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Superorganism Release New Song ‘crushed.zip’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Superorganism Release New Song ‘crushed.zip’

Superorganism have shared a new song titled ‘crushed.zip’, the latest cut from their forthcoming album World Wide Pop. The track follows previous offerings ‘It’s Raining’ and ‘Teenager’. Check out its AEVA-directed visual below.

“It’s a musical journey through the anxieties and isolation that can arise from being an artist, it’s ultimately delicious though,” the group’s Harry said of ‘crushed.zip’ in a statement. Orono added: “I was thinking about Kanye and Elliott Smith a lot (which is most of the time). I wanted to do like a really depressing and personal song but with the most deliciously obnoxious pop packaging. Stuart Price’s production really elevated it to the next level.”

World Wide Pop arrives on July 15 via Domino.

Album Review: Kelly Lee Owens, ‘LP.8’

Ryan Akler-Bishop
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Album Review: Kelly Lee Owens, ‘LP.8’

In a passage from ‘Quickening’, the seventh track off Welsh nurse-turned-indie-rock-bassist-turned-electronic-producer Kelly Lee Owens’ new album LP.8, she speaks over a soundscape of hushed whispers and electric crackling. “Because there is only one of you in your time, this expression is unique,” she articulates. “And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. It’s not your business to determine how good it is or how valuable or how it compares to others’ expressions. Your business is to keep it yours.” LP.8 explores a relationship between the self and artistic creation: a bold testimony in favour of independence and the potential it unlocks. Recorded over a short stint in Oslo, the album is the third record in Owens’ discography, following 2020’s Inner Song. And yet, she describes it as her eighth. For Owens, LP.8 is a leap forward across her artistic trajectory. It’s a rejection of linearity and a gesture embodying self-sufficiency. By subverting chronology, she seizes the reins of her art, pushing boundaries and blurring the distinction between herself and her body of work.

Born from a collaboration with Norwegian noise artist Lasse Marhaug, LP.8 begins in industrial rumbling. The core of ‘Release’, the first track, is a throbbing kick, an unrelenting and unchanging pounding that drowns the song in distorted bass. LP.8’s opening immediately marks a departure. Owens’ first two albums oozed with introspection conveyed over lush synths and danceable rhythms; her sounds suited both niche rave venues and crowded festivals alike. LP.8’s introductory eruption of harsh industrial sound ushers in a re-invention of Owens’ music. Yet it’s not pure violence. Mixed amongst the distortion, Owens’ voice repeats the word “release”. The word becomes part of the beat as a rhythmic element rather than a melodic one. The utterance of “release” denotes a catharsis: an opening up. She challenges us to find release through constrained and intense sounds.

Rumbly kicks continue through the tracklist into ‘Anadlu’, an ethereal, eight-minute song otherwise texturally opposed to everything in ‘Release’. It’s slow, with glimmering synth pads. Its lush gentleness is punctuated by the booming, delay-heavy kick. Owens’ voice sits between these two dissonant elements. Like with ‘Release’, Owens fixates on a single word. Here, it’s anadlu (Welsh for “to breathe”). She utters it with different tones – sometimes soothingly, other times with urgency – feeling out its syllables. Structurally, ‘Anadlu’ resembles ‘Release’. Both tracks are anchored by booming kicks and single-word vocal tracks. The textural details, however, distinguish them as radically distinct songs with polarised energies.

On ‘S.O 2’, Owens delves deeper into ambient depths. The song’s a re-imaging of ‘S.O’, the first track off Owens’ self-titled debut album. ‘S.O’ was a delicate tech house tune, with a grooving bassline. In ‘S.O 2’, Owens strips down the elements into a glacial ocean of synths. All drums and bass are abandoned and the melody becomes an airy, slowed-down whisper. The song transposes a track from her first album onto her new album, which is both her third and eighth. As such, LP.8 offers Owens an opportunity to re-write her body of work, claiming chronology as a product of her own agency.

As it moves forward, the album becomes even more stripped-back. On ‘Nana Piano’, Owens offers a minimalist piano piece. It’s a jarring turn away from the industrial pounding which characterises LP.8’s earliest moments. Yet at the end, everything comes full circle. On ‘Sonic 8’, Owens concludes LP.8 with a blistering howl of industrial noise. She repeats the phrase “this is an emergency,” ending everything on a note of desperation.

