Emma Anderson, the co-founder of Lush, has shared ‘The Presence’, the third single from her debut solo album Pearlies – out this Friday, October 20 via Sonic Cathedral. It follows previous offerings ‘Bend the Round’ and ‘Clusters’. Check out a video for it below.
“This is going to sound quite mad but it took me about nine years to write this one,” Anderson said of ‘The Presence’ in a statement. “I had the chords in different configurations with various melodies over the top for ages but nothing quite clicked or flowed. I was determined not to give up on it as I knew the kernel of the song was good.” She added, “The programmed drums on the last section… I said to James [Chapman], ‘Can you do something like on ‘Spellbound’ by Siouxsie and The Banshees?’ and it took him about 20 seconds to do exactly that.”
Speaking about the theme of anxiety that the song deals with, Anderson explained: “It’s something that rears its ugly head with me from time to time. And the lyrics are all about that and also the techniques that I have learned to use in order to overcome it.”
The game of poker, with its blend of strategy, psychology, and chance, has captivated millions worldwide. Whether playing casually with friends or seeking to compete at higher levels, honing one’s poker skills is crucial.
Understanding Player Types
One of the foundational aspects of poker is understanding the type of players at the table. Classifying each player by their playing style can provide valuable insights into their strategies and tendencies.
For instance, some players might be aggressive, while others might adopt a more conservative approach. Recognizing these patterns can offer a strategic advantage.
Engage in Online Games
Engaging in online games can be an invaluable resource for those looking to practice and refine their skills. Online platforms offer various opponents, from beginners to seasoned professionals, allowing players to gain experience against various playing styles.
Observation is Key
It’s not just about the cards in one’s hand; it’s also about the cards on the table. In games like Texas Hold’em, it’s essential to determine the best possible hand that could be formed from the community cards. This involves being vigilant about potential straight or flush possibilities.
Moreover, observing other players can provide crucial information even when not actively participating in a hand. Noting patterns, such as a particular player’s tendency to bluff or another’s habit of playing only strong hands, can be instrumental in future decisions.
Avoid Overplaying
A common pitfall for beginners is the desire to be involved in every hand. However, playing more hands doesn’t necessarily equate to winning more.
It often leads to more losses. It’s essential to be selective about the hands one chooses to play. If a player participates in most hands, it might be time to reassess their starting hand requirements.
The Art of Bluffing
Bluffing is an integral part of poker, but it’s not just about deceiving for deception’s sake. Effective bluffing requires a keen understanding of the situation and the players involved. For instance, attempting to bluff a player known to call until the showdown is futile. Instead of bluffing indiscriminately, players should use it as a calculated strategy backed by a solid understanding of the game’s nuances.
Manage Your Emotions
Poker is as much a game of emotions as it is of strategy. Playing when upset, angry, or in a bad mood can cloud judgment and lead to poor decisions.
It’s essential to approach the game with a clear mind and a calm demeanor. If a player feels themselves tilting — playing recklessly due to emotions — it’s advisable to take a break and return with a refreshed perspective.
Guard Your Position
In poker, the position is power. Being the last to act in a betting round provides a strategic advantage, as one can see how all other players act before making a decision.
Defending the big blind, for instance, offers better pot odds due to the existing investment in the pot. Recognizing and using positional advantages can significantly influence the game’s outcome.
Know Your Limits
While ambition is commendable, it’s essential to recognize one’s limits. Jumping into high-stakes games without adequate experience or a sufficient bankroll can be a recipe for disaster.
Players should choose games that match their skill level and financial capacity. This not only ensures sustainable play but also provides a conducive environment for learning and growth.
Continuous Learning
The world of poker is dynamic, with strategies and approaches evolving continually. To stay ahead of the curve, players should be open to learning, whether from personal experiences, observing others, or studying resources available online and in literature. Embracing a growth mindset can significantly enhance one’s prowess at the table.
Conclusion
Improving poker skills is a continuous journey marked by learning, practice, and adaptation. By understanding player types, observing diligently, managing emotions, and continuously updating their knowledge, players can significantly enhance their performance at the poker table. Whether one’s goal is casual enjoyment or competitive success, these tips can pave the way for a richer poker experience.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this best new music segment.
