“Roman Holiday makes me think of the wide streets of north London in the Summer and the urge to discover them at night time,” frontman Grian Chatten commented in a statement. “The thrill of being a gang of Irish people in London with a bit of a secret language and my first flat with my girlfriend.”
“This is a love letter to an audience, and a song about yearning for the performing self — the self that is anonymous in a crowd, and mysterious, glamourous, and performative,” Carlyn Bezic said of ‘Human Being’ in a statement. “It came to me while applying makeup.”
Citizen have returned with a new single called ‘Bash Out’. It arrives with an accompanying video directed by Mason Mercer, which you can check out below.
Citizen released Life In Your Glass World, their fourth LP, last year via Run For Cover Records. The Toledo-based outfit is heading out on tour next week, performing alongside Turnstile, Ceremony, Ekulu, and Truth Cult.
Pittsburgh five-piece the Zells have announced their sophomore album, Ant Farm, which will arrive on June 3 via Crafted Sounds. It includes the previously unveiled single ‘Truther Uncle’, as well as a new track called ‘Hell Car’. Check out its music video below.
“This was one of the last songs that we wrote for the album, and it ended up being a good encapsulation of the various themes throughout the record; we took the album name “Ant Farm’ from its lyrics,” the band’s Phil Kenbok explained in a statement, continuing:
I liked the idea of some weird, old king moping around like a Dark Souls or Radiohead character because he has to adapt to a new system that is really just as brutal and nonsensical as the one he was a part of before. You’d think this progressive move from a monarchy would be good, but the whole landscape just rots and gets worse, and regular people are still like ants or whatever. It’s a futile situation that he can’t separate his ego from, like a car on fire that he has to keep driving because it’s his whole life. He’s paranoid because he’s probably going to die horrifically, which I’m also personally very afraid of. I picture him crying in the cold rain and joining the rest of us. That’s the best outcome for him.
Ant Farm was produced and engineered by R.J. Gordon (Baked, Titus Andronicus), with mastering by Amar Lal (Big Ups). It features guest appearances from Adam Reich, Jordyn Blakely, and Davey Jones.
The Zells Cover Artwork:
The Zells Tracklist:
1. Mankey
2. Dummy
3. Finnerty’s Dream
4. Bryan Ray Trout, 1999
5. The Upside
6. JME
7. Truther Uncle 02:40
8. Payday
9. Hell Car
10. Call It Early
11. Suffer + Toil
12. Hard Reset
Zola Jesus has unveiled a new single, ‘Desire’, alongside a music video directed by A. F. Cortes. It’s taken from her forthcoming album Arkhon, following lead single ‘Lost’. Watch and listen below.
“‘Desire’ was written in one sitting at my piano at home,” Nika Roza Danilova explained in a press release. “The song was an exorcism for my pain and lack of closure around heartbreak. Sometimes songs are written simply for the cathartic effect of playing them. This is one of those songs. Performing it feels like the most tangible way to experience that closure for myself. Some days I would sit at home playing this song over and over on my piano, just to provide myself that sense of control over what I was feeling. I recorded the song at the studio in one take, and also got video while I was there to document the memory of the performance. The footage of that day is the core of the video for ‘Desire.’”
Cortes commented on the video: “I’ve seen Zola Jesus perform live many times in the past. Still, nothing prepared me to see the vulnerability of this piece unfolding as it was performed in front of my camera. It was visceral, personal, and profoundly moving. From that first shoot day, I knew I wanted to complement the live performance with a parallel story: A tale of grief, loss, and the capacity of a cathartic metamorphosis to overcome personal trauma. All set in a minimal space, a transitional moment of learning how to let go of the baggage of a previous existence. In making this piece I wanted to capture a unique moment in time that reflects the vulnerability of the music.”
Arkhon, Zola Jesus’ first album in five years, arrives on May 20 via Sacred Bones.
Maria BC has released ‘Betelgeuse’, the latest single from their forthcoming debut album Hyaline. It follows previous entries ‘The Only Thing’ and ‘Good Before’. Give it a listen below.
