Cassandra Jenkins has today released (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, a collection of alternate takes and outtakes culled from the sessions for her sophomore album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. It includes the new song ‘American Spirits’, which the singer-songwriter shared earlier this month, as well as first takes of ‘Hailey’ and ‘New Bikini’, the latter of which has also gotten the video treatment. Below, listen to the full album and watch the ‘New Bikini (First Take)’ video, which Jenkins made with longtime visual collaborator Wyndham Boylen-Garnett.
Cassandra Jenkins shared the following statement on the new release:
It’s been exactly two years since I wrote the songs that make up An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, and making (An Overview on) An Overview on Phenomenal Nature gave me the chance to revisit their origins, and step back to appreciate just how many twists and turns my life has taken since then, inside and outside of the songs. I love hearing where they started, the ideas that Josh Kaufman and I tried and discarded, and the fragments of audio left in the wings of the cutting room floor.
Right now I’m on tour playing these songs with a band for the first time, and allowing them to shift again and take on new life as we play them and meet people who connected with my music over the course of the past year. Every show feels like a miracle– for so many reasons, I thought my life as a touring musician was over, and it’s hard to believe I’m here, traveling from city to city as I make my way back to the island in Norway where the seeds of my record were planted. These songs are so personal, and they continue to change as my life changes. They pushed me further into the unknown, and it’s as terrifying and beautiful as ever.
Talking about the video for ‘New Bikini (First Take)’, she added:
I shot the video to accompany “New Bikini (First Take)” in upstate New York, where I spent much of my childhood swimming in local watering holes, where the uneven ground, sharp rocks, mud, and leeches never deterred me. One great irony of “New Bikini,” is that last year I became very ill from coming into contact with contaminated water shortly after writing the song, which led to a latent fear of swimming in streams and glens. When it came time to shoot this video last month, Wyndham (Garnett) suggested filming at a swimming hole, which meant facing and overcoming my fears. And so, in revisiting this song, and moving through discomfort, I found myself in the process of healing my wounds, once again, at the edge of the water.
Companion, the Fort Collins, Colorado-based project of identical twin sisters Sophia and Jo Babb, have released their debut single. ‘How Could I Have Known’ is out today alongside an accompanying video directed by Jo and shot by Rahul Chakraborty. Watch and listen below.
“I started writing ‘How Could I Have Known’ at the beginning of my first autumn in northern Colorado,” Sophia Babb explained in a press release. “I quickly learned that fall is a fleeting, beautifully short time in the mountains. It takes just a few blustery days for all the yellow aspen leaves to give way to bare trees, snowfall, and early sunsets. At the time, I was engaged to my now husband. He was dealing with some concerning medical issues, and I developed an over-awareness of how quickly I could never see him again. Having lost family members without warning in the past, I became anxiously aware that just as soon as he came into my life, he could leave it, too. Though this thought, at its core, is a very scary one, when I looked beyond the fear of losing something I held so dearly, I could see the incredible gift it is to have something to hold dear in the first place. I showed Jo the beginnings of the song, and we finished it together in an afternoon.”
Chakraborty added of the video: “We came to Fort Collins with some wardrobe, a camera and lenses. We filmed with an anamorphic lens and lit our scenes with mostly raw, natural lighting and our set became the whole city. It was a wonderful time spent with best friends and incredible music.”
Adele‘s much-anticipated new album 30 has arrived via Columbia. Inspired by her divorce from ex-husband Simon Konecki, the album marks the singer-songwriter’s first full-length release in six years and includes the previously released single ‘Easy on Me’. Adele also previewed tracks from the record in a CBS special earlier this month and teased the song ‘Hold On’ in a holiday-themed Amazon commercial. 30 features contributions from frequent collaborators Greg Kurstin, Max Martin, Shellback, and Tobias Jesso Jr, as well as new collaborators Inflo and Ludwig Göransson.
