The War on Drugs have announced a new live album titled LIVE DRUGS. It’s out November 20 via frontman Adam Granduciel’s label Super High Quality Records. The collection features a series of sets from 40 of Granduciel’s hard drives, according to a press release. Below, check out a new live version of ‘Pain’, along with the album’s tracklist.
“As a bandleader, I always want to know where a song can go,” Granduciel said in a statement. “Even though we’ve recorded it, mastered it, put it out, and been touring on it, it doesn’t mean that we just have to do it the same way forever…. It feels like it’s kind of a reset, to be able to put something out that’s a really good interpretation of the way we interpret our music live. Even though this recording is from a year of tours, this is really how these six guys evolved as a band from 2014 to 2019.”
LIVE DRUGS was co-produced by Granduciel’s longtime friend Dominic East. Jonathan Low handled the mixing at Long Pond Studio, which is owned by The National’s own Aaron Dessner.
The War on Drugs recently collaborated with the Rolling Stones for a remix of ‘Scarlet’. The band’s most recent album was 2017’s A Deeper Understanding.
LIVE DRUGS Tracklist:
1. An Ocean Between The Waves (Live)
2. Pain (Live)
3. Strangest Thing (Live)
4. Red Eyes (Live)
5. Thinking Of A Place (Live)
6. Buenos Aires Beach (Live)
7. Accidentally Like a Martyr (Live)
8. Eyes to the Wind (Live)
9. Under the Pressure (Live)
10. In Reverse (Live) Lorem Ipsum
The White Stripes have announced their first official Greatest Hits album. The collection arrives December 4 via Third Man/Columbia and contains 26 of the Detroit duo’s most iconic songs spanning their discography. So far, only one song – ‘Ball and Biscuit’ – has been confirmed for the tracklist. Accompanying the announcement, The White Stripes have also unveiled a previously unreleased video of the band performing the track live in Tokyo, Japan on October 22nd, 2003. Check it out below, along with the album’s cover artwork.
The album is available for preorder in multiple formats, including CD, 2xLP 150-gram black vinyl, as well as digitally. A deluxe limited edition coloured vinyl variant of The White Stripes Greatest Hits is also available as part of Third Man Records’ Vault Package subscription, featuring new art from collaborator Rob Jones, silk-screen prints, and White Stripes-themed magnetic poetry. In addition to the new compilation, the band will also upgrade all their music videos to high definition and released on the White Stripes YouTube channel in December.
The announcement arrives with news that Jack White and his label have signed a new agreement with Sony Music Entertainment covering distribution of most of his recordings.
Following 2014’s Familiars, the track was written by lead singer and songwriter Peter Silberman and drummer Michael Lerner, produced by Silberman, and mixed by Nicholas Principe at People Teeth in Kingston, NY. “‘Wheels Roll Home’ is a simple song about the hopeful promise of reunion after a long time gone,” Silberman explained. “It’s that feeling of finding home in someone, eager and impatient to build a life together. It’s the experience of waiting out tumultuous times, longing for stability someday.”
After Familiars, Silberman issued a solo album in 2017 titled Impermanence, though the group refuted rumours that they’d broken up. Last year, the Antlers toured and put out a 10th anniversary reissue of their classic album Hospice.
Laura Fell has unveiled a new single called ‘Cold’. It’s taken from the London-based singer-songwriter’s upcoming debut album Safe from Me, set for release on November 20 via Balloon Machine Records. Take a listen below.
“This song is about the vulnerability of entering into a new relationship – wanting to open yourself fully, but fearful of doing this too soon – and essentially asking someone not to reject or judge you when you show them the messier parts of yourself,” Fell said in a statement.
‘Cold’ marks Laura Fell’s second single following on from August’s ‘Bone of Contention’, which landed on our Best New Songs segment.
Angel Olsen is the latest musician to perform on NPR’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series. Sitting on the willow-draped porch of her new home in Asheville, N.C., the singer-songwriter performed the title track from her latest album Whole New Mess, as well as ‘Iota’, ‘What It Is (What It Is)’, and ‘Waving, Smiling’. Check out her performance below.
“This song is just about wishing that all the world could see something for what it is at the same time,” she said of ‘Iota’, which appeared on her 2014 album Burn Your Fire for No Witness.
Angel Olsen recently shared a cover of Bobby Vinton’s 1962 classic ‘Mr. Lonely’, which appears on the soundtrack for Miranda July’s upcoming film Kajillionaire. Whole New Mess came out in August. Recently, Tiny Desk hosted Bright Eyes, Phoebe Bridgers, Billie Eilish, and more.
