of the Roches, for sure. But I have some friends in Toronto who are a supergroup of Toronto musicians – Tamara [Lindeman] from the Weather Station, the folks from the band Bernice who are a great band, Luka Kuplowsky who is really great songwriter – and they do this thing called the Holy Oak Family Singers, where they get together and they cover a record or certain songs that they love for a live performance. And I’ve done a couple of things with them – we did a Joni Mitchell night and a Mary Margaret O’Hara night – but ‘No Trespassing’ specifically, the first time I ever heard it, was Tamara from Weather Station and Robin and Felicity from Bernice singing it together, and it blew my mind. I was like, “What is this song?” And then I found two YouTube videos, one where they played the song live, one where it’s the recording. I like how weird the harmonies are, and how heart-wrenching the song is. Just the line, “The sign says no trespassing unless it’s you,” it’s simple, but it’s just so effective, and I think that embodied what I was going for with this record. I wanted it to be simple but powerful.
Joan Armatrading’s ‘Woncha Come on Home’
It’s a simple sentiment, but there’s so much emotion packed into her voice, and I really am drawn to that. Also, it’s very unconventional phrasing and lengths of phrases, and I like how, similar to ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’, the song kind of meanders instead of having [these distinct parts] – it’s a loose form, but she takes a lot of liberties with it, which I love.
Did it inspire the songs on Highs in the Minuses in any specific way?
I think it probably indirectly inspired ‘Drunk for You’. Because there’s no particular chorus or bridge or whatever, but I sort of used that song as a reference to push out my rigidity around how things are supposed to be and let myself convey what I wanted to say. And then I realized it’s done, it doesn’t have to be more than what it is already. It doesn’t need any kind of formula.
When was that moment that you realized it was ready?
That was the one song that was written before all the other songs on the record. I wrote it and then I put it away for two years, because I was just too in the moment when I was writing and I needed some space from it. And then when I revisited it, in my head it wasn’t done yet, but then when I played it for a couple of people, it felt done. Two years after it was written, I realized it was done.
What kind of reaction did it get?
I remember the first night I performed it, there was some really intense reactions. It was just at a songwriting night with some friends, and I was like, maybe this song is going to resonate with people, but I think I just needed to personally take some time with it before I was ready to play it.
The TV show I May Destroy You
I’m curious how this relates to the final track, ‘Destroy Me’.
That line was kind of like a response to that, like, “Will it destroy me?” And that was something that happened, I guess subconsciously, but I did watch that show when it came out, which was peak pandemic. I just thought it was so brilliantly written, the story was so compelling and the characters are so compelling, and it was unlike anything I’d seen on TV. And that just pushed me songwriting-wise to not hold anything back and just let it come out.
Can you give me an example of moments on the record where you feel like you really pushed yourself in that way?
Yeah, I mean, definitely some moments in ‘Drunk for You’, which obviously I had written but wasn’t sure about sharing. Same with the song ‘21’, there’s a couple of uncomfortable moments in that song, where it’s like, is this something that I want people to hear? But then watching a show like I May Destroy You, that’s what’s powerful: those messy little pieces, because we all experience them in different ways.
Montreal
I don’t live in Montreal, I live in Toronto, but Montreal is a really important place in my life. I moved there when I was 17 to go to school and stayed till I was 23, but I had really important formative experiences there. Getting into playing music live, touring, being in bands – that all happened in Montreal, including important relationships in my life. So going and doing the record in Montreal felt right, especially because it’s such a reflective record. It’s a place where I feel very comfortable that’s really familiar, that’s very much a second home. And it’s definitely in the record, like in ‘Destroy Me’ I mention Montreal, the song ‘21’ happened living in Montreal, a little bit of ‘Pac-Man’, too. For me, I think the city as a muse is really an inspiring place, it’s aesthetically beautiful but it’s a little shabby in a really endearing way. A lot of my dear friends live there, so I think it was just on my mind making this record.
I was wondering if you had any conversations about Montreal with Ada Lea, who plays bass on the record, because that’s also a big focus on her latest album.
Yeah, Allie and I have known each other for about 10 years, and we have this different experience. She grew up in Montreal and I grew up in Toronto, and we met while we were both living in Montreal, but we lived in New York at the same time, and we were actually briefly roommates there.
The Brooklyn summer that you mention in ‘Out of the Country’?
Yeah, exactly, but I lived in Brooklyn for two years, and she was there pretty much that whole time because she was studying there. And definitely, over the course of our friendship, we’ve had lots of conversations about Montreal. There’s always the pull of like, should I live there, should I leave? Montreal’s got this weird allure where it’s so cheap to live there – people would argue that that’s changing, but it’s much cheaper than Toronto. And there’s a really great community there, so I think it holds people, but then some people get into these loops, and I think Allie on her record, which is so good, sings about some of these loops: of being at the same parties on the same corner of the same street. It’s almost like Groundhog Day, the same experience over and over, and I think she captured that really well on her record.
