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Multidisciplinary Musician Vivien L. Encourages Her Audience to Always Stay Positive in Her Latest Single “Invisible”

The best artists are always storytellers. When Vivien Liang discovered the appeal of combining a bouncy beat with depressing lyrics, she decided to give her latest single “Invisible” a happy tone.

The inspiration for “Invisible” comes from one of Liang’s real-life experiences. As with many sad love song writers, the lyrics of the song contain elements of regret, apology, and depression. However, what sets Liang apart is her message of making peace with herself, which she seeks to convey through her music.

“You can’t always get what you want in life. The key is to maintain a positive attitude because frustration happens to everybody,” says Liang, “There is no point to let the negativity drag you down. A better way to deal with it is to dance to it so we can all find peace. And that’s also where the inspiration of my latest EP ‘DANCE TO THE HEARTBREAK’ comes from, which is expected to be released in April, 2023.”

According to Liang, the initial demo of “Invisible” was completed in September 2021. After determining the overall vibe, she crafted the bass line and added the drums. Liang is also grateful to have Taehee Ryoo, a Korean songwriter, as a co-writer on the project.

With over a decade of classical piano performance experience, Vivien Liang is a multi-talented musician who places a strong emphasis on songwriting. She feels honored to share her original songs with the public.

Recently, Liang was invited to perform at the Lunar New Year Gala hosted by the International Asian Culture Society (IACS) at Davis Hall of International House. During her performance, she introduced “The Mountains”, an original song that encourages people to pursue their goals and not let fear hold them back.

As an Asian musician in the United States, Liang is deeply proud of her heritage. Despite the significant differences between Western and Eastern music, she never gives up on incorporating Eastern musical elements into popular Western music.

Liang appreciates the openness of Western audiences towards diverse human experiences in their music, but also recognizes the challenge of effectively conveying the nuanced expressions and romantic rhetorical techniques of Chinese music. This unique perspective sets her apart.

Liang continues to experiment with different genres of music and explore her limitless potential.  As an Asian music artist, Liang is poised to bring more exciting surprises to her audience in the future.

Albums Out Today: Skrillex, Avey Tare, Screaming Females, Anna B Savage, and More

In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on February 17, 2023:


Skrillex, Quest for Fire

Skrillex has returned with his second solo studio album, Quest for Fire, released via his Owsla label and Atlantic. Ahead of its arrival, the producer shared a series of collaborative singles, including ‘Rumble’ (featuring Fred Again.. and Flowdan), ‘Leave Me Like This’ (with Bobby Raps), ‘Xena’ (with Nai Barghouti). Missy Elliott, Starrah, Four Tet, Swae Lee, 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, and Siiickbrain also feature on the LP, which follows 2014’s Recess.


Avey Tare, 7s

Animal Collective’s Dave Portner is back with a new solo album, 7s, out now via Domino. Following his 2019 record Cows on Hourglass Pond, the LP was recorded at Adam McDaniel’s Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, North Carolina, with Portner describing it in press materials as “a dreamy surrealist landscape.” Upon its announcement, the musician previewed 7s with the songs ‘The Musical’ and ‘Hey Bog’, which was followed by ‘Invisible Darlings’ this week.


Screaming Females, Desire Pathway

Screaming Females have released their latest LP, Desire Pathway, via Don Giovanni Records. The follow-up to 2018’s All at Once was recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Minnesota (where Nirvana recorded In Utero) and produced by Matt Bayles. Elaborating on the concept of “desires pathways,” bandleader Marissa Paternoster explained: “Maybe there was one in your neighborhood growing up, a corner where everyone decided it took too long to go around, so they made their own pathway to cut through. There’s this cool unsaid group consciousness that comes together where everyone decides, this is the right way to go.”


Anna B Savage, in|FLUX

Anna B Savage has followed up her 2020 debut LP A Common Turn with in|FLUX, out now via City Slang. The London-based artist previewed the album, which was produced by Mike Lindsay (Tunng, Lump), with the songs ‘Pavlov’s Dog’, ‘The Ghost’, ‘Crown Shyness’, and the title track. “I feel like this album is an exploration of recovery and the journey of therapy,” Savage explained in a press release. “It’s a difficult thing [to engage in] but can also be the best thing ever, and lead you to feeling completely content.”


