Four Tet has returned to his KH moniker with a new single called ‘Looking At Your Pager’, which is out today via Ministry of Sound. The track samples American girl group 3LW’s 2000 hit ‘No More (Baby I’ma Do Right)’. Give it a listen below.
“This track was made in the summer last year just before my first festival set in a long time,” Kieran Hebden explained in a press release. “I wanted something new to play that would feel universal, positive and futuristic and this is what I came up with. Since then I think more people have asked me about this track than for anything else I’ve ever made and I’ve had amazing times playing it to the best crowds you could ask for. It took quite a while to get approval for the vocal sample but it finally happened recently and now the music is out in the world for everyone.”
spill tab has released her latest single, ‘Splinter’. It follows ‘Sunburn’, the artist’s first new single of 2022. Check out a visual for it below.
“I wanted to make something with a bit of an early 2000s rom com end credits vibe going on, so I made ‘Splinter ‘with my friends Wyatt and Austin, who absolutely smashed it,” spill tab commented in a statement. “It’s a bit depressing lyrically but I love having those visuals layered over the crunchy drums and guitars.”
Beach House made an appearance on Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night (May 19), performing their single ‘Superstar’, which we named one of the best songs of 2021. Watch it below.
‘Superstar’ is lifted from Beach House’s latest album Once Twice Melody, which came out in February of this year. The Baltimore duo is currently on tour in support of the LP, which will keep them on the road through September.
Harry Styles’ new album, Harry’s House, is out today. The former One Direction singer’s third LP, following 2019’s Fine Line, features the previously shared single ‘As It Was’ as well as contributions from Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange), John Mayer, Tobias Jesso Jr., Pino Palladino, Kid Harpoon, and more. Speaking about the album title, Styles explained in an interview with Apple Music: “The album is named after Haruomi Hosono, he had an album in the ’70s called ‘Hosono’s House’, and I spent that chunk in Japan; I heard that record and I was like ‘I love that. It’d be really fun to make a record called Harry’s House.”
Porridge Radio, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky
Porridge Radio have returned with a new album, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky, via Secretly Canadian. The follow-up to 2020’s Every Bad was previewed with the singles ‘Back to the Radio’, ‘The Rip’, and ‘End of Last Year’ and was co-produced by Tom Carmichael, Dana Margolin, and Sam Yardley. “I kept saying that I wanted everything to be ‘stadium-epic’ – like Coldplay,” Margolin said in press materials. The singer-songwriter also explained that the album title “symbolizes the ups and downs of human life, of virtue and transgression. With this album, the feelings of joy, fear and endlessness coexist together.” Read our review of the album.
Lykke Li has released an immersive audiovisual album titled EYEYE. The visual component of EYEYE, which is directed by Theo Lindquist and shot on 16-millimeter film by cinematographer Edu Grau, seeks “to capture the beauty and grandeur of a three-hour European arthouse movie, while making something native to modern media,” according to Li. The Swedish singer recorded the LP in her bedroom in Los Angeles, reuniting with longtime collaborator Björn Yttling for the first time since 2014’s I NEVER LEARN. The follow-up to 2018’s So Sad So Sexy was mixed to tape by Shawn Everett in Los Angeles. “I wanted the record to have the intimacy of listening to a voice memo on a macro dose of LSD,” Li said.
Flume has put out a new album called Palaces, out now via Future Classic and Transgressive. It features guest appearances from Damon Albarn, Caroline Polachek, Oklou, Kučka, and Vergen Maria. The Australian producer began to write music for the album in Los Angeles at the beginning of the pandemic, finding inspiration through reconnecting with nature. “I made a bunch of recordings around the property that made their way onto the record,” Flume told Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe. “The record was kind of fragmented over years of doing a session in London with someone or doing this over here or on tour. So to try and piece it all together and make it make sense and feel cohesive, I’ve added a whole bunch of tones and textures from the wildlife on the property. ”
fanclubwallet – the project of Ottawa-based musician Hannah Judge – has issued her debut LP, You Have Got to Be Kidding Me. Featuring the advance singles ‘Gr8 Timing!’, ‘Trying to Be Nice’, and ‘That I Won’t Do’, the album was recorded the album at Port William Sound in Ontario with childhood friend and longtime collaborator Michael Watson. “I think I spend a lot of time trying to be like the cool, chill, calm girl,” Judge said in a press release. “This album’s kind of me being like, ‘Maybe I’m not cool, calm and collected.'”