This week’s list includes ‘Spend the Grace’, the towering, chaotic lead single from Full of Hell and Nothing’s collaborative album; ‘Voyager’, a devastatingly beautiful highlight from boygenius’ the rest EP; ’Madi Diaz’s ‘Same Risk’, the piercingly vulnerable song that leads her next album Weird Faith; Marika Hackman’s moving, dynamic new single ‘Hanging’; Sen Morimoto’s latest single, the dreamy, exploratory ‘Deeper’; ‘glass beach’s shapeshifting new track, ’the CIA’; Fenne Lily’s tenderly reflective Big Picture bonus cut ‘Hollywood and Fear’; and Hotline TNT’s restlessly vibrant ‘Out of Town’.
The world of horology is vast, with timepieces ranging from the seemingly simple to the intricately elaborate. Among these fierce watch companies, NOMOS Glashütte delivers another beautiful, intricate timepiece — Autobahn Neomatik 41 Date. Let’s take a closer look at this wonderful watch.
Design
At first glance, the Autobahn Neomatik 41 strikes as a minimalistic timepiece, but with a clearer lens we can see a striking flurry of detail. It’s certainly not dull. It comes in three variations: sports grey, midnight blue, and white. The Autobahn captivates with its exuding classic charm. However, a closer look reveals the dashing curves of its dial, reminiscent of the open roads and the spirit of adventure. The elongated date window, spanning three days, adds a touch of modernity reminiscent of three road lanes. But what truly sets it apart is the ring of superluminova that follows the hour typography, glowing in the dark and ensuring that time is always visible, no matter the hour, day or night.
Housed in a stainless steel, bipartite case with a domed sapphire crystal glass back, this watch is a marvel of craftsmanship. The domed sapphire crystal glass with anti-reflective coating ensures clarity under all lighting conditions and toughness. With a lug-to-lug of 49.6mm, the piece stays prominent on the wrist. Water-resistant up to 10 atm, it doesn’t just sit pretty on the wrist but stays durable for casual swimming after a long day’s work.
Movement
The heart of the Autobahn Neomatik 41 Date is the DUW 6101 caliber. This automatic movement, with a power reserve of up to 42 hours, is a testament to NOMOS Glashütte’s commitment to precision and reliability. Here are some facts about the movement.
Caliber
DUW 6101
automatic
Movement Height
3.6mm
Diameter
15 ½ lines (35.2 mm)
Power Reserve
up to 42 Hours
Jewels
27
Conclusion
The Autobahn Neomatik 41 Date is a testament to NOMOS Glashütte’s commitment to excellence. It pays homage to an iconic highway system known for its ingenuity by delivering on its innovation. Whether you’re a seasoned horologist or someone looking for their first luxury watch, the Autobahn Neomatik 41 Date is a watch that deserves consideration. Priced at £4,000, it certainly deserves praise for what it delivers.
Ice Spice made her debut as the musical guest debut on Saturday Night Live last night (October 14). She performed ‘In Ha Mood’ and, following a surprise introduction from Taylor Swift, the recent single ‘Pretty Girl’ alongside Rema. Watch it happen below.
Prior to Swift’s appearance during the SNL season premiere, Travis Kelce also made cameo in a sketch that poked fun at the NFL’s excessive coverage of the singer attending the Kansas City Chief games.
Earlier this year, Swift and Ice Spice teamed up on a remix of ‘Karma’, which appears on the deluxe edition of Midnights.
The songs on the rest, like the voices of boygenius, are often tangled up. Phoebe Bridgers uses that exact phrase on ‘Voyager’, relaying the intimate language of a chaotic relationship that echoes the one she longed to escape on boygenius’ 2018 self-titled EP. When she first played the song at a London show in July 2022, more than a year before its boygenius live debut, it was a solitary affair, floating somewhere in the Punisher universe and unadorned by the presence of her close friends Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. Now, months after the release of boygenius’ debut full-length the record and near the end of their triumphant tour in support of the LP, the context of boygenius – an indie rock supergroup reaching and self-consciously navigating new levels of success – is both unignorable and empowering. The chemistry is more important still. Produced alongside regular collaborators including Tony Berg, Jake Finch, Ethan Gruska, Calvin Lauber, Collin Pastore, and Marshall Vore, the four-song companion to the record calls back to the trio’s debut EP, stripping down their sound and allowing each member a moment in the spotlight. They don’t sing about each other as much, but they look and lean towards each other in powerfully incremental ways – not using music as a means of decorating or documenting time so much as attesting to that they’ve spent together.
