Kelly Lee Owens has released a new single, ‘Unity’, which will serve as the official theme song for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Give it a listen below.
“‘Unity’ is a song that I put everything I had into it,” Owens wrote on Twitter. “Rising arpeggios, rising basslines…. It’s led with my voice, but I wanted the sense of community brought in with choirs.”
Owens’ last studio album, Inner Song, arrived last year. Earlier this year, she shared a remix of Sigrid’s ‘Mirror’.
The first thing Circuit des Yeux does is claim her own space. In the lyric sheet for her previous album, 2017’s Reaching for Indigo, she commanded the listener to “create your own language”; on her latest, she invokes that of the universe, the natural laws that bind us, before beginning to carve out her own. Cosmic is often the only direction that feels appropriate when grappling with the enormity of grief, and after an extended period of being unable to write in the wake of personal loss, it’s where Haley Fohr found her lyrics returning to. Before attempting to arrange any of it into song, the Chicago experimental musician introduces us to the world she’s built by sending out a signal in the form of ‘Tonglen | In Vain’, half a minute of sliding strings that sound like a lift-off. By the time ‘Vanishing’ comes in, with its apocalyptic swagger and long list of goodbyes, you begin to understand why Fohr called this world “a place where everything is ending all the time.”
The planet is named -io. It might bring to mind Squirrel Flower’s own Planet (i) or Strand of Oaks’ In Heaven, 2021 records that sonically belong to a different galaxy but are grounded in a similar premise: drawing a line between the vastness above and within in the hope of finding some kind of solace. Of course, the instinct is always to go bigger; Fohr was already making the most ambitious music of her career as Circuit des Yeux, but -io expands the scope of her work in ways that are intentional and compelling. For all its astronomical references, you can hear the bones of these songs, which, despite being arranged for and featuring a 23-piece orchestra, came together bit by bit, the initial process more solitary and less collaborative than before. The feeling of impending doom is never quite released, and instead of the explosive catharsis that tends to be a point of resolution for this kind of album, what it evokes instead is a kind of implosion, of something immense collapsing in on itself.
It’s this idea that feeds into ‘Neutron Star’, which ends on an imposing note: “Descend bold traveler and attain the center of the earth.” Astoundingly, Fohr finds the beauty in it. While obsessing over black holes, whose gravitational pull is mirrored in her dizzying compositions, she’s said the neutron star emerged as a “gorgeous representation of those that linger and those who wander” in the way it “uses this mass density that it carries around itself.” The track itself is one of the most striking and immersive on the album, its harrowing, voluminous guitars pummelling through with an electric charge that threatens to swallow the whole mix. But Fohr captures a delicate dance, and her songs thrum with a similar kind of density even when they don’t directly point to the cosmos: take ‘The Chase’, whose nightmarish mood and whispered vocals deftly channel a traumatic memory where “the walls are caving in like the valley in your mind.”
In this relentless rise and fall – the only movement that can contain Fohr’s sweeping, operatic vocals – it can be hard to fathom how -io could have possibly been conceived as an attempt to “explore the hard work of joy.” But even if that became more of an impossibility as she dove further into the process and the pandemic became an all-consuming reality, I find it harder not to see glimpses of that feeling here, particularly as the grand presentation gives way to a simpler framework following the climactic peak of ‘Neutron Star’. It’s then that the album seems to pick up where Reaching for Indigo and Fohr’s Jackie Lynn project left off, weaving in a quiet warmth between bursts of emotion, but with a renewed, empathetic perspective. ‘Stranger’ is a piano ballad about passing by someone on the street and being moved by the infinite possibilities that belie such an interaction – a profoundly human and earthbound experience, yet one that Fohr elevates into high drama with the arresting performance she spins off the word “street.”
It’s only fitting that in the Listening Guide for this record, one of her instructions is to “walk a very far distance” after taking a break around the halfway point, perhaps after the staggering ‘Sculpting the Exodus’. Whatever you end up finding there – between the floor and the ceiling, the clouds and the stars, darkness and light, yourself and someone – just giving off radiation, might in fact be its own small universe. Creating your language might be freeing in an abstract sense, even impossible, but as she suggests on ‘Walking Toward Winter’, there’s no gift like listening closely to someone else’s words and seeing them become your own.
Lots of people hate romantic movies, believing they have nothing to do with breathtaking storylines and ambiguous characters. If you are one of such people, then watching these movies will help you change your mind.
How long does love live? The characters of Only Lovers Left Alive have proven that it can live forever. Adam and Eve are vampires whose love has definitely stood the test of time. They seem to know all the iconic artists of the last few centuries. Now the couple has decided to live separately, Eve in warm countries by the ocean and Adam in the most ordinary city. Everything changes when a flighty sister, Eva, stands in the way of the lovers. A struggle for love, blood, and survival lies ahead.
