Jessica Winter announced a new EP, Limerence, with a video for the new single ‘Funk This Up’. The EP, which will include the previously shared single ‘Choreograph’, is out February 10 via Lucky Number. Watch the Ella Margolin-directed visual for ‘Funk This Up’ below.
”Limerence was written during a time when I was trying to understand my relationship to love and my behaviours around it,” Winter explained in a statement. “Love confuses me so much and I think this EP demonstrates that.”
Of ‘Funk This Up’, she added: “This song began as a conversation with myself… the verses being in the present and reacting to the choruses where I embody the more deranged temptress luring me into the depths of addiction and chaos. The video captures two versions of the addict, the version that tries to stay balanced and together and the version that falls from the centre. We used different forms of distortion on the face and body and more extreme performance to capture the temptress.”
Limerence EP Cover Artwork:
Limerence EP Tracklist:
1. Choreograph
2. Clutter (feat. Lynks)
3. Let Me In
4. Funk This Up
5. The Love Song
Los Angeles punk band the Linda Lindas have shared a new holiday-themed single, ‘Groovy Xmas’, alongside an accompanying video. Check it out below.
“There are so many cool Christmas songs that we love to dance to, and a lot of them are by our favorite punk bands: Alice Bag, Red Kross, Shonen Knife…” the group said in a statement. “We were inspired by them to write our own carol that you can add to your jolly playlist and enjoy at holiday gatherings! Please sing along and share: and we hope you have a very Groovy Xmas and an awesome new year!”
The Linda Lindas released their debut album, Growing Up, earlier this year.
H. Hawkline has announced his fifth album, Milk for Flowers. The follow-up to 2017’s I Romanticize is slated for release on March 10 via Heavenly Recordings. Today, Huw Evans has shared the LP’s title track, alongside a video shot by Ben Hardy and edited by Casey Raymond, with choreography by Daisy Smith and styling by Gus Sharpe. Check it out below.
“Grief is a song that can’t be unheard: from the moment you learn it, you never stop singing,” Evans said of the new song and visual in a statement. “Its music paints the scenery – pulling the strings of every day. Forgotten corners and untended gardens can become rich with sickly vegetation, ice rinks and playgrounds decaying with every chord. These videos (this is the first of 3) are a way of trying to express that sensation in the most direct way possible. Every day, an audition. At least I choose the soundtrack.”
Milk for Flowers features production and musical contributions from Evans’ longtime collaborator Cate Le Bon. “A gentle and knowing hand, Cate did what no one else could have done: it’s what Cate always does,” Evans remarked.
Le Bon added: “I watched my dear friend, H.Hawkline, fold into himself and extract from a terrible time an album so exquisitely raw, yet deftly graceful. I had the extreme honour of being trusted as producer and gently helped him tease this beautiful work into existence. He writes music and lyrics that are porous to all the hues of a day. He sits melancholy at the table with absurdity and no-one bats an eye. Not without effort but always with a natural hand moving pieces around from the inside out. It’s a beautiful thing to be continuously moved and surprised by an old friend.”
Other collaborators on the album include Davey Newington on drums, Paul Jones on piano, Tim Presley on guitar, Stephen Black and Euan Hinshelwood on sax, Harry Bohay on pedal steel, and John Parish on bongo. Milk for Flowers was engineered by Joe Jones, with additional engineering by Krissy Jenkins. It was mixed by Patrik Berger and mastered by Heba Kadry.
Milk for Flowers Cover Artwork:
Milk for Flowers Tracklist:
1. Milk For Flowers
2. Plastic Man
3. Suppression Street
4. I Need Him
5. Denver
6. Athens At Night
7. Like You Do
8. It’s A Living
9. Mostly
10. Empty Room
SoundCloud is a leading and well-respected music platform. If you are a musician, artist, or other music industry member wanting to harness this site’s power, you must understand how to boost SoundCloud plays.
This article will teach you some excellent ways to get more plays and enhance your SoundCloud account.
