Miya Folick has shared the new single ‘So Clear’, which is taken from her upcoming album Roach. Listen to it below.
“‘So Clear’ is about pulling yourself out of the wreckage you’ve made of your own life again and again, for the thousands of days we live on this earth and realizing life is so much more expansive than the petty concerns we waste precious time on,” Folick explained in a statement. “An epiphany that I have over and over again is that I am very small, but my actions are very meaningful. So, I have to choose to live truthfully every day. It’s not easy! The song is very dramatic, and I imagined it as a good karaoke song when we were making it.”
Metallica are back with a new album, 72 Seasons. The follow-up to 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct was produced with Greg Fidelman and includes the early singles ‘Lux Æterna’, ‘Screaming Suicide’, ‘If Darkness Had a Son’, and the title track. Introducing the concept behind the LP, James Hetfield said: “72 seasons. The first 18 years of our lives that form our true or false selves. The concept that we were told ‘who we are’ by our parents. A possible pigeonholing around what kind of personality we are. I think the most interesting part of this is the continued study of those core beliefs and how it affects our perception of the world today. Much of our adult experience is reenactment or reaction to these childhood experiences. Prisoners of childhood or breaking free of those bondages we carry.”
Feist has returned with her new album, Multitudes, via Interscope. Following 2017’s Pleasure, the album was produced alongside Robbie Lackritz and Mocky and features contributions from Gabe Noel, Shahzad Ismaily, Todd Dahlhoff, and Amir Yaghmai. “The last few years were such a period of confrontation for me, and it feels like it was at least to some degree for everyone,” Feist shared in a press release. “We confronted ourselves as much as our relationships confronted us. It felt like our relational ecosystems were clearer than ever and so whatever was normally obscured- like a certain way of avoiding conflict or a certain way of talking around the subject- were all of a sudden thrust into the light. And in all that reassessment, the chance to find footing on healthier, more honest ground became possible, and the effort to maintain avoidance actually felt like it took more effort than just handing ourselves over to the truth.”
The Tallest Man on Earth has released Henry St., his first album of original material since 2019’s I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream. Produced by Sylvan Esso’s Nick Sanborn, the 11-track LP features the advance tracks ‘Every Little Heart’, ‘Looking for Love’, and the title track. “Henry St. is the most playful, most me album yet, because it covers so many of the different noises in my head,” Kristian Matsson explained. “When you overthink things, you get further away from your original ideas. And God knows I overthink things when I’m by myself.” The time in isolation also brought him some newfound peace of mind. “Having been away from it taught me that making music and performing is what I’m doing for the rest of my life, and I’m so grateful for it. It has given me new confidence and playfulness. This is what I do. It’s unconditional.” Read our review of Henry St..
Fenne Lily has followed up 2020’s BREACH with a new LP, Big Picture, through Dead Oceans. Recorded live in co-producer Brad Cook’s North Carolina studio, the album was mixed by Jay Som’s Melina Duterte and includes contributions from Christian Lee Hutson and Katy Kirby. “Writing this album was my attempt at bringing some kind of order to the disaster that was 2020,” Lily said in press materials. “By documenting the most vulnerable parts of that time, I felt like I reclaimed some kind of autonomy.” The singles ‘Lights Light Up’, ‘Dawncolored Horse’, and ‘In My Own Time’ preceded the record. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with Fenne Lily.
Kara Jackson, Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?
The Chicago poet and singer-songwriter Kara Jackson has come through with her debut full-length, Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?. The follow-up to 2019’s A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart EP features production contributions from Nnamdï, Kaina, and Sen Morimoto. “With my EP, while it does feel like me in a lot of ways, I think when I was younger I was really scared to not make something that maybe wasn’t going to be popular, or not make something that people could understand,” Jackson explained in our Artist Spotlight interview. “When I was working on my debut album, I kind of had addressed those fears through just the process of growing up and liking myself more. I was more intent on making something that felt like a true representation of myself and the variation that I think makes me, me.”
ther, a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy today
ther – the project led by recording engineer Heather Jones, who has worked with They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Sadurn, and Deer Scout – have released their debut LP. a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy today includes the previously released singles ‘impossible things’ and ‘with you’. Of the former, Jones said: “I was bouncing back from a long, low point in a big and intentional way, ready for the uncertainty and terror of the future, and anchoring my heart around the joy of loving and being loved. i don’t know if i’ll ever feel so aligned again with what normally feels obtuse and impossible, but it’s a comfort to carry this song around in my back pocket, remember that it’s there, and play it with my friends.”