Nervous at Night is the debut full-length from Pasadena-based artist Charlie Hickey. Out now via Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory Records, the album was produced with Marshall Vore and features contributions from LA musicians such as Harrison Whitford, Christian Lee Hutson, and Mason Stoops. It follows last year’s Count the Stars EP and includes the early singles ‘Gold Line’, ‘Dandelions’, the title track. “It felt like a real privilege to be able to be surrounded by that community while I was making the album,” Hickey said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “It both feels very comfortable and we’re all peers, but then I also will always look up to all those people. And it can be inspiring and force you to be better to be surrounded by those people, but it doesn’t feel like being an imposter.”
Body Type,Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s Surprising
Body Type have dropped their debut album, Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s Surprising, via Poison City Records. Sophie McComish, Annabel Blackman, Cecil Coleman, and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums recorded the LP in eight days in early 2020 with Jonathan Boulet, who also mastered the record. “We were coming out of a period that felt quite suffocating and restrictive,” McComish said in press materials. “We just kind of regrouped and re-energised and did it ourselves.” Everything Is Dangerous follows two EPs, EP1 and EP2, and includes the advance tracks ‘The Charm’, ‘Buoyancy’, and ‘Sex & Range’.
Cola – the new project of former Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy and US Girls/The Weather Station drummer Evan Cartwright – have shared their debut full-length, Deep in View, via Fire Talk Records. Ahead of the release, the band unveiled the songs ‘Blank Curtain’, ‘So Excited’, ‘Degree’, ‘Water Table’, and ‘Fulton Park’. “It wasn’t the post-Ought band right off the bat,” Darcy said in press materials. “We really just took time to enjoy the process of collaborating and writing songs together.”
Jordana has come through with her official studio debut, Face the Wall, out today via Grand Jury. The record follows two EPs released in 2020, Something to Say and To You, which were combined to form Something to Say to You. “The album title has a few meanings to me,” Jordana explained in a press statement. “Mostly, it’s about not giving up. The wall can be anything in your way. The album is a sort of reminder to myself that I have to face those things, and I can’t take the easy route and turn around.” The tracks ‘Catch My Drift’, ‘Pressure Point’, ‘Go Slow’, and ‘To The Ground’ preceded the album.
The debut self-titled record by Weird Nightmare, the new project from METZ guitarist and singer Alex Edkins, has arrived via Sub Pop. The album was mostly recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic and includes contributions from Canadian alt-pop artist Chad VanGaalen and Alicia Bognanno of Bully. “Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really became the main focus this time,” Edkins said in a statement about the LP, which features the promotional songs ‘Searching for You’, ‘Lusitania’, and ‘Wrecked’. “It was about doing what felt natural.”
Other albums out today:
Boldy James & Real Bad Man, Killing Nothing; Mary Lattimore & Paul Sukeena, West Kensington; Tess Parks, And Those Who Were Seen Dancing; Ravyn Lenae, Hypnos; Everything Everything, Raw Data Feel; Craig Finn, A Legacy of Rentals; Cave In, Heavy Pendulum; Mavis Staples & Levon Helm, Carry Me Home; Matmos, Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer; Robert Pollard, Our Gaze; Spice, Viv; SOAK, If I Never Know You Like This Again; Uffie, Sunshine Factory; Delta Spirit, One Is One; Marina Herlop, Pripyat; mxmtoon, rising; Koray Kantarcıoğlu, Loopworks 2; Lia Mice, Sweat Like Caramel; NZIRIA, XXYBRID.
Rina Sawayama appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (May 19) to perform her new single ‘This Hell’, which arrived earlier this week. Watch it below.
‘This Hell’ is the lead single off Sawayama’s forthcoming album Hold the Girl. The follow-up to her debut SAWAYAMA is set for release on September 2.
