With some fantastic releases presented in 2020, Pastel has finished off the year by releasing his latest album Cereal. The album features well-played songs such as ‘Bamboo’ featuring elizatwinkies, and ‘Parx.’
In his latest album, the London-based artist mixes elements of Jazz with prominent guitar riffs and mellow vocals. Sonically, the album is a gift for those that love catchy music with rich production.
Growing up immersed in music, perhaps it was inevitable that Kate Bollinger would in turn utilise it as her means of escape and emotional release. Born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia, she grew up in the midst of a family that very much had music at their heart; her brothers can play a variety of instruments and her mother’s occupation is a music therapist. Since 2018, Kate Bollinger has released a slew of singles before issuing her debut EP I Don’t Wanna Lose in the summer of 2019. Composed of thoughtful, self-aware ruminations that are oftentimes deceptively upbeat, the EP combines her signature jazz-infused, intricate guitar work with her soothing, buoyant voice firmly at the forefront. Vocally, she possesses a magnificent cadence that brings to life her genre-melding music, as well as garnering comparisons to an early Joni Mitchell or Laura Marling. Having displayed a proclivity for lo-fi tracks with a musical adroitness, she teamed up with producer and principal collaborator John Trainum for her sophomore EP, A word becomes a sound, which came out in late August. Featuring the blissful and philosophical ‘A Couple Things’, the more experimental percussive sound of ‘Grey Skies’ and stripped-back title track, the project shows a maturation of Bollinger’s sound.
We caught up with Kate Bollinger for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk about their music.
After graduating from school in May I had planned to be on the road mostly, to be traveling for shows and sessions, so the pandemic certainly uprooted my life just like it has for many people. I will say it has forced me to be okay with letting days pass where I just think about things, cook, listen to music, talk on the phone, watch TV shows, knit, and go for walks. Historically I would feel depressed if I let a day slip by without having accomplished something, but I’m learning to see the value in living more day-to-day, putting more care into my immediate relationships, and letting other things rather than my productivity alone determine my happiness.
The process was different partly because of novelty. I had formed my first ever band only a couple months before recording I Don’t Wanna Lose, which we tracked live in a studio in Virginia all in one day. Luckily some of the guys in the band had been playing together for a while before playing my songs, so they had a preexisting musical understanding and comfort playing together, but it was still all very new for all of us. A word becomes a sound felt like a natural progression because I knew what worked and what I wanted things to sound like. It’s like anything else; you knit one scarf and it has some holes in it or you make it too wide, so the next time you make one you have more of an understanding of the size you want and you don’t leave it out for the cat to find. There were also obstacles because of the pandemic, like being unable to record as a full band, but we made it work and tied things together more slowly and in a more deliberate way, which really ended up serving the project well.
I think it meant everything to see my family members constantly working on their own projects. It was just the normal thing to do. I spent a lot of my childhood following my brothers around and wanting to do what they did. There was one week where we started a band called Paramecium – the two of them played drums and bass while I rapped nursery rhymes. My oldest brother is an animator and I remember sitting with him in the basement while he planned one of the episodes for his show, letting me chime in with ideas here and there. It was the same with my mom, she made children’s music while I was growing up and I sang on most of her albums as a kid. I was never pushed into music or pushed to be good at it, it was just really natural. I have a three year old niece now and it’s the same sort of thing – she’s constantly reading her little books because it’s what she sees her parents doing all the time.
I still remember certain lullabies that my mom would sing to me as I was falling asleep. I also have some early memories as a six or seven year old of going to see my oldest brother play shows with his high school band and dancing with his friends in the crowd.
They’re all special to me, but I feel the most connected to ‘A Couple Things’ on a personal level, partly because I wrote it a few years ago and it’s one of those songs that twists and shifts and always means something to me even at different times in my life.
There are some songs that make me feel this indescribable feeling or bring me to a specific place and time in my life. I just want to make songs that make people feel happy and inspired. I think that I’ll feel like I’ve surpassed my own expectations when I can listen to one of my songs and feel that it represents a part of me in the most authentic and precise way that it could. Those are my favorite kinds of songs.
