Canadian-Serbian artist Dana Gavanski has shared a new single, ‘Under the Sky’, taken from her upcoming second album, When It Comes. The track comes paired with a video shot on the small island of Korčula in the Adriatic in Croatia. Check it out below.
“I wanted to create something innocent and love-y sounding but also plaintive and questioning: that hazy way we sometimes feel when looking back at the past and the memories that stick and wonder what ever really happened,” Gavanski remarked in a statement. “Shifting perspectives, waves of emotion, chest full with that bottomless breath.”
When It Comes is set to arrive via Flemish Eye on April 29. It includes the previously released single ‘Indigo Highway’.
HAIM are back with a new single titled ‘Lost Track’, released alongside an accompanying Paul Thomas Anderson-directed visual (via W Magazine). The track and video first debuted during screenings of Anderson’s latest film Licorice Pizza, which stars Alana Haim. According to the band, the song came together spontaneously while Anderson was shooting Alana for a WMagazine cover. Watch and listen below.
We had that line written for the last year but could never figure out what to do with it. We kept writing it down, not knowing where it should live. Cut to PTA shooting the director’s cut issue for @wmag with our baby sister on the cover! An opportunity arose to do a quick music component while shooting the story. Paul mentioned having the book “Appointment in Samarra” as a possible direction. So we did some digging around the book and were inspired by the scene where the main character throws a drink in someone’s face at a country club. We were inspired by the idea of someone doing something so drastic to get out of a situation they felt uncomfortable in – just to feel something. We finally remembered that lyric and wrote and recorded the song and shot the whole thing in a few days! Anyway, felt fun to do something very collaborative/ off the cuff.
HAIM released their most recent album, Women in Music Pt. III, in 2020. They’re set to head out on tour next month.
LIFE have announced their third album, North East Coastal Town, which will be released on June 10 via the Liquid Label. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new song ‘Big Moon Lake’, alongside a video directed by Luke Hallett that pays homage to ’80s Top of The Pops. Check it out and find the LP’s cover and tracklist below.
“We wanted Big Moon Lake to acknowledge the lyrical social commentary that was littered throughout our first two records whilst expanding the experimental and personal sound that you will hear throughout the new record,” LIFE vocalist Mez Green explained in a press release. “The track is playful and teases everyday themes of missing out, numbness, drinking, smoking and eating badly and generally wanting more for yourself in life. Its resolve being that in hindsight everything is in front of you, it’s on your doorstep and in this case that’s the wondrous county of Yorkshire.”
Elaborating on the new album, he said:
Hull and the surrounding area runs through our DNA and has shaped us, weathered us, empowered us, embraced us and made us feel accepted.
North East Coastal Town is our love letter to the city. The album is an ode to kinship and relationship with its musical and lyrical spine picking out themes of love, desire, beauty, horror, chaos, pride and most importantly the sense of belonging.
It’s a reflective body of work dedicated to people and place and those that have always been there and made us feel like we belong.
Upon writing and recording this album it was important to us that this sense of belonging was also reflected in the album’s craft and therefore we used locally based studios, equipment, gear, and the community around us to establish what it means to belong in a North East Coastal Town.
LIFE’s last album was 2019’s A Picture of Good Health.
North East Coastal Town Cover Artwork:
North East Coastal Town Tracklist:
1. Friends Without Names
2. Big Moon Lake
3. Incomplete
4. Almost Home
5. Duck Egg Blue
6. Shipping Forecast
7. Poison
8. Self Portrait
9. The Drug
10. Our Love Is Growing
11. All You Are
Ex-Vöid – the band formed by Joanna Gruesome singers Lan McArdle and Owen Williams – have released ‘No Other Way’, the second offering from their upcoming debut LP Bigger Than Before. Check out its music video below.
“It’s about experiencing Stockholm Syndrome in a relationship,” Williams explained in a statement about the song. “But I wrote it before I was ever in a proper long term relationship, so I think I was just trying to affirm my own single-hood. Around the same time I kept telling everyone I was ‘trying to cultivate an asexual mystique’ so who knows what was going on with me.”
Bigger Than Before is due for release on March 25 via Don Giovanni. It was led by the single ‘Churchyard’.
PUP have shared a new single called ‘Matilda’, which will appear on the Toronto punk band’s upcoming album. The track arrives with an accompanying video from director Jefferson Dutton. Check it out below, and scroll down for PUP’s newly announced run of UK tour dates.