Converge have released a new LP, Bloomoon: I, a collaborative effort featuring Chelsea Wolfe, her bandmate/writing partner Ben Chisolm, and Cave In vocalist/guitarist Stephen Brodsky. “We wanted to do something grander than the typical four-piece Converge music,” Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon said of the record, which is out now via Epitaph and includes the previously shared singles ‘Blood Moon’ and ‘Coil’. “Our dynamics are pushing and pulling in all different directions on this record, and I find that to be creatively rewarding.” Wolfe added, “The project stretched my vocals in new ways. It’s so different than what I normally sing over that I was able to open up and be vulnerable with my vocals.”
Ovlov – the Connecticut band comprised of Steve Hartlett on vocals and guitar, Morgan Luzzi on guitar, Theo Hartlett on drums, and Jon Hartlett on bass – are back with a new album titled Buds. Out now via Exploding in Sound, the follow-up to 2018’s TRU features contributions from Smile Machine’s Jordyn Blakely, Dig Nitty’s Erin McGrath, and Ringo Deathstarr’s Alex Gehring, and includes the early singles ‘Eat More’, ‘Land of Steve-O’, and ‘The Wishing Well’. Talking about Buds in an interview with The FADER, Steve Hartlett said, “If we were going to [make another album], we were going to go into it in many different ways from the previous two as far as our efforts in recording, our efforts in songwriting, the actual takes we get, just everything we wanted to try just a little bit harder.”
Mr Twin Sister have released their latest LP, Al Mundo Azul. The New York quartet’s fourth full-length album and first since 2018’s Salt was previewed by the songs ‘Beezle’, ‘Ballarino’, ‘Diary’, ‘Expressions’, and ‘Polvo’. “We wanted to flip stylistic switches to their opposite positions,” the group’s Gabel D’Amico said of the album in press materials. “Immediacy over complexity, alien sounds over natural ones, loose playing over perfect takes. A bright record to come after all the nighttime music we’ve made.”
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have reunited for a new collaborative album, which arrives 14 years after their previous effort, Raising Sand. Out today via Warner Music, Raise the Roofis largely a covers record, featuring 12 new recordings of songs by Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, and more. It was produced by T Bone Burnett and includes contributions from drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarists Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo, Bill Frisell, and Buddy Miller, bassists Dennis Crouch and Viktor Krauss, and pedal steel guitarist Russ Pahl, among others. “We wanted it to move,” Krauss said of the LP. “We brought other people in, other personalities within the band, and coming back together again in the studio brought a new intimacy to the harmonies.”
Quitter is the sophomore full-length from Weakened Friends, the Portland, Maine trio Weakened Friends of vocalist/guitarist Sonia Sturino, bassist, Annie Hoffman, and drummer Adam Hand. Out now via Big Scary Monsters/Don Giovanni Records, the album was preceded by the singles ‘Tunnels’ and the title track and follows the band’s 2018 debut Common Blah. According to a press release, it centers around the theme of quitting music and “getting a real job.”
British electronic producer Holy Other has followed up his 2012 record Held with a new one titledLieve. Featuring the advance tracks ‘Shudder’, ‘Groundless’, and the title track, the 10-song LP is “an album about L(i)eaving, coming to terms with the past, and trying to live in the present,” according to a press release. Recorded throughout 2020 in the northwest of England, the album emerged from the producer’s stay in Bidston Observatory on the Wirral, a cavernous space built from wooden domes. It features vocals from NYX’s Sian O’Gorman, violin from Simmy Singh, and saxophone from Daniel Thorne.
Body/Heat, the duo of Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, have released a new collaborative record with experimental musician Aaron Dilloway. Body/Dilloway/Head’s self-titled album is out now via Three Lobed, following Body/Head’s 2018 album The Switch. “One of the things I like most about playing improvised music and especially in Body/Head with Bill is the constantly exhilarating freedom and surprise about what is going to happen at any given moment,” Gordon explained in a statement. “Making this record with Aaron Dilloway, who I have always admired so much, added in another layer of unknown and another way of giving up control. Aaron took our sounds / music as a source and had ‘his way with it’ so to speak, crushing whatever narrative that existed in order to enter into it and making something different than what we would have done as Body/Head.”
