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’.
Say Sue Me have previewed their upcoming album The Last Thing Leftwith one more single, ‘To Dream’. The track arrives with an accompanying video directed by Lee Seongwook, with support from Music Lab Busan. Watch and listen below.
“I dreamed that everyone was alive, and I came to think that there might be no end,” vocalist and guitarist Sumi Choi commented in a statement about the track, which serves as the sole Korean-language song on the LP. “One day everyone will come back and meet somewhere.”
The Last Thing Left comes out May 13 via Damnably. It was led by the single ‘Around You’.
Momma have announced a new album called Household Name. It’s out July 1 via Lucky Number. Today, the Brooklyn-based band – led by singers/guitarists Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman – has shared the new single ‘Speeding 72’, which arrives with a video directed by Madeline Leshner and Zach Stone. Check it out below, and scroll down for the album cover and tracklist.
“‘Speeding 72’ is probably the most collaboratively written song on the new record. We wanted it to be the sort of summertime anthem that you can turn on during a drive to impress your crush,” the band explained in a press release. “The most important part of the production was setting the right mood to transport the listener. The song starts with Aron getting into his car (which is featured on the album cover), and then turning on the ignition.”
‘Speeding 72’ follows the previously released singles ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Medicine’. Along with the album news, Momma have also announced a run of headlining dates, which you can find here. Their last album was 2020’s Two of Me.
Momma Cover Artwork:
Momma Tracklist:
1. Rip Off
2. Speeding 72
3. Medicine
4. Rockstar
5. Motorbike
6. Tall Home
7. Lucky
8. Brave
9. Callin Me
10. Spider
11. No Stage
12. No Bite
Hot Chip have announced their next album: Freakout/Releasewill be out on August 19 via Domino. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Down’, alongside a music video directed by Douglas Hart and Steve Macke. Check it out and find the LP’s cover art and tracklist below.
Hot Chip wrote and recorded the follow-up to 2019’s A Bath Full of Ecstasy in their Relax & Enjoy studio in East London, a space that Al Doyle put together before and during the first year of the pandemic. “By the time we were able to be back together, we were turning on a tap and having a lot of ideas being poured out quite quickly,” Alexis Taylor said in a press release. Doyle added: “Everything’s on all the time, and it’s very easy to capture what we’re doing.”
Commenting on the album’s themes, Joe Goddard said: “We were living through a period where it was very easy to feel like people were losing control of their lives in different ways. There’s a darkness that runs through a lot of those tracks.”
Since releasing A Bath Full of Ecstasy, Hot Chip produced the latest album from Ibibio Sound Machine, Electricity.
Freakout/Release Cover Artwork:
Freakout/Release Tracklist:
1. Down
2. Eleanor
3. Freakout/Release
4. Broken
5. Not Alone
6. Hard To Be Funky feat. Lou Hayter
7. Time
8. Miss The Bliss
9. The Evil That Men Do feat. Cadence Weapon
10. Guilty
11. Out Of My Depth
Otoboke Beaver have released their new single ‘YAKITORI’, the latest offering from their forthcoming album Super Champion. Give it a listen below.
“We are not popular in Japan, but we have been told by some Japanese people that we are flirting with foreigners,” vocalist and guitarist Accorinrin said in a statement. “I was so pissed off by this that I decided to write songs with ‘Japanese’ and ‘foreign flirtatious’ titles, such as ‘SUSHI’ and ‘YAKITORI.’ It’s a meaningless song, ‘I’m the one who threw yakitori in your mailbox.’ Not so flirtatious, right?”
Gang of Youths appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (April 18), performing the track ‘in the wake of your leave’ off their new album angel in realtime.. Watch it below.
angel in realtime., Gang of Youth’s third studio album, arrived back in February. The Australian band is set to head out on the North American leg of their tour in support of the record, kicking off this Thursday in Madison, Wisconsin.