If Every Bad was proof of anything, it’s that nobody summons catharsis like Porridge Radio. Most bands treat it like a final destination, the all-consuming feeling a collection of music has to arrive at if it’s to serve any kind of grand purpose. But for the Bright-based four-piece, led by Dana Margolin, it’s more like a ceaseless wave, by turns perplexing and purifying as it spins out into something no less unpredictable than the chaos it’s supposed to upend. With their sophomore album, which arrived just days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Porridge Radio seemed to have mastered their dynamic capabilities after years of putting out understated, introspective indie rock. Two years later, having reached what’s surely the purest form of collective release with the climactic mantra of 2020’s ‘Lilac’, you might expect them to have shifted their focus entirely. Either its torrent of hope was enough to sweep away all the uncertainty, or the time had come to consider a different path altogether.
Judging from the feverish emotions that Margolin obsesses over on Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky, that’s not what ended up happening. Instead, the band seems more acutely aware of their unique ability to turn a crescendo into not just a source of uplift but its own disorienting journey. Rather than wallowing in self-pity and despair, they do what they do best – try turning it into a mantra – and, without any expectation that this effort will bear its fruit, lean into it with more intention than before. You get why stadium acts like Coldplay and pop stars like Charli XCX were influences during the making of the album – sonically as well as spiritually, it reaches for the same kind of ambition, but emotionally it keeps spiraling inward, not letting itself be elevated by anything other than what’s truly at the core. “I want one feeling all the time/I don’t want to feel a thing,” Margolin howls on ‘Birthday Party’, encapsulating the band’s ethos.
This contrast leads to an album that’s every bit as captivating and even more fully-realized than Every Bad. You’ll still hear the word “bad” all over it as Margolin interrogates her self-image, but you also have a lead single and opening track defiantly titled ‘Back to the Radio’ and a transcendent moment in ‘U Can Be Happy If U Want To’ that revolves around the word “back,” one of many instances where repetition both intensifies and strips a lyric of its original meaning. Of course, it’s only a few tracks earlier that Margolin sings “I don’t wanna be loved” approximately a hundred times, so the ideal of happiness looks pretty unattainable. “I don’t believe in anything,” she declares, the sentiment echoed by her bandmates as they join along – and the transformative power of a rousing anthem is clearly no exception. “Do you remember when we all fell apart?/ At the end of last year,” she asks at the start of ‘End of Last Year’, a self-described “love song for my bandmates and for myself,” before admitting, “I always break my own heart.” This penchant for destruction only becomes more pronounced as the song swells towards its conclusion: “Do you know/ You break everything you touch?”
But for all its unwavering tension, the nature of Porridge Radio’s songwriting remains triumphantly open-ended, and the album sees the band embracing this quality with a sense of curiosity and purpose. It’s perhaps why they sound more at ease tackling quieter songs like ‘Flowers’ and the title track, which are as vulnerable but more well-defined and evocative than their earlier work, less reliant on anticipating the next massive sing-along. For Margolin, the first two components of the album’s title represent joy (Waterslide) and fear (Diving Board), and Porridge Radio are as comfortable resting as they are pushing against that in-between space, whether it’s rife with conflict or defined by nothingness. The ladder is the most important metaphor, encompassing the lens through which Margolin processes the most universal and ordinary and uncontainable feelings: endlessness. Can we experience catharsis without fully being released from fear and pain? To answer the question, Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky suggests, would be to break the spell. You can take a shot and see what happens, though – after all, what’s broken can only stay that way for so long.
Vangelis, the Oscar-winning composer best known for scoring Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire, and many other films, has died. According to the Associated Press, the musician died in a hospital in France. Vangelis was 79 years old.
Born Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou in the Greek coastal town of Agria, Vangelis grew up in Athens and showed an interest in music as early as age 4. In 1963, he formed a band called Forminx, and became a writer and producer for hire when the group split in 1966. After moving to Paris, he found success in the prog-rock outfit Aphrodite’s Child, which he founded with other Greek expats and sold over 2 million copies before disbanding in 1972. Having turned down an invitation to replace Rick Wakeman as the keyboard player in Yes, Vangelis continued composing for films and began releasing solo albums. He moved to London and signed a deal with RCA Records, and his 1976 LP Albedo 0.39 was used to soundtrack Carl Sagan’s popular TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. He later teamed up with Yes singer Jon Anderson, with whom he released several records under the name Jon and Vangelis.
