April has collaborated with Norwegian alt-pop artist Jimi Somewhere on the new single ‘Impossible’. It’s lifted off her upcoming mixtape STARLANE, which is due out October 21 via Atlantic Records. Give it a listen below.
“I wrote ‘Impossible’ at a time I was really reflecting on relationships — learning a lot about how feelings are fleeting and you can’t blame people for not feeling the same all the time,” April explained in a press release. “I asked Jimi to feature on ‘Impossible’ after we had a session together and became friends this year. I became instantly obsessed with his music, and had almost finished the STARLANE mixtape at the time, so I just really wanted to make sure he was on there somewhere. He wrote a verse and hopped on the song – I love it.”
STARLANE will follow April’s early 2022 EP When It Comes to You.
Meet Me @ the Altar have released a new track, ‘Say It (To My Face)’, taken from the Florida pop-punk trio’s forthcoming debut album. Check it out below.
“The song is essentially a diss track to all of our haters,” the band said in a statement. “We all have a love/hate relationship with the internet – it quite literally brought us together, but people also use the internet as a crutch to help mask their insecurities behind a screen and try to project them on us a lot of the time. They never seem to have the guts to actually say it to our faces.”
Meet Me @ the Altar’s debut LP is set for release early next year via Fueled By Ramen.
NewDad have shared a cover of Charlie XCX’s ‘ILY2’. The band’s rendition, produced by Jacob Manson and mixed by Alan Moulder, arrives with a video from director Hugh Mulhern. Check it out below.
“We’ve always been huge fans of Charli XCX and thought it could be cool to take one of her songs and make our own version,” frontperson Julie Dawson commented in a statement. “ILY2 with its distorted synths seemed like it could translate very well as a loud shoegazey song so we tried it out!”
The cover marks NewDad’s first new music since their Banshee EP, which came out in February. Revisit our Artist Spotlight Q&A with NewDad.
Cakes Da Killa has dropped a new single titled ‘W4TN’. It’s set to appear on the upcoming album Svengali – out October 28 on Young Art Records – alongside previous singles ‘Drugs Du Jour’, ‘Sip of My Sip’, and the title track. Check it out via the accompanying video, animated by Freddy Carrasco, below.
Origami Angel have shared a surprise new EP, re:turn. The stripped-back project includes three tracks and was produced by Jake Checkoway, who worked with the band on their 2021 double album GAMI GANG. It arrives ahead of the duo’s first full-US headlining tour, which kicks off on October 14. Check out the re:turn EP below.
Chicago DJ and producer Honey Dijon has revealed the details of her second album, Black Girl Magic. The follow-up to 2017’s The Best of Both Worlds is set to drop on November 18 via Classic Music Company. ‘Show Me Some Love’, the latest single from the LP, features Channel Tres and Sadie Walker. Check it out below, along with the album artwork and tracklist.
“This album is dedicated to love,” Dijon said of Black Girl Magic in a press statement. “Love of music, community, but most of all the love of self. Being true to who you are in spite of everything else and having the courage to love fearlessly.”
Speaking of ‘Show Me Some Love’, Channel Tres commented: “I had a lot of fun working with Honey on this track, and it’s been fun through each step of the process,” Channel Tres We weren’t together so it’s always exciting to see where a collaborator will take the record when you send your parts over and this one was special to me. It’s everything I love about underground dance music confident, and sexy.”
Eve, Pabllo Vittar, Josh Caffe, Mike Dunn, and more also feature Black Girl Magic. “I’m so excited to be a part of this album!” Eve remarked. “Working with Honey Dijon and Luke Solomun was so fun and something so different to what I’ve ever done before – singing for the first time on a house beat! I’m so grateful for Honey and Luke asking me to be a part of. I can’t wait for everyone to hear our track and for them to dance to it in the clubs.”
For the album artwork, Dijon collaborated with British sculptor Jam Sutton, who created 3D sculptural digital renderings of the artist. “It was such a pleasure collaborating with Honey on a series of sculptures,” Sutton said. “Honey visited my studio where we spent an entire day discussing life and creativity. During this time, I captured a series of form studies using 3D scanning. Over the course of two years, Honey and I worked together creating this body of work.”
