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Sunn O))) Announce New Album ‘Metta, Benevolence’

In October 2019, towards the end of a long tour around the Life Metal and Pyroclasts albums, Sunn O))) recorded a session for Mary Anne Hobbs’ BBC Radio 6 Music show at BBC’s historic Maida Vale Studios. The band have today announced they will be releasing the session on a new album called  Metta, Benevolence. BBC 6Music: Live on the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs, which is out November 26 via Southern Lord. Check out a teaser for the LP along with the cover artwork (painted by Samantha Keely Smith) and tracklist below.

Metta, Benevolence. BBC 6Music: Live on the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs Cover Artwork:

Metta, Benevolence. BBC 6Music: Live on the Invitation of Mary Anne Hobbs Tracklist:

1. Pyroclasts F
2. Pyroclasts C#
3. Troubled Air

Watch Lucy Dacus Perform ‘VBS’ on ‘Fallon’

Lucy Dacus was the musical guest on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she performed her Home Video single ‘VBS’. Watch it below.

Dacus released Home Video, her third studio album, back in June. She’s since played songs from the LP for NPR’s ‘Tiny Desk (Home) Concert’ series and CBS This Morning, covered Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’, and shared a new ‘Brando’ video using home-shot footage from fans.

Album Review: The War on Drugs, ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’

No matter how or when you got on board with the War on Drugs, it’s hard not to feel the same level of excitement going into their new album as someone listening to them for the first time. It’s a trick the Adam Granduciel-led outfit have managed to pull off time and time again, an especially impressive feat considering that, unlike other critically revered bands, their trajectory has seen less of an evolution than a pure refinement of craft. You know when you hear a War on Drugs song – you might even know exactly what they were listening to while making it – but that doesn’t away any of its transcendent beauty: its steady, hypnotic pulse, anthemic choruses, and more than anything, a vague wistfulness floating through immaculate, oceanic soundscapes that spread out to the horizon. Theirs is the sound of a journey with no destination, of believing in hope but not quite being able to grasp it; it’s music about feeling stuck that’s committed to the act of driving forward even as it keeps staring back into the past. You know this, yet you dive in anyway, restlessly chasing the same impossible feeling.

Though Granduciel’s lyrics can sometimes veer into cliché, the music has a way of making it feel earned. You might be able to find a sea of inspirational quotes on Pinterest about how the journey is more important than the destination under the same tag that’s used to describe the band’s music – “road trip” – but no one can evoke both the emptiness and the grandeur of trying to live up to that old adage like the War on Drugs. On I Don’t Live Here Anymore, their fifth LP, we find him riding the winds and waves of change, often echoed in the band’s gorgeously layered instrumentals: “I’m on the run baby, and I don’t know why,” he proclaims on ‘Old Skin’; earlier, on a track literally called ‘Change’, he sings, “I’ve been living on the run, ’cause I can’t find/ That thing that holds and binds us tight.” Whatever turmoil it is he’s singing about ­– this is the kind of album that leans towards the personal but still prefers to leave things up to the listener’s imagination – the band’s dynamic, rich arrangements seem to respond directly to his lingering questions, guiding him every step of the way; ‘Change’ is, ironically, the song that most closely – and triumphantly – sticks to the War on Drugs formula.

But there is a slight shift in approach here, and it seems to serve the hero’s quest for “that thing that holds and binds us tight.” Following 2017’s Grammy-winning A Deeper Understanding, I Don’t Live Here Anymore is the War on Drugs’ sharpest, most immediate, and accessible effort yet, a description that normally wouldn’t fit an album in which most songs hover around the 5-minute mark. But the band sounds more energized than ever, whether capitalizing on catchy hooks more often than they let them get lost in a swirling haze, like on the infectious, magnificent title track, or harnessing the live-in-the-studio feel of the intimate, shimmering ‘Living Proof’. Granduciel’s voice is more front and center, too: “What have I been running from?” he ponders on the opening track, which remains as elusive as the place he’s heading towards. But boy, does he keep on running: a sense of nervous desperation seems to constantly accelerate the pace of these songs, threatening to shake their solid foundation, from the Radiohead-meets-Phil Collins moodiness of ‘I Don’t Wanna Wait’ to the twitching guitars on ‘Victim’.