As a whole, the album is a disjointed hodgepodge of eclectic sounds and ideas which bounce off each other as much as they coalesce. Yet there’s a confidence in Owens’ work, revelling in its messiness. In its inconsistencies, LP.8 breathes like a living being: imperfect, inconsistent, always in flux. Despite the industrial noises which often populate the album, Owens’ music feels almost biological: a vivid self-portrait through sound. LP.8 suggests it’s not just an artist’s right to contain multitudes, to be incoherent, personal, esoteric, abrasive, or impulsive. It’s an imperative.

15 Standout Stills from The Fallout (2021)

Svetlana Sterlin
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15 Standout Stills from The Fallout (2021)

Megan Park, best known for her role in The Secret Life of the American Teenager, makes her directorial debut with this stunning YA drama starring Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, and her Secret Life co-star Shailene Woodley. The film dwells in the realm of simplicity, which allows Ortega to shine in her role as Vada, a teenager whose younger sister (Lumi Pollack) calls her at school when she gets her first period. The call prompts Vada to leave class and go to the bathroom, where she sees her classmate and social media influencer Mia (Ziegler) reapplying makeup. There’s some awkward tension between the girls, but the audience doesn’t have time to pick this apart when gunshots ring out through the hallways. The girls take cover in this terrifying moment, not knowing that this shared trauma will bring them closer over the coming months.

In the aftermath, Vada struggles to return to her daily routine and is encouraged by her mother (Julie Bowen) to see a therapist (Woodley). Vada and Mia start spending time together outside of school, trying to work through their trauma as nobody else in their lives seems to understand what they’re going through. In particular, Vada feels distanced from her sister, who feels she’s responsible for sending Vada out into the hallway during the shooting. Without being graphic, The Fallout manages to convey the characters’ grief, loss, and healing process in a believable, ruminative way. The simple but effective cinematography by Kristen Correll pairs brilliantly with Finneas O’Connell’s highly praised score. O’Connell and his sister Billie Eilish recently won an Oscar for their No Time To Die theme song, and have just released a song for Disney’s Turning Red.

Here are fifteen standout stills from The Fallout.

4 Tips for Creating a Comfortable Gaming Space In Your Home

Our Culture Mag & Partners
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4 Tips for Creating a Comfortable Gaming Space In Your Home

If gaming is a huge hobby of yours, then having a space in your home where you can enjoy it free from distractions is ideal. Whether you live in a small apartment or a larger house where you have the room available, you can create a suitable gaming space almost anywhere with the right tips. You may have seen people getting creative with making a space in their home for gaming in a large closet or transforming their basement into a gaming emporium. No matter what kind of space you have to work with, keep these tips in mind to create a great gaming room for yourself.

Lighting

One of the main things to consider when setting up your gaming space is the lighting. Whether you’re playing first-person shooter on a console or trying your luck at online gambling real money, good lighting is essential for you to be able to clearly keep track of what you are doing and reduce issues like eye strain and headaches. Ideally, you should place your desk near a window so that you have plenty of natural light. If there’s no window, for example, in a basement, use spotlights and strategically placed LED lights or lamps to create a bright, well-lit space.

Comfort

You want your gaming space to be somewhere that you can go to relax and enjoy your free time, so think about what you can add that will enhance your comfort levels. For example, if you have the room, you might want to consider including a mini-fridge so that you can keep your favorite beer, soft drink, or just water chilled and you can grab a drink whenever you like. Consider adding cushions, throws, a fan, and anything else you need to ensure the most comfortable gaming experience.

Colors

If you have free reign over decorating your gaming space, then the colors you’ll use will usually be down to personal preference. You might want to take inspiration from some of your favorite games or simply decorate in your favorite color. Don’t be afraid to do something out of the box like making patterns for a feature wall next to your desk with masking tape or even painting a gaming-related mural if you’re feeling extra artistic and creative.

Organization

Finally, one of the main factors to keep in mind when designing a gaming space is storage and organization. This is especially true if you are turning a small room into a gaming space as it can easily get cluttered, especially if you have a lot of stuff. Use accessories like monitor wall mounts to utilize as much space as possible and take advantage of vertical space by using tall shelves to store all your games. Consider getting cable boxes so that you can keep your cables neat and organized rather than tripping over them every time you go to play a game.