“I’m interested in the moment of transformation from human to digital form, from physical to virtual,” Sutton continued. “There’s something compelling about capturing a portrait of my subject as three-dimensional data, which I then refine to create sculptural pieces. I’m attempting to record not only the form and contours of flesh, but also the essence of being; portraying human physicality suspended in digital space.”
Black Girl Magic Cover Artwork:
Black Girl Magic Tracklist:
1. Honey Dijon – ‘Love Is’ [feat. Kameelah Waheed]
2. Honey Dijon – Love Is A State Of Mind [feat. Ramona Renea]
3. Honey Dijon – It’s Quiet Now [feat. Dope Earth Alien]
4. Honey Dijon – Downtown [feat. Annette Bowen & Nikki-O]
5. Honey Dijon – Drama [feat. Rimarkable & Dope Earth Alien]
6. Honey Dijon – Stand [feat. Cor.Ece]
7. Honey Dijon – In The Club [feat. Eve]
8. Honey Dijon – Not About You [feat. Hadiya George]
9. Honey Dijon – Everybody [feat. Pabllo Vittar & Urias]
10. Honey Dijon – Love Me Like You Care [feat. Hadiya George]
11. Honey Dijon & Channel Tres – Show Me Some Love [feat. Sadie Walker]
12. Honey Dijon – Don’t Be Afraid [feat. LATÁSHA]
13. Honey Dijon – Work [feat. Cor.Ece, Dave Giles & Mike Dunn]
14. Honey Dijon – C’s Up [feat. Mike Dunn]
15. Honey Dijon – La Femme Fantastique [feat. Josh Caffe]
Alex G was the musical guest on last night’s episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he performed his song ‘Miracles’. Watch it below.
‘Miracles’ appears on Alex G’s ninth studio album, God Save the Animals, alongside the early singles ‘Runner’, ‘Blessing’, ‘Cross the Sea’. The LP arrived last week via Domino. Back in July, Alex G brought ‘Runner’ to The Tonight Show, making his television debut.
dodie has today released her new EP Hot Mess. It features the previously unveiled tracks ‘Got Weird’ and the title song, as well as a new single, ‘Lonely Bones’. Listen to it and stream the full EP below.
“Lockdown 2020 had me spending a lot of time alone, dabbling in dissociation, depression and making furious promises to make sure life would be different soon,” dodie said of ‘Lonely Bones’ in a press release. “I felt feral! Manic, running on absolute fumes. I loved the idea of writing a gang vocal section that sounds like it should eventually be sung amongst friends and drinks and good vibes – but written from a much lonelier past.”
“Hot Mess is exactly that – a steaming, conflicting pile of raw ideas and feelings; heavy confessions, manic patches matched with seemingly stable moments of realisation and acceptance, painted with flickers of dissociated spiraling,” they added of the EP. “I am lost! I am confused but trying, and I accept myself and hate myself simultaneously while doing so.”
Hot Mess follows dodie’s debut album, 2021’s Build a Problem.
Björk is back with a new album, Fossora. The Icelandic singer-songwriter’s tenth studio LP – her first since 2017’s Utopia – was previewed with the singles ‘Atopos’, ‘Ovule’, ‘Ancestress’, and the title track. It features collaborations with serpentwithfeet, Indonesian dance duo Gabber Modus Operandi, bass clarinet sextet Murmuri, and Björk’s own children, Sindri and Ísadóra. “Each album always starts with a feeling that I try to shape into sound,” Björk explained in a statement. “This time around the feeling was landing (after my last album utopia which was all island in the clouds element air and no bass) on the earth and digging my feet into the ground.”