Pile, All Fiction

Pile have come out with a new record, All Fiction, via Exploding in Sound. Following 2021’s In the Corners of a Sphere-Filled Room and Songs Known Together, Alone, the album was preceded by the singles ‘Loops’, ‘Poisons’, ‘Nude With a Suitcase’, and ‘Lowered Rainbow’. “I’ve been trying to get out of what I think is ‘the rock band format,’ and I was also tired of what I saw as our identity as a band,” frontman Rick Maguire explained in a statement. “The confusion about identity combined with existential anxiety led to exploring my imagination as a means of escape.”


Free Range, Practice

Free Range, the project led by Chicago-based singer-songwriter Sofia Jensen, has unveiled its debut album, Practice, via Mick Music. The LP came together over a series of late-night sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Jensen was joined in the studio by collaborator and producer Jack Henry and his childhood friend, bassist Bailey Minzenberger. Practice features the previously released singles ‘All My Thoughts’, ‘Want to Know’, and ‘Growing Away’.


Runnner, Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out

Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out is the debut album by Runnner, the moniker of LA-based singer-songwriter Noah Weinman. Out now via Run for Cover, the LP follows Weinman’s 2021 compilation Always Repeating and includes the advance tracks ‘NYE’, ‘bike again’, ‘i only sing about food’, and ‘runnning in place at the edge of the map’. According to press materials, the record finds him “often preoccupied with communication and the things that can go unspoken, even between people with a deep emotional bond.”


@, Mind Palace Music

@ (pronounced “at”) – the duo of Baltimore multi-instrumentalist Stone Filipczak and Philadelphia guitarist Victoria Rose – have released Mind Palace Music, their debut full-length for Carpark Records. Self-described as “hyperfolk,” the record draws inspiration from the likes of Elliott Smith, Alex G, or Sparklehorse, Sparklehorse, and Alex G. “We were pretty aware of trying to make something well-crafted that would hold up,” Filipczak said in press materials. “I was stoked that I could show some of the tracks to my grandma and she would be able to dig it. It probably doesn’t sound that different from, like, Simon and Garfunkel to her.”


Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Land of Sleeper

Land of Sleeper, the fourth album by the heavy psych outfit Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, has arrived via Missing Piece Group Records. “I’ve always liked the quote: ‘Sleep, those little slices of death – how I loathe them,’” vocalist Matt Baty explained. “Shouting about themes of existential dread comes very naturally to me, and I think because I’m aware of that in the past I’ve tried to rein that in a little. There’s definitely moments on this album where I took my gloves off and surrendered to that urge.”


New Pagans, Making Circles of Our Own

New Pagans have issued their sophomore LP, Making Circles of Our Own, following up 2021’s The Seed, the Vessel, the Roots and All. The Irish punks previously shared the album singles ‘Better People’, ‘Karin Was Not A Rebel’, and ‘Fresh Young Overlook’. Comparing the two records, lead vocalist Lyndsey McDougall told PunkNews, “I think the big difference is that all my teenage thoughts and all my twenty-year-old thoughts came out in the first album whereas now I’m like, ‘this is where I am now and this is what I want to talk about.'”


koleżanka, Alone With the Sound the Mind Makes

koleżanka, aka Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Kristina Moore, has unveiled their new album, Alone with the Sound the Mind Makes, via Bar/None. Moore worked with  regular collaborator Ark Calkins and producer Jonathan Schenke on the LP, which follows 2021’s Place Is and features the early singles ‘Canals of Our City’, ‘Slapstick’, and ‘Cheers!’. “I wanted the record to feel like you were leaving your house, and wandering, and all the places you mind goes,” Moore explained in press materials.


Other albums out today:

Orbital, Optical Delusion; P!nk, Trustfall; Secret Machines, The Moth, The Lizard, and the Secret Machines; Wesley Joseph, GLOW; POSH SWAT, POSH SWAT; Lisel, Patterns For Auto-Tuned Voices and Delay; Lowly, Keep Up the Good Work; Romance & Dean Hurley, River Of Dreams; Inhaler, Cuts and Bruises; Steady Holiday, Newfound Oxygen; John-Allison Weiss, The Long Way; dEUS, How to Replace It; See You Next Tuesday, Distractions; MF Tomlinson, We Are Still Wild Horses; Jordan Davis, Bluebird Days; Owl, Geomancy; Tungz, A Good Dream; Glüme, Main Character; Attila Csihar, Void Ov Voices : Baalbek.