Vangelis’ work for Chariots of Fire earned him an Oscar for Best Original Score. The soundtrack album also topped the Billboard 200 albums chart in April 1982, while the theme has often featured at the Olympic Games. Vangelis then worked on the score for Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner, which is celebrated as one of the most influential albums in the history of electronic music. Vangelis’ final studio album, Juno to Jupiter, came out in September 2021 via Decca.
Eulogizing the composer on Twitter, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, wrote: “Vangelis Papathanassíou is no longer with us. For the whole world, the sad news suggests that the world of music has lost the international Vangelis. The pioneer of electronic sound, the Oscars, the Myth and the great hits. For us Greeks, however, knowing that his second name was Odysseus, means that he began his long journey in the Chariots of Fire. From there he will always send us his notes.”
“Vangelis Papathanassíou was a great Greek composer who excelled at a global level,” Nikos Dendias, the foreign minister of Greece, tweeted. “We say goodbye with a big ‘thank you’ for what he offered to Music, Culture and Greece.”
The list of footballers with contracts expiring this summer is a list of some of the biggest names in the sport. It’s normal for one or two stars to run down their contracts every year, but 2022 looks to be a bumper year for free transfers.
Kylian Mbappé, Paul Pogba, Paulo Dybala, Franck Kessié, Antonio Rüdiger, and Ousmane Dembèlè are just some of the big names looking for a new club ahead of next season. A number of talented young players will be available for free come the end of the season, and smart teams around Europe will be eyeing the likes of Boubacar Kamara, Noussair Mazraoui and André Onana.
Of course, free transfers aren’t really free. The money that doesn’t get spent on transfer fees tends to end up being spent on bonuses and agent fees instead, with a player’s wage usually inflated when they join on a free transfer. Bearing this in mind, it’s easy to see why players run down their contracts. They get to wait for teams to pitch to them, rather than accepting whichever move their club decides to sanction.
However, that doesn’t explain why this summer sees a veritable smorgasbord of free agents. Some, like Pogba, are just players whose time at their club has reached a natural end. Others, like Mbappé, have enough star power that they have the freedom to take their time, knowing that every club in Europe will come knocking as his contract expires. Wherever the Paris Saint-Germain forward ends up, it’ll shorten the odds of success for his side on sites like Betdaq.
However, for most, the expiration of their contract is simply a knock-on effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. Club finances were hit hard, with a fall in matchday income particularly painful as games took place behind closed doors across the world.
This meant that clubs went into transfer windows with smaller budgets and less spending power. Clubs would have reasonably expected to offload squad players, like Mohamed Elneny at Arsenal, or Divock Origi at Liverpool, for a decent fee.
However, the lack of spending in the market meant that it was no longer viable for teams to accept bids for these players. The fees that they would have received wouldn’t have been enough to cover the cost of losing the player from the squad, and bringing in a replacement.
The same is true for young talents. Before the pandemic, Marseille would have looked to cash in on the talent of Kamara, and Ajax would have looked to do the same with Mazraoui. However, the bids just haven’t come in at a level that would justify the clubs selling the players and looking to replace them.
As such, clubs have largely been happy to hold off on less urgent aspects of their recruitment until a point where there’s more money in the transfer market. This has been the best outcome for all parties, with players happy to run down their contracts. 2022 is a bumper year for these free transfers.
Most contracts at the top level of football are signed for three or four years, and so a large batch of contracts signed before the pandemic will be expiring this summer. Although football has largely returned to normal, the longer term effects of the pandemic continue to be felt.
It’s likely that 2023 will also see a notable number of free agents, although not to the same extent as this year. With the transfer market returning to normal, squad players are likely to move on this summer, and teams may once again be able to cash in on big talents. As such, 2022 will be the year of the free agent, before normal service resumes.
For most of the 20th century, action heroes absolutely dominated the silver screen. Every weekend, there would be a new type of hero to amaze and delight audiences. Sadly, as the years progressed, there has been a slight dip in the popularity of action heroes with audiences feeling fatigued over the same old formula repeated with different actors.
