Daniel Tjongari, an Indonesia-based photographer, revealed a majestic-like series named Art of White Crater. The series follows a tourist spot called Kawah Putih, a lake formed through the eruption of Mount Patuha in West Java. Due to the sulfurous water, many of the area’s soil and trees have turned white, creating some unbelievably artistic and deep scenery.
Find more work by Daniel Tjongari here.
Big Red Machine have shared a new track from their forthcoming album How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? The duo’s latest is called ‘Mimi’ and it features Ilsey Juber, a singer-songwriter known professionally as Ilsey who has co-written songs for Panic! at the Disco, Major Lazer, Beyoncé, and more. The track also includes Aaron’s brother Bryce Dessner on guitar, Big Thief’s James Krivchenia on drums, Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett on piano and synth, and Beirut’s Ben Lanz on modular synth. Listen to it below.
“I named this song Mimi for my youngest daughter,” Aaron Dessner said in a statement. “I was thinking about how grateful I am for my children and how they light up even the darkest days. Justin, Ilsey and I wrote words and melodies to this in isolation and we decided to interweave them, like characters in a book, full of longing and gratitude. Later James Krivchenia came to visit and brought the song further to life with his drums. Musically I feel like maybe we were seeking the open air and road of a Tom Petty song, just accidentally in an odd meter. So grateful to Ilsey for joining this collaboration – it felt so natural and joyful.”
Isley added: “This song is almost a mirror to the process of how we made it. Aaron, Justin and I wrote and recorded all of the parts separately. The lyrics of the chorus reflect a longing for closeness and connection, but that longing is made to feel safe and less pained next to Justin and Aaron’s lyrics which have this strong theme of gratitude. All of this to say, what could have been a lonely chorus was made hopeful, and what could have been a lonely process was made joyful in getting to work with these two wonderful people.”
How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? is set for release on August 27. It includes the previously released songs ‘Phoenix’ (featuring Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Anaïs Mitchell), ‘Renegade’ with (with Taylor Swift), ‘Latter Days’ (featuring Anaïs Mitchell), and ‘The Ghost of Cincinnati’.
Billie Eilish and Finneas have performed a cover of ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. The classic American standard has been performed by artists including Julie London (Eilish’s version is billed as a cover of her 1995 rendition of the track), Charlie Parker, Fats Domino, Bryan Ferry, and more. Check out Eilish’s take on the standard below, along with live versions of ‘I Didn’t Change My Number’, ‘NDA’, and ‘Getting Older’.
Eilish’s sophomore album Happier Than Ever, the follow-up to When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, landed last week. Also today, Finneas announced his debut studio album, Optimist.
Charlotte Cornfield has announced a new LP titled Highs in the Minuses. The follow-up to the Canadian singer-songwriter’s 2019 album The Shape of Your Name comes out October 29 via Polyvinyl and Double Double Whammy. The first cut from the album is out today alongside an accompanying video. Check out ‘Headlines’ and find the album’s cover art and tracklist below.
“I wanted to express the joy of seeing people, of those little interactions that happen throughout the day that I missed so much in the last year and a half,” Cornfield said of ‘Healdines’ in a statement. “When I wrote this song I was spending so much time walking alone through my neighbourhood, and I wanted the video to take place on the same streetscape but be the antidote to that solitude. To me the city is so much about the people in it. Adrienne McLaren Devenyi, the director, came up with this arc of me exchanging objects with people as I move through the neighbourhood and that just created a beautiful jumping off point for these interactions. We had so much fun making this video, and it was such a gift to see everybody.”
Cornfield recorded Highs in the Minuses at Howard Bilerman’s studio in Montreal with bassist Alexandra Levy (Ada Lea) and drummer Liam O’Neill (Suuns). “I feel really grateful that he was on the same page, in terms of focusing on the emotion,” she said of working with Bilerman. “He didn’t worry about all the little details that people can sweat about in the studio.”
Revisit our Artist Spotlight Q&A with Charlotte Cornfield.