After much teasing on social media, AC/DC have officially announced their new album POWER UP. The LP arrives November 13 via Columbia. They’ve also previewed the album with the lead single, ‘Shot in the Dark’. Check it out below, and scroll down for the record’s cover artwork and tracklist.
POWER UP reunites the band’s surviving classic lineup: Brian Johnson, Angus Young, Phil Rudd, and Cliff Williams. Stevie Young replaced the late Malcolm Young on rhythm guitar following his passing in 2017. The album marks the first album to feature the band’s classic lineup since 2008’s Black Ice, which was followed in 2014 with Rock or Bust. Though guitarist Malcolm Young did co-write the album, he did not appear on it due to his declining health. In 2015, Rudd left AC/DC following legal issues, and a year later, Johnson had to exit the band’s ‘Rock or Bust Tour’ due to hearing loss.
The album will be available in multiple formats, while a limited deluxe edition will include light-up box with built-in speakers that play a portion of ‘Shot In The Dark’, a 20-page booklet, and more.
1. Realize
2. Rejection
3. Shot In The Dark
4. Through The Mists Of Time
5. Kick You When You’re Down
6. Witch’s Spell
7. Demon Fire
8. Wild Reputation
9. No Man’s Land
10. Systems Down
11. Money Shot
12. Code Red
Johnny Nash, the American reggae and pop singer behind the hit single ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, has died at the age of 80. His son John Nash III told TMZ that he passed away at his home in Houston on Tuesday (October 7). No cause of death was disclosed.
Born in Houston in 1940, Nash grew up singing in the church choir and later as a teenager, performed R&B covers on the local variety show Matinee. Having signed to ABC-Paramount at just 17 years old, he made his major label debut with 1957’s ‘A Teenager Sings the Blues’ and scored his first hit a year later with a cover of Doris Day’s ‘A Very Special Love’. Following the success of his 1965 single, ‘Let’s Move and Groove Together’, which rose to the Top 5 of the Billboard R&B charts, Nash and manager Danny Sims moved to Jamaica, where he was introduced and became friends with Bob Marley & The Wailers.
In 1967, Nash, Arthur Jenkins, and Sims co-founded a label called JAD Records and began recording at Federal Records, Jamaica’s first recording studio. His 1968 single ‘Hold Me Tight’ became a a top-five hit in both the U.S. and UK, followed by his cover of Marley’s ‘Stir it Up’ in 1971. His most famed reggae-influenced single, ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, arrived in 1972. Though overlooked by the Grammys, the popular hit was later covered by artists including Ray Charles, Donny Osmond, Soul Asylum, and Jimmy Cliff. Nash retreated from the music scene in the late 1970s, returning briefly in 1986 with the album Here Again.
“I feel that music is universal,” Nash told Cameron Crowe, then writing for Zoo World Magazine, in 1973. “Music is for the ears and not the age. There are some people who say that they hate music. I’ve run into a few, but I’m not sure I believe them.”
Eddie Van Halen, the legendary guitarist and one of the namesakes behind the hard rock group Van Halen, has died following a long battle with throat cancer. He was 65 years old.
His death was confirmed by his son, Wolf Van Halen, via Twitter. “I can’t believe I’m having to write this,” he wrote, “but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning. He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift.”
Edward Lodewjk Van Halen was born on January 26th, 1955, in Nijmegen, Netherlands. The son of classical musician Jan van Halen, he and his family moved to Pasadena, California, in 1962. Eddie started taking piano lessons at an early age before picking up the guitar, citing Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page as his biggest influences. He and his brother, Alex, formed their first rock band in the mid-1960s, changing multiple names before settling on Van Halen in 1972. By 1974, their lineup included Eddie on guitar, Alex on drums, frontman David Lee Roth as frontman, and bassist Michael Anthony.
After playing in West Hollywood clubs and making a demo produced by Kiss’ Gene Simmons, the band signed to Warner Bros. Records and released their self-titled debut album in 1978. Selling over 10 million copies, Van Halen included the classic track ‘Eruption’, a less-than-two minute instrumental that showcased Eddie’s impressive guitar chops and signature finger tapping guitar technique.
Van Halen became increasingly successful in the late ’70s and early ’80s, from their 1979 hit ‘Dance the Night Away’ to their best-selling sixth LP, 1984, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart and spawned the chart-topping single ‘Jump’ as well as ‘Panama’ and ‘Hot for Teacher’. At the No. 1 spot was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, whose iconic ‘Beat It’ featured a solo from none other than Eddie Van Halen.
David Lee Roth left the band shortly after to pursue a solo career, with the remaining members of Van Halen regrouping around Sammy Hagar, who fronted the band through the rest of the 1980s and most of the 1990s. Van Halen made one record with Extreme frontman Gary Cherone, 1998’s Van Halen III.