The pared-back sound of the rest suggests a band grounding itself in the midst of unsteadiness, but the thread running through it is cosmic. There’s no better description for the harmonies in ‘Voyager’ than a line Baker sings in the closer, ‘powers’: “The hum of our contact/ The sound of our collision.” It’s a beautiful projection of togetherness that remains subtle throughout the EP, resting less on language, which gives space for the members’ individual perspectives and poetry to rise and play off each other. Part of what connects these songs is, in fact, an interest in twisting perspective, particularly when it comes to matters of life and death. The lyric that stands out the most in ‘Voyager’ – “There are nights you say you don’t remember/ When you stepped on the gas and you asked if I’m ready to die” – is so striking in its recklessness it nearly throws the song off balance, not romanticizing but questioning what was fuelling the connection. Bridgers almost seems to be drawing inspiration from Dacus, who paints a more detailed scene on the previous track, ‘Afraid of Heights’, in which a conversation with a partner deepens her own understanding of mortality: “I wanna live a vibrant life/ But I wanna die a boring death.”
Do you have to risk your life to be able to live, to be fearful of death in order to hold hope for the future? Dacus’ isn’t alone in contemplating these questions. When Baker comes across a headline about a black hole that produces stars instead of sucking them up, it forces her to rethink the relationship between light and destruction. Rather than developing the thought by herself on ‘Black Hole’, she cracks the song open and lets it expand, both musically and through the introduction of Dacus and Bridgers’ voices: “Sometimes, I need to hear your voice” is the last thing you hear them say. But Baker cycles back to it on ‘powers’, her big moment: a kind of superhero origin story where the superhero (or “supergroup,” if you will) is less relevant than the story, which ends in mystery: “There’s no object to be seen in the supercollider/ Just a light in the tunnel and whatever gets scattered.”
Maybe the light in the tunnel looks something like the pale blue dot Bridgers mentions in ‘Voyager’, likely referencing the Voyager 1 spacecraft’s 1990 photo of Earth. Individually, the boygenius members have allsungabout wanting to go home. And as powerfully as their voices blended together on ‘Not Strong Enough’, the song ends just with Dacus, ringing with the pain of going home alone. But walking in the city by herself, feeling “like a man on the moon,” Bridgers isn’t fantasizing about alien abduction this time, but rather noticing the ease in her step, maybe also that of letting go. Not wishing hard, but looking, as Carl Sagan famously said, again at that dot: “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” Who could dream up a better view?
The first lyric on Daydreamer might be its best. “I don’t wanna waste my time again obsessing ‘bout how nothing fits,” indie rocker Molly Burch sings on the string-heavy ‘Made of Glass’. This lyric, and others like it that jumped out when listening to her fourth album, are astoundingly tuned-in to the angst, loneliness, and sometimes endless yearning all young people can relate to. “I’m so fragile, it’s not even funny,” she sings on the same song; “I’ve fallen out of love with myself” on synthpop lead single ‘Physical’; “I chase the feeling of being your favorite” on the jangly, upbeat ‘Unconditional’. Armed with inspirations ranging from Kate Bush to Ariana Grande — which was surprising at first, but after hearing her cover ‘needy’ on tour, it totally fits — Burch uses her soaring vocals amidst lush arenas of sound to create an ethereal and dreamy album.
We caught up with Molly Burch for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight series to talk about the process of recording, her relationship to the music industry, and the relatability of her lyricism.
There’s this really entrancing quality to the record — your vocals soar in the realm of Kate Bush and they’re backed by this lushness of chamber pop. Who were some of your inspirations for this record, either with writing or its sound?