Ravyn Lenae has announced her debut album: Hypnos arrives on May 20 via Atlantic. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘M.I.A’, which is produced by Sango. Check it out below.
“M.I.A is about feeling free and comfortable in your skin,” Lenae said of the track in a statement. “It’s a peek into my world – the duality of knowing the energy you bring to the world but also being confident in riding dolo.”
Following 2018’s Crush EP, Hypnos includes the previously released songs ‘Light Me Up’ and ‘Skin Tight’. Along with the album news, Lenae has also announced a run of headlining tour dates kicking off this summer, which you can find below, too.
Ravyn Lenae 2022 Tour Dates:
May 26 Seattle, WA – Nuemos
May 28 – Berkley, CA – Cornerstone
May 29 – Ventura, CA – Ventura Music Hall
May 31 – Los Angeles, CA – El Rey
Jun 1 – Phoenix, AZ – Aura
Jun 3 – Dallas, TX – Cambridge Room
Jun 5 – Atlanta, GA – Vinyl
Jun 7 – Washington, D.C. – City Winery
Jun 8 – Brooklyn, NY – Prospect Park
Jun 10 – Boston, MA – BMH
Jun 22 – Chicago, IL – Metro
Jun 14 – Manchester, England – Band on the Wall
Jun 15 – London, England – Islington Assembly Hall
Jun 18 – Paris, France – Badaboum
Jun 19 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg
Jun 20 – Berlin, Germany – Berghain
David Freel, the vocalist and guitarist of the San Francisco indie rock band Swell, has died at the age of 64. The news was revealed on the band’s Facebook page, with no cause of death given.
Born January 31, 1958, Freel formed Swell in 1989 with drummer Sean Kirkpatrick. The band released their self-titled debut album through their own pSychosPecificMusic label in April the following year, and spent the summer busking on the streets of Europe, mainly in Spain. They returned to the US in August to play their first show at San Francisco’s I-Beam, opening for Mazzy Star. They would go on to release a number of albums throughout the ’90s, including 1991’s …Well?, 1994’s 41, and 1997’s Too Many Days Without Thinking. 2001’s Everybody Wants to Know was written mostly by Freel, who put out 2009’s Be My Weapon for the first time without using the Swell name. He continued releasing through his label after moving to Oregon; his final album was 2014’s Greasy.
“In the years after Swell’s touring schedule, David found a home and a family in Oregon,” the Facebook post reads. “For 14 years, he continued to create; whether that be music or Vinyl On Demand, he always had a project at hand. David led with spontaneous curiosity and an appreciation for the world around him, always learning more, he even learned how to surf.” It continues:
At age 56, he found love, bought a home, and settled down with Jen. To his Portland family, David was a gentle, patient, and humorous friend, Uncle, and partner. After years of travel and struggle, he had become the man he had always wanted to be in Oregon. David is loved and missed but never forgotten. Just play one of his songs or close your eyes to see his presence on stage. He will be there strumming his well-loved, ramshackle 1970s Takamine.
The admirers of Swell and David Freel will mourn his loss but celebrate his life and legacy. As David would say, live every day like it is your last and never say goodbye, but rather see you soon. Thank you.
The coming-of-age genre is saturated with a plethora of films, each with its own unique tone. From vibrant, shimmering, epic stories of adventure and first love, to more grounded, quiet dramas teeming with internal tension. The teenage experience is unique in its transience, yet also something that many humans go through. Many teen movies take place in a high school setting, where the hallways and classrooms offer plenty of opportunities for conflict and self-discovery. Other YA films focus on family dynamics and home situations, and these are often the stories that hit closest to home.
