Natural Wonder Beauty Concept – the collaborative project of DJ Python and Ana Roxanne – have shared a new single off their self-titled debut album, which is out this Friday via Mexican Summer. It’s called ‘Driving’, and it follows the previously released title track and ‘Sword’. Check it out below, along with the duo’s upcoming tour dates.
Natural Wonder Beauty Concept 2023 Tour Dates:
Sep 21 – Los Angeles, CA – In Sheeps Clothing
Sep 23 – Philadelphia, PA – Making Time Festival
Oct 4 – Brussels, BE – Botanique
Oct 5 – Krakow, PL – Unsound
Oct 6 – Vienna, AT – Flex
Oct 8 – London, UK – The Jazz Cafe
Oct 13 – Bologna, IT – Robot Festival
La Force, the solo project of Ariel Engle, has previewed her sophomore LP XOSKELETON with a new single called ‘october’. It follows September’s ‘condition of us’, and it comes with a visual directed by Engel and Ali Vanderkruyk. Check it out below.
“October is a time of harvest here [in Montreal]. It’s a time when we settle into darkness and leaves drop from the trees,” Engle explained in a statement. “It’s a time when we turn inward into our clothing and protective shells. It’s a song about the voices we internalize. People we can no longer see but whose voices and words live on inside us and shape us. It’s a song about the uncanny. A song about the cycles of nature, cycle of life. The song reminds us that despite our grand feelings we are just like animals and plants, destined to be born, to live and to die.”
Deeper have unveiled a new single, ‘Tele’, taken from their upcoming LP and first for Sub Pop, Careful!. It’s the third preview of the album, following ‘Build a Bridge’ and ‘Sub’. Check out its accompanying video below.
“’Tele’ is a song without its shield,” the band said in a press release. “In past Deeper compositions, we would hide behind jerky guitars and abstract vocals telling a story only we could decipher. With ‘Tele’ we wanted to explore the vulnerability behind our music and give focus to the melody and mood of the song. Replacing guitars with synthesizers and drums with samplers we stumbled upon a new way to approach a Deeper song.”
“We wanted to make a darker track that people could dance to,” they added. “Since the foundation is built on a sampler beat, it’s the kind of song we could’ve only created with the limitations of the pandemic. The electronic components left more space for the rhythm, so our engineer Dave started playing with a busier bass line for the verses and laid down the hook on the first pass. At the end we wanted the synth parts to constantly overtake one another and hopefully make the listener feel like they’re being swallowed into the song.”
Chris Farren has dropped ‘First Place’, the latest cut from his forthcoming album Doom Singer. Following earlier offerings ‘Cosmic Leash’ and ‘Bluish’, the single is accompanied by a video directed by comedian, actress, and writer Mitra Jouhari (Big Mouth). Watch and listen below.
“‘First Place’ used to be very different and I hated it, but Melina (Jay Som) said it was too good to not put on the record, so I figured out everything I hated about it (the old lyrics, mostly) and we changed it to the beautiful single you hear today,” Farren explained in a statemetnt. “My friend Jeff Rosenstock plays saxophone on it.”
“Chris went full method,” Jouhari commented. “It was really scary at first but ultimately so inspiring to see him dive so deep into his character (a singer named Chris Farren).”
Jessy Lanza has shared a video for ‘Limbo’, the latest offering from her upcoming record Love Hallucination. Following previous cuts ‘Don’t Leave Me Now’ and ‘Midnight Ontario’, the track comes paired with a video, which you can check out below.
“The video stars our neighbor Conrad who moonlights as a web-cammer for a living,” Lanza explained in a statement. “He revealed that he sometimes uses an inversion table in his webcam sessions and it seemed like the perfect visualization of the themes in the song.”
Love Hallucination will be out September 28 via Hyperdub.
“‘French Fries’ is a story song about the evolution of a friendship,” Reid explained in a statement. “I wanted it to feel like a movie where you are at once sitting with your friend in a diner laughing over cold french fries and dumb stuff, but at the same time there is an undercurrent of reality between you two; splintering paths, bad boyfriends, frustration, love and loss. In terms of production, A. G. had the brilliant vision of making the beginning feel like the start to one of my shows: super intimate, just guitar and vocals.”