Could you imagine falling in love with a machine, like an RNG algorithm at TonyBet or an AI? If not, then Her will be quite a surprise for you.
A 21st century love story that won an Oscar for best screenplay starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, and Scarlett Johansson. To escape his loneliness, writer Theodore buys mankind’s newest invention – an operating system that grants any wish. Now Samantha accompanies the hero every day, and he begins to fall in love with the technology, but will Samantha be faithful to Theodore, or will he have to return to the real world?
Love during the zombie apocalypse: When the planet is on the brink of extinction, and there is a real standoff between humans and zombies, only true feelings will help you survive. It is at this time that a zombie whose name in life began with the letter “R” decides to save the girl he was planning to eat. The relationship between R and Julie was the beginning of a big change in the world and proved that the saving key at all times is one, and that is love.
Joel is an ordinary shy guy living an unremarkable life. When the hero deviates from his usual route to work, he meets an extraordinary girl with bright blue hair. Joel and Clementine have so much in common, as if the characters have known each other for years. Who would have thought that in the past the heroes were even a couple, but decided to erase all memories of that period. There is one thing they did not think of: the heart remembers everything. Will they be able to rekindle the love they’ve forgotten?
Harold and Maude are considered perhaps the strangest romantic couple in cinema. The problem, of course, is the age difference. The melancholy son of wealthy parents, Harold is in his twenties, the vivacious old lady Maude is almost eighty. They meet at a funeral, which Harold likes to attend for nothing when he is not busy staging his own suicides, and unexpectedly turn out to be kindred spirits.
Another age-gap story, a standard melodrama disguised as a love story between a divorced woman in her thirties and an elderly pharmacist, Murphy, who is twice her age. Murphy helps Emma settle down and find her place in the provincial town where she moves with her twelve-year-old son. Although in Max Schott’s book, on which the film is based, Murphy and Emma remained friends, in the movie a real romance develops between the characters.
The romantic relationship between ghosts and living people will still be found in movies, but this story has the most prosperous ending. Gene Tierney plays Lucy Muir, a young widow who moves into a cottage by the sea with her daughter Anna. It turns out that there is another tenant in the cottage. It’s former homeowner Captain Daniel Gregg.
The captain doesn’t mind sharing his memories with the world, which Lucy carefully records for publication. A romance flares up between the ghost Gregg and his literary slave, but the couple realizes the hopelessness of the situation, and the ghost nobly yields his beloved to a living suitor. True, a couple more plot twists await the heroine until she is reunited in afterlife bliss with her true love.
Unusual novels seem to have been especially popular in the 1980s. Set in the early 1980s somewhere on the outskirts of Stockholm, Let the Right One In is a romantic horror novel. Oskar fails to make friends at school, where the boys lavish him with blows and bullying. But a strange girl with vampire tendencies comes to the apartment next door. Or maybe not a girl at all. Oscar is fine in the girl’s company, and she is literally ready to tear his abusers apart. Thanks to atmospheric camerawork, Let the Right One In almost reeks of a prickly frosty air that makes you cringe at the screen.
Everyone has things that irritate them. Some get annoyed when they cannot meet with their friends, others become angry if their bets at 22Bet don’t win, and there are millions of people who are provoked with illogical movie endings. These 6 are the most annoying examples.
A Knight Shyamalan film starring Mel Gibson about an alien invasion. It has everything: mysterious crop circles and evil aliens wishing to destroy humanity as a whole and the family of single father Graham Hess in particular. In the finale it turns out that the aliens can be defeated by water, because it is about as deadly to them as sulfuric acid is to us.
Why, then, did they come to a planet composed of 70% water?
This brings to mind War of the Worlds (2005), where the bloodthirsty Martians were decimated by Earth’s microorganisms. But in this case you can forgive the film this fact, because when Herbert Wells wrote the book that was the basis of the movie, microorganisms seemed to be something outlandish.
A touching picture about an angel who falls in love with an ordinary mortal girl. He loves her so much that he gives up immortality. And almost at the same moment the girl crashes her bicycle into a truck.
The only thing worse than such a painful and abrupt ending could be a stab wound to the stomach on her name day from her beloved grandmother.
“Indiana Jones” is one of a series of films that have been “killed off” by greedy movie companies. While the first three films are golden classics, the last one is clearly made to shake money out of fans.
It has all the commercial clichés: a disgusting and ill-conceived script, nuclear explosions, tons of bad computer graphics, aliens, and a blurred ending.
What’s most striking in the ending is that a spaceship that’s been deep in the ground for hundreds of years just takes off without explaining anything or saying goodbye to anyone.