8 Elite Ways to Get More Plays on SoundCloud
You can’t simply upload a track and expect everyone to listen. Indeed, it takes some effort and knowledge. Here are eight great ways to increase your SoundCloud plays.
1) Make Good Music
Although this method for boosting plays might seem obvious, it is still worth a mention. If you create high-quality music and upload it to SoundCloud, your profile will head in a positive direction. When you give listeners the best music you can, they will find it more attractive, and your plays will get a significant boost.
2) Use Relevant Tags
Including relevant or trending genre tags within your track descriptions will give listeners more chances to find your music. Consequently, you will get more plays, and your music career will be on an upward trajectory.
Of course, you should not use tags just because they are popular. Doing so could harm your profile, as the SoundCloud algorithm will use these tags to recommend your music to people searching for similar vibes. Therefore, ensure the tags you use are related to your genre.
3) Create Attractive Artwork
The first exposure potential listeners get to music is through your track or album cover artwork. Indeed, if this is sufficiently attractive, it could be the main reason why someone decides to play some of your music.
Therefore, you should use the 800*800 artwork pixel space wisely and give your audience something eye-catching. However, you should also ensure your cover images represent you or your music. If it does, you will attract the right listeners who have an interest in your music genre, subsequently boosting your plays.
4) Upload Consistently and On Time
Uploading your music consistently will demonstrate that you are active and reliable to SoundCloud listeners, ultimately boosting your credibility and reliability. Subsequently, they will understand your uploading schedule and be waiting to play your music when you upload a track.
Similarly, you should understand your audience’s active hours and include these in your content calendar. When you know the best time to post a new track, you can maximize the number of plays it receives.
5) Make Your Track Discoverable
Listeners can only hear your music if they can find it. Therefore, making your tracks easy to discover will boost plays.
Including the track name and relevant tags in the description will make it easier for potential listeners to search for your music. Also, including the correct metadata will enable the SoundCloud algorithm to accurately categorize your music, potentially getting it featured in more searches and increasing plays.
6) Partner with Influencers
As part of your marketing strategy, collaborate with influencers. Doing so allows you to tap into their audiences, increasing your SoundCloud plays.
Influencers give you opportunities to promote your music to a much wider SoundCloud community. Therefore, before you upload a track, consider reaching out to a few other artists to get your plays soaring.
7) Share it on Social Platforms
Sharing your tracks on other social media platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc., is an effective way of marketing and promoting your music and increasing plays. Although SoundCloud is a leading music-sharing platform, many people still need to start using it.
Having a broader social media strategy for your tracks means you can reach this potential audience. Sharing your music on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, and Tik Tok will also demonstrate your depth of appeal to your SoundCloud fans.
Also, if you have a website or blog, you should place your music front and center on these to maximize promotion opportunities. Taking advantage of these will send your SoundCloud plays skyrocketing.
8) Purchase SoundCloud Plays
Another excellent way to grow your SoundCloud plays is to buy them. Doing so gives you some incredible benefits, including the following:
Give New Tracks a Head Start. When you upload a new track, it starts with no plays. Purchasing plays gives your new music a head start and helps it gain traction among listeners.
Boost Organic Plays. Getting a significant number of plays early will boost your organic plays. The SoundCloud algorithm will notice this activity and recommend your tracks in user searches.
Grab Listeners’ Attention.Buying plays on SoundCloud is an excellent tactic for grabbing listeners’ attention, leading to increased plays.
Potential Virality. Generating a buzz from some purchased plays can send your music viral. Your track might be just a few more plays from the tipping point of virality, so you should consider buying some.
Of course, you must ensure that bought plays come from authentic users. When you buy SoundCloud plays from Media Mister, you are guaranteed they’ll be from real users.
As they are entirely genuine, your purchased plays will have the social proofing needed for success. More importantly, they will not be penalized by SoundCloud.
Media Mister has been providing outstanding social media services for more than ten years. During this time, they have developed an excellent reputation with thousands of satisfied customers.
Their SoundCloud plays will boost your music’s visibility and credibility. Therefore, you should consider purchasing them to enhance your music career.