But of course, they hold it all together in miraculous fashion, because, again, everyone’s right there with him; just pay attention to the way Charlie Hall’s drumming invigorates ‘Old Skin’ around the halfway point. There’s still a heavy, exhilarating tension underlying these tracks, but it never drags them down, and it’s clearer than ever that the music is meant to be not only a propulsive force but an uplifting one. On ‘Wasted’, it’s as if the bright melodies are what twists Granduciel’s mood around, forcing him to admit, “Alright, I can’t resist,” as the song launches into the stratosphere. As massive as the album sounds, its fullness points to the band’s growth more than anything else, the kind of change that’s not explicitly talked about: their newfound focus, their tight chemistry, a shared understanding. “Is life just dying in slow motion/ Or growing stronger every day?,” he muses on ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’, and the answer’s right there in the music.

What is Royalty-Free Music and How Can I Use It: A Step By Step Guide

If you are a filmmaker or the producer of any form of visual content, you need to sign-up with a royalty-free music provider. If you don’t know what royalty-free music is or how to use it, then you are in luck as we are about to educate you on the benefits of a service that is perfect for 2021 and beyond. 

When it comes to finding the right music to score your film or video project, you have a number of options at your disposal. Some are costly, others are complicated, and one option is a more intelligent choice all around.

Selecting the right music to fit your project is key to the success of your overall production, and as such, you want to be able to access as much musical output as possible. Those new to scoring projects may initially be considering using existing mainstream music, only to find the costs are prohibitive and securing permission is something of a minefield.

Others may hope to use music that is without copyright only to find that avenue doesn’t really exist or isn’t suitable. Simply put, music that has seen its copyright expire is almost always in relation to music that was recorded at least 75 years ago and therefore isn’t likely to suit any modern production.

So, what about royalty-free music?

What is Royalty-Free Music

Royalty-free music is a fast-growing industry that offers you a cast catalog of great music for an inexpensive fee and does so without the need to sort out additional licenses. It’s a market that has become hugely popular with filmmakers and social media influencers and could be the right option for you.

The music offered by royalty-free music providers is produced by singers, musicians, DJs, and bands who align themselves with a relevant company, and it’s a regularly updating database of music that will cover all your needs.

Why You Need It

Those who have tried to find music prior to the advent of royalty-free music will tell you that the process is lengthy and resource-heavy. Where previously the number of available options was few and far between, now you have a world of choice at your fingertips.

The Benefits of Royalty-Free Music

Perhaps the most significant benefit of royalty-free music is the scale of what’s on offer. A good provider will have thousands of songs and samples neatly organized according to themes and styles. 

They will also have an SFX (sound effects) library, which will prove invaluable, and the best thing about all of this is that the libraries are constantly updating so that whenever you delve in, you come across new options. 

The costs associated with royalty-free music, which is usually offered on a subscription basis, are far cheaper than trying to clear even a single track of mainstream music. In all honesty, choosing a song via an extensive database will almost certainly be more relevant to your production than randomly selecting a song you heard on the radio. 

In this way, royalty-free music is very much fit for purpose and an ideal choice for anyone who’s looking for quality musical accompaniment for their projects.

What to Look for In a Royalty-Free Music Provider

There are now many options in the royalty-free music sphere, and now is the right time to select one as the pricing has been kept competitive. There are some key factors to keep in mind when choosing your provider.

Look for a company that offers high-quality music files and one that regularly updates its selection.  It’s useful to note just what genres and styles of music are covered by the provider and also whether their interface is intuitive. 

The best providers have systems that make it a breeze to search through thousands of files at ease. 

There are many good royalty-free music providers, but there’s one that stands out of the crowd, and that’s Artlist. The quality of their product is such that even those who are not aware of the industry are still acquainted with the name of the brand.

They offer a few great incentives to get you to sign-up, one of which guarantees you that any music you download remains your property even if you choose to leave their service. This is the kind of additional detailing that makes them a true leader in the royalty-free music space.

A Rapidly Growing Industry

We have all become voracious consumers of visual content. Whether that’s when we scroll endlessly through our social media feeds or when we tune in to the latest show on a streaming service. This boom in content production is one of the main drivers that have made royalty-free music so huge, and the market is now very mature, and that means that as a user, the service is now far more effective than it once was.

Now is the opportune time to consider a trial with any of the better brands in the market, and no doubt, the experience will prove far more smooth than any other avenue you might consider when putting a soundtrack to your projects.

Tips for Preparing Your Home for Winter

For many households, wintertime can be very challenging due to various reasons, including bad weather, lack of heating, or even condensation.