Jesus Piece have dropped their sophomore album, …So Unknown, via Century Media. The follow-up to 2018’s Only Self was previewed by the singles ‘An Offering to the Night’, ‘Gates of Horn’, ‘Tunnel Vision’, and ‘Silver Lining’. “The making of the record was nothing short of all-consuming. It was an intense and challenging process,” drummer Luis Aponte said in a statement. “The record reflects a lot of confusion, but also, evolution. There was a lot of uncertainty and emotion during the pandemic – we all changed and grew so much. So if there is a single thought or concept to the record, it’s constant metamorphosis. That’s also how we operated as a band on this LP – spending a lot of time songwriting and fleshing things out as a unit, and then upping our game from there. It’s definitely a reflection of us as more mature, playing the best we’ve ever played and feeling like a real band for the first time.”
Dinner Party – the group composed of Kamasi Washington, Terrace Martin, and Robert Glasper – have issued their sophomore album. Enigmatic Society follows the trio’s 2020 self-titled debut and features guest appearances from Tank, Arin Ray, Ant Clemons, and Phoelix, as well as the lead single ‘For Granted’, which was released last week. Dinner Party will be performing at both weeks of Coachella this month.
Other albums out today:
El Michels Affair & Black Thought, Glorious Game; Xylouris White, The Forest In Me; Poison Ruïn, Härvest; Fruit Bats, A River Running to Your Heart; Natalie Merchant, Keep Your Courage; Frost Children, Speed Run; Chantal Michelle, Broken to Echoes; Petite Noir, MotherFather; Bodywash, I Held the Shape While I Could; Initiate, Cerebral Circus; Natural Information Society, Since Time Is Gravity; Cindy, Why Not Now?; Sweet Dreams Nadine, Sweet Dreams Nadine; Nicole Yun, Matter; Sabiwa, Island no.16 – Memories of Future Landscapes; Brian Dunne, Loser on the Ropes; OZmotic & Fennesz, Senzatempo.
Diplo has teamed up with Dove Cameron and Sturgill Simpson (as Johnny Blue Skies) for a new track called ‘Use Me (Brutal Hearts)’. It’s the second preview of Diplo’s upcoming album Thomas Wesley: Chapter 2 – Swamp Savant, following ‘Wasted’ (with Kodak Black and Koe Wetzel). The single arrives with an accompanying video starring Sean Penn, which you can check out below.
“To prepare for this new Thomas Wesley project, I went back to my father’s house in Florida and I spent six months learnin guitar, gettin in touch with nature, working his boat when the shrimp were running on full moons at the trailer park,” Diplo said in a press release. “I tried on a lot of cowboy hats. I rode a lot of motorcycles and horses basically reflected on my whole life and career and connection with this music…there was a lot. It all started in the swamps I was raised in. This is the greatest single piece of work I’ve ever done, I can promise you that.”
The follow-up to 2020’s Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley Chapter 1: Snake Oil is out April 28 via Mad Decent.
SZA has teamed up with Doja Cat for a new version of ‘Kill Bill’. The remix arrives two years after the duo’s 2021 single ‘Kiss Me More’, which appeared on Doja Cat’s 2019 album Planet Her. Check it out below.
‘Kill Bill’ is taken from SZA’s December 2022 record SOS. Back in January, the singer shared a Christian Breslauer-directed video for the track.
Jorja Smith has returned with a new single called ‘Try Me’. Produced by Dame Dame, the track arrives with an accompanying video directed by Amber Grace Johnson. Check it out below.
‘Try Me’ marks Smith’s first solo music since 2021’s Be Right Back EP. Her debut album, Lost & Found, arrived in 2018.
The Lom Twigs have unveiled another single from their upcoming record Everything Harmony. This one’s called ‘Every Day Is the Worst Day of My Life’, and it follows previous entries ‘In My Head’, ‘Any Time of Day’, and ‘Corner of My Eye’. Hilla Eden shot the song’s accompanying video, which you can check out below.