Conclusion
Using SoundCloud is a powerful way to get your music heard. However, you must understand how to boost SoundCloud plays.
The more significant the number of plays you get, the bigger your audience will be. Hopefully, this article has given you the information you need to give your music career the momentum it needs.
Bruce Springsteen was the musical guest on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he performed his rendition of ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ by Frank Wilson. He also sat down for an interview to talk about his new soul covers album Only the Strong Survive, the correct lyrics for ‘Thunder Road’, and potentially collaborating with Taylor Swift on tour next year. Watch it below.
Are you looking to get into the dating world? Dating can be great fun, it gives you the chance to meet new people, and even if things don’t become serious, you can still make new friends for life.
There are many different ways to get into the dating world, you could try blind dating, double dating, serious dating, dating apps, or straight or gay phone talks – this is great for getting your confidence up before meeting face to face – the possibilities are endless.
Dating can be stressful, but once you overcome the fears and nervousness, it can quickly become something you enjoy doing. To help you with this, below we have put together our guide on how to feel more confident when dating.
Make the date about them not you
When you are feeling nervous, one of the easiest tips we can give you to feel more confident is to ask questions about the person you are going on a date with. People love to talk about themselves, so by having plenty of questions that you can ask, this allows them to talk about themselves whilst easing you into the date. When asking these questions, you will learn a lot about them, which will enable you to ask questions in response to their replies as well as connect on the things that you have a joint interest in.
Stop thinking you have a type
The biggest mistake a lot of people make when dating is thinking they have a type and only dating those who fall within that type category. Yes, it’s good to have things in common and similar interests, however, you don’t want to judge a book by its cover. By broadening your horizons, you could be surprised by the people you meet when going out on a date with them. Plus, it doesn’t hurt going on a date or two with people who you consider not your type – after meeting them you may find yourself feeling a lot more confident.
Dress to impress
Dressing your best and feeling good about yourself can really help improve your confidence, especially when dating. Putting on a nice outfit, styling your hair and spraying your favorite sprays will help you feel your best and ooze confidence. When putting an outfit together, it doesn’t necessarily need to be your best outfit and one that you think will impress them. Instead, wear something that you feel confident in and best represents you as a person.
Try not to make assumptions
Before the date, try to forget about any assumptions you have about the person you are meeting. Making an assumption can put a lot of pressure on yourself to impress them, plus in most cases your assumptions are wrong. Instead, approach the date with an open mind, be prepared to ask questions and learn about the person you are meeting. If the date doesn’t go well, remember that doesn’t matter, you can always go on another date. If it does go well, then brilliant, organize another so that you can meet up again. The less pressure you feel on the date, the more natural it will be.
Remember you are brilliant
Without sounding cheesy, remember that you are brilliant. Just like them, you both bring a lot to the table so don’t doubt yourself. No one is better than another person, you are just different. Don’t be shy about talking about the things you are good at and bigging yourself up when it’s appropriate – try not to overdo this otherwise you can look a little arrogant. Once you realize how great you are as a person, dating can become a lot easier. The strongest type of confidence you can have is when you don’t need validation on the things you are great at.
Keep practicing
As they say, practice makes perfect. The more dates you go on the more confident you will be when going on them. Sure, you are going to have some not so great ones, however you will definitely have some amazing ones. Make sure you keep on going on dates, even if you don’t feel like the one before your date went that well. You could always try online dating to practice as an alternative. There are dating apps for everyone out there. For example, you can try dating for professionals to find people who share the commitment to their careers as you do.
We hope the above tips help you feel more confident when dating. Have you got any tips that you would like to share that will help our readers? Which of the tips above do you think will help you the most? Is there anything that you would like to share? Let us know in the comment box below.
Tkay Maidza has returned with a new holiday track, ‘Nights in December’. It’s the Australian artist’s first new music since she released the third and final installment of her Last Year Was Weird series in 2021. Check it out below.
“I thought it would be cool to make a song that captures the feeling of a new relationship but using wintertime in New York as the inspiration,” Maidza said of ‘Nights in December’ in a press release. “I had a trip where I spent a winter in New York, and it was really beautiful so I almost wanted to recreate that feeling in a song.”