I love Kate Bush so much. Such a compliment. With this, sonically, Jack [Tatum] and I listened to a lot of city pop and 80s music. We both really wanted strings and horns, and really lush instrumentation. I think he did a really great job of like the balance of synths, but also a lot of natural sounds. And for vocal inspiration, I always have Ariana Grande on my playlists. It’s always like a mix of modern pop, lots of Madonna, ’80s throwbacks.
When I was listening to Daydreamer for the first time, the word that kept coming to me was ‘astute.’ There are so many good observations and snappy lyrics about life, anxiety, and the self. I wanted to ask about your writing process — are you a sit-down thinker, or does stuff come to you in the middle of the day that you hurry to jot down?
That’s so nice. I kind of struggled my whole career with confidence with my writing. And because I always sort of see myself as a vocalist, like, that’s my instrument. And I took a while to get the confidence to write songs. And I really didn’t until my first album, Please Be Mine. My last album, Romantic Images, I was so focused on the sonic shift, I did want the production to be more clean and more pop. And this album, I was more focused on writing and lyrics. I also took longer to write this album — I started in 2021. So it was more of a year and a half of writing a lot of songs, and being really nitpicky.
My process is just yeah, sitting down. I wrote both on the piano and guitar and I’ll basically finish a song: chords, lyrics, pretty much, and then take it to Dailey, who’s my boyfriend and guitarist. We’ll make the demo and flesh out parts and have an idea. And then of course, some of those ideas changed a lot when Jack produced them.
In the first track, ‘Made of Glass’, you talk about the downsides of being a sensitive person, which I can totally relate to. You sing “I’m so fragile it’s not even funny.” Can I ask what inspired this song?
This song is totally in the perspective of my 13-year-old self. I just kind of wanted to paint the picture of that angst and that first wave of feelings of insecurities. I really struggled with body dysmorphia: that was sort of when it first started with disordered thinking and eating. I would just stay in my room a lot and just really obsess over getting dressed and not being able to feel okay in my body and feel okay socializing. I still feel a lot of those things today, even though I’m past a lot of it and can mask better. I still will obsess over things not fitting. I just truly wrote that line to just help myself get over that. Because, logically, I know, it’s ridiculous. But that anxiety will really take over a lot, and I can become very obsessive.
You also end with the lyric “I’m made of glass/ And I’ll always be like that.” This finality, this personality trait you just know of yourself — do you think that makes being a sensitive person easier or harder?
I think easier. I was always kind of shamed because I’m different in my family — I always feel like my sister and my mom are tougher and I’ve always been called the sensitive one. I always felt so much shame about that, and that I needed to be change to be strong. Over the years, I’ve grown to accept that and love that about myself. I’d rather be extra sensitive and empathetic than rather not. I feel like it’s a strength. I do still feel like I’m fragile, but I’m also very strong.
Totally. I’m from a Jewish mother and an Italian father — growing up at family gatherings, all I’d hear is “You’re so quiet!”
My mom is Jewish as well, and the first time she met Dailey, she said, “Do you ever talk? Is he mute?” I love them so much, but there’s a lot of big personalities, and as the youngest, I shrunk down.
‘Physical’ was the first song I heard on the album, which made me really intrigued. Even though the instrumental is so upbeat, there’s this lyric that sticks out to me: “I guess the pills help/ But they really only make me feel less.” If it’s not too personal, would you mind explaining the meaning behind this lyric?
Absolutely. The whole song is really about my struggles with PMS, which goes hand in hand with anxiety, depression, and body issues. I wanted the lyrics to be broad enough so that people who don’t experience that can also relate, with generalized anxiety or something. I started taking anti-anxiety meds for PMS, and it really did help, but I just started feeling less. It didn’t fix everything, just brought everything down. Which can be good, and bad.
I also enjoyed it because I took it as a means of sticking up for yourself even when you feel awful, even when you don’t feel like a person. In all of the verses, you describe feeling flat, maybe not even physical, but in the chorus’ ending, you counter: “I’m not the one-dimensional girl of your mind/ I’m a literal woman moving through life.” What was the thought process behind this dichotomy?