The Blessed Madonna and Jamie Principle Team Up for New Single ‘We Still Believe’

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The Blessed Madonna has teamed up with house music pioneer Jamie Principle for a new single, ‘We Still Believe’. It follows last year’s ‘Serotonin Moonbeams’, which marked Marea Stamper’s first solo track in half a decade. Listen to ‘We Still Believe’ below.

“I wrote and recorded a version of this song that shares a name with the party alone in my attic over a decade ago, writing the lyrics on the back of a record sleeve and recording them into my blackberry under a blanket,” Stamper said of ‘We Still Believe’ in a press release. “I distorted my own vocals on the original, but imagined that the song would someday be performed by Jamie Principle, arguably the first real writer in house music and my hero. Eventually years later, Jamie and I met and became beloved friends. Jamie kindly agreed to re-record the song I wrote for him before I knew him and here we are, writing the next chapter together and doing it the way I imagined it all those years ago. Soulwax chimed in on the final version and the result is absolutely fresh.”

Thurston Moore Releases New Single ‘Hypnogram’

Thurston Moore has released a new single, ‘Hypnogram’, via his label the Daydream Library Series. The track features bassist Deb Googe, guitarist James Sedwards, percussionist Jem Doulton, and electronic musician Jon Leidecker, with lyrics by poet Radieux Radio. It was mixed by London-based producer Margo Broom. Take a listen below.

According to a press release, ‘Hypnogram’ is the first taste of an upcoming album Thurston arranged with Sedwards in 2022. It’s also the first of two songs Moore plans to release digitally this spring before heading out on tour in Europe.

Last year, Moore issued Screen Time, a collection of instrumental guitar pieces recorded during the summer of 2020.

Kele Releases New Song ‘Someone to Make Me Laugh’

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Bloc Party frontman Kele has shared another single from his forthcoming solo album The Flames pt. 2. It’s called ‘Someone to Make Me Laugh’, and it follows previous entries ‘Vandal’ and ‘True Love Knows No Death’. Listen below.

“In its simplest form it’s about looking back at one’s life and trying to fight the cynicism that seems to be taking hold,” Kele said of ‘Someone to Make Me Laugh’ in a statement. “Although the song is mined from painful memories, ultimately it is about combating loneliness in one’s life.”

The Flames pt. 2. is due to arrive on March 24 via KOLA Records/!K7.

Deb Never Shares New Single ‘Momentary Sweetheart’

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Deb Never has dropped a new single called ‘Momentary Sweetheart’. Give it a listen below.

‘Momentary Sweetheart’ follows Never’s February 2022 single ‘Crutches’. Her Where Have All The Flowers Gone? EP, which featured collaborations with Michael Percy and Jam City, was released in 2021.

Watch Beck Perform ‘Thinking About You’ on ‘Kimmel’

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Beck was the musical guest on last night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he was joined by Blake Mills on guitar and Pino Palladino on bass to perform his new single ‘Thinking About You’. Watch it below.

Released a week ago, the studio version of ‘Thinking About You’ features Mills on guitar, and mandolin, Justin Meldal-Johnsen on bass, and Roger Manning on keys. This summer, Beck will embark on a North American co-headline tour with Phoenix. His last album was 2019’s Hyperspace.

The 1975 to Perform on ‘SNL’ Next Month

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The 1975 have been announced as the musical guests for the March 11 episode of Saturday Night Live, which will be hosted by Wednesday star Jenna Ortega. It will mark the band’s second appearance on the show, having previously performed in 2016, while Ortega will be making her SNL debut.

Jack White is set to perform on the February 25 episode of SNL with host Woody Harrelson, while Kelsea Ballerini will be the musical guest on March 4 with the Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce.

Record Store Day 2023: The Full List of Releases

The full list of releases for this year’s Record Store Day has been unveiled. The event will take place on Saturday, April 22, and some of the most noteworthy exclusives include Taylor Swift’s folklore: the long pond studio sessions, the 1975’s Live With the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, a new Beach House EP called Become, Pearl Jam’s Give Way, Wilco’s Crosseyed Strangers: An Alternate Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, Björk’s The Fossora Remixes, Brian Eno’s Forever Voiceless, Arooj Aftab’s Live in London, and more. Check out the full list here.

