Armand Hammer have teamed up with Benjamin Booker for ‘Doves’, released as a bonus track for the rap duo’s latest album We Buy Diabetic Test Strips. The track was co-produced by Booker and Kenny Segal, and it comes with an accompanying short film directed by Ryosuke Tanzawa. Check out the nine-minute track below.
Tanzawa shared the following statement about the video:
Sage Elsseser, also known as Navy Blue, connected me with woods last year, and I was very much looking forward to doing a video for Armand Hammer (“Tabula Rasa” & “Stone Fruit” are important tracks me), but I never expected something nine minutes long, with basically everything… It’s quiet and loud, intimate and vast, beautiful and ugly — all of those things in one. I was a bit intimidated by the scale of the track at first and asked woods to give me some time to think about whether I would be the right director for the project. When I went through my archive of black and white photos and started testing them out, laying them over the singing parts of the track, I felt like OK — this is going to work. So I called woods and told him I wanted to do it. It turns out we had more or less the same idea of where and how to film him and Elucid. In the end, me and my producer Sean, with an arsenal of cameras from super 8 to iphone, shot it over the course of 3 days on a snowy January week.
Oregon-based singer-songwriter Anna Tivel has announced a new album calledLiving Thing. The follow-up to 2022’s Outsiders is due for release on May 31 via Fluff & Gravy Records. Check out a video for the lead single ‘Disposable Camera’ below.
Living Thing was recorded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in collaboration with producer Shane Leonard. “I wrote feverishly in the strange chaos of that year, suddenly out of work and attempting to understand the shifting human fabric, the depth of desperation and the overwhelming tenacity of spirit,” Tivel explained in a statement. “The resulting songs felt rhythmic and vital, with more melody and soaring chorus than I’ve explored in the past. There was no way and no means to gather a full band, and I brought the songs to Shane’s doorstep knowing and fully trusting the skill and exuberance of his creative imagination. Shane stripped everything down to the studs and we rebuilt it together, just the two of us for a month in his garage studio, Shane dreaming up each sonic layer while I chased the lyrics to one last double chorus.”
“Shane gave his whole beautiful heart and mind to this record and I’ve never had such a freeing and powerful collaborative experience,” Tivel added. “I learned so much from watching him explore in the studio. We followed the rules of improv, said yes and tried every idea that percolated – sampled an 8 track symphony backward, looped wine glasses and lighters, read poetry into lofi microphones, and recorded a thunderstorm into a tape machine. Shane went on eternal drum tone quests, chased intricate melodic bass lines, and gently encouraged me to let go and sing from a deeper place. I love this record because it feels like a joyous musical conversation with a close friend about the big vast mystery of being alive.”
Living Thing Cover Artwork:
Living Thing Tracklist:
1. Silver Flame
2. Real Things
3. Bluebird
4. Kindness Of A Liar
5. Desperation
6. Disposable Camera
7. Two Truths
8. Altogether Alone
9. Gold Web
Louisville quintet Knocked Loose have announced a new album, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To. The follow-up to 2019’s A Different Shade of Blue and 2021’s A Tear in the Fabric of Life EP lands on May 10 via Pure Noise. ‘Blinding Faith’ arrives today along with a video shot by Kevin Lombardo. Check it out and find the cover artwork, tracklist, and the band’s upcoming tour dates below.
“It was just hilarious how many people showed up to church that I knew were rude, horrible, selfish people,” guitarist Isaac Hale said of the song in a press release. “They knew that it made them seem like a better person — or if they said the words, it would redeem them of any negative quality just because they showed face.”
Produced by Drew “WZRD BLD” Fulk, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To features collaborations with Poppy and Chris Motionless. “On this album, we go the fastest we’ve ever gone; we go the scariest we’ve ever gone. We also go the catchiest and the most melodic that we’ve ever gone, and that’s the point,” Hale added. “Instead of branching off into a specific direction, we want to encompass ALL directions.”