“Matilda is the name of my favourite guitar,” PUP’s Stefan Babcock explained in a statement, continuing:
She was a gift from my friend Ryan, after watching me accidentally break the only guitar I owned in the middle of a long tour. I had no money to buy a replacement, and Ryan’s act of kindness is up there on my list of “nicest things anyone’s ever done for me”. I played Matilda nonstop for 7 years at every PUP show, even when my bandmates started complaining that she sounded like shit. As the band got bigger, the pressure to sound better was building and so I bought a “good” guitar and played Matilda less and less. Before I knew it I hadn’t played her in over a year. I wrote this song based on this intense feeling of guilt and sadness and shame and nostalgia and regret, watching her rot away in a corner. I love this guitar and I love Ryan and wanted to do right by them, and I felt like I’d failed them both. I convinced the band that Matilda deserved one last rip on a PUP record, and I played her during the bridge of this song. It sounds so shitty. But good shitty. Great shitty. For me, it was the most joyful and cathartic moment in the entire making of this record.
Oct 12 – Leeds, UK – Leeds Beckett Students Union
Oct 13 – Manchester, UK – O2 Ritz
Oct 14 – London, UK – The Roundhouse
Oct 16 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3 Galvanizers
Oct 17 – Dublin, IE – Academy 2
Oct 19 – Brighton, UK – Chalk
Oct 20 – Bristol, UK – SWX
Oct 21 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Institute
Hater have shared a new song, ‘Hopes High’, the closing track from their forthcoming album Sincere. Check it out below.
Hater’s new record, the follow-up to 2018’s Siesta, is slated for release on May 6 via Fire Records. The Swedish band previously shared the album’s opener, ‘Something’.
Sharon Van Eten has shared a new single called ‘Used to It’. It marks her second song of 2022 following ‘Porta’ (one of our Best New Songs), and was originally written when Van Etten was asked to help create a score for Baby God, an HBO documentary about a fertility specialist who impregnates women with his own sperm. Check it out via the accompanying video below.
“Ultimately, the film team changed their musical direction, but I found myself welcomely challenged to the idea of writing a song about the concept of family, connection through blood, nature vs. nurture, while attempting to incorporate ideas of love and the complexities of science and technology,” Van Etten exlpained in a press release. “I am grateful for this song to be able to have a new life, relating more to the times we have all been living through and redefining the meaning of this song by focusing on the positives of seeking connection and understanding what family means to the individual.”
The song’s music video was directed by Van Etten’s bandmate and musical director, Charley Damski, and features dancer and choreographer Hayden J Frederick. “Together, they helped me convey the feelings of internal struggles, while also finding space for oneself and embracing that pain in order to move on,” Van Etten said.
Bartees Strange has announced his signing to 4AD, marking the news with a new single called ‘Heavy Heart’. The track arrives with an accompanying video directed by Missy Dabice of Mannequin Pussy that shows him wearing his father and grandfather’s clothes. Check it out below, along with Bartees Strange’s upcoming tour dates.
‘Heavy Heart’ follows Bartees Strange’s 2021 single ‘Weights’, which landed on our Best New Songs segment. He also collaborated with Dr. Dog’s Eric Slick and Ohmme for a cover of TV on the Radio’s ‘Province’. His debut LP, Live Forever, arrived in 2020.
