Warpaint’s JennyLee has released the second instalment of her Singles Club series. ‘Tickles’ / ‘Heart Tax’ is out now on all streaming platforms and can be purchased as a limited edition 7” vinyl Virgin Music. The A-side, ‘Tickles’, was produced and mixed by Trentemøller. Take a listen below.
Of working with Trentemøller, JennyLee said in a statement: “I love, love, love collaborating with Trentemøller…he never ceases to amaze me! And more often than not, I usually like his version n of the song better!” Trentemøller added, “It’s always a huge pleasure working with Jenny. Producing and playing on this song was no exception. It’s nice to see it’s finally out now!”
Commenting on ‘Heart Tax’, JennyLee explained: “[‘Heart Tax’ is] a song about love and loss, and the struggle of dealing with that wild emotional rollercoaster. When your heart has had enough, but for some reason, you keep going back for more.”
The new single follows ‘Newtopia’ / ‘Clinique’, which came out in October. Later this month, JennyLee will be releasing the third and final single, ‘Stop Speaking’ / ‘In Awe Of’, the former of which features Depeche Modes’ Dave Gahan.
Orla Gartland has shared a new version of her song ‘Madison’, which appears on her debut LP Woman on the Internet. Arriving with video shot at Middle Farm Studios, where the album was recorded, ‘Madison (orla & friends)’ features additional vocals from dodie, Greta Isaac, and Martin Luke Brown. Check it out below.
Talking about the track, Gartland explained in a press release:
I recorded my album ‘Woman on the Internet’ at Middle Farm studios in Devon and it quickly became one of my favourite places in the world. It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been and once I finished the album I was desperate to come back and this time bring my friends with me. So I assembled a supergroup made up of my touring band (Pete Daynes, Sara Leigh Shaw) & other talented creatures (Nathan Cox, Greta Isaac, Martin Luke Brown, dodie) and we headed down to Devon to record some live versions of songs from the album.
Something magic happened that weekend – I can’t quite explain it but it just felt like such an important few days. We recorded 3 songs together in the live room with videos shot by Daniel Broadley & then in a gap between rain showers ran outside to the picnic table outside the studio kitchen to record this version of ‘Madison’. I wrote the song with Greta & Martin so to sing it with them just felt right – I love my friends because we collaborate wherever & however we can; we’re all superfans of each other. I play & sing BVs in dodie’s live band so it felt amazing to have her there too, all of us huddled & gathered around one mic. I love this version of the song so much I wanted to shine a spotlight on it & release it properly – an homage to my friends & to a feeling I felt throughout the writing & recording of ‘Woman on the Internet’.
Connecticut band Anxious have shared a new single, ‘Growing Up’, which is set to appear on their forthcoming debut LP Little Green House. Check out its accompanying video below.
“‘Growing Up Song’ is about how I cope with people close to me changing as we’ve become young adults,” guitarist Dante Melucci explained in a statement. “It’s scary to me when I start to feel like I don’t understand someone I care about anymore, and as easy it is for me to blame them for not being who I thought they were, I’m changing all the time too, and that’s okay.”
Little Green House, which was produced by Chris Teti at Silver Bullet Studios, is out January 21 via Run for Cover. Previously, the band previewed the album with the lead single ‘In April’.
After tackling songs by Ramones, Lisa Loeb, and Barry Manilow, Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin have covered Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ for the latest installment of their Hannukah Sessions series. Watch it below.
“Quite possibly the loudest and proudest of hard-rocking Jews, David Lee Roth has gone on record crediting his Bar Mitzvah preparation as his earliest vocal training,” the pair wrote on social media. “He became a rockstar the day he became a man.”
Pioneering experimental composer Alvin Lucier has died at the age of 90 at his home in Middletown, Connecticut. Lucier’s daughter, Amanda Lucier, told The New York Times that the cause of death was complications after a fall.
Born in 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire, Lucier studied music theory and composition at Yale and earned his master’s at Brandeis University. His interest in experimental music grew while he was studying in Rome for two years as a Fulbright scholar, where he attendded performances by composers such as John Cage, David Tudor, and Merce Cunningham.
In 1962, Lucier returned to Brandeis, where he took up a position as director of the University Chamber Chorus. His breakthrough work, 1965’s Music for Solo Performer, used physicist Edmond Dewan’s brain wave amplifier to generate sound from Lucier’s own alpha brain waves. In 1966, he founded the Sonic Arts Union alongside fellow experimental composers including Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma.
