Massiave Attack have shared a new audiovisual EP called Eutopia. Co-written and produced by 3D (Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja) and Mark Donne, the trip-hop pioneers’ latest was recorded in three different cities during lockdown and features collaborations with Algiers, Saul Williams, and Young Fathers. Check it out below.
Drawing from Thomas More’s 16th century book Utopia, the EP also tackles issues such as climate change and tax haven extraction, featuring contributions from Christiana Figueres, who wrote the UN Paris Climate Agreement, Professor Guy Standing, founder of the Universal Basic Income Principle, and Professor Gabriel Zucman, who invented the US “Wealth Tax” policy.
Speaking of the project, Massive Attack said in a statement: “Lockdown exposed the best aspects and worst flaws of humanity. That period of uncertainty and anxiety forced us to meditate on the obvious need to change the damaging systems we live by. By working with three experts, we’ve created a sonic and visual dialogue around these global, structural issues; taking the form of climate emergency, tax haven extraction and Universal Basic Income.”
They added: “The spirit of this EP, its elements and ideas have nothing to do with naïve notions of an ideal, perfect world, and everything to do with the urgent & practical need to build something better. In this sense, Eutopia is the opposite of spelling mistake.”
Eutopia marks the group’s first new material since 2016’s Ritual Spirit. Last year, Massive Attack went on a Mezzanine anniversary tour alongside Liz Fraser.
Alanis Morissette has shared a new single called ‘Reckoning’, from her upcoming album Such Pretty Forks In The Road. Check it out below.
‘Recoking’ was co-written by Morissette and Michael Farrell and produced by Catherine Marks. It follows the previously released singles ‘Reasons I Drink’, ‘Smiling’, and ‘Diagnosis’.
Such Pretty Forks In The Road, the singer’s highly anticipated follow-up to 2012’s Havoc and Bright Lights, will be released on July 31st via Epiphany/ Thirty Tigers/ RCA. Morissette was set to embark on a world tour for the 25th anniversary of 1995’s Jagged Little Pill this summer, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In December of last year, a stage musical production of Jagged Little Pill, which included the new song ‘Smiling’, made its Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City.
Rina Sawayama has dropped a new remix version of ‘XS’ featuring guest vocals from Bree Runway. Listen to it below.
‘XS’ is taken from the pop singer’s latest studio album, SAWAYAMA, which was released back in April. Originally produced by Kyle Shearer, Chris Lyon, and Valley Girl, the new version also includes production from Clarence Clarity, who co-produced most of the album.
“Money, power, excess, and more/ But they can’t never snatch my soul,” Runway raps on her verse. “It’s a ring on my finger, of course I said yes/ I ain’t married to no man, I’m married to success.”
Sawayama announced the release of the remix yesterday, but teased its existence in a tweet thread going as far back as April. Recently, she also shared a cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Dance in the Dark’ as part of the Pride edition of Spotify’s recurring Singles series.
Elvis Costello has released a new track titled ‘Hetty O’Hara Confidential’. It’s his second single of 2020, following ‘No Flag’, which dropped a few weeks ago in June. Listen to it below.
The track, engineered by Eetü Seppälä and mixed in Los Angeles by Sebastian Krys, is described by a press release as “the tale of a tattler who outlives her time”. Speaking of recording the two new singles at Suomenlinnan Studio in Helsinki, Finland, Costello said: “I wanted to go somewhere nobody knew me. So, this is ‘The Helsinki Sound’.”
‘No Flag’ and ‘Hetty O’Hara Confidential’ mark the first new material from Elvis Costello And The Imposters since 2019’s Purse EP. Their last full-length release was 2018’s Look Now. Costello’s next single is set to drop on August 14.
100 gecs have shared a new remix version of ‘hand crushed by a mallet’ featuring Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump, as well as founding Chiodos vocalist Craig Owens and Nicole Dollanganger. It’s taken from the experimental pop duo’s new remix album 1000 gecs & The Tree of Clues. Check it out below.