Toward the end of the movie, Superman’s beloved girlfriend Lois Lane dies. The grief-stricken lover lets out an inhuman scream and decides to bring her back to life in a radical way. He begins circling the Earth at the speed of light against its rotation, time on the planet goes backwards, and the beloved comes back to life.
Such an illogical finale that destroys all the laws of physics can only be explained by the fact that the writers drove themselves into a dead end and decided to get out of it any way they could.
Film critics consider this to be Luc Besson’s weakest film. And it has an ending to match.
Devious smugglers use Lucy to transport drugs and sew them into the girl’s stomach. But the bag bursts, the drug gets into her blood, and the heroine’s brains start working like Stakhanovites. She immediately gets a bunch of new skills and abilities: telepathy, two-handed shooting and excessive pathos.
The film ends with the killer getting close to Lucy and shooting her in the head, but a moment before she shifts her consciousness into cyberspace and disappears. Then Lucy sends everyone the message, “I’m everywhere now,” and also leaves her friends an unusual flash drive.
Many questions arise: What about Lucy? Is she on the Internet, on the flash drive, or in the universe? And what is the message of this movie?
The movie is based on the novel by Ernest Cline. Fans of the book won’t like it because there’s not much left of it. Steven Spielberg decided not to bother with character development and building a good pacing, and just stuffed the film with pop culture references.
In the finale, the protagonist, along with his new girlfriend and friends, takes control of the game Oasis and immediately makes it two forced-mandatory weekends for all the players to spend time with their families. Doesn’t he realize that by doing so he will be bringing down the global economy every week? And on the other hand, just two days a week per family? It sounds a little too implausible even for a sci-fi movie.
The gaming industry has almost taken over the world over the past few years. Although video games have been a thing for decades, it is only since the introduction of the digital world where it has really taken off. Now, it wouldn’t be hard to find someone with a deep love of gaming. People of all ages are now interested in the pastime. This is largely due to the increase in variety and quality.
There is so much more to gaming than there used to be. You are no longer limited to one console or genre. There is so much to choose from. If you are a gaming fan that loves lots of genres, there is a good chance you probably won’t even get to play all the different games you love. There would be simply too many to get through if you were to have a huge interest. But what are the most popular gaming genres? Here are some of the options gamers have to choose from.
Shooting games have been one of the most popular genres since gaming became mainstream. This is largely thanks to titles such as Call of Duty and Battlefield. Both franchises regularly release new titles, with each game attempting to be better than the last. One of the major pull factors when it comes to these shooter games is the social aspect. Although the games hold so much quality for solo players, being able to play alongside your friends is one of the best aspects of the game. Talking war tactics with your friends is something a lot of gamers love to do, hence to popularity.
Platformer games were one of the first types to hit the market. This is due to the massive popularity the Mario franchise received. It is an extremely straightforward concept. A 2D world where you try to get to the end of the course. However, gaming developers figured out a way to make plenty of unique levels and aspects in their game. This is why these games still remain so fresh and played to this day.
Not everyone has the luxury of owning a console or gaming computer. However, game developers recognised this and noticed a gap in the market. This is where browser games come from. These games require no download or special technology to play. It is because of this accessibility that they gained so much popularity. The main type of browser game played is online casino games. These sites offer exciting opportunities for players from their smartphone, laptop, or desktop.
Horror games have been around for a long time. However, it wasn’t until the graphics started to sharpen up that people took a major interest. Now, the games are genuinely terrifying. One bad mistake, and you are getting jump-scared into a heart attack. Another major factor in their rise in popularity is YouTubers. Seeing people’s live reactions to being scared is extremely entertaining. After all, better them than you.
Hurray for the Riff Raff – the project of singer-songwriter Alynda Segarra – has announced a new album called Life on Earth. The record was produced by Brad Cook and is due out February 18 via Nonesuch. Lead single ‘Rhododendron’ arrives today with an accompanying video directed by New Orleans artist Lucia Honey. Check it out below, and scroll down for the LP’s cover artwork and full tracklist.
‘Rhododendron’ is a song about “finding rebellion in plant life,” according to Segarra. “Being called by the natural world and seeing the life that surrounds you in a way you never have. A mind expansion. A psychedelic trip. A spiritual breakthrough. Learning to adapt, and being open to the wisdom of your landscape. Being called to fix things in your own backyard, your own community.”
Hurray for the Riff Raff’s last full-length album was 2017’s The Navigator. Last year, they joined Waxahatchee and Bedouine for a cover of Big Star’s ‘Thirteen’.