Fish Tank (2009)
Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank is a brutally honest character study set in East London, where fifteen-year-old Mia (Kate Jarvis) lives with her mother (Kierston Wareing) and younger sister (Rebecca Griffiths) in public housing. Mia keeps to herself, giving the impression of being tough, but she has a lot of pent-up feelings towards her neglectful mother and her sheltered sister. When Connor (Michael Fassbender) comes into Mia’s life as her mother’s new boyfriend, he seems too good to be true – he cares for both girls and seems to bring the whole family closer together. He even encourages Mia to pursue her passion for dance, which she believes is her ticket out of her current life. However, over time, Mia learns things about Connor that her mother cannot see.
Fish Tank doesn’t gloss over the hardships of being a young adult in an unstable environment – both at home and in the broader social community. Mia is allowed to have flaws and ambitions at the same time; she harbours both hatred and tenderness. While the film is quiet, it allows space for the loudness of Mia’s adolescent feelings, making it a raw and authentic viewing experience.
Genèse/Genesis (2018)
Written and directed by Philippe Lesage, Genesis is an unofficial sequel to his 2015 film The Demons. Édouard Tremblay-Grenier reprises his role as Félix in the final third of Genesis, which deviates from the story of siblings Charlotte (Noée Abita) and Guillaume (Théodore Pellerin) that takes up most of the film’s runtime. This experimental structure may be jarring at first, but the story leaves clues to connect these seemingly unrelated characters.
Charlotte and Guillaume are on separate paths in the world, but both are trying to figure out who they are. Something they have in common is the way they project different personalities to the world as opposed to their families. Of course, this is a common way for teens to behave, but Genesis delves into how this affects their identities while they also deal with the tumult of their first loves. Similarly, when Félix meets Béatrice (Émilie Bierre) at a summer camp, the film quietly lets them figure out the dynamics of their relationship. The beauty of the film lies in the way it lets its young characters feel alone in their pain – as teenagers often do – before allowing them to find their ways back to one another in a moment of solidarity. Genesis does not speak down to teens, but is grounded in the authentic experience of coming of age.
L’heure de la sortie/School’s Out (2018)
School’s Out is a clever and haunting French film that comments on the pressing reality of climate change, and what it’s like to grow up in a world of deep uncertainty. Sébastien Marnier’s film begins in a classroom, where twelve particularly gifted students are studying. Suddenly, and without warning, their teacher leaps out of the window. In the wake of this suicide, a substitute teacher named Pierre (Laurent Lafitte) takes over the class. However, he soon feels unnerved by the students’ contemptuous behavior towards him. After identifying the precocious and serious Apolline (Luàna Bajrami) as the ringleader, he tries to learn more about the group’s social dynamics. Pierre follows the students and witnesses a series of strange and violent rituals, both at school and in private. School’s Out is a timely coming-of-age film for current young viewers who will be able to relate with these characters’ experiences.
The Fireflies Are Gone (2018)
Another French-language film, The Fireflies Are Gone follows teenager Léo (Karelle Tremblay), who is frustrated by how limited her life feels. Eager to escape her mother’s influence, as well as her small Canadian hometown, Léo exerts whatever independence she can. This leads her to run out of restaurants, catch random buses, and meet strangers in diners. She decides on a whim to take guitar lessons from one such stranger, an older man named Steve (Pierre-Luc Brillant). Sébastien Pilote’s directorial vision allows Léo many quiet moments where viewers can simply watch her be; she’s such an intriguing protagonist that even these quieter scenes are never boring. The film is shot beautifully, and the award-winning score elevates the story’s sense of wonder, which is what really drives Léo’s decisions.
Mid90s (2018)
Jonah Hill’s directorial debut – which he also wrote – is an honest insight into the lives of a group of teenage boys who often meet up to skate. At the heart of the story is Stevie (Sunny Suljic), a thirteen-year-old who is trying to navigate his complicated home life when he meets a group of older boys at the skate shop. They take him in, and thus begins Stevie’s summer of discovery and adventure. He changes a lot over the course of the film, but in a natural and believable way; the script is infused with so much detail that the story feels autobiographical. The actors’ performances also help the film’s sense of authenticity – in fact, many of the skaters seen in Mid90s are also skaters in real life. The way the boys talk is realistic for adolescents, and over time, Stevie begins to adopt their vocabulary and bring it home to his mother (Katherine Waterson) and abusive older brother (Lucas Hedges).