Yeah, definitely. I wanted the verses to feel more insecure and the chorus to feel powerful, telling someone who doesn’t understand what you’re going through and can write it off. I feel like that happens a lot, with PMS, or periods, like, ‘Oh, you’re just on your period.’ But people don’t really understand that it’s so under researched. Women’s health in general, is just horrific. Nobody cares. And you’re going through so much mental illness during that time. It’s pretty intense. I wanted that line to tell someone off, like, ‘Don’t downplay what I’m going through.’ I have to remind myself of that all the time. Literally every month. I have to go through mental gymnastics of calming myself and saying, “This will pass.”
I read that ‘Tattoo’ is an ode to your late friend, and I think it’s a really beautiful song, especially the part where you say you got one of her tattoos in the same spot to remember her by. What does this song mean to you and what was the writing process like?
That song was the hardest song for me to write, ever. I’d never taken so long to write a song, and it went through a lot of different forms. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll write a pop song.’ I wanted to write a song that maybe she would like. I really like where it landed, with the help of Jack’s production. I wanted it to be this ballad, but I did want weird elements. In the chorus, he added this strange ethereal guitar part. I love the ups and downs of it.
Basically, one of my best friends passed away in college. She was such an important person, and totally changed my life. I never wanted to write a song about her because it was too personal, but with this album, which is about my relationship to music and how I feel as an artist, she was the first person I played music with and really brought me out of my shell. She was so, so opposite. The only person I feel like I can compare her to is Sinead O’Connor: someone who is so bold and different. I truly feel like there was no one like her. She was so fun and extraverted and had this big orange curly hair, so beautiful. Everyone was drawn to her. I wanted to basically write a letter to her now, and wanted to talk about her and capture her essence and think about what she’d be like now. Part of me thinks she’d have a really hard time with it. She missed social media: that would have made her so anxious. She would have been blocked from everything. She Facebook messaged me a video of her talking out of her vagina. Yeah, she would have been banned on all platforms. That’s the line where it goes: “You wouldn’t believe it/ I think you would hate it.” Pandemic, everything that’s happened… She was so deeply sensitive, I think it would have been too much. That’s something that I tell myself, to make myself feel better, almost, that she would have hated it here and she’s in a better place. It’s definitely a special song to release, and why I wanted it to be a single too.
That’s so beautiful. So ‘Unconditional’ mourns a relationship where you inhabited the ‘giver’ role, and the other person was the “taker,” who was afraid of commitment. What was the turning point for you, of realizing, like, “Hang on. This isn’t benefiting me”?
Basically, I was thinking about how I felt being an indie artist in the music business. This feeling really started when the pandemic hit, feeling like I have no control over anything. That’s just how it is in this business — up and down, sometimes you feel good and sometimes you feel horrible. It’s sort of a confident perspective, like, “Hey, I’m great, why don’t you like me?” I just wanted to have fun with it and have some salty, cheeky lines.
Let’s talk about ‘Heartburn’, which I think is the most interestingly-produced track on the record. It has nods of city pop with these big, explosive horns. How did this song come to be?
Dailey and I were just kinda messing around — the demo is so different, it’s a synthy, much chiller 80s track. I made lyrics afterwards and Jack took it and was really city pop-inspired. It was something he’d always wanted to do, and he sent me a little taste, like, “Do you like this?” Every time he said that, I was like, ‘Go for it!’ It was the first time he completely wrote all these parts for horns and strings, and it was a really cool experience to watch him do that.
Even though you start with the incredible lyric, “First time in a while got no man on my mind/ I’d rather chase my dreams on a Saturday night,” on the chorus, you admit that “Heartburn season” always gets the best of you, and you find yourself yearning. What is “heartburn season” and why do you think it’s so powerful?
So the title’s a nod to Nora Ephron, her movie Heartburn. I associate her and her movies with fall, and to me, whenever it’s fall, I get so nostalgic. When it’s not fall, I get so focused, but when it turns, I get this yearning vibe.
I really enjoyed how ‘Beauty Rest’ has this analysis of capitalism and how we’re forced to segment our lives in order to even live. You sing, “Too many people out here, I guess / Realizing their dreams on a daily basis.” Where did the inspiration for this song come from?