The new remix album is out today via Big Beat/Atlantic. In addition to Fall Out Boy, 1000 gecs & The Tree of Clues also features contributions from Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, Kero Kero Bonito, Tommy Cash, Hannah Diamond, Nicole Dollanganger, and more. It also includes several rarities from the duo, including ‘toothless’ and ‘came to my show’, and two live tracks, ‘small pipe’ and ‘800db cloud’, taken from the band’s appearance on Adult Swim’s Fishcenter Live program.
Back in April, Dylan Brady curated a virtual festival on Minecraft which featured sets from Charli XCX, Cashmere Cat, A.G. Cook, Danny L Harle, Dorian Electra, and more.
Katy Perry has unveiled the title track from her upcoming studio album, Smile, set for release on August 14 via Capitol. Check it out below.
“I wrote this song when I was coming through one of the darkest periods of my life and had lost my smile,” the pop singer said of the new track in a statement. “When I listen to it now, it’s a great reminder that I made it through. It’s three minutes of energizing hopefulness.” Speaking of the album, she added: “This whole album is my journey towards the light – with stories of resilience, hope, and love.”
I wrote the title track from the album when I was coming through one of the darkest periods of my life and had lost my smile. This whole album is my journey towards the light – with stories of resilience, hope, and love. ♥️
Known for its distinct colour palette and sensual summery setting, Call Me By Your Name is the 2017 adaptation of André Aciman’s coming-of-age novel of the same name. The coming-of-age romance won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
The story takes place in northern Italy in the summer of 1983, when a 24-year-old Jewish-American graduate student named Oliver (Armie Hammer) stays with the Perlman family, also Jewish, to assist a professor in archaeology (Michael Stuhlbarg). The professor’s son Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is a precocious seventeen-year-old who at first thinks he has little in common with the outgoing Oliver and resents having to give up his room for him. Nevertheless, the two spend much of the summer together, swimming, reading, visiting the town, and accompanying Elio’s father on archaeological trips. Eventually, the boys acknowledge their attraction to one another.
The vibrant, sunny setting of the Italian town is a beautiful and colourful setting to the summer that will change the boys’ lives forever. Here are 15 of the film’s most beautiful stills.
Following the release of the 12-minute single ‘America’ a week ago, Sufjan Stevens has now put out the B-side of the single called ‘My Rajneesh’, which clocks in at just over 10 minutes. While as sprawling and socially conscious as ‘America’, the new song is melodically more reminiscent of Stevens’ earlier work, before it becomes infused with electronics and then devolves into an ambient piece by the end. Listen to it below.
A 12″ vinyl with the two tracks is set for release on July 31. The cover art for the new song, which won’t be included in Stevens’ upcoming album, is a portrait of Rajneesh, also known as Osho, founder of the Rajneesh movement, drawn by Stephen Halker. The single artwork also includes a painting of a dog by Earl Swanigan and an eagle/snake plus other tattoo art by Michael Evangelista.
Sufjan Stevens’ upcoming album, titled The Ascension, is set for release on September 25 via Asthmatic Kitty Records. Back in March, the singer-songwriter released a collaborative record with his stepfather, Lowell Brams, called Aporia.
In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on July 10th, 2020:
My Morning Jacket,The Waterfall II
My Morning Jacket are back with their first new album in five years. Announced earlier this week, the follow-up to 2015’s The Waterfall is out now via ATO, with physical copies arriving on August 28. The indie rock outfit’s latest was recorded during the same sessions that led to The Waterfall, at what became known as Panoramic House in Stinson Beach, California. The band originally considered putting out a triple album, but decided to split the tracks into distinct projects instead. During a walk in the early days of lockdown, frontman Jim James rediscovered one of the tracks, called ‘Spinning My Wheels’, which he felt was particularly relevant to the current situation due to evoking a feeling of being “hypnotized from doing the same old thing”. The band thus decided to revisit the songs, and the result, as a press release explains, is an album that “conjures an indelible pain but never drifts into despair.”