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have returned with Cool It Down, their first album in nine years. Preceded by the singles ‘Burning’ and the Perfume Genius-assisted ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’, the follow-up to 2013’s Mosquito was produced by longtime collaborator Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio. “For a lot of the songs on this record, we’re giving voice to the feelings I want to hear reflected back to me in music,” Karen O said in press materials. “It’s confrontational, and it’s emotional, and it’s addressing things that nobody wants to look at. As an artist, there’s a responsibility to do that. I know when I feel that reflected back to me, I’m so grateful, because it makes me feel less crazy and less alone in the world. That’s where music reigns. This record was a chance for us to use that superpower. This record feels like it has a different kind of urgency.” Read our review of the album.
London hardcore quintent High Vis have dropped their sophomore LP, Blending, today via Dais. The singles ‘Trauma Bonds’, ‘Fever Dream’, ‘Talk for Hours’, ‘0151’, and the title track arrived ahead of the release of the album, which follows 2019’s No Sense No Feeling. “The first album felt so tense – it was so tense. I was very angry and confused and just sort of inside myself, and that really shows on the record when I listen to it,” frontman Graham Sayle said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “I think the new record is trying to find some clarity in yourself and in how you feel, and really understanding where those feelings came from.”
Freddie Gibbs’ new album, $oul $old $eperately, has arrived via Warner. The Gary, Indiana rapper tapped Moneybagg Yo for ‘Too Much’, which previewed the album along with the recent single ‘Dark Hearted’. Pusha T, James Blake, Anderson .Paak, Scarface, Offset, Raekwon, Rick Ross, and more guest on the record, which also features production from Madlib, the Alchemist, Kaytranada, Jake One, Boi-1da, Justice League, DJ Dahi, and Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul.
Shygirl has released her long-awaited debut album, Nymph. After writing the LP in Brighton, working with collaborators such as Karma Kid, Mura Masa, Sega Bodega, and Cosha, Shygirl recorded the follow-up to 2020’s Alias EP in LA with producers including BloodPop, Arca, Vegyn and Kingdom. The British artist shared a string of singles ahead of the record’s release: ‘Firefly’, ‘Come for Me’, ‘Coochie (a bedtime story)’, ‘Nike’, and ‘Shlut’. “Every piece of work or project is like a sculpture to me, something made of marble that slowly reveals itself as I chip away…” she commented in press materials. “Something that was always there to begin with.”
Titus Andronicus have returned with a new album, The Will to Live, out now via Merge Records. The album was largely created as an attempt to process the death of Matt “Money” Miller, a founding member of Titus Andronicus and frontman Patrick Stickles’ closest cousin. “Loved ones we have lost are really not lost at all, as they, and we still living, are all component pieces of a far larger continuous organism, which both precedes and succeeds our illusory individual selves, united through time by (you guessed it) the will to live,” Stickles explained. “Recognition of this self-evident truth demands that we extend the same empathy and compassion we would wish for ourselves outward to every living creature, even to those we would label our enemies, for we are all cells in the same body, sprung from a common womb, devoted to the common cause of survival.”
Easy Listening is the latest album by Philadelphia’s 2nd Grade, the power-pop outfit composed of singer Peter Gill, guitarists Catherine Dwyer and Jon Samuels, bassist David Settle, and drummer Francis Lyons. Following 2020’s Hit to Hit, the 16-track LP is out now via Double Double Whammy and includes the advance tracks ‘Strung Out on You’, ‘Me & My Blue Angels’, and ‘Teenage Overpopulation’. “This one is the most collaborative so far,” Gill said in our Artist Spotlight interview. “And that was definitely a big goal of mine, to have the band just take up more space […] I love the way it turned out, and I think that’s a testament to how much they inspire me as musicians.”
billy woods has put out the new album Church, a collaboration with Messiah Musik, via Backwoodz Studioz. Fully produced by Musik, with executive production by woods and engineering by Steel Tipped Dove, the 12-track record features appearances from Armand Hammer’s ELUCID, Bruiser Brigade’s Fat Ray, AKAI SOLO, and FIELDED. woods also co-produced the track ‘Fever Grass’. Church follows Aethiopes, the rapper’s Preservation-produced LP that dropped back in April.