‘The Scull of Lucia’ is the latest single from the posthumous Sparklehorse album Bird Machine. Jason Lytle of Grandaddy contributed harmonies to the track, which follows lead single ‘Evening Star Supercharger’. Listen to it below.
“From the very first seconds of ‘The Scull of Lucia’, I was transported to a different time,” said producer Joel Hamilton, who mixed Bird Machine. “The recipe is unmistakably Sparklehorse: The pace, the sounds, the overall texture of the voice. Every sound seems to support the voice and the lyric, which was always at the core of Mark’s genius. The weight of the world, floated on a rickety raft, across a sea of melancholy”
Bird Machine is set to arrive on September 8 via ANTI-. It also includes the previously released single ‘It Will Never Stop’.
British electronic producer Forest Swords has returned with his first new music in five years. ‘Butterfly Effect’, which is built on a previously unheard vocal sample by Neneh Cherry, arrives alongside a video directed by Sam Wiehl. Its B-side, ‘Tar’, is also out today. Take a listen below.
“The track swirled around as a pure instrumental for a while, a beat I made in the cold factory space in Liverpool I was recording in, some kind of attempt to cope with the psychedelic amounts of pain I was in from a leg injury,” Forest Swords explained of ‘Butterfly Effect’. “Neneh’s unreleased archive vocal turned out to be a perfect fit, like they were meant to be together somehow. As a fan that has always idolized her, it’s a true honor and life highlight to have her blessing to use the vocal on this track.”
Forest Swords’ most recent album was 2017’s Compassion.
Jamila Woods has announced a new album, Water Made Us, which will be released October 13 via Jagjaguwar. Leading the follow-up to 2019’s Legacy! Legacy! is ‘Tiny Garden’, which features duendita and was produced with Wynne Bennet. Check out a video it below, and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and tracklist.
“Water Made Us feels like the most personal and vulnerable piece of art I’ve ever made. I love creating from source material, diving deep into a subject and extrapolating from what I discover,” Woods said in a statement. “We sat in the house for 2 years and I became my own source material. Shout out to the therapists, the astrologers, the family members and friends who listened, who helped me process and transform my journaled thoughts and questions into this body of work. I hope it feels like a playlist that carries you through the life cycle of a relationship, whatever stage of the journey your heart may be in.”
“’Tiny Garden’ is a song about the way my heart works, the slow and steady way I love,” Woods explained. “In my directorial debut I wanted to create a visual representation of how I often feel in relationships, like I’m having huge feelings that I end up expressing in small specific ways.”
Water Made Us Cover Artwork:
Water Made Us Tracklist:
1. Bugs
2. Tiny Garden [feat. duendita]
3. Practice [feat. Saba]
4. Let the Cards Fall
5. Send a Dove
6. Wreckage Room
7. Thermostat [feat. Peter CottonTale]
8. Out of the Doldrums
9. Wolfsheep
10. I Miss All My Exes
11. Backburner
12. Libra Intuition
13. Boomerang
14. Still
15. The Best Thing
16. Good News
17. Headfirst
“There’s no real great lyrical upside to this song,” vocalist Pat Flynn explained in a statement. “I wanted to write a song that could capture the stuck-ness that comes with deep depression. Ultimately, this is a song about tuning out and looking away from the brokenness in one’s life on earth in favor of quick comfort. It is kind of a conversation between two people or two minds. The so-called ‘Sleepyhead’ is a woeful person depressed by the way of the world who chooses to deal with the sadness of it all with excessive sleep. Somewhere in there, however, is a voice of reason that offers perspective – but, to no avail, as the two voices come together in resignation to the weight of the hold that a thick ‘bout of deep depression’ can lay on someone. I see the song as essential to the arc of the record, which ultimately turned out to be a climb out of such a sad state. So, perhaps that’s the upside?”