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To Cover Artwork:
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To Tracklist:
1. Thirst
2. Piece By Piece
3. Suffocate [feat. Poppy)
4. Don’t Reach For Me
5. Moss Covers All
6. Take Me Home
7. Slaughterhouse 2 [feat. Chris Motionless]
8. The Calm That Keeps You Awake
9. Blinding Faith
10. Sit & Mourn
Knocked Loose 2024 Tour Dates:
Feb 27 – Hamburg, Germany – Grosse Freiheit 36
Feb 28 – Berlin, Germany – Huxleys
Feb 29 – Leipzig, Germany – Conne Island
Mar 2 – Antwerp, Belgium – Trix
Mar 4 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Institute
Mar 5 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3
Mar 6 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
Mar 7 – Bristol, UK – SWX
Mar 9 – Leeds, UK – Project House
Mar 10 – London, UK – O2 Forum
Apr 27 – Las Vegas, NV – Sick New World
Apr 29 – Detroit, MI – Russell Industrial Center
May 1 – Nashville, TN – Marathon Music Works
May 3 – Lawrence, KS – Granada
May 4 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Criterion
May 5 – Dallas, TX – The Factory in Deep Ellum
May 6 – Austin, TX – Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
May 7 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
May 10 – Phoenix, AZ – The Marquee
May 11 – Los Angeles, CA – The Shrine
May 12 – San Francisco, CA – The Warfield
May 14 – Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo
May 15 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
May 17 – Boise, ID – Knitting Factory
May 18 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex
May 19 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
May 21 – St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
May 22 – Minneapolis, MN – The Fillmore
May 23 – Chicago, IL – Salt Shed
May 24 – Newport, KY – Megacorp Pavilion
May 25 – Cleveland, OH – Agora Theater
May 28 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage Age
May 29 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore
May 30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
May 31 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
Jun 1 – Boston, MA – Roadrunner
Jun 3 – Philadelphia, PA – Franklin Music Hall
Jun 4 – Montreal, QC – Olympia
Jun 5 – Toronto, ON – History
Jun 7 – Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
Jun 8 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
Jun 9 – St. Petersburg, FL – Jannus Live
Portland power-pop musician Mo Troper has announced his next LP, Svengali, which will be out May 3 on Lame-O Records. Featuring the previously released single ‘For You to Sing’, the record follows last year’s MTV as well as his recent Jon Brion tribute album, Troper Sings Brion. Check out Troper’s new track ‘The Billy Joel Fan Club’ below.
“When I was a kid I was literally forbidden from talking about the Beatles at the dinner table,” Troper explained in a statement. “I could only listen to music in the basement or through headphones. As a result I feel a lot of shame whenever my enthusiasm for anything is apparent. I apologize constantly for being excited about things. ‘The Billy Joel Fan Club’ is about falling in love with someone who shares your specific interests and nurtures your enthusiasm. It is a true story, about someone who founded and asked me to participate in something called The Billy Joel Fan Club. To bring it full circle, I tried to make it sound exactly like a Paul McCartney song from 1967.”
Troper Sings Brion Cover Artwork:
Troper Sings Brion Tracklist:
1. Bleach
2. The Billy Joel Fan Club
3. Too Far Gone (Chainman’s Theme)
4. Spark World
5. You Always Loved Me
6. The Face of Kindness
7. You Called Me Your Baby
8. For You To Sing
9. A Piece of You Broken Through My Heart
10. Recipe For Loving
11. Good Hair
12. Before I Went Bad
13. Push Around
After returning last month with the single ‘Legendary Tippers’, Les Savy Fav have announced their first album in 14 years: Oui, LSF comes out May 10 (via Frenchkiss/The Orchard). The Root for Ruin follow-up is led by the new track ‘Guzzle Blood’. Check out animator Christy Karacas’ video for it below, and scroll down for the album cover and tracklist.
“As the first song on OUI, LSF, ‘Guzzle Blood’ drops you into the bottom of a dark well,” frontman Tim Harrington said in a statement. “In a lot of ways the rest of the record is about the things we do to climb back out.”
“When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious,” Harrington added. “I think it took us a while to even get in a space where that was possible.”
Oui, LSF Cover Artwork:
Oui, LSF Tracklist:
1. Guzzle Blood
2. Limo Scene
3. Void Moon
4. Mischief Night
5. What We Don’t Don’t Want
6. Legendary Tippers
7. Dawn Patrol
8. Somebody Needs A Hug
9. Racing Bees
10. Don’t Mind Me
11. Oi! Division
12. Barbs
13. Nihilists
14. World Got Great
Bnny has unveiled a new single, ‘Crazy, Baby’, which is lifted from the upcoming album One Million Love Songs – out April 5 via Fire Talk Records. Following lead cut ‘Good Stuff’, “‘Crazy, Baby’ is about recognising patterns in your romantic history and yourself,” the band’s Jessica Viscius explained. Check it out below, along with Bnny’s upcoming tour dates.