Elaborating on the track in a statement, Maria said:
Betelgeuse is about coming to terms with one’s role as a victim, bystander, and perpetrator. The narrator of this song recalls a traumatic moment from their childhood: the day a father figure abandoned them and their mother. Now they’re an adult and want to leave home, which means abandoning their mother. They feel cruel for leaving home, but ultimately they follow the path of the man they despise, the ghost of him, their guiding star.
In seventh grade, an astronomer visited my science class and said that Betelgeuse is our only hope for seeing a star explode within our lifetimes. Then in late 2019 early 2020, Betelgeuse dimmed slightly, and people speculated that it was about to burst. That turned out not to be the case (a cloud passed over it, or it farted or something, I don’t remember). It was a let down. And likewise it’s disappointing, when you experience loss, that the world doesn’t stop to admire some new hole that’s been ripped into the universe. There’s no great explosion.
The title “Betelgeuse” has something to do with how grief can bring on this desire for a meteorological or astronomical alignment with your experience. But no, the world doesn’t stop. It makes you want to throw a wrench in the gears, blow something up, get people to notice.
Wilco have announced a super deluxe edition of their landmark 2002 album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which will feature 82 previously unreleased tracks. These include demos, drafts, instrumentals, a live album, a 2001 radio performance, and more. The reissues are out September 16 via Nonesuch. Today, Wilco have shared a 2002 live rendition of ‘Reservations’ from the box set. Check it out below, along with their performance of ‘Poor Places’ on last night’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The super deluxe version is available as a box set of 11 vinyl LPs and one CD or an 8xCD collection. It’s accompanied by a new book featuring an interview with frontman Jeff Tweedy, drummer Glenn Kotche, and mixing engineer Jim O’Rourke, a new essay by journalist Bob Mehr, as well as previously unseen photos chronicling the album’s creation.
My Idea, the duo of Lily Konigsberg and Nate Amos , have shared the final single off their upcoming debut album CRY MFER. Check out ‘Lily’s Phone’ below.
“‘Lily’s Phone’ was created in layers. I had made a voicemail with my friends announcing that this was, in fact, my phone, and that you should call me back. Nate heard this and made a track loosely based on the melody of the voicemail, except now the phone belonged to our friend’s dog who was trying to sell Nate drugs (I believe this is an actual dream Nate had),” Konigsberg explained in a statement. “The final version of the song is literally about how I enjoy talking on the phone, which most people my age would not agree with. The rest of the song is made up of abstract facts about me and things going on around me, which is how I was writing at that time. It’s made up of catchy phrasing, swirls of words, and quickly changing topics because that’s where my brain was at that time.”
CRY MFER is out this Friday (April 22) via Hardly Art. It includes the previously released singles ‘Crutch’, ‘Breathe You’, and the title track.
Helado Negro has released a new single called ‘Ya No Estoy Aquí’, his first new music since 2021’s Far In. Check out the self-directed video for it below.
“‘Ya No Estoy Aquí’ is a song about loneliness and alienation,” Roberto Carlos Lange explained in a press release. “It’s about being lost within yourself and not knowing who you are. Making this song was catharsis; it was a way to get this all out and feel the texture of new perspectives.”
The track was inspired by the independent film Ya No Estoy Aquí. “This movie moved me in ways that nothing else has moved in a long time,” Lange continued. “It is about a young man from Monterrey, Mexico, who gets into trouble and is forced to leave for his safety to New York. The language barrier, the cultural isolation, and his characteristics spiral him more towards his loneliness and isolation. Music was his only solace. Songs that he would dance to by himself and disappear into the memory of being somewhere else with the people he missed and loved.”
Ruth Radelet, the former lead singer of Chromatics, has unveiled her debut original single. ‘Crimes’ was made in collaboration with producer Filip Nikolic of Poolside. Listen to it below.
“‘Crimes’ is about the pursuit of success at the expense of one’s integrity, and the exploitation of others in order to get ahead,” Radelet explained in a statement. “It’s about the price we pay for our choices, and whether or not it’s worth it. The question, ‘Is it easy to start over?’ can be interpreted in two ways – it’s meant to ask how it feels to continually reinvent yourself until you lose sight of who you are. It also asks how hard it would be to walk away from it all.”
Following the dissolution of Chromatics last August, Radelet shared a cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Twilight’.