Though Van Halen never fully broke up, Eddie Van Halen’s various health issues occasionally forced the band into hiatus, including his hip-replacement surgery in 1999 and a bout with tongue cancer in the early 2000s. Around the same time, the band briefly got back together with Sammy Hagar before he left for the final time in 2005. David Lee Roth rejoined Van Halen shortly after, releasing their first album together in more than twenty years, A Different Kind of Truth, in 2012.
Eddie’s son, Wolf, joined Van Halen as a bassist after Michael Anthony left the group in 2006. A year later, Van Halen were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Carla J. Easton’s third album, WEIRDO, starts with a romantic proposition that will be familiar to any pop music fan: “Let me take you far away.” Formerly known as Ette, the Glasgow singer might not yet have been crowned the queen of literally everything, but the pulsating synths and soaring, breathy chorus of opener ‘Get Lost’ call right back to the pure pop escapism of Carly Rae Jepsen’s classic ‘Run Away with Me’. The follow-up to 2018’s critically acclaimed Impossible Stuff, WEIRDO carries with it that same euphoric feeling throughout, but Easton augments it with a touch of those darker influences that have yet to materialize in Jepsen’s music: the pounding drums on the otherwise sugary ‘Heart So Hard’, the wobbly synths on the entrancing ‘Beautiful Boy’, the distorted guitars on the thrilling, Honeyblood-featuring title track. But such inventive flourishes only make the bubblegum sweetness of ‘Never Knew You’ or the exuberant maximalism of ‘Over You’ all the more irresistible – at the end of the day, the strangest thing about WEIRDO is that not everyone in the entire world is listening to it. That’s fine; after all, this is an album that builds its own neon-lit cinematic universe, and Easton ensures that whoever is lucky enough to stumble upon it has one hell of a time. Because if you’ve ever enjoyed pop music, you’ll know how good it feels to get a little bit lost.
We caught up with Carla J. Easton for this edition of our Artist Spotlight series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk about their music.
What’s your earliest musical memory?
It’s really hard for me to say. There was always music playing in our household courtesy of my big brother (10 years older than me). His bedroom walls were covered in so many posters that you couldn’t see the wall, and there was always Melody Makers and NMEs lying around. I have early memories of jumping up and down on my bed with a tennis racket guitar and being obsessed with the animated series Jem and The Holograms. When I was 5, my mum dressed me up as a ‘pop star’ for halloween. I had thick purple eye shadow and stars stuck on my face. She sprayed my hair in rainbow colours and I remember having a neon orange scalp for days afterwards at school. Fast forward to today and, usually after a show, I have remnants of glitter everywhere.
What are some influences that inform your music, and how have they evolved over the years?
My record collection is varied. My brother taught me to embrace all genres of music from a young age. Added to that I played saxophone in my school band and had classical piano lessons between the ages of 9 and 13. Playing in a band helped me learn the ways lots of different melodies and parts can fit together. I’ve always loved pop music – be that Teenage Fanclub or Kylie Minogue. I can switch from listening to Beethoven and BMX Bandits quite easily and am obsessed with the Brill Building songwriters. I love the immediacy of Northern Soul and the harmonies of Girl Groups, the synth sounds from dance and Italo and the drama of Spector productions. I guess it all feeds in to what I do in some way. I went to art school and it’s only with each album I make that I realise the influence of art school education on the way I produce music. My demos are sketches to take into the studio and they change into fully formed finished works that are then ‘exhibited’ via live performance. Venues are my galleries.
WEIRDO marks a clear sonic shift from 2018’s Impossible Stuff, leaning more towards the sound of your first record as Ette. What led you back to that path, and how was your approach different this time?
I like to look at the people around me making a record and create a sound specific to the studio environment I am in. With the Ette record, most of it was written whilst I was staying with my mum for a bit. I had a minimal set up that consisted of an old Casio MT keyboard and a Korg Minipops Drum Machine. When it came to recording it was just me and the producer Joe Kane playing all the instruments and recording the album in an old lock up converted into a rehearsal space. Impossible Stuff was recorded in Hotel2Tango in Montreal with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire/ Leonard Cohen) and I had access to amazing musicians and instruments. That album was mostly recorded live off the floor – each song was captured at just the right point where, playing as a band, we had learned the song but couldn’t overthink our parts so it was spontaneous. I’d written most of those songs on the piano so it became the instrument that everything else fit around.