The Streets,None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive
The Streets have returned with their first full-length release in nine years called None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive, out now via Island Records. Self-described by the hip-hop project’s mastermind Mike Skinner as a “rap duets album”, the new mixtape features guest appearances from artists as varied as psych-rock outfit Tame Impala, punk group IDLES, and London rapper Jesse James Solomon, as well as Ms. Banks, Jimothy Lacoste, Hak Baker, and more. “Usually I do everything myself, mixing the album, recording the album, mastering the album. I wake up in the morning and think, ‘I need to work harder’,” Skinner said in an interview with DIY Mag earlier this year. “Whereas when you’re working with other people, you can’t be emailing them every day. I’ve always been desperately impatient, and I think I’ve developed patience on this project specifically.”
Juice WRLD,Legends Never Die
Juice WRLD’s posthumous album, called Legends Never Die, has arrived via Grade A/Interscope. Announced earlier this week with the release of a collaborative single featuring Halsey, the album also includes the previously unveiled posthumous tracks ‘Tell Me U Luv Me’ featuring Trippie Redd and ‘Righteous’. “We feel that this collection of 15 songs best represents the music Juice WRLD was in the process of creating,” a statement posted on social media reads. “The album shines a light on the collaborators that meant so much to Juice and deeply impacted his musical process. Juice dedicated his music to his fans and, now more than ever, we hope this album brings some reprieve to everyone during these unsettling times.” The 21-year-old rapper died in December of last year following an accidental overdose of oxycodone and codeine.
Rufus Wainwright,Unfollow the Rules
Rufus Wainwright has put out his ninth album of original material and first for BMG called Unfollow the Rules. Produced by Mitchell Froom (Paul McCartney, Crowded House, Sheryl Crow), the album features contributions from Matt Chamberlain, Jim Keltner, and Blake Mills and includes the previously released singles ‘Trouble in Paradise’, ‘Damsel in Distress’, ‘Peaceful Afternoon’, and ‘Alone Time’. “It’s a deepening on many levels. Being a dad and being married and being over 45, those are some heavy-duty situations here,” the songwriter told Billboard back in 2019. “I have some funny numbers; I maintain the Wainwright sense of humor, which is a familial trait. But most of it sort of dwells within the eternal feelings that I like to engender in my material, where it can be sung by anyone at any time.”
Soko,Feel Feelings
After pushing back the release date multiple times, French singer-songwriter Soko has finally dropped her third LP titled Feel Feelings, out now via Because Music/ Babycat. The artist started working on the album after a week-long treatment at the Hoffman Institute in South Downs, where she underwent a process known as ‘psychological deconditioning’, which involves getting rid of all coping mechanisms to focus on living only with your thoughts. The follow-up to My Dreams Dictate My Reality is the singer’s first album in five years and features the songs ‘Are You A Magician?’, which arrived with a Gia Coppola-directed clip, as well as early single ‘Being Sad Is Not A Crime’ and the recently unveiled ‘Blasphémie’.
Other albums out today:
Julianna Barwick, Healing Is A Miracle; Mike Shinoda, Dropped Frames, Vol. 1; Dinner Party, Dinner Party; The Beths, Jump Rope Gazers.
Peter Bibby’s Dog Act have announced their upcoming album named Marge which is due to be released on the 18th of September, this year. To preview the album, Peter Bibby and his disruptive band revealed a music video for their song Whyalla.
Brendan Hutchens, director and producer of the video, talked about the video saying “We shot this thing out in Glen Eagle’s Rest, due to COVID-19 we couldn’t shoot it in Whyalla. It came together nicely with the help of great friends, a great crew and a weird toilet cleaner who hung around telling us strange and creepy facts about the location. He said he was disappointed that we weren’t shooting a porno.”
The album comes after Peter Bibby’s last released song Oceans, which was published on the 8th of May.
My Morning Jacket
The Streets have returned with their first full-length release in nine years called None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive, out now via 
Juice WRLD’s posthumous album, called Legends Never Die, has arrived via Grade A/
Rufus Wainwright has put out his ninth album of original material and first for 
After pushing back the release date multiple times, French singer-songwriter Soko has finally dropped her third LP titled Feel Feelings, out now via 