Highs in the Minuses Cover Artwork:
Highs in the Minuses Tracklist:
1. Skateboarding By The Lake
2. Headlines
3. Pac-Man
4. 21
5. Black Tattoo
6. Blame Myself
7. Out of the Country
8. Drunk for You
9. Partner in Crime
10. Modern Medicine
11. Destroy Me
Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother and primary collaborator, has announced his debut album, Optimist. It’s due for release on October 15 via Interscope. The 24-year-old producer has today shared the lead single from the record, ‘A Concert Six Months From Now’, which arrives with a Sam Bennett-directed video filmed at the Hollywood Bowl. Watch it below and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
In addition to co-writing and producing Eilish’s sophomore album Happier Than Ever, Finneas has appeared in two live performance videos for the songs ‘Your Power’ and ‘Male Fantasy’ alongside Eilish. He also starred in the music video for James Blake’s latest single ‘Say What You Will’. Optimist will follow Finneas’ 2019 EP Blood Harmony.
Optimist Cover Artwork:
Optimist Tracklist:
1. A Concert Six Months From Now
2. The Kids Are All Dying
3. Happy Now
4. Only a Lifetime
5. The 90s
6. Love Is Pain
7. Peaches Etude
8. Hurt Locker
9. Medieval
10. Someone Else’s Star
11. Around My Neck
12. What They’ll Say About Us
13. How It Ends
Holly Humberstone has announced her second EP, The Walls Are Way Too Thin. The follow-up to 2020’s Falling Asleep At The Wheel EP is set for release on November 5 via Polydor/Darkroom/Interscope. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Please Don’t Leave Just Yet’, which was co-written by The 1975‘s Matty Healy. Check it out below.
“The song is about wanting someone to stay so badly, even if only for five more minutes, because you know how much it’ll hurt when they leave,” Humberstone explained in a press release. “I think the desperation in the words really sums up how I was feeling at the time and how so many people must’ve been feeling last year when we were all completely starved of human connection! I often write songs with a bit of a visual in my head, and I kept picturing solitary places, like drifting far out to sea, so far that you can’t find a way back, or old deserted cargo shipping yards with all the lights at the edge of the city.”
Of the EP, she added: “This EP represents a feeling of being lost. It’s the kind of lost that makes you question who you are and where you belong. So lost that someone might need to find you again because you can’t find yourself. That’s how it felt to move to Liverpool, then London, and be in transit between cities and never settling.”
Earlier this year, Holly Humberstone shared the singles ‘Haunted House’ and ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’. Revisit our Artist Spotlight Q&A with Holly Humberstone.
The Walls Are Way Too Thin EP Cover Artwork:
The Walls Are Way Too Thin EP Tracklist:
1. Haunted House
2. The Walls Are Way Too Thin
3. Please Don’t Leave Just Yet
4. Thursday
5. Scarlett
6. Friendly Fire
Duran Duran have enlisted Japanese band CHAI for a new song called ‘MORE JOY’, the latest preview from their upcoming 12th studio album, Future Past. It follows previous single ‘Invisible’, which was a collaboration with Blur’s Graham Coxon. Listen below.
“The song ‘MORE JOY!’ was born out of a crazy jam with Duran Duran, Graham Coxon and Erol Alkan,” keyboardist Nick Rhodes explained in a statement. “It was such an unusual piece we weren’t quite sure if it would fit in at first. It reminded me of one of those retro Japanese video games, which I always found quite uplifting. We came up with the chant “more joy” early on, and that became the key to the rest of the track. We all agreed that it would sound really great with Japanese female voices on it, and that’s when Simon had the inspired idea to ask CHAI if they would possibly collaborate with us. To our joy they agreed, and the result most certainly brought an incredible new energy to the song. They are so special!”
Lead vocalist Simon Le Bon added: “Nick suggested some girlish voices on “MORE JOY!” and I knew exactly where to find them — CHAI, post- modern, all-girl Japanese punk band, whose energy and pure sense of fun might actually blow your ears off! We are honoured to have them sprinkle their pink neon magic spikey dust onto our song. Now it’s “MORE JOY!” (Feat. CHAI). CHAI — beloved forever!”
In their own statement, CHAI said: “We are full of joy! When Duran Duran asked us to join their new song, we listened to it and thought “this is lively, rock, cool and fun,” and we danced! We added our voices to their rock sound, making it even more ‘MORE JOY’! Because we are MORE JOY. Thank you Duran Duran!”
Future Past, the band’s first album in six years, arrives October 22 via Tape Modern/BMG.