Bnny 2024 Tour Dates:
Apr 19 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
May 9 – Rotterdam, NL – Rotown
May 14 – London, UK – Paper Dress Vintage
May 15 – Southampton, UK – Heartbreakers
May 17 – Brighton, UK – The Great Escape
May 18 – Manchester, UK – Yes (Moodswings)
May 20 – Paris, FR – Supersonic
Jun 13 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
Amanda Bergman has announced a new album titled Your Hand Forever Checking On My Fever. The follow-up to her 2016 debut Docks is set to arrive on June 7 via CowCow/Redeye. The album was mixed and produced by Bergman’s partner, Petter Winnberg, and recorded between Atlantis Metronome in Stockholm and their own farm studio in rural Sweden. It’s led by the singles ‘Wild Geese, Wild Love’ and ‘Day 2000 Awake’, which you can hear below.
Speaking about ‘Wild Geese, Wild Love’, Bergman said in a a statement:
Written during spring 2022. In the midst of my dad’s last months this song took form as a bittersweet thank you and some kind of celebration of the wildness of unconditional love between a father and a daughter. That I felt he’d given me. Like something very ethereal and universal, like birds in the air.
Gradually, lyrically it turned into a song about trying to voice the days or moments before someone really sick passes. They’re there but they’re somehow moving back and forth between reality and something else. Almost always in these circumstances people report on these almost magical situations appearing. Like sudden moments of clarity, deep love, gratitude, humour, forgiveness. Being close to someone who is approaching the end of this life peels off a few layers for sure.
I know he wanted me to see beyond the plain. And to expand my vision always. Which I don’t always do. But I know he could always code my language.
Of ‘Day 2000 Awake’, she added:
This one is about relationships, becoming a parent and somehow somersaulting through mental maturity. Trying to grow up, letting go of yourself and life as it was prior and doing so under quite strained conditions; when there’s absolutely no time for reflection and your headspace and physical presence is totally consumed by babies.
Literally having no proper sleep for thousands of days really leaves you equally a better and a worse version of yourself. Being a woman and experiencing becoming a parent is probably the biggest life change you’ll have. I feel it taught me a lot.
Your Hand Forever Checking on My Fever Cover Artwork:
Your Hand Forever Checking on My Fever Tracklist:
1. Wild Geese, Wild Love
2. I Love Him Til I Love Him Right
3. Day 2000 Awake
4. Poor Symmetry
5. My Hands In The Water
6. Offset Island
7. The World Is Tired Of You
8. Sign Of A Past Life
9. Thought I Didn’t Wake You Up
Ahead of the release of their sixth album Half Divorced on Friday (March 1), Pissed Jeans have dropped one more single, ‘Cling to a Poisoned Dream’. Following previous cuts ‘Sixty-Two Thousand Dollars in Debt’ and ‘Moving On’, the track arrives with an accompanying video directed by Joe Stakun. Check it out below.
Hovvdy have previewed their forthcoming self-titled album with a new single, ‘Meant’. Listen to it below.
“’Meant’ reflects on how the most impactful love one can offer is consistency; particularly when life is complicated or derailed,” the duo’s Will Taylor explained in a statement. “It’s a song of gratitude for receiving that kind of love.”
Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard has shared a new single, ‘New World (Flow)’, featuring Bronx-born, Milan-based singer-songwriter and visual artist Fiorious. Check out the Tom Furse-directed video for it below.
“When I wrote the chords for this song, I was aiming for something with the power of a hymn,” Goddard said in a statement. “Without discussing this concept, Fiorious added words that have a kind of atheistic spiritual quality that I always love in house music.”
Fiorious added: “I connected to the track instantly and loved how it moved from an interior moment in the verse to an explosive climax in the chorus. The lyrics took their cue from that feeling, the idea of getting out of your own way and surrendering, and so it became this meditation on fearlessness. From there, I started arranging my vocals as a huge choir of me, and it all came together very quickly.”
