The WAEVE – the duo of Blur’s Graham Coxon and Rose Elinor Dougall – have put out a new single, ‘City Lights’. Check it out below.
Introducing the new song, the band shared: “The city lights bestow a unique magic on everyone – the beautiful and the grotesque, the angels and the devils – shining and seductive, one and all… Who wants to love you and who wants to destroy you?”
The WAEVE released their eponymous debut album last year.
IAN SWEET – the project of NYC artist Jilian Medford – has shared a cover of Broken Social Scene’s ‘Anthems for Seventeen Year Old Girl’. Listen to it below.
Speaking about the track, Medford said:
Broken Social Scene’s music has always felt like the equivalent of a hug, and I think at some point everyone has to have *that* moment with ‘Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl.’ Or maybe you have it more than once. This song hits different for me now than it did when I was actually 17, and I imagine it’ll hit a little different each year I get further away from that version of myself. It so poignantly nails the difficulty of trying to exist within the moment of being a teenager while you’re simultaneously looking towards the inevitable transitions looming on the horizon. You want to cry.. and you should cry.
Simply put: It. Fucking. Crushes.
And even though covering someone else’s work is weird and strange and almost always feels like perhaps it shouldn’t be done, I’m willing to say effusively that I never want to escape this song. With this small act, perhaps now I can’t! The original is essential, other covers have taken it to amazing places as well, and now I’ve recorded my version hoping a few more people will get to shout the lyrics at the top of their lungs and FEEL FUCKING INCREDIBLE doing so. Here’s hoping a thousand more artists do the same and that this song just never dies.
Earlier this year, ‘Anthems for Seventeen Year Old Girl’ was covered by yeule for Jane Schoenbrun’s upcoming horror film I Saw the TV Glow. IAN SWEET released her most recent album, SUCKER, last year.
Sarah Tudzin has returned with a new illuminati hotties song, ‘Can’t Be Still’. Check out a video for it below.
“I find that something I have in common with most people that I talk to lately is the immense fear of and inability to be alone with ourselves,” Tudzin said of the new single in a statement. “Constant motion, avoidance, restlessness — anything to keep myself from stagnating [has] always been my coping mechanisms when my inner monologue starts to get loud.”
illuminati hotties’ last album was 2020’s Let Me Do One More. Since then, Tudzin has produced boygenius’ Grammy-winning the record as well as albums by Weyes Blood, Eliza McLamb, Speedy Oritz, Lou Roy, and more. She’s also shared the singles ‘Truck’ and ‘sandwich share’.
Sprints have released two new songs, ‘Drones & Help Me, I’m Spiralling’ and ‘Drones’. They were both recorded during the sessions behind the Irish band’s debut album, Letter to Self, which came out in January. They’ve also announced an extensive tour that will take them across the US, UK, and Europe; check out the list of dates and listen to the new songs below.
“We’re happy to share the remnants of the chaos and catharsis that was the ‘Letter To Self’ recording process,” the band shared in a statement. “A reimagination of an old favourite, and a new track too, the Black Box Sessions include ‘Drones’ and ‘Help Me, I’m Spiralling’, two tracks that explore themes of uncertainty, anxiety and doubt. Embrace the madness and the noise.”