Life on Earth Cover Artwork:
Life on Earth Tracklist:
1. Wolves
2. Pierced Arrows
3. Pointed at the Sun
4. Rhododendron
5. Jupiter’s Dance
6. Life on Earth
7. Nightqueen
8. Precious Cargo
9. Rosemary Tears
10. Saga
11. Kin
Spoon have announced their next album: Lucifer on the Sofa is due for release on February 11, 2022 via Matador Records. The follow-up to 2017’s Hot Thoughts was co-produced by Spoon and Mark Rankin (Adele, Queens of the Stone Age) and features contributions from Dave Fridmann and Justin Raisen. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the lead single ‘The Hardest Cut’. Check out its music video below, and scroll down for the album artwork (by Edel Rodriguez) and tracklist.
In a press release, frontman Britt Daniel described Lucifer on the Sofa as “the sound of classic rock as written by a guy who never did get Eric Clapton.” Commenting on the new single, which he co-wrote Alex Fischel, Daniel explained, “I spent a lot of 2018 and 2019 listening to ZZ Top.”
Lucifer on the Sofa Cover Artwork:
Lucifer on the Sofa Tracklist:
1. Held
2. The Hardest Cut
3. The Devil & Mister Jones
4. Wild
5. My Babe
6. Feels Alright
7. On The Radio
8. Astral Jacket
9. Satellite
10. Lucifer On The Sofa
Metronomy have announced their seventh album, Small World, which arrives February 18 via Because Music. The dance-rock outfit have previewed the LP with the lead single ‘It’s good to be back’, which is accompanied by a video from the directing duo Dreamjob. Check it out along with the album artwork and tracklist below.
“Part of me was thinking, ‘What is the lamest platitude people are going to be saying coming out of the past two years?’, but at the same time, I was thinking how it will be true and how it might feel doing things again,” frontman Joseph Mount explained in a statement.
He continued: “I’ve been remembering what it was like as a kid when I’d be sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car and they’d be playing their music and I’d think ‘this is awful,’ but there’d be one or two songs I would like. I thought it would be fun to make that kind of album, and this is the song the kids might like. This is the ‘cool’ song.”
Metronomy’s last album was 2019’s Metronomy Forever.
Small World Cover Artwork:
Small World Tracklist:
1. Life and Death
2. Things will be fine
3. It’s good to be back
4. Loneliness on the run
5. Love Factory
6. I lost my mind
7. Right on time
8. Hold me tonight
9. I Have Seen Enough
Japanese Breakfast has shared a cover of Weezer’s ‘Say It Ain’t So’ as part of Spotify’s Live at Electric Lady EP series. Her rendition of the track, which Weezer originally recorded at Electric Lady for 1994’s Blue Album, appears alongside new live renditions of the Jubilee songs ‘Be Sweet’, ‘Savage Good Boy’, ‘Tactics’, and ‘Kokomo, IN’, as well as ‘Boyish’, from her sophomore album Soft Sounds From Another Planet. The EP also includes new recordings of songs from Michelle Zauner’s side project BUMPER (‘Ballad 0’) and her previous band Little Big League (‘Lindsey’). Take a listen below.
“Recording at Electric Lady was truly the perfect experience. The longer I’ve worked as a recording artist, the more I’ve realized it’s the simple, stripped down songs that are the hardest to get right,” Zauner said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to revisit the core catalog of my songwriting in a room with so much history, surrounded by engineers and gear of the highest caliber, it was just a dream come true.”
She continued: “I played a very sloppy basement cover of ‘Say It Ain’t So’ once with my band in college, so it was fun to revisit it from the opposite angle, stripped down with a string quartet. Craig Hendrix did the arrangement and Quartet 121 performed the hell out of it.”
After being announced earlier this year, Spotify’s Live at Electric Lady series has seen contributions from Faye Webster, Patti Smith, and more.
Yaeji and OHHYUK – best known as the leader of Seoul-based group HYUKOH – have teamed up for two new songs, ‘Year to Year’ and ’29’. Check them out via the accompanying visuals below.
“When I was feeling a bit stuck and stagnant with music, Hyuk helped me find the joys of creating again, and this was my first time collaborating with someone so closely on music,” Yaeji said in a statement. “We spent many days together in the studio in Seoul, sometimes not even making music but just chatting about how we grew up and sharing meals together, and our musical collaboration blossomed as our friendship grew.”
OHHYUK added: “Yaeji and I first started to jam when Yaeji visited Seoul last summer. At that time, I was experiencing a kind of “musician’s block” and the jams with Yaeji acted as a catalyst for me and brought back the joy of working on music again. Through the jams we made many tracks, Yaeji soon began to plan the framework for “Year to Year” and I did the same for “29.” For the videos, we worked with Directors DQM and Nam Eunuk, who are both close friends of ours. It was the love and support of many friends that made the music videos come to life. I would like to send my undivided appreciation to them.”
Since releasing her debut full-length mixtape What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던 last year, Yaeji has released the tracks ‘When in Summer, I Forget About the Winter’ and ‘PAC-TIVE’.
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