This one obviously ties into ‘Skateboarding by the Lake’, but is there more to how it inspired the album?
Yeah, I think it ties into a couple of things on the record. Because the streets were so dead at the beginning of the pandemic, and I hadn’t skateboarded in like 20 years – I knew my brother had a board that he wasn’t using, so I borrowed it. And being able to just glide around the empty streets on the skateboarders is such a freeing experience. I felt like I was tapping into my younger self a little bit, which definitely informs the sentiment of ‘Blame Myself’ and ‘Skateboarding by the Lake’. So it was like a weird homage to my childhood, but also this really a freeing thing, to be able to pick up a skateboard in my 30s and be like, I can just do it. It didn’t have any of the baggage of skateboarding when you’re a teenager and you’re trying to figure out your identity and stuff. It represents pure fun and childhood play.
What drew you to skateboarding as a teenager?
I was always into the kind of edgier sports, I guess, and skateboarding, I like that it’s almost like an art form, it’s almost like dancing. It’s so culturally connected to so many different things – like, Polyvinyl, the label that I’m with now in the US, that label came out of skateboard culture. It was something that gave me a lot of joy as a teen.
Neil Young’s Zuma
I think it’s mentioned in the press bio that you were inspired by the working methods of Neil Young, but I’m curious why you picked this record in particular.
I just love the sound of that record, because it feels like a live band record in the way that I was going for, but it has so much dynamics, from ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’ to ‘Through My Sails’, which is this beautiful downtempo song. It has that sort of simple quality where it’s bare-bones, he’s just delivering the songs and the emotion of the songs without adding any bells and whistles. I think it’s the Neil record that I revisit the most these days, and it captured the essence of what I was feeling at the time, which is this immediacy, this rawness. I like production where you’re not thinking about the production, you’re just thinking about the song, and I think that was what I was trying to do with this record.
Because this live element is so crucial to your album, I was wondering if you could talk about what you feel like what the rest of the band brought to the recordings.
Liam, who plays drums on the record, he has such gravitas and presence as a drummer. Before I even knew him I would go see him play in Montreal with different bands, and he brings so much oomph and weight to what he does. There’s just an energy that he brings that I really wanted on this record and that he totally brought in the studio. He’s such a wonderful musician to work with, in that that he’ll tune things, change the timbers of things, switch up the snare drum, overdub a cymbal. He brings so much nuance to what he does, but at the same time has this really incredible presence. And he’s just a really fun person to be around as well.
And Allie, because we’re such close friends, I had been sending her the demos basically from right when I started writing the songs. And it was really great to have her in the studio, as a friend and confidant, and feel really comfortable in this trio that was happening. And she’s also an amazing and talented bass player, she studied jazz bass in New York. The dynamics that she has on this record, from the emotionally intense tunes like ‘Black Tattoo’ and ‘21’, to ‘Pac-Man’, where she just turned up a crunch gain pedal and it basically sounds like sludge metal bass. I just love it, and she doesn’t hold back.
Working with those who was amazing, and then I brought in my friend Sam who I’ve done the demos with. I brought him from Toronto for a day, and he just added some really subtle beautiful little things, like the guitar swells in ‘Drunk for You’ and some pads and stuff like that. We did very minimal overdubs, but the stuff we did do, I feel like it adds a lot of nice little touches.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
There are not many people who do not enjoy some form of art. Art can be found in so many areas of life. Clearly in the form of painting or sculpture, however, film, dance, music, poetry, etc., are all forms of art. A good piece of art has the power to create an effect in the observer. It can change their mood. It can make them feel something new. However, this effect can be so much more powerful when someone partakes in a creative pursuit. By creating art and indulging thoroughly in art, you can boost your mental well-being. There is no doubt that art serves a beneficial purpose in our lives. However, have we ever stopped to consider why? Here are a few ways art can enhance your well-being:
Your Brain-Power
If you begin a creative activity, no matter what it is, from painting and writing to dance, it will impact the brain in a positive way. It enhances your brain waves and your emotions. It can also improve the nervous system. It raises serotonin levels too, which means that you become happier. It can help you with your memory, as a lot of artistic pursuits involve remembering things. Playing music can enhance the connection between your right and left hemispheres. Some of the best benefits are felt in older people. If they take up some form of performing art, like the theatre, or dance they can enhance their physiological well-being. It is also possible for them to improve their cognitive function within a month. More and more evidence suggests that art can improve someone’s mental health in so many ways.