May 23 – Derby, UK – Bearded Theory
May 25 – Leeds, UK – Live at Leeds in the Park
Jun 9 – Hilvarenbeek, NL – Best Kept Secret Festival
Jun 13 – Mallorca, ES – Mallorca Live
Jun 15 – Porto, PT – Mouco
Jun 22 – Scheessel, DE – Hurricane Festival
Jun 23 – Neuhausen Ob Eck, DE – Southside Festival
Jun 25 – Zagreb, HR – INmusic Festival
Jun 28 – Pilton, UK – Glastonbury Festival Events Ltd
Jul 5 – Werchter, BE – Rock Werchter
Jul 6 – Belfort, FR – Les Eurockéennes De Belfort
Jul 7 – Rotterdam, NL – Metropolis Festival
Jul 12 – Cardiff, UK – Cardiff Castle with IDLES
Jul 13 – Halifax, UK – The Piece Hall Trust with IDLES
Jul 14 – Glasgow, UK – TRNSMT Festival
Jul 27 – Sheffield, UK – Tramlines
Aug 3 – Portlaw, IE – All Together Now Festival
Aug 8 – Schwetzingen, DE – Schlossgarten with Pixies
Aug 10 – Newquay, UK – Boardmasters Festival
Aug 15 – Porto, PT – Paredes De Coura Festival
Aug 27 – Dublin 7, IE – Collins Barracks with Gossip
Aug 28 – Belfast, UK – Custom House Square with Pixies
Aug 29 – Dublin, IE – Royal Dublin Society with Pixies
Aug 30 – Dorset, UK – End Of The Road Festival
Sep 1 – Darmstadt, DE – Golden Leaves Festival
Sep 1 – Eindhoven, NL – Hit The City
Sep 6 – Miranda de Ebro, ES – Ebrovision
Sep 25 – Boston MA, US – The Sinclair*
Sep 27 – Philadelphia PA, US – The Foundry*
Sep 28 – Brooklyn NY, US – Music Hall of Williamsburg*
Sep 30 – Washington DC, US – The Atlantis*
Oct 2 – Carrboro NC, US – Cat’s Cradle Back Room*
Oct 4 – Atlanta GA, US – Altar*
Oct 5 – Nashville TN, US – The End*
Oct 7 – Austin TX, US – Parish*
Oct 10 – Denver CO, US – Globe Hall*
Oct 13 – Salt Lake City UT, US – Urban Lounge*
Oct 14 – Boise ID, US – Shrine Social Club*
Oct 16 – Portland OR, US – Aladdin Theatre*
Oct 17 – Seattle WA, US – Neumo’s*
Oct 20 – Sacramento CA, US – Starlet Room*
Oct 21 – San Francisco CA, US – The Chapel*
Oct 24 – Los Angeles CA, US – Roxy Theatre*
Oct 25 – San Diego CA, US – HOB Voodoo Room*
Oct 26 – Santa Ana CA, US – Parish Room*
Nov 12 – Bristol, UK – Marble Factory
Nov 13 – London, UK – Kentish Town Forum
Nov 23 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso*
Nov 24 – Cologne, DE – Luxor*
Nov 29 – Manchester, UK – New Century Hall
Dec 7 – Nijmegen, NL – Zeitgeist
Dec 9 – Berlin, DE – Lido*
Dec 12 – Brussels, BE – Orangerie*
Dec 13 – Lille, FR – L’Aéronef*
Dec 14 – Luxembourg, LX – Rotondes*
Dec 16 – Paris, FR – Trabendo*
Ernest Greene has announced a new Washed Out album called Notes From a Quiet Life. The follow-up to 2020’s Purple Noon arrives on June 28 via Sub Pop. It’s led by the single ‘The Hardest Part’, which is accompanied by a video from director Paul Trillo that was created using OpenAI’s Sora. Check it out below.
Notes From a Quiet Life marks the first album Greene has self-produced, with mixing assistance from Nathan Boddy and David Wrench. Discussing the new song and video, Greene said:
‘The Hardest Part’ is a story about nostalgia and love lost. With the video, I wanted to bring this narrative to life in a sincere way that was also exciting and unexpected. I’ve been a fan of Paul for a long time and he is amazingly skilled at incorporating cutting-edge visual effects that elevate a story instead of simply supplementing it with shock and awe. He was at the top of my list of potential collaborators.
What he’s come up with is nostalgic, sad, uplifting, and often quite strange. However, he still manages to make you feel for the characters and invested in the journey of how their lives progress.
I think that Paul is right when he says that this video could only be made using this new AI technology. In my opinion, the hallucinatory quality of Sora clips feel like the beginning of a new genre unto itself – one that is surreal and unpredictable and entirely unique to traditional cinema or even animation.
Paul Trillo added:
I had the seed of this video concept 10 years ago, where we do an infinite zoom of a couple’s life over the course of many decades, but I have yet to attempt it because I figured it’d be too ambitious for a music video. While the technology is experimental and cutting-edge, I wanted to do something that also felt like a classic music video that would hold your attention no matter what tech was being used in the process. I was specifically interested in what makes Sora so unique. It offers something that couldn’t quite be shot with a camera, nor could it be animated in 3D, it was something that could have only existed with this specific technology. The surreal and hallucinatory aspects of AI allow you to explore and discover new ideas that you would have never dreamed of. Using AI to simply recreate reality is boring. I wasn’t interested in capturing realism but something that felt hyperreal. The fluid blending and merging of different scenes feels more akin to how we move through dreams and the murkiness of memories. While some people feel this may be supplanting how things are made, I see this as supplementing ideas that could never have been made otherwise. Many artists in this industry are constantly compromising and negotiating their ideas with the reality of what can be made. This offers a glimpse at a future where music artists will be given the opportunity to dream bigger. An overreliance on this technique may become a crutch and it’s important that we don’t use this as the new standard of creation but another technique in the toolbelt.