Use Your Heating Before it Gets Cold

You’ll likely need to re-acquaint yourself with your heating as we transition from summer to winter. Ensure that your radiators are bleeding, that your boiler is working, and that you dust your vents and filters before the weather gets freezing. By doing this, you’ll have time to make sure everything’s still working before the days get too cold.

Check your guttering

There are many issues associated with gutters, including heavy overflows of leaves and drainage problems. Make sure your gutters are free of leaves and debris in order to prevent a buildup of ice and heavy gutters when the cold weather starts.

Clean Up Your Garden

Cleaning your garden, ensuring it’s clear, and preparing it for winter is essential. Protect greenhouses, plant pots, and wheelie bins from the wind. It would be best if you also kept on top of any leaves in your yard so that they don’t pile up over the autumn and make a mess when it comes to important occasions.

Ventilate Your Home

Condensation is a nasty thing. That’s why you should buy felt lap vents to prevent condensation in your loft. Lap vents will solve the issue of condensation and will keep your worries at bay.

Paint Before It’s Too Cold

If you’re thinking of redocorating your home, make sure you do it before it’s too cold. It takes longer for rooms to dry in winter and requires you to open windows, thus letting out heat. We highly recommend doing it before the cold season of winter.

Black Country, New Road Share New Track ‘Bread Song’

Black Country, New Road have shared ‘Bread Song’, the second single off their upcoming LP Ants From Up There. The track follows lead offering ‘Chaos Space Marine’. Check it out below.

“We wanted to do the first chorus with no time signature,” vocalist and guitarist Isaac Wood said of the new track in a statement. “I went to see Steve Reich do Music for 18 Musicians and there’s a piece where a bar length is determined by the breadth of the clarinet player, they just play until they run out of breath. I wanted to try that with the whole band, where we don’t look at each other, we don’t make too many cues, we just try and play without time—but together.”

Ants From Up There, the follow-up to this year’s For the first time, is out February 4 via Ninja Tune.

Terrace Martin Announces New Album ‘Drones’, Releases New Song ‘Leave Us Be’

Los Angeles-based jazz saxophonist Terrace Martin has announced a new album called Drones. Out this Friday, November 5 (via Sounds of Crenshaw/BMG), the LP features collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, Kamasi Washington, Snoop Dogg, YG, Ty Dolla $ign, Leon Bridges, Channel Tres, Robert Glasper, Cordae, James Fauntleroy, Smino, Hit-Boy, and more. Check out the new song ‘Leave Us Be’ below, and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and full tracklist.

“There are touches of R&B, touches of jazz, touches of hip-hop, touches of classical, Cuban music, West African music, house music,” Martin said of Drones in a statement. “You’re going to hear all elements of Black music within this record. It’s not one element I can leave out if I call myself a true Black artist.”

Drones Cover Artwork:

Drones Tracklist:

1. Turning Poison Into Medicine
2. Drones [feat. Kendrick Lamar, Ty Dolla $ign, James Fauntleroy and Snoop Dogg]
3. Leave Us Be
4. Work It Out [feat. Cordae]
5. This Morning [feat. Arin Ray and Smino]
6. Tapped [feat. Channel Tres and Celeste]
7. Reflection [feat. James Fauntletroy]
8. Leimert Park
9. Griots of the Crenshaw District [feat. Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper and Hit-Boy]
10. Evil Eyes [feat. YG and Malaya]
11. Sick of Cryin [feat. Leon Bridges and D Smoke]
12. Don’t Let Go
13. Listen [feat. James Fauntleroy, Kim Burrell and Robert Glasper]

Kristine Leschper (fka Mothers) Announces Debut Solo Album, Releases New Song ‘Ribbon’

Kristine Leschper, formerly known as the leader of Mothers, has announced her debut solo album. The Opening, or Closing of a Door is set to arrive on March 4 via Anti-. Today, Leschper has shared a self-directed video for the new single ‘Ribbon’. Watch and listen below.

“I found myself wanting to explore love songs, and this is really the framework of The Opening, or Closing of a Door,” Leschper explained in a press release. “‘Ribbon’ is a love song that holds a certain tension—it is the taut line of attempting to read the intentions of another, built with imagery of opposing materialities: a knife meets a ribbon, asking for a kind of vulnerability. A suggestion of something new emerging at this intersection.”