Lucier recorded dozens of works during his decades-long career, often using various gadgets as creative tools. His best known piece, 1969’s I Am Sitting in a Room, features him narrating a piece of text, playing it back, and recording it again until the voice becomes distorted and the words unintelligible. “I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now,” he said. “I am recording the sound of my speaking voice, and I am going to play it back into the room again and again, until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed.” The piece was eventually purchased by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
In 1970, Lucier joined Wesleyan became a professor of music at Wesleyan University, where he remained until his retirement in 2011. He composed works commissioned by ensembles such as Bang on a Can All-Stars, Alter Ego, Ensemble Pamplemousse, and ICE, while his music has been performed by Charles Curtis, Yo La Tengo, Barbara Held, Claire Chase, Yarn/Wire, Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley,Oren Ambarchi, and Sarah Hennies.
“One of my fondest compliments,” he said in an interview witt The New York Times earlier this year, “was when our plumber, as he was leaving my house after having finished a job at my home, remarked as he was walking out the door: ‘Are you the guy who wrote the piece about sitting in a room? My kids love it. You are ahead of your time.’”
Southern California-born singer-songwriter Alix Page has unveiled a new single called ‘Radiohead’. It’s lifted from her upcoming debut EP, Old News, which is due in January 2022. Listen to ‘Radiohead’ below.
Talking about the new single, Page explained in a statement:
[‘Radiohead’] is proof that you can be completely over someone and then have a dream about them and fall right back into feelings you didn’t know you still had. Around this time last year I had a dream about me and an ex moving into an apartment and painting it together. We hadn’t spoken in months and I genuinely hadn’t thought about it in a while but it felt SO scarily real. I woke up flustered and heard the whole thing in my head before I even got out of bed; I wrote the first verse and chorus right away.
It wasn’t difficult to write technically but it made me face some hard truths during the process. I didn’t realize I still had some unresolved feelings about it until I was writing the chorus and saying those words out loud. That was kind of my way of coming to terms with the reality of that breakup and accepting the way things went. It’s really just a list of things I wish I could’ve said to that person at that moment.
“Sometimes you get to a point with grief where you realize everyone is tired of hearing about it,” String Machine’s David Beck said of ‘Gales of Worry’ in a statement. “That’s a really tough place to be in because the pain still persists and sometimes you bottle it up because you feel like a burden to people. This manifests into bouts of anxiety. I really hit a low point & honestly, this song just came out of me. I felt abandoned with my heartbreak and I just felt really alone & guarded. This song is a snapshot of the feelings that crowded all of that.”
Wild Pink have shared a new standalone single, ‘Florida’, in honour of frontman John Ross’ home state. Check it out below.
In a statement (via Stereogum), Ross said of the new track:
“Florida” is a love letter to the state I grew up in. It has a bad reputation, which is well deserved, but I think it’s also a misunderstood state. It’s got its own thing going on if you look hard enough, and the natural beauty there is unreal. Florida is a rewarding place if you spend the time finding its charm. I grew up listening to a lot of Florida bands like I Hate Myself and Shai Hulud, which was really formative for me early on.
This was the first song I wrote after a long musical hiatus during the lockdown. I had just gotten an upright piano for free on Facebook Marketplace and the piano loop was the first thing I wrote on it. ‘Florida’ puts a period at the end of the A Billion Little Lights sentence, in my mind.
Hurray for the Riff Raff has shared a new single, ‘Jupiter’s Dance’, the latest offering from Alynda Segarra’s upcoming album Life on Earth. The track arrives with an accompanying video that uses “compiled historical footage on the art of Bomba and Plena in Puerto Rico,” according to the YouTube description. Check it out below.
In a statement, Segarra described the new track as “a song in the shape of a guardian angel. Protection prayer for us all as we live in uncertain and violent times. Manifesting blessings into reality. Posing the question that perhaps the future could be joyous as well as terrifying?”
Life on Earth, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s debut full-length for Nonesuch Records, lands on February 18, 2022. It includes the previously released single ‘Rhododendron’.
supernowhere – the Seattle-based trio of bassist and singer Meredith Davey, guitarist Kurt Pacing, and drummer Matt Anderson – have announced their sophomore album. Skinless Takes a Flight, the follow-up to 2018’s Gestalt, will be released on March 2, 2022 via Topshelf Records. The album was produced by Great Grandpa’s Dylan Hanwright, who also recently remixed and remastered the band’s debut. Check out the lead single ‘Basement Window’ below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork (by Meredith Davey and Kurt Pacing) and tracklist.
Skinless Takes a Flight Cover Artwork:
Skinless Takes a Flight Tracklist:
1. Circles
2. Dirty Tangle
3. Amphibian
4. Basement Window
5. Skinless Takes A Flight
6. Augury
7. The Hand
8. Gently Inert
9. Ecdysis