Wallice has announced her signing to Dirty Hit, sharing the new single ‘Wisdom Tooth’ to mark the occasion. The track follows the Los Angeles-based musician’s debut EP Off the Rails. Check it out below.
Wallice said of the new song in a statement:
I wrote this song in a session with my long-time collaborator and best friend marinelli the day before I got my wisdom teeth out. The doctor had just called to say that I’d also need a bone graft to fill in the space in my jaw where the tooth used to be. It really shook me up and there was no way we could write a different song after that. Getting your wisdom teeth out is an event that many people have to go through, it’s a physical sign of growing up. In the song ‘Wisdom Tooth’, I conflate this experience to getting rid of a person in your life as a milestone of growing up too. It shows that sometimes people can grow apart and though it can be hard, it might be better to leave a relationship or friendship rather than keep on trying to make it work. It also talks about how there are little reminders in your life that can bring you back to that person mentally, even though you have moved on.
Cardi B has shared a new track, ‘Bet It’, her first solo single since February’s ‘Up’. It appears on Warner Records’ soundtrack for the Netflix film Bruised, which also features contributions from H.E.R., Latto, Rapsody, Saweetie, Flo Milli, Baby Tate, and more. Listen to Cardi B’s ‘Bet It’ below.
Bruised (Soundtrack From and Inspired by the Netflix Film) is out in full today. The film, a sports drama directed by and starring Halle Berry, hits the streaming platform on November 24. Cardi B serves as the executive producer on the film along with Berry.
Earlier this year, Cardi B teamed up with Lizzo on the track ‘Rumors’ and Normani on ‘Wild Side’.
Kaytranada has shared a new EP called Intimidated. The project includes collaborations with three different artists: H.E.R on the title song, Thundercat on ‘Be Careful’, and Mach-Hommy on ‘$PayForHaiti’. Take a listen below.
Intimidated follows Kaytranada’s 2019 album Bubba, which earned him two Grammy wins for Best Dance/Electronic Album and Best Dance Recording. Back in January, he released the single ‘Caution’.
Alice Glass has announced the details of her debut solo full-length, PREY///IV, which will be released on January 28 via her own Eating Glass Records. The LP includes the new single ‘Baby Teeth’, which is accompanied by a video created by Lucas David and Astra Zero. Watch and listen below.
Glass shared the following statement on the new track:
I like to make songs that you can dance to when you’re sad. “Baby Teeth” is probably the darkest and most hopeless track on my record, but it sounds misleadingly hopeful.
“Baby Teeth” is about embracing despair. It understands that violence against the vulnerable is inevitable, and it probably always will be. There will always be people that prey on others for their own gain, sometimes ruining lives for the most fleeting selfish pleasures. This is human nature, and it hurts too much to think about. And sometimes, the only power it feels like we have left is to say, “Hey, you can’t hurt me, because I’m hurting myself first. I’ve beat you to it.”
It’s bleak, but this is a reality many of us struggle with. It isn’t fair. It never will be.
PREY///IV marks Glass’ first solo album since leaving her former band Crystal Castles in 2014. The record will follow her 2017 Alice Glass EP and features the early tracks ‘I Trusted You’ and ‘SUFFER AND SWALLOW’.
PREY///IV Cover Artwork:
PREY///IV Tracklist:
1. Prey
2. Pinned Beneath Limbs
3. Love Is Violence
4. Baby Teeth
5. Everybody Else
6. The Hunted
7. Fair Game
8. Witch Hunt
9. Suffer and Swallow
10. Suffer in Peace
11. Animosity
12. I Trusted You
13. Sorrow Ends
Earl Sweatshirt has released a new single, ‘2010’, which was produced by Black Noi$e. It arrives with an accompanying video directed and edited by Ryosuke Tanzawa. “This one took blood sweat tears and more,” the Los Angeles rapper wrote of the song on Instagram. Check it out below.
100 gecs have returned with a new song titled ‘mememe’. It’s the first preview from the duo’s upcoming album, 10000 gecs, which will follow 2019’s 1000 gecs. Check out its music video below.
Ovlov
Mr Twin Sister
Robert Plant
Quitter
British electronic producer 
Body/Heat