Whether you’ve got a small closet space or an entire basement to use for your gaming hobby, keep these tips in mind to create a gaming space you will love.

How to Choose the Best Strategy to Advance Your Casino Game

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How to Choose the Best Strategy to Advance Your Casino Game

Casino gaming is a very interesting form of entertainment, it can either be online or land-based locations. However, it is only interesting to play when you know how to understand the concept of the games. As a beginner to casino gaming, you might be torn between what game to play and where to start because of the many options most popular online casinos offer for free spins no deposit.   

Next to casino gaming is gambling, you should learn how to play the games first using the free modes that most popular online casinos will offer before you bet real money. Even with the knowledge of the games, it isn’t always easy to win. This is because casino games always have a house edge. This does not mean that there aren’t strategies to help improve your chances of winning. This article will discuss with you the best strategies to advance your casino game, they include:

Understanding the Games and the Rules

You need to take time to learn how to play the games especially before you place money. For you to enjoy a game you have to understand it. Playing a game that you don’t understand is the easiest way to waste your money. It would help if you start with some of the easiest games to play like poker or roulette.

You don’t have to be an expert; you simply just need to know what you are doing so as not to lose more money than necessary. The most popular online casino will provide you with a guide to learning how to play certain games. Gather enough general knowledge to get you started and practice with the free games. As time goes on when you feel you have gained some level of expertise, then you can proceed to bet money.

After understanding the games, the two follow up steps are the following.

Find The Best Game for You

Have a taste of different games to know which you are better at and which you enjoy more. But more importantly, choose games that have a lower house edge. This would improve your chances of winning. Examples of games that have a low house edge include:

  • Poker
  • Sports betting
  • Blackjack
  • Video poker
  • Baccarat

If you don’t like these games, that’s fine, you can just find the best version of the game you like to play and go with it.

  • Know What Type of Player You Are

There are two types of casino players, we have specialists and generalists. Specialist players are the ones that stick to playing only one particular game, while generalists play different games. Both categories of players have their advantages and disadvantages. But what is most advised is that you start as a generalist, and gradually decide on which game to stick to.

This would save you from the stress of understanding various games which can be time-consuming and difficult. Know what type of player you want to be and work towards it.

Understand the Math Behind Casino Games

A lot of people don’t care much for math, and some just hate using it. You should know that casino gaming is a lot more related to math than you would think. The most important thing you can do as a beginner is to understand and use some of the mathematical principles associated with casino gaming to your advantage.

These principles aren’t hard to master at all. First, you need to learn what the return to player percentage and house edge means and learn how to implement these numbers when you gamble. The house edge is a certain percentage of the total money you bet that the casino keeps. While the return to the player is the other percentage of the money you bet that is returned to you. This is basically how you decide what game you gamble on. Different games have different ratios. Ideally, you should go for a game with a lower house edge and higher RTP percentage.

Understand How to Predict Losses

First, you need to know not to chase losses, when you chase your losses, you are “titling”. This is a poker term that describes you to be playing emotionally instead of logically. Chasing your losses will only lead to you losing even more.

An important strategy to help advance your casino game is for you to master how to predict losses, you should be to tell how much you are likely to lose when playing a casino game. For this, you will need to do some math. To predict your loss, you will need the RTP or house edge percentage, the number of bets you want to make, and the average size of each bet. Your loss is calculated as, house edge percentage x number of bets x average size of each bet. The amount you get is the average loss estimate.

Know Which Game Involves Strategies and Use It

Most popular online casinos will present games that can be influenced using strategy. These are games that can be played a certain way such that the house edge changes. It will help if you can learn the best strategy for every casino game that you play.

Some games such as blackjack and certain video poker variations will have strategy cards, while other games like baccarat and craps have simpler strategies so do not need a card. The key is to discover if the game has a strategy component and learn how to use it, to have a better chance at winning.

Don’t Fall for Casino Traps

Casinos will try means in which they can make more profit other than the house edge. Some of these methods they use can be to your detriment. When a casino offers something, it is most likely that they’ve figured out a way to make money from it. An example is free drinks and computer programs.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take the free drinks and comps, but understand that it is more profitable to them. Don’t drink so much that you stop making good decisions and don’t play longer for the sake of more comps.