Lady Bird (2017)
Set in early 2000s Sacramento, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird follows Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), otherwise known as “Lady Bird”. She’s in her senior year at high school and dreams of going to college in New York. Apart from wishing to escape her middle-class life, she’s also eager to escape her mother’s influence. As Lady Bird has gotten older, their relationship has become more fraught, and this relationship guides her development over the course of the film. Though Lady Bird is a comedy, its themes are grounded in emotional truth, and many viewers may recognize parts of themselves in Lady Bird’s character.
Boyhood (2014)
Filmed over a period of twelve years, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is an cinematic experiment that takes viewers on a ride-along journey with the family at its center. As the title suggests, the film spans the developmental years of Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane). The film begins in the wake of their parents’ divorce, leaving Mason and his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) to live with their mother (Patricia Arquette). Over the next twelve years, the children sporadically build a relationship with their father (Ethan Hawke) through a series of visits as granted to him by the divorce arrangements. Because of the way the story is filmed, Mason’s character is able to evolve gradually and thus naturally over the course of the movie. His experiences are grounded in reality, and even though they are seemingly mundane, they affect him and shape the person he grows up to become.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
This quiet, introspective film follows Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a teenager who unexpectedly discovers that she’s pregnant and must travel to New York to get an abortion. Accompanied by Skylar (Talia Ryder), a girl she works with but isn’t necessarily close friends with, Autumn braves the obstacles set in her way: unsympathetic pro-lifers, the assumptions adults have about her, traveling to another city without her parents’ knowledge, racking up enough money to cover expenses, and dealing with a persistent young man (Theodore Pellerin) who can’t see that Skylar isn’t interested in his advances. Together, Autumn and Skylar form a dogged pair united in a show of quiet feminism.
Written and directed by Eliza Hittman, the film is similar in tone and style to some of her previous work, including 2013’s It Felt Like Love, another female-centric coming-of-age story. Hittman’s voice is easy to identify, though the truth in her films may be hard for some viewers to swallow. Despite how quiet her films are, the tension sustained throughout gives the story momentum, propelling the female characters forward in their journeys. Though these journeys aren’t always pleasant, they are certainly authentic.
The Hand of God (2021)
Tinged with a sense of magical realism, The Hand of God is an Italian Netflix film (nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards). At the center is Fabietto (Filippo Scotti), a somewhat awkward teen trying to find his place in the world and figure out what he wants to do with his life. Suddenly, in the middle of the beautiful daydream of this 1980s Naples summer, Fabietto is struck with grief when a freak accident changes his life. However, his life is inadvertently saved from this accident by football player Diego Maradona, whose career Fabietto has followed closely – and whose legendary 1986 match gives the film its title. Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino frames Fabietto’s journey in a unique way, but one that reflects the truth of adolescence; it’s a tumultuous transition, and one that doesn’t always lead in the direction expected.
Eighth Grade (2018)
Elsie Fisher stars as Kayla Day, an introverted and self-conscious eighth-grader who posts videos online about self-confidence. At school, she assumes a different personality in an effort to warm up to her peers, who don’t seem to accept her in their social circle. At home, Kayla spends a lot of time on her phone or laptop, scrolling through social media, earphones plugged in to block out her dad’s attempts at conversation. Kayla’s digital presence reflects an important part of many teenagers’ lives, but even more authentic is the contrast of Kayla’s online personality to her real-life personality. This conflict guides her to become the person she really wants to be, but the journey isn’t without its scary moments. Nevertheless, Bo Burnham’s script is infused with comedy to make the awkwardness bearable, again reflecting the agonizing reality of what it’s like to grow up.