The xx’s Romy is back with a new single, ‘Strong’, featuring Fred Again… She produced the song with Fred Again.. and Stuart Price, and it comes with a video directed by Romy’s wife, the filmmaker and photographer Vic Lentaigne. Watch and listen below.
‘Strong’ follows Romy’s 2020 single ‘Lifetime’, her debut solo release, as well as the Fred again.. collaboration ‘Lights Out’. “‘Strong’ came from a moment in my life when I was processing past grief,” Romy explained in a statement. “Whilst writing the lyrics I was thinking about my cousin Luis, we both have the shared experience of our mums passing away when we were young. I recognise in him the same trait I have which is to try and hold emotions down and put on a brave face. The song was a way to connect with these feelings, offer support and ultimately find a sense of release in the euphoria of music. Luis is with me on the single cover and in the music video too which was really special.
Romy continued: “My friendship with Fred means a lot to me, our closeness helps me to feel safe to be honest and vulnerable lyrically and we definitely connect over our love of songwriting and emotions in dance music. It’s amazing and inspiring seeing and hearing what Fred is doing in his solo work and I’m very excited to be releasing this song together.”
Death Valley Girls have announced their next album,Islands in the Sky, which drops on February 24 via Suicide Squeeze Records. Today’s announcement is accompanied by the release of lead single ‘What Are The Odds’, alongside a music video. Check it out below and scroll down for the LP’s cover art and tracklist.
Talking about the new song, the band’s Bonnie Bloomgarden said in a statement: “When we wrote ‘I’m a Man Too’ we were trying to revisit No Doubt’s ‘I’m Just a Girl’ but through a new lens. ‘What Are the Odds’ is in the same way an investigation /revisitation of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ but with a DVG spin. We love to think about consciousness, and existence, and we very much believe in some type of reincarnation, but also that this experience isn’t linear, there isn’t a past and future, there’s something else going on! What is it? Is it a simulation, are we simulated girls??!”
While working on the follow-up to 2020’s Under the Spell of Joy, Bloomgarden found herself bedridden with a mysterious illness between November 2020 and March 2021. “When I was sick I had to sleep most of the day. I kept waking up every few hours with an intense message to take care of the island, feed the island… I have no idea why, but making music for the island kept coming up,” she explained, continuing:
When I was sick I started to wonder if it would be possible to write a record with messages of love to my future self. This was really the first time that I consciously thought about my own suffering and what future me might need to hear to heal. I struggled so much in my life with mental health, abuse, PTSD, and feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. And I don’t want anyone—including my future self—to suffer ever again. I realized that if we are all part of one cosmic consciousness, as we [Death Valley Girls] believe, then Islands in the Sky could serve not only as a message of love and acceptance to myself, but also from every self to every self, because we are all one!
1. California Mountain Shake
2. Magic Powers
3. Islands In The Sky
4. Sunday
5. What Are The Odds
6. Journey to Dog Star
7. Say It Too
8. Watch The Sky
9. When I’m Free
10. All That Is Not of Me
11. It’s All Really Kind Of Amazing
Andy Shauf has announced a new album: Norm is set for release on February 10 via ANTI-. Today, he’s shared a video for its lead single, ‘Wasted On You’. Check out the visual, directed by V Haddad and written by Shauf, and find the album cover and tracklist below.
Following 2020’s The Neon Skyline and its 2021 companion Wilds, the new LP is billed as a more “conventional” collection written mostly on guitar, piano, and synths. Inspired by David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Shauf enlisted Nicholas Olson as a story editor and build a narrative around a character named Norm. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” he said in a statement. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realize that it’s sinister.”
Norm Cover Artwork:
Norm Tracklist:
1. Wasted On You
2. Catch Your Eye
3. Telephone
4. You Didn’t See
5. Paradise Cinema
6. Norm
7. Halloween Store
8. Sunset
9. Daylight Dreaming
10. Long Throw
11. Don’t Let It Get To You
12. All Of My Love