Final Thoughts

Casino games are not built for players to win, which makes it difficult for one to win. However, with the right knowledge and in-depth research, you can improve your chances of winning and grow to become a competent casino gambler. Follow this guide on the best strategy to advance your casino gaming to ensure you are on the right track.

Album Review: Spiritualized, ‘Everything Was Beautiful’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Album Review: Spiritualized, ‘Everything Was Beautiful’

If there’s one thing that stories about space travel have taught us, it’s that time gets all tangled up. Maybe that’s why it’s challenging to form a clear-cut narrative around Spiritualized’s latest album. In more ways than one, Everything Was Beautiful is tied to its predecessor, 2018’s And Nothing Hurt: not only does it complete the famous line from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five – a quote frontman Jason Pierce had considered using as early as the mid-‘90s – its songs are also culled from the same sessions that produced that album, which date back to 2013 and 2014. The idea was to originally release a double LP with the full quote as the title, but separating them in this way gives Everything Was Beautiful a different emotional weight. Compared to the quiet, weary restraint displayed on And Nothing Hurt, an album so gruelling to make Pierce promoted it by saying it might be his last, Everything Was Beautiful is a triumphant return to the epic arrangements and overblown production that fans have come to expect from the project. But “return” is a tricky word to use here – one album obviously came after the other, but once you start to meet the music on its own intergalactic terms, the relationship between them becomes harder to pin down.

And that’s before you take into account the rest of the Spiritualized universe. On one hand, Everything Was Beautiful, their ninth studio album, feels in conversation with a significant part of the band’s catalog, particularly the 1997 masterpiece Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space – and though they haven’t released a bad album since, it’s maybe the first that seems capable of matching it in ambition, depth, and scale. At this point, Spiritualized have such a uniquely identifiable sound that listeners could spend a long time not only decoding the album’s many allusions, but also pointing out similarities to specific moments in the band’s past. But there are also elements of Everything Was Beautiful, whose title so perfectly encapsulates the nostalgia it both dwells in and elicits, that directly attempt to pull from or recreate that past, from the medicine-themed packaging that calls back to Ladies and Gentlemen to the fact that a female voice, this time Pierce’s daughter Poppy, announces the album’s title on opener ‘Always Together With You’. When it all exists in the same continuum, the album seems to ask, how do you create something that carries the same unshakable spirit while standing firmly on its own? How do you turn some hazy vestige of the past into a beautiful expression of the present?

Right from the start, the album finds Spiritualized at their most invigorated and alive. The magnificent opener ‘Always Together With You’ relays the singer’s devotion in a language both cosmic and human in its simplicity, revelling as much in the transportive layers of space-rock instrumentation as the immediacy of classic ‘60s pop. “If you want to be a universe, I would be a universe for you,” he sings, a mission he accomplishes not only through the string of references he weaves into the tracks, but also by employing a large group of musicians in order to lift and transform ones that might at one point have fit into the relatively subdued and somber world of And Nothing Hurt. They sound just as rich and lush, but more determined to continuously and meticulously drive the momentum forward instead of ambling around the same space. It’s what allows highlights like ‘The Mainline Song’ and ‘Let It Bleed (For Iggy)’ to reach transcendent heights, riding along ecstatic grooves and soaring into celestial choruses while retaining a remarkable balance. Even the record’s calmest moment, the country-leaning Nikki Lane collaboration ‘Crazy’, feels less like a sigh of relief than a parallel universe-take on the romantic rush of ‘Always Together With You’.

Everything Was Beautiful might sound like it’s catering to longtime fans, but even those who have the faintest familiarity with the band’s music should find something to enjoy in its glorious yet reflective maximalism. There might be something to be gained in trying to make sense of the euphoric sentiment of the album in the context of Pierce’s ongoing preoccupation with mortality, but even when he engages with that history on the 10-minute closer ‘I’m Coming Home’, it still makes for a rousing, joyful finale. “Kinda had it with philosophy/ ‘Cause I’m thinking I am but I’m failing to be,” he admits, and home seems less like an old comfort than a new destination. Pierce invites us on that journey, the kind that will definitely make you reminisce on the past. But connected as it is to everything that came before it, the moment you fall for Everything Was Beautiful is the moment it becomes its own thing.