Despite this dip, it seems that there is a slight resurgence coming with highly anticipated big blockbuster films coming out within the next couple of months such as Top Gun Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion and Shazam: Fury of the Gods. All of these stand out for featuring familiar and memorable action heroes leading to the question of whether action heroes are due a comeback in cinema.
The question will finally be answered in this deep dive into action heroes throughout cinema’s short history, as well as looking towards the future of action movies.
Once upon a time in the Wild West
From the early inception of cinema until the late 1960s, the Wild West was the biggest genre that almost always guaranteed a box office hit. Naturally, audiences loved the thrills of the Wild West showcasing the battles between good and evil, but the biggest factor that drew them in was the familiar action hero.
Characters such as Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name and John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn (or any of the similar gruff cowboys he played) were arguably some of the first action heroes and continued to remain iconic decades later. These earlier action heroes kickstarted the filmmaking trend of creating memorable characters and heroes with longevity that are fondly remembered even now.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Wild West hero in cinema declined in popularity by the end of the 1970s, but this could soon change as there looks to be a Wild West revival coming within the next few years. One thing that is clear is early cinema’s Wild West action heroes clearly set the groundwork for the Golden Age of action heroes.
The Golden Age of Hollywood heroes
Inspired by the Wild West heroes of the previous decades, the 1980s elevated the scope of the action films being produced and was clearly the Golden Age of Hollywood action heroes. John Rambo, Axel Foley, John McClane and Indiana Jones were just some of the few iconic action characters that came out in the blockbuster films from the 1980s.
There’s no denying that this was the peak of action heroes in cinema as there were dozens coming out each month through movies and each with their own unique charms. These heroes even inspired different aspects of popular culture decades later as Indiana Jones influenced video games such as Uncharted and even iGaming with Rich Wilde and the Book of Dead.
This reign of popular action heroes continued throughout the 1990s but many started to see a decline towards the end of the decade. Despite this, there were still some stand-out characters with Ethan Hunt and James Bond but there was a clear shift in what the audience wanted. Evidentially, what audiences wanted was not the box-standard action hero that films were churning out as they wanted something more refreshing.
A new type of action star emergences
At the turn of the century, people’s attitudes were changing and longing for something different. The typical action hero was no longer relatable as audiences did not want some cookie-cutter, flawless hero. This led to grittier and darker action films throughout the 2000s awakening a new type of action star.
The typical action star throughout the 2000s was often someone conflicted and forced to commit some horrendous acts – but was justified in doing so, essentially leading to action heroes such as The Bride from Kill Bill, Alice from Resident Evil and Selene from Underworld.
It’s debatable if these heroes are neutrally good but they each provide something different to audiences that feels more balanced and varied. The Bride from Kill Bill goes on a rampage in the name of revenge but the film shows the suffering and turmoil that the character goes through giving the audience a reason to sympathise with her.
Action heroes have adapted to changing times
One thing that is clear is the fact that these movies have had to change along with the developing attitudes at the time. An action hero from the 1960s would struggle to resonate with new audiences in today’s society and it’s only through fond memories that these heroes continue to be iconic. The typical action hero from the 1960s has had to evolve and adapt to fit in with modern audiences.
In spite of this fact, there are some traditional action films such as The Expendables and Escape Plan which contain many familiar action stars from the golden era of action heroes. Whilst these films are not pioneering, they resonate with audiences as they have both been box office successes.
It’s a fair conclusion that action heroes never really went away but just had to be reshaped like most topics throughout history. Despite this, there are still a small number of traditional action heroes cropping up in recent films but these pale in comparison to the newly adapted heroes.
Ultimately, there does not need to be a comeback in cinema, as action heroes have just been redesigned to fit in with contemporary audiences. There are many different types of action heroes in modern cinema but at the end of the day, they all serve the same purpose of making a film memorable for audiences
Gang of Youths stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (May 18) to deliver a performance of ‘Forbearance’. Watch it below.
‘forbearance’ is taken from Gang of Youths’ latest album, angel in realtime.. The Australian band is currently on a North America in support of the LP. They previously played tracks from the album on Colbert and Fallon.