Must-see places you can’t miss if you are in Málaga

The city of Malaga is genuinely unique and beautiful, one of the most spectacular cities in Spain. Renowned for its vast cultural offerings, architecture, beautiful beaches on the shores of the Mediterranean, delicious cuisine, and much more!

It is said that Malaga has sunny days almost all year round; however, the best time to visit this city is during spring and autumn, when the heat is not so suffocating. The city receives thousands of tourists annually and is even a favorite for international students to vacation while learning with Expanish, one of the most prestigious Spanish language schools.

And no wonder, as Malaga has so much to offer. There are so many places to see, tour, and experience. The city provides options for all tastes; there are endless activities of all kinds, cultural, sports, leisure, adventure… you name it!

There is so much to discover that you will not have enough time. That’s why we have compiled this list of the best places in Malaga that you can’t miss. So, pack your backpack and put on sunscreen because below we will tell you all the places you must visit if you are on vacation or taking a Spanish class Málaga.

The Alcazaba

A tremendous military structure with massive walls, high towers, archways, and double doors. It is a fortification from the eleventh century, built during the Muslim era in the eleventh century. It is located at the base of Mount Gibralfaro, and its function was to prevent the sieges that occurred during the Reconquest.

Inside the building are several palaces with fountains, gardens, and courtyards that are well-maintained and well-preserved. The most remarkable is the Plaza de Armas, the Puerta de los Arcos, and the Torre del Homenaje. From there, you can spectacularly see the city, with stunning views of the harbor and the sea.

In addition, throughout the tour, there are QR codes that you can scan to hear from your smartphone all the details, curiosities, and secrets of every corner. One of the most beautiful walks in the city that you can’t miss!

Gibralfaro Castle

Another incredible wonder of the city that can be accessed on foot or by bus from the city center. It can also be accessed from the Alcazaba as a path climbs to the top of the hill. Along the way, you can stop at several natural viewpoints. It is crucial to keep in mind that the path is steep, and it is essential to wear good shoes.

The castle is a large fortress built in the fourteenth century and has a massive wall with eight towers. It was designed to resist the sieges carried out by the troops of the Catholic Monarchs.

From one of its highest towers, you can see the city with the sea in the background, a truly incredible and postcard-perfect view.

Larios Street

One of the main streets in the historical center of the city. It is one of the most important arteries, which was converted into a pedestrian street in 2002 and grew and transformed yearly.

The street was inaugurated in 1891, and today, it is full of exclusive stores; moreover, it was named the third most expensive street in Spain. Therefore, you can imagine the level of exclusivity we are talking about.

Right where the street begins, you can see a sculpture that honors Manuel Domingo Larios, the personality who gave his name to the road.

Constitution Square

At the beginning of Larios street is also located the most important square of the city: The Plaza de la Constitución. An icon and emblem of the city.

A place with a lot of history, surrounded by the oldest buildings, such as the Casa del Consulado and the San Telmo School. This square changed its name many times until, in 1978, it was baptized with the name we know today, and for the moment, it has not been changed again.

The most important celebrations of the locals take place there. They are decorated with the fountain of Genoa, which is located on one side instead of being in the center since the square usually hosts events, fairs, celebrations, and much more.

This site is one of the main neuralgic points of the city, where friends meet for a drink as bars, restaurants, and stores surround the square, so it is always awake and running with lots of energy.

The floor of this square is very particular, as it is decorated with large metal plates that were used to print the city’s leading newspapers. They are the plates used in the most famous newspapers the day they reported on the entry into force of the 1978 Constitution.

Roman Theater

This beautiful theater is located at the foot of Alcazaba hill; and is extremely special for being one of the most important monuments preserved from Roman times.

It was built at the request of Emperor Augustus in the 1st century, and the fascinating thing of all is that it was hidden until 1951 when it was discovered due to an excavation that was carried out to construct a new building. Since then, it has become one of the most important tourist sites in the city.

When you visit it, you can walk through its initial steps and see several marble plaques where the orchestra is placed.

Picasso Museum

One of the most important museums in the city is located in the Buenavista Palace. It is a Renaissance building of the sixteenth century, which displays more than 280 works of the artist, who became one of the primary references of the art by introducing revolutionary techniques for the time, such as cubism.

Malagueta beach

It is the most popular beach in the city and Andalusia; therefore, it is usually very populated, especially in summer. Many restaurants and bars offer typical local food at an excellent price. In addition, on Sundays, there is typically a market, and they also set up an open-air cinema.