Of the video, Leschper added:

This was my first experience writing and directing a video, as well as designing and fabricating the set. I wanted to play with the perceived reality or unreality of a space, using an absolute economy of materials. When does an environment begin to lose its “realness” and slip into the imaginary? There’s something interesting in the posturing of lip sync in music videos — I wanted to throw the microphone out of frame, as if to say: this is not a real performance, it is a performance of a performance, it’s pantomime! This is not a table, it is a painting of a table! Objects come and go, shifting between hard and soft, flat and dimensional, in a setting that provides little more than an abstraction of interior space.

The Opening, or Closing of a Door Cover Artwork:

The Opening, or Closing of a Door Tracklist:

1. This Animation
2. Picture Window
3. Figure and I
4. Blue
5. A Drop In That Bucket
6. Writhe and Wrestle
7. Carina
8. Stairwell Song
9. All That You Never Wanted
10. Ribbon
11. Compass
12. The Opening Or Closing Of A Door
13. Thank You

Spiritualized Announce New Album, Share Lead Single ‘Always Together With You’

Spiritualized have announced their next studio album: Everything Was Beautiful is set for release on February 25 via Bella Union. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the lead single and album opener ‘Always Together With You’, which was originally released as a demo in 2014. Check it out below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork (by Mark Farrow) and full tracklist.

Frontman Jason Pierce (aka J Spaceman) plays 16 different instruments on Everything Was Beautiful, which also features contributions from over 30 musicians and singers, including his daughter Poppy, longtime collaborator John Coxon, and the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

“There was so much information on it that the slightest move would unbalance it but going around in circles is important to me,” Pierce said of the album in a statement. “Not like you’re spiralling out of control but you’re going around and around and on each revolution, you hold onto the good each time. Sure, you get mistakes as well, but you hold on to some of those too and that’s how you kind of… achieve. Well, you get there.”

Along with the album news, Spiritualized have announced an extensive world tour running from March to May 2022, including a headline show at London’s Roundhouse. Find the full list of dates below.

This year, Spiritualized reissued their first four albums as part of The Spaceman Reissue Program. The band’s last studio album was 2018’s And Nothing Hurt.

Everything Was Beautiful Cover Artwork:

Everything Was Beautiful Tracklist:

1. Always Together With You
2. Best Thing You Never Had
3. Let It Bleed (For Iggy)
4. Crazy
5. The Mainline Song
6. The A Song (Laid In Your Arms)
7. I’m Coming Home Again

Spiritualized 2022 Tour Dates:

Mar 2 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vredenberg Grote Zaal
Mar 3 – Copenhagen, Denmark – DR Studie 2
Mar 4 – Oslo, Norway – Parkteatret tickets
Mar 5 – Gothenburg, Sweden – Pustervik
Mar 7 – Berlin, Germany – Passionskirche
Mar 8 – Hamburg, German – Laeiszhalle
Mar 9 – Köln, Germany – Gloria
Mar 10 – Paris, France – La Gaîté Lyrique
Mar 11- Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
Mar 31 – Dallas, TX, Granada Theater
Apr 1 – Austin, TX – Scoot Inn
Apr 3 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
Apr 4 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
Apr 5 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Commonwealth Room
Apr 7 – Seattle, WA – Neptune
Apr 8 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
Apr 9 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom
Apr 28 – Bath, UK – The Forum tickets
Apr 29 – Cambridge, UK – Corn Exchange
Apr 30 – Brighton, UK – Dome tickets
May 2 – Birmingham, UK – Symphony Hall
May 4 – Gateshead, UK – Sage

Crake Release New Single ‘Lamb’s Tail’

Crake – the Leeds quartet comprised of Rowan Sandle, Russel Searle, Rob Slater, and Sarah Statham – have shared a new single called ‘Lamb’s Tail’, their first for Fika Recordings. It follows a one-off 7” with Saddle Creek, which the band released on the back of supporting Big Thief across the UK and the EU in 2019. Check out a video for ‘Lamb’s Tail’, directed by Ash Scott, below.

“When I was a kid and I was worried or anxious, I would leave it to the fates to tell me the outcome of whatever issue I was currently stuck on,” Sadle explained in a statement. “I would ask my question to the ether and make up some rule to reveal to me my answer. For example, if whilst walking I land at a lamppost with my left foot, the answer is no, but if I land with my right, then yes.”

Sadle continued: “’Lamb’s Tail’ deals with a major question pertinent to me now – in my early 30s, without children but knowing I want them, I worry when. And at the opposite end of life’s flight, I’ve recently got to know grief. And it’s a lot. So sometimes we revert to silly rituals that comforted us as a child, noticing the pushing onwards of Spring, or laughing at the fact that Rob once met a cat he could have sworn he taught drums to.”