Ashley McBryde’s latest project is out today via Warner Music Nashville. Originally inspired by the late Nashville songwriter Dennis Linde,Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville was co-written with Aaron Raitiere, Nicolette Hayford, Connie Harrington, Brandy Clark, and Benjy Davis. “I just hope that when a few, even just a handful, of people listen to the record and it ends with the line ‘Nothing but stars over Lindeville,’ they put their hands over their heart and say, ‘What a nice trip that was,’” McBryde said of the concept album. “And for the whole running time of the record, nothing else had to matter. You got to focus on other people’s drama and other people’s problems and got the reminder that everything’s all right.”
Bladee has come out with a new album, Spiderr, released via Year 0001. It follows the Stockholm-based musician’s 2021 LP The Fool, as well as his recent collaborative album with Ecco2k and Whitearmor, Crest. Whitearmor also serves as the primary producer on Spiderr, which features the promotional single ‘Drain Story’ as well as guest appearances from Ecco2k and Wondha Mountain.
Shannen Moser has followed up I’ll Sing, which came out back in 2018, with a new album called The Sun Still Seems to Move. Out now via Lame-O Records, the record features contributions from co-producer Alex Melendez, Tyler Bussey (Thank You Thank You/Strange Ranger), Julia Peters, Maxwell Stern, Tyler Carmody, Mark Nestman, Eric Muth, and Josh Marre (Blue Ranger). “At a certain point I was like, let’s just go for it. Let’s just really lean into the sadness of the world,” Moser said of their songwriting approach. “I really wanted to make a thing that I had never made before, because I was feeling a way that I had never felt before.”
Kurt Wagner has issued his latest Lambchop record, The Bible, via City Slang/Merge. The follow-up to last year’s Showtunes was co-produced alongside Andrew Broder and Ryan Olson. “I had this idea that – I’m not a religious person but I do believe that there’s a spirituality to a lot of people and they’re not religious,” Wagner commented of the album’s title. “You don’t have to be religious to be a spiritual person, right? You just don’t have to, there should be an acceptance, or a way of recognizing spirituality without it being overtly religious.” The singles ‘Police Dog Blues’, ‘So There’, and ‘Little Black Boxes’ came out in the lead-up to the album.
Other albums out today:
Kid Cudi, Entergalactic; Slipknot, The End, So Far; Mamalarky, Pocket Fantasy; Kolb, Tyrannical Vibes; Melody’s Echo Chamber, Unfold; Sam Prekop, The Sparrow; OFF!, Free LSD; Boldy James & Nicholas Craven, Fair Exchange No Robbery; YG, I Got Issues; Pixies, Doggerel; Disheveled Cuss, Into the Couch; The Big Pink, The Love That’s Ours; Blancmange, Private View; sports dreams, weather admitting; Fujiya & Miyagi, Slight Variations; Tyler Childers, Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?; Perera Elsewhere, Home; Office Culture, Big Time Things; Dropkick Murphys, This Machine Still Kills Fascists; Oren Ambarchi, Shebang; Pixey, Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes; Autopsy, Morbidity Triumphant; Gabriels, Angels & Queen; Regulate, Regulate; The Bad Plus, The Bad Plus; Free Time, Jangle Jargon; Sammy Hagar & The Cirlce, Crazy Time; Julie Odell, Autumn Eve; Mamaleek, Diner Coffee; City of Caterpillar, Mystic Sisters; Soft Pastels, Shutters View; Grandamme, Holy Mountain; Dominic Voz, Right to the City.
Björk is back with a new album, 
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have returned with 
London hardcore quintent High Vis have dropped their sophomore LP, 
Freddie Gibbs’ new album, 
Shygirl has released her long-awaited debut album, 
Titus Andronicus have returned with a new album, 
Easy Listening
billy woods has put out the new album Church, a collaboration with Messiah Musik, via 
Ashley McBryde’s latest project is out today via 
Bladee has come out with a new album, 
Shannen Moser has followed up I’ll Sing, which came out back in 2018, with a new album called 
Kurt Wagner has issued his latest Lambchop record, 