Notes From a Quiet Life Cover Artwork:
Notes From a Quiet Life Tracklist:
1. Waking Up
2. Say Goodbye
3. Got Your Back
4. The Hardest Part
5. A Sign
6. Second Sight
7. Running Away
8. Wait on You
9. Wondrous Life
10. Letting Go
Why Bonnie – the New York-based project of Blair Howerton – have announced their signing to Fire Talk Records with a new song, ‘Dotted Line’. The track arrives with a music video co-directed by Howerton and Grace Pendleton. Watch and listen below.
Howerton wrote ‘Dotted Line’ during a period when she was “broke as hell” and experiencing “the weight of capitalism,” she explained in a press release. “I was thinking of all the things we’re told are markers of success, and how at this rate, I’ll probably never have any of them.”
‘Dotted Line’ marks the band’s first new music since their 2022 album 90 in November. Check out our Artist Spotlight interview with Why Bonnie.
Caroline Polachek has shared ‘Starbuned and Unkissed’, her contribution to the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack. She produced the new track with A. G. Cook. Check it out below.
Out May 10, I Saw the TV Glow (Original Soundtrack) features previously released tracks from Yeule and Florist. Sloppy Jane (featuring Phoebe Bridgers), the Weather Station, Snail Mail, Drab Majesty, King Woman, and more also contributed to the album.
In February, Polachek released the deluxe edition of her 2023 LP Desire, I Want To Turn Into You.
Angélica Garcia has shared a new single, ‘Gemini’, lifted from her forthcoming album Gemelo. It follows previous offering ‘Color De Dolor’, and it comes with a video co-directed by Garcia and Carlos Garcia. Check it out below.
“Sometimes I just want to be playful because so many things in the world feel simulated anyway,” Garcia said of the new single in a press release. “Choosing joy in the face of everything sometimes feels like rebellion. ‘Gemini’ leans the most into the Chicano Batman influence. Carlos Arévalo and Eduardo Arenas both play on it. Our friend William Alexander did a live cut of the drums, and it’s the only song on the album where the drums weren’t processed like samples. A big part of Gemini’s personality comes from the live feel.”
Ra Ra Riot have returned with their first song in five years. ‘The Wish’ was co-written and produced by Rostam Batmanglij, who used to be in the band Discovery with Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles. Check it out below.
Discussing the single in a press release, Miles said:
Rostam and I have been longtime collaborators and have gotten to work on all kinds of different projects together over the years. It’s always something fun and exciting and new. When we got into his studio recently, we found we’d both been getting into fingerpicking—some folk stuff, like Fairport Convention, Joni Mitchell, Anne Briggs, Judy Sill, that kind of stuff. And so we just went from there. It started with a riff I had, super rough, with a sort of nebulous story, and he helped simplify the fingerpicking pattern and start molding it into more of a specific story and vibe. Rostam added some organ—Hammond B3—and some mandolin, and Joey, his assistant, who’s studied Latin percussion, really added a lot of movement to it. Over the course of two trips to L.A., we wrote, re-wrote, and recorded the song almost in real time, and I think it’s something really new for us. To me, the song’s about the power of imagining a different world—not necessarily in a fantastic or escapist way, but in an empowering way. About manifesting these deeply held wants and desires. Having these powerful dream visions and trying to capture that moment before you fall deeply into dreaming. Rostam and I love working on songs that can read as both happy and sad at the same time and using that tension to amplify and understand the depth of these feelings and visions.
In July, Ra Ra Riot will join Vampire Weekend for a run of US shows.
Isabella Lovestory has released a new song, ‘Botoxxx’. It arrives with a music video directed by Ariel Poupart and conceived by Lovestory. Watch and listen below.
According to Lovestory, the video is “an exaggerated fantasy of the desire to be beautiful.” The Honduran artist added, “The tension and fear of losing that beauty, and surrendering to the antidote. A contrast between beauty and monstrosity and how they both ultimately need each other. Decadence turned into a horrific fever dream.”
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