Faye Webster Unveils Video for New Song ‘Suite: Jonny’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Faye Webster Unveils Video for New Song ‘Suite: Jonny’

Faye Webster has released the new song ‘Suite: Jonny’, which will appear on her upcoming Car Therapy Sessions EP. The track is an orchestral reimagining of ‘Jonny’ and ‘Jonny (Reprise)’ from the Atlanta singer-songwriter’s 2019 record Atlanta Millionaires Club. Listen below.

“This is the song that sparked the whole concept for this project for me,” Webster said in a statement. “It’s also one of the first songs that I ever wrote that I felt was truly honest and had true transparency, which I think is maybe why so many people relate to it. I wanted to be able to relive this song in a way that felt new at the same time, which is why I really like the direction that Trey took these orchestral arrangements.”

Car Therapy Sessions arrives this Friday via Secretly Canadian. It includes the previously released track ‘Car Therapy’.

Quelle Chris Enlists Pink Siifu and Moruf on New Song ‘The Sky Is Blue Because the Sunset Is Red’

Konstantinos Pappis
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Quelle Chris Enlists Pink Siifu and Moruf on New Song ‘The Sky Is Blue Because the Sunset Is Red’

Quelle Chris has recruited Pink Siifu and Moruf for the new song ‘The Sky Is Blue Because The Sunset Is Red’, which will appear on his forthcoming LP DEATHFAME. Following lead single ‘Alive Ain’t Always Living’, the track was co-produced by Knxwledge and frequent collaborator Chris Keys. Take a listen below.

DEATHFAME is due for release on May 13 via Mello Music Group.

Real Estate’s Martin Courtney Announces New Album ‘Magic Sign’, Shares New Single

Konstantinos Pappis
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Real Estate’s Martin Courtney Announces New Album ‘Magic Sign’, Shares New Single

Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney has announced his first solo album since 2015’s Many Moons. It’s called Magic Sign, and it’s set to arrive on June 24 via Domino. Lead single ‘Corncob’ is out today alongside a video directed by Bráulio Amado and Antonio Vicentini. Check it out below.

“The lyrics are about a specific time, the end of youth, pre-adulthood, scummy kid hanging around your hometown a little too long, smoking weed and driving around the surrounding area with your friends to get as completely lost as possible,” Courtney explained in a statement. “Eventually getting home using these little green signs that are posted throughout the NJ suburbs telling you which way to go to reach different towns. We called them magic signs.”

He added: “You do this enough times and it eventually gets harder and harder to get lost. A song about pushing the boundaries of where you grew up until you exhaust the mystery and hit a different kind of boundary. A song about aimless kids looking for direction.”

Magic Sign was recorded, mixed, and co-produced by Rob Schnapf at Mant Sounds in Los Angeles. The album was mastered by Greg Calbi and features contributions from Matt Barrick, Oliver Hill, Kacey Johansing, and Tim Ramsey.

Magic Sign Cover Artwork:

Magic Sign Tracklist:

1. Corncob
2. Outcome
3. Sailboat
4. Shoes
5. Time To Go
6. Merlin
7. Living Rooms
8. Mulch
9. Terrestrial
10. Exit Music

Sean Nicholas Savage Announces Mac DeMarco–Produced Album ‘Shine’, Releases New Song

Konstantinos Pappis
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0
Sean Nicholas Savage Announces Mac DeMarco–Produced Album ‘Shine’, Releases New Song

Sean Nicholas Savage has announced a new album, Shine, which was recorded and produced by Mac DeMarco. It arrives on July 22 via Arbutus. Today, Savage has previewed the LP with video for its title track. Check it out below, along with the album’s tracklist and cover art (shot by DeMarco).

“It’s about the glimmering eye of a seagull eating trash, or a cat on the fire escape, from another being, in another world, that glimmer of hope, the glimmer of life,” Savage said of the single in a statement.

Shine marks Savage’s 15th studio album, following 2020’s Life is Crazy. “With Life is Crazy, I was delving into the overwhelming emotional experience of life and with Shine, I just wanted to dive in and be more healing,” Savage commented.

Shine Cover Artwork:

Shine Tracklist:

1. Feel Like a Child
2. Streets of Rage
3. Shine
4. Ain’t What It Used to Be
5. Comet
6. Your Secret World
7. Poetry’s My Only Chance
8. Between the Eyes
9. Harmony

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