With WEIRDO – I guess it’s the sound of my having fun and exploring my synth more. Delving deeper into electronic drums. I co-wrote a lot of the tracks with Scott Paterson (Sons and Daughters) who had just come back from touring with The Kills as their synth player and my live band has 2 members of the electronic/dance band Sun Rose. Working with them meant I could push more into synth scapes and electronic drums and combine that with elements of Impossible Stuff. I never really know how a record is going to sound and for me that’s really exciting! Some tracks maybe only have 2 or 3 of us playing on it and some will have 5 – it’s never rehearsed before recoding because I like going into the studio to record with an open attitude. Everything is subject to change. I’ve been working with Producer Stephen Watkins since 2015 and over the last 5 years this is the method that suits us.
Could you talk us through the process of writing and recording WEIRDO? What was it like working with Scott Paterson?
I wrote and recorded the track ‘Thorns’ in 2017 before going to Montreal to record Impossible Stuff. As soon as Stephen sent me the final mix I knew it would be the closing track for the album after Impossible Stuff. I still think it’s one of the best collaborations me and Stephen have made together. It was then over a year before we would begin more tracks for WEIRDO as I was on the release and gig schedule for Impossible. In 2019 I performed a lot of gigs playing synths for The Vaselines (one of my all time favourite bands) which is how I met Scott Paterson who was playing bass for them. We played Belle and Sebastian’s Boaty Weekender and it was after that Scott said come to his studio and let’s co-write together. ‘Get Lost’ was the second song we wrote together and it was quickly followed by ‘Heart So Hard’, ‘Never Knew You’, and ‘Over You’.
Working together has been great as we both love writing and are good friends – I guess what I enjoy most about co-writing is the social aspect of it as writing can be quite isolating at times. The track ‘Weirdo’ was written quickly one afternoon when I was in my bedroom with nothing to do and frustrated about being labelled as ‘weird’ in a derogatory way. ‘Coming Up Daisies’ and ‘Beautiful Boy’ were written at the Banff Centre For Arts and Creativity in Canada where I was attending a writers’ residency in March 2019. I’d hiked up a mountain with songwriter Kim Richey and we were so high up I felt I could pick the sun out of the sky and swallow it down. It made me think about manmade monuments versus natural monuments. At the top of the mountain was an old shack where scientists had been studying cosmic rays and it was lined by old wooden fences that tourists had scrawled there names on, which made me remember a visit to Oscar Wilde’s grave in Paris and how it is now protected by perspex because it was starting to crumble with the weight of pilgrims kisses.
‘Catch Me If I Fall’, ‘Signing It In Blood’ and ‘Waves That Fall’ are all the results of walking around Glasgow and getting melodies in my head. I find that walking provides an ‘inner drumbeat’ and writing to drum machines has always been a tool for me.
How did the collaboration with Honeyblood come about, and what do you feel Stina Tweeddale brought to the track?
Me and Stina became friends after collaborating for a performance for the SAY Award longlist party in 2018. She’s not only become a great friend but also an ally and peer which is important. As a solo artist, it’s brilliant support to have someone you can trust and speak to about projects you are working on. Honeyblood were rehearsing in a studio not far from La Chunky Studio where I was recording with Stephen and my band. They came round to see how the session was going and it just happened off the cuff and very naturally. I think that’s what I love about this album – to me it’s a record made with friends! As soon as she sang the lines on ‘Weirdo’ I knew that would be the bit everyone would want to sing along to (myself included!). With a song like that, and a message of celebrating and embracing your weirdness, I think having Stina on it solidified that – come together, collaborate, create, have fun, be yourself – there’s a celebratory girl gang element that wouldn’t have existed without her involvement.
What do you hope listeners take away from the album?
Pop music can be interesting and fun and sad and happy and euphoric and intricate and clever. It can be lots of different things. It can be dirty as well as shiny. It’s OK to be weird. It’s OK to make mistakes in life and learn from them. You’ll fall in love and crash out of it but you’ll survive. The origins of the word weird originally meant ‘having the power to control destiny’. I like that. This record was therapeutic for me to write and record.
What are your plans for the future?
I hope that one day I can tour this album live and blast it out in sweatbox venues! Until then, I’m writing new music with plans to record shortly. The WEIRDO album has gone to repress and I am so excited to have collaborated with Jim Lambie on the artwork for it for the Wild Rose Jim Lambie Edition. There aren’t many left and the support from everyone has been incredible and means I can keep making music and that’s my favourite thing to do in life.
“UNBOUND came alive really fast,” the group wrote in a statement. “It’s about desire: the kind that oozes for the person you do want and the kind that evaporates for the person you don’t. We wanted to make something groovy and colorful, that could access nostalgia while also giving our listeners something new and danceable in a way we haven’t before.”
‘UNBOUND’ marks the band’s second single of the year, following ‘SUNRISE’, which came out in July. Since then, the track has been remixed by Leven Kali, Deem Spencer x the booyah! kids, and most recently, Arlo Parks.