The Social Aspect
Art is by nature a social thing. You create something with an observer in mind. Whether it is writing or dancing, there will always be some form of social activity associated with it. Even if your particular activity appears solitary, like writing, you can always join a class or start a book club. After a while, you will want to share your art with other people to gain a deeper perspective on it. If music is your thing, you may want to play for an audience. You may join a music class and then you could visit musical events such as an Adele Concert together, to not only enjoy, but to discover more about the act of performing music.
Art is a form of Meditation
We have all heard about the positive effects of meditation. It helps you reduce stress and to develop better mental clarity, which is a huge advantage in life. Seeing things clearly will help you navigate the best path. Well, by engrossing yourself in an artistic pursuit, this is like meditation. You become so focussed on the work at hand that in those moments, only you and the artwork exist. All your worries, troubles, stresses, and strains melt away, and you are one with the work. This can help you become happier and develop a better focus in life. It can also enhance your understanding of life itself too.
Many people who decide to use CBD products are keen to find the most convenient and simple options available. CBD offers a host of benefits and is a great solution for those who want an affordable way to tackle a range of issues. This includes issues such as trouble relaxing or sleeping,high levels of anxiety, regular low mood, pain and inflammation, and more. CBD can effectively help with all of these issues, and there are now many different products that you can choose from in order to enjoy these benefits.
Among the products that you can choose from if you want to enjoy the benefits of CBD are drops and tinctures, capsules, edible products, and topical products. In addition, you can find products such as theFive Delta 8 vape pen, which is ideal for those who use vape devices and want a simple and convenient method of benefitting from CBD. In this article, we will learn more about why a CBD vape pen is a great option.
Some of the Benefits of Vape Pens
When you choose a CBD vape pen as your method of choice, you can look forward to a host of valuable benefits. Some of the top benefits of using this method include:
Fast-Acting Solution
If you are after a CBD solution that acts quickly, this could be a perfect choice. Vaping CBD liquid is known to be one of the fastest and most effective means of getting CBD into your system, so this is great for those who do not want unnecessary delays. When you use a CBD vape pen, you can look forward to a solution that is fast-acting and effective as well as simple and convenient. It is perfect for those who vape anyway, as it means that they do not have tochange their routine.
Convenient and Simple
Most people that use CBD products are keen to find a method that offers the ultimate in simplicity and convenience. Many of the various methods available do offer both of these things, and a CBD vape pen is no exception. You can look forward to being able to vape whenever you like in order to get the effects of the CBD, and you can take your vape pen along with you wherever you go just as you would with a normal vape device.
Lots of Choice
One of the added benefits that you can look forward to is the range of options available when it cones to CBD vape pen. This makes it far easier for you to find the ideal one for your needs as well as your budget. You can choose from a range of flavors, so you can find one that suits your personal preferences and palate. In addition, the wide range of options means that you can find a CBD vape pen that fits in with your budget.
These are some of the many benefits that you can look forward to when you use a CBD vape pen.
The War on Drugs are back with their fifth studio album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore, out now via Atlantic Records. The follow-up to the band’s Grammy-winning 2017 record A Deeper Understanding was preceded by the singles ‘Living Proof’, ‘Change’, and the title track. It was co-produced by frontman Adam Granduciel and Shawn Everett. “From a songwriting point of view, I was set on having everything be concise and clear,” Granduciel said of the new LP in an interview with Pitchfork. “I wanted to cut as much fat as possible. I wanted things to have an arc and be dynamic. Most albums are illusions of a band playing, and as we kept working, the idea of the songs existing in a live environment became really important to me. What would this feel like on a stage? We wanted to make it feel as unproduced as possible, trying to make it sound like a band in a room.”
Tori Amos has a new album out called Ocean to Ocean (via Decca). Her first full-length since 2017’s Native Invader, Amos wrote the LP during lockdown at her home in Cornwall, England. “This is a record about your losses, and how you cope with them,” she explained in a statement. “Thankfully when you’ve lived long enough, you can recognize you’re not feeling like the mom you want to be, the wife you want to be, the artist you want to be. I realized that to shift this, you have to write from the place where you are. I was in my own private hell, so I told myself, then that’s where you write from—you’ve done it before….” Ocean to Ocean includes the advance tracks ‘Speaking With Trees’ and ‘Spies’.
Brooklyn band Geese have put out their debut LP, Projector, via Partisan Records/PIAS. Previewed by the singles ‘Disco’, ‘Low Era’, and the title track, the album was written, produced, and recorded by the five-piece while they were still in high school and was mixed by Dan Carey. Talking about the album’s themes in our Artist Spotlight interview, vocalist Cameron Winter said: “Back in early high school, I was trying to make these broad-strokes messages that were really dark and edgy. And for this one, I don’t think I was ready to do like a soul-bearing thing that much, so I usually tried to inhabit maybe different characters or tell something that has less of an overarching conceptual theme that everything sticks to and more like vignetted, small, low-stakes narratives.”