Steven Raekwon Reynolds, also known as S. Raekwon, has announced his debut album, Where I’m at Now – out October 8 via Father/Daughter. Along with the announcement, the artist has shared the album’s lead single, ‘Darling’. Check it out below and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and tracklist.
Where I’m at Now was recorded in New York City and Edwardsville, Illinois during the pandemic. The self-produced album was mastered by Heba Kadry, who’s worked with Björk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Alex G.
Where I’m at Now Cover Artwork:
Paul Johnson, the influential Chicago house producer, has died from COVID-19 at the age of 50. A statement on his official Facebook page said: “Our greatness passed away this morning at 9am the house music legend we all know as PJ aka PAUL JOHNSON has passed away in this day of AUGUST 4th 2021. Rest In Heaven Paul.” The news was confirmed to Mixmag by Johnson’s agent.
Born and raised in Chicago, Johnson began DJing in 1985 and started producing his own tracks shortly after, working with labels such as Dancemania, Relief, Cajual, and Nite Life through the ’90s. He scored biggest hit in 1999 with ‘Get Get Down’, which appeared on his album The Groove I Have and reached the top of the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play Chart. He co-founded the label Dust Traxx in 1997, which has released music from the likes of Stacey Kidd, Glenn Underground, Gene Hunt, Roberto Armani, and Peven Everett. That same year, Daft Punk released the song ‘Teachers’, in which Johnson is the first artist to be named in a long list of the duo’s influences.
Johnson was paralysed from the waist down after a shooting accident in 1987 forced him to use a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. His injured leg was amputated in 2003, and in 2010 his other leg was amputated due to a car accident. “The crappy life I’ve had health wise, that’s been nothing, man,” Johnson said in an interview published in 2014. “That’s just been a shadow to what I’ve been doing, I don’t even see it, nobody sees it. It’s all about the music.”
The modern dating culture is interesting to behold. The public perception of online dating has shifted from almost a tongue-in-cheek means to end up in trouble to a true means of finding love. Unfortunately, films don’t often reflect this truth and instead opt to treat the concept of online dating quite poorly. We’re going to take a look at how this transformation took place over time, as evidenced by some of our favorite films.
The modern form of online dating is criticized as being too simplistic and hedonistic in this film. A group of college students develops a potent hookup app to allow students to have a one-night stand. The people on the dating service enjoy anonymity but also face limitations due to their school having a small population of people from which to choose. This outcome is contrary to what happens in real life, as evidenced by Steamylocals, a dating service that connects local people for dates. The short-term relationships developed on this site occur without much in the way of identifying information, just as people like. The major difference is that users can control the search area in which they look for matches instead of being kept to a single school campus.
If we go a little farther back in time, then you will discover films like Eurotrip that take on the concept of online dating. Unlike other uplifting romance films of the time, Eurotrip does not necessarily treat online dating fairly. In this story, a young man meets a woman online from Germany. Through a series of miscommunications and mistranslations, the young man decides to cut her out of his life because he thinks she is an online predator. Of course, the truth is revealed, and the man decides to go remedy this mistake and be with the woman he loves. The unfortunate part is that this movie made online dating seem unlikeable at first. It wasn’t until the young man discovers that he is actually talking to an educated, beautiful woman that online dating is seen as a beneficial way to meet people. Many people probably missed that message along the way.
One of the earliest movies that took on the topic of online dating was You’ve Got Mail. This delightful love film brought Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together again. This film explores the anonymity of online dating and the impact that it can have on people that might not appear to get along at first glance. Two people that can’t stand each other in real life benefit from having the everyday challenges of their lives stripped away to allow them to fall in love online. Eventually, they are able to reconcile the two aspects of their life, and they decide that they would be a great couple together. As we’ve mentioned before, local dating services are very helpful in connecting people from a similar area. Still, the chances of two people who hate each other connecting on one of those sites are bound to be one in a million.
Online dating has not always gotten a fair evaluation in films, and these three movies show different takes on online dating. Sometimes it’s viewed as a sweet means to connect people, but it’s portrayed inaccurately. The true online dating experience often caters to the unique needs of various people through specific dating outcomes, cultural approaches, and much more. Individuals seeking online dating experiences are bound to find something that appeals to them by honestly thinking about what they expect and need from a dating site and then finding the one that works best for them.
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