Everything Harmony is set for release on May 5 via Captured Tracks.
Magdalena Bay have released mini mix vol. 3, which features seven new songs. Previous iterations of the series arrived in 2019 and 2020, before the release of their debut album, Mercurial World. Listen to the new EP below.
“Our mini mixes delve into eclectic sounds, sometimes pastiche,” the dup said in a statement. “We feel less pressure while making them than with a more serious release so they naturally have a fun spirit to them. The mini mix knows no bounds in terms of genre or stylings. The only rule is we try to keep the songs relatively short, but we don’t really enforce that all too much.”
Alison Goldfrapp has released ‘NeverStop’, the latest single from her debut solo album The Love Invention. Check it out below.
“‘NeverStop’ is about always feeling the wonder,” Goldfrapp shared in a statement. “Committing to connect with each other, nature and our surroundings while trying to navigate through the contradictions and complexities of life.”
The Love Invention is due out May 12. It includes the recently released song ‘So Hard So Hot’, as well as solo versions of her collaborative tracks with Claptone (‘Digging Deeper’) and Paul Woolford (‘Fever’).
“On a miserable afternoon during lockdown, James Ford zoomed Shungudzo and Danny Parker in Los Angeles,” Ware said in a statement. “They were just waking up, it was already dark in London. Frustrated yet completely focused, we set about writing in a new – and unnatural – way over the internet. Dreaming of human touch, escapes to Brazil, beach bodies, holiday romances, all of it! I absolutely adore this song and I’m so excited for you to hear it, to hear the beautiful production by James and horns by Kokoroko, it’s the song that I knew I wanted to make as soon as I finished ‘Remember Where You Are’.”
That! Feels Good!, the follow-up to 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure?, will be released April 28 via EMI.
Radiohead/The Smile guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Israeli rock musician Dudu Tassa have teamed up for a new album called Jarak Qaribak. It’s slated for release on June 9 via World Circuit. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the lead single ‘Ashufak Shay’, which features Lebanese vocalist Rashid Al Najjar. Check it out below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
Greenwood and Tassa co-produced Jarak Qaribak, which was mixed by longtime Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich. “When people listen to this music,” Tassa said in a press release, “I really love to imagine them thinking…what is this? It sounds 1970s, but there are drum machines, there are guitars but they’re singing in Arabic…what’s going on?”
“We didn’t want to make out that we’re making any political point, but I do understand that as soon as you do anything in that part of the world it becomes political, even if it’s just artistic,” Greenwood commented. “Actually, possibly especially if it’s artistic.”
Tassa added: “Israel is a small country between all those countries, so we’re very influenced by those cultures and by that music. And a lot of us in Israel—like my family—are descended from people who came here from elsewhere in the Middle East, so everything gets mixed up.”
Jarak Qaribak Cover Artwork:
Jarak Qaribak Tracklist:
1. Djit Nishrab [feat. Ahmed Doma]
2. Ashufak Shay [feat. Rashid Al Najjar]
3. Taq ou-Dub [feat. Nour Freteikh]
4. Leylet Hub [feat. Mohssine Salaheddine]
5. Ya Mughir al-Ghazala [feat. Karrar Alsaadi]
6. Ahibak [feat. Safae Essafi]
7. Ya ‘Anid Ya Yaba [feat. Lynn A.]
8. Lhla Yzid Ikthar
Metallica are back with a new album, 
The Tallest Man on Earth has released 
Fenne Lily has followed up 2020’s BREACH with a new LP, 
The Chicago poet and singer-songwriter Kara Jackson has come through with her debut full-length, 
ther – the project led by recording engineer Heather Jones, who has worked with They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Sadurn, and Deer Scout – have released their debut LP. a horrid whisper echoes in a palace of endless joy today includes the previously released singles 
Jesus Piece have dropped their sophomore album, 
Dinner Party – the group composed of Kamasi Washington, Terrace Martin, and Robert Glasper – have issued their sophomore album. Enigmatic Society follows the trio’s 2020 self-titled debut and features guest appearances from Tank, Arin Ray, Ant Clemons, and Phoelix, as well as the lead single ‘For Granted’, which was released last week. Dinner Party will be performing at both weeks of Coachella this month.