Marissa Nadler has issued her latest album, The Path of the Clouds, out now via Sacred Bones/Bella Union. Marking the singer-songwriter’s first solo record of original material since 2018’s For My Crimes, the LP features contributions from Nadler’s piano teacher Jesse Chandler (a member of Mercury Rev and Midlake), Mary Lattimore, Simon Raymonde, Emma Ruth Rundle, Black Mountain’s Amber Webber, and Milky Burgess. The album was preceded by the singles ‘Bessie, Did You Make It?’ and ‘If I Could Breathe Underwater’.
Lunar Vacation‘s debut album, Inside Every Fig Is a Dead Wasp, has arrived via Keeled Scales. The record was produced by Daniel Gleason of Grouplove and includes the previously unveiled singles ‘Where Is Everyone?’, ‘Shrug’, ‘Mold’, and ‘Gears’. It follows two EPs, Swell and Artificial Flavors, which the Atlanta-based group – led by singer-songwriters Grace Repasky and Maggie Geeslin – self-released shortly after graduating high school.
Lily Konigsberg has dropped her debut solo album, Lily We Need to Talk Now, via Wharf Cat. Following her compilation The Best of Lily Konigsberg Right Now, which came out in March of this year, the Palberta member’s first full-length LP features the previously shared songs ‘That’s The Way I Like It’ and ‘Sweat Forever’. “My lyrics are not happy all of the time,” Konigsberg remarked in press materials. “There’s a lot of sadness or strangeness in them. This album is clearly about breaking up with somebody that I love. But in all of my music, there’s humor. I don’t take myself too seriously.”
Time to Melt is the debut album from Sam Evian, the alias of singer-songwriter and producer Sam Owens. The LP, which he recorded and produced himself, features contributions from the likes of Spencer Tweedy, Chris Bear, and the War On Drugs’ Jon Natchez, as well as Evian’s partner Hannah Cohen. His debut for Fat Possum, Time to Melt follows his 2018 record You, Forever and includes the advance singles ‘Knock Knock’ and ‘Easy to Love’.
Coco – the project of Maia Friedman (of Dirty Projectors, Uni Ika Ai), Dan Molad (of Lucius, Chimney), and Oliver Hill (of Pavo Pavo, Dustrider) – have issued their debut self-titled album. The band recorded the LP in three studios across the USA: The Paella Pit in LA, Three Sirens in Nashville, and the Lake House in Spicewood, Texas. It follows a run of anonymous single releases and includes the songs ‘Anybody’s Guess’, ‘Knots’ and ‘Come Along’.
CHVRCHES have released Screen Violence: Director’s Cut, an expanded version of their most recent album. It features three new songs: ‘Killer’, ‘Bitter End’, and ‘Screaming’. You can listen to them below.
Talking about the new tracks, frontwoman Lauren Mayberry said in a statement: “This album was thematically so different to previous CHVRCHES albums that it would have been rude of us to let Halloween come and go without injecting some more Screen Violence into it. ‘Killer’, ‘Bitter End’ and ‘Screaming’ were all started in 2020 and finished just after the album was released. As any good horror fan knows, just because the film ends, it doesn’t mean the story does.”
Lil Uzi Vert has shared a new single called ‘Demon High’. It marks the rapper’s first solo release since appearing on the soundtrack for Space Jam: A New Legacy. Give it a listen below.
This year, Lil Uzi Vert has released collaborations with Justin Bieber (‘There She Go’), Trippie Redd (‘Holy Smokes’), Pi’erre Bourne (‘Sossboy 2’), the late Juice WRLD (‘Lucid Dreams’), and Meek Mill (‘Blue Notes 2’). He dropped his second album, Eternal Atake, last year, and has teased a new project called Pink Tape, though no further details have been announced.
Alicia Keys has announced that her next album, KEYS, will be released on December 10. The LP will feature two different iterations: Originals and Unlocked. Along with the announcement, she’s released two versions of the first single from the record, ‘Best of Me’. Take a listen below.
“The Originals come from that classic side of me! It’s that AK that we WANT!! A homecoming,” Keys wrote on social media. “The Unlocked side, I wanted to sample The Originals to create a whole other sonic experience. So, [Mike WiLL Made-It] and I connected and made magic. Together, they are a fusion of the worlds within me with the KEYS as the main ingredient.”
Alicia Keys issued her most recent album, ALICIA, last fall. She also collaborated with Brandi Carlile on a single called ‘A Beautiful Noise’.
The Originals come from that classic side of me! It’s that AK that we WANT!! A homecoming.
The Unlocked side, I wanted to sample The Originals to create a whole other sonic experience. So, @MikeWiLLMadeIt and I connected and made magic ✨✨✨✨✨
The War on Drugs
Tori Amos
Charlotte Cornfield
Brooklyn band 
Marissa Nadler
Lily Konigsberg
Time to Melt
Coco