Bartees Strange 2022 Tour Dates:
Mar 16 – SAINT PAUL, MN – Palace Theatre *
Mar 17 – MILWAUKEE, WI – Pabst Theater *
Mar 18 – CHICAGO, IL – The Vic Theatre *
Mar 19 – CHICAGO, IL – The Vic Theatre *
Mar 20 – DETROIT, MI – Majestic Theatre *
Mar 22 – TORONTO, ON – The Danforth Music Hall *
Mar 23 – TORONTO, ON – The Danforth Music Hall *
Mar 25 – NORTH ADAMS, MA – Mass MOCA *
Mar 26 – BOSTON, MA – House Of Blues Boston *
Mar 27 – PORTLAND, ME – State Theatre *
Mar 29 – BROOKLYN, NY – Brooklyn Steel *
Mar 30 – BROOKLYN, NY – Brooklyn Steel *
Mar 31 – BROOKLYN, NY – Brooklyn Steel *
Apr 1 – PHILADELPHIA, PA – Franklin Music Hall *
Apr 2 – WASHINGTON, DC – The Anthem *
Apr 4 – CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Jefferson Theater *
Apr 5 – ASHEVILLE, NC – The Orange Peel *
Apr 7 – RALEIGH, NC – The Ritz *
Apr 8 – COLUMBIA, DC – The Senate *
Apr 9 – ATLANTA, GA – Tabernacle *
Apr 10 – NASHVILLE, TN – Brooklyn Bowl Nashville *
Apr 22 – SEATTLE, WA – Paramount Theatre *
Apr 23 – PORTLAND, OR – Roseland Theater *
Apr 24 – EUGENE, CA, Mcdonald Theater *
Apr 26 – SACRAMENTO, CA – Ace of Spades *
Apr 27 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The Warfield *
Apr 29 – SAN DIEGO, CA – House of Blues San Diego *
Apr 30 – LOS ANGELES, CA – The Wiltern *
May 1 – PHOENIX, AZ – The Van Buren *
May 4 – AUSTIN, TX – Stubbs BBQ *
May 5 – HOUSTON, TX – White Oak Music Hall *
May 6 – DALLAS, TX – Granada Theater *
May 7 – OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Tower Theatre *
May 8 – KANSAS CITY, MO – Grinders KC *
May 10 – DENVER, CO – Ogden Theatre *
May 11 – BOULDER, CO – Fox Theatre *
May 13 – SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Kilby Block Party
Jul 3 – WERCHTER, BE – Rock Werchter 2022
Jul 4 – COLOGNE, DE – Helios37
Jul 5 – HAMBURG, DE – Molotow
Jul 7 – BERLIN, DE – Badehaus
Jul 9 – MADRID, ES – Mad Cool Festival 2022
Jul 11 – MUNICH, DE – Milla
Jul 12 – FRIBOURG, CH – Festival Les Georges
Jul 13 – REES-HALDERN, NL – Haldern Pop Bar
Jul 14 – AMSTERDAM, NL – Upstairs @ Paradiso
Jul 16 – LEEDS, GB – Community Room @ Brudenell Social Club
Jul 17 – MANCHESTER, GB – Night & Day Café
Jul 19 – CARDIFF, GB – Clwb Ifor Bach
Jul 20 – BRIGHTON, GB – Patterns
Jul 21 – LONDON, GB – Powerhaus
Jul 22 – SUFFOLK, GB – Latitude Festival
My Idea, the duo of Lily Konigsberg and Nate Amos, have previewed their upcoming debut album CRY MFER with a new single called ‘Crutch’. Give it a listen below.
“‘Crutch’ was written at a time when both of our personal lives had begun to collapse around us,” My Idea explained in a press release. “Outside influences began to disappear and as we began to rely on each other more and more – the music was the only thing that functioned amidst the chaos. This song became kind of a beacon leading us through the remainder of making the album.”
CRY MFER is slated to come out on April 22 via Hardly Art. Previously, My Idea shared the album’s title track and opener. Their debut EP came out last year.
Weird Nightmare, the new project from METZ guitarist and singer Alex Edkins, has announced its debut self-titled album. It arrives on May 20 via Sub Pop. The first single is called ‘Searching for You’, and it comes with a music video directed by Ryan Thompson and animated by Jordan “Dr. Cool” Minkoff. Check it out below, along with Weird Nightmare’s upcoming tour dates.
“It’s a fun, no nonsense rock ‘n’ roll song,” Edkins said in a press release. “It’s about searching for meaning and inspiration all around us. In my mind, the ‘you’ in the chorus refers to something bigger than companionship or love, it’s that intangible thing we all look for but never find.”
Talking about the album, which was mostly recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, Edkins added: “Hooks and melody have always been a big part of my writing, but they really became the main focus this time. It was about doing what felt natural.” The record features contributions from Canadian alt-pop artist Chad VanGaalen and Alicia Bognanno of Bully.
METZ released their latest LP, Atlas Vending, back in 2020.
Weird Nightmare Cover Artwork:
Weird Nightmare Tracklist:
1. Searching For You
2. Nibs
3. Lusitania
4. Wrecked [feat. Bully]
5. Sunday Driver
6. Darkroom
7. Dream
8. Zebra Dance
9. Oh No [feat. Chad VanGaalen]
10. Holding Out
Weird Nightmare 2022 Tour Dates:
May 21 – Toronto, ON – Baby G
Jun 17 – Detroit, MI – Third Man Records *
Jun 18 – Chicago, IL – Schubas *
Jul 28 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s AlL Right *
Jul 29 – Rehoboth Beach, DE – Dogfish Head Brewery *
Jul 30 – Washington, DC – Songbyrd *
Jul 31 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s *