I believe this was the first song I wrote for the album, which kind of formed it. It was right when I was putting out my last record, Romantic Images, and the summer of 2021. Summer is my least favorite season, and I hate being hot. It was still pandemic-times, and we couldn’t tour. I think there was this misconception that, “Okay, 2020 bad, 2021 good! Normal!” I feel like we were all confident, putting out an album, and then it was like every single person on earth put out an album. I was feeling so overstimulated, so depressed, not being able to tour. I was basically dealing with all of the things I don’t like about putting out an album: thinking about how it’s doing, what’s the press like, etc. I get very seasonally depressed in the summer and happy in the fall and winter. I was thinking about capitalism commodifying your art. It just felt like everyone was working so hard. I felt like, “I wish we could all just chill out and not worry so much.”
What are you most excited about when touring this album?
It’s always fun to play new songs live, and we’re doing all the new songs, except ‘Heartburn’, because it was too tricky to figure out with all the horns. It’s just fun to see the fans. I love the structure of tour. We brought our dog, which is so fun, and kind of crazy, but it’s been nice. He loves the van, and he takes the tour well, which is good for mental health. I’m hoping to tour Europe and the UK next year, that’s something we haven’t been able to do since the pandemic.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
PinkPantheress has announced that her debut album, Heaven Knows, is set to arrive on November 10. Its first single, ‘Capable of Love’, is officially out now alongside a video directed by Aidan Zamiri. Watch and listen below.
Following 2021’s to hell with it, the LP finds the British singer collaborating with Greg Kurstin, Mura Masa, Danny L Harle, Count Baldor, Phil, and Cash Cobain. “The record is about grief for a loss but being at peace with yourself in your aloneness,” she said in a statement. “Journeying from hell into purgatory, but I’m ok with being there.”
On social media, PinkPantheress wrote: “what an intense insane moment ! my first album is coming out and you know i love a pun so it’s called “heaven knows”, out on november 10th. this album is an accumulation of music i’ve made over the last two years, with some beloved tunes that might sound familiar and some cutie features who i can’t wait to announce 📣. i love everyone here, i cried the other day thinking of how lucky i am to have people willing to listen to me, you are never taken in vain. to my fanpages, i love you, you’re always there for me and i will never forget about how safe you make me feel 💿💓. it’s been a long time comin from pain to capable of love, i hope you love each song you hear from me!”
Blink-182 have dropped another single from their upcoming album One More Time…, which is out October 20 via Columbia. ‘Fell in Love’ follows the previously shared tracks ‘One More Time’, ‘More Than You Know’, ‘Edging’, and ‘Dance With Me’. Listen to it below.
One More Time…, the first album from the classic lineup trio of Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker, and Tom DeLonge since 2011’s Neighborhoods, arrives October 20 via Columbia. The band has also shared a second trailer for the LP, which features more footage from their recent interview with Zane Lowe.
The Libertines have announced their first new album in over eight years. The follow-up to 2015’s Anthems for Doomed Youth is called All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade, and it’s out on March 8. Check out its first single, ‘Run, Run, Run’, below.
The Libertines recorded the new album with producer Dimitri Tikovoï, and all four band members share songwriting credit on every song. Of ‘Run, Run, Run’, the band’s Carl Barat said in a statement: “It’s about being trapped, and trying to escape your dismal life, a bit like the man in Bukowski’s Post Office. The worst thing for The Libertines would be to get stuck in a ‘Run-run-run’ rut, constantly trying to relive our past.”
Speaking about the album, he added: “Our first record was born out of panic, and disbelief that we were actually allowed to be in a studio; the second was born of total strife and misery; the third was born of complexity; this one feels like we were all actually in the same place, at the same speed, and we really connected.”
“I feel like we’ve completed a cycle of some kind as a band, and finally now we can add these songs to the set list, because we’ve got some bangers in there,” Pete Doherty commented. “Now we’ve opened the hotel and used the studio ourselves and it’s all worked out—more Libertines records? I should hope so!”
All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade Cover Artwork:
All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade Tracklist:
1. Run, Run, Run
2. Mustang
3. Have a Friend
4. Merry Old England
5. Man With the Melody
6. Oh Shit
7. Night of the Hunter
8. Baron’s Claw
9. Shiver
10. Be Young
11. Songs They Never Play on the Radio