It’s so hard to pick one, but Feist has been one of my favorite artists since I was little. Receiving her feedback would just be sort of unimaginable. I feel the same way about Joni Mitchell and Paul McCartney. All three of them write in such a soulful way. I got to work with one of my favorite songwriters ever, Jay Purdy, when I was in high school. He’s lesser known than the other three, but he has written some of my favorite melodies and lines, so getting to work with him and receive his feedback was really special. I think feedback can also be harmful though, it’s good to get other perspectives, but it can be easy to take something that is the most authentic to you and turn it into something else. I’m constantly learning how to have the right combination of open and closed-mindedness.
Kate Bollinger’s A word becomes a sound EP is out now via House Arrest.
The Cure frontman Robert Smith has unveiled a remix of Deftones’ ‘Teenager’. The new version of the White Pony track appears on Black Stallion, an upcoming double-LP celebrating the classic album’s 20th anniversary. Check it out below, along with the original.
“It’s amazing to hear Robert rework one of our songs and sneak his voice in there,” Deftones’ Chino Moreno said in an interview with NME. “If you’d have told me that when I was 15 years old, I would have lost my fucking mind and not believed a word you were saying. It was a dream.”
Black Stallion arrives on December 11 via Warner. It features remixes from producers and artists including DJ Shadow, Clams Casino, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, Squarepusher, Purity Ring, Blanck Mass, Salva, and others. Deftones recently released their ninth studio record, Ohms.
Miley Cyrus appeared on The Howard Stern Show last night (December 3) to perform a cover of Hole’s ‘Doll Parts’. Watch it below.
In 2020 alone, the pop singer has offered her take on songs by Hall & Oates, the Cranberries, Billie Eilish, the Beatles, and more. Her live renditions of The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ and Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ also made it into the digital version of her latest album Plastic Hearts, which came out in late November. Cyrus’ seventh LP features guest appearances from Dua Lipa, Billy Idol, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks. Read our review of the album here.
100 gecs have dropped a new holiday song called ‘sympathy 4 the grinch’. The latest from Laura Les and Dylan Brady is a ska-influenced, anti-Santa banger that samples their own song ‘stupid horse’. Check it out below.
‘sympathy 4 the grinch’ follows 100 gecs’ collaboration with 3OH!3, ‘LONELY MACHINES’. The duo also contributed production to Rico Nasty’s new album, which is out today (December 4). Their remix album, 1000 gecs & The Tree of Clues, came out back in July.
Iggy Pop has shared a French language rendition of Elvis Costello‘s ‘No Flag’, a song from his most recent studio album Hey Clockface that includes a reference to Iggy and the Stooges. Check out ‘No Flag (en Français)’ below.
Iggy Pop talked about reworking the song in a Rolling Stone conversation between the two artists: “There’s a uniqueness to the French language,” he said. “No other language has vowels that sound like that. Learning a song that’s as quick as ‘No Flag’ took a month of practice because my lips weren’t used to those combinations…I [worked on it] for 40 minutes a day for about five weeks. You don’t want to do too much work on it at once or it’s not fun anymore.”
Costello responded: “You sound absolutely convincing in French. When I played your version to Muriel she said, ‘This is unbelievable. You’re so inside the song.’ Diana and I were both listening to it with tears in our eyes.”
Hey Clockface, Costello’s 31st studio album, came out in October. Iggy Pop’s most recent LP was last year’s Free.
Billie Eilish has shared a cover of The Beatles’ classic ‘Something’. The wistful rendition was recorded during a session for SiriusXM’s Alt Nation, where Eilish also performed stripped-back versions of ‘Ocean Eyes’, ‘Everything I Wanted’, and her latest single ‘Therefore I Am’. Listen to her take on the Abbey Road track below.
Eilish also picked ‘Something’ as part of her recent Apple Music show, saying: “I remember listening to this song when I was in love, or whatever, and yeah. This song really, once again, got me. I don’t know. I think that it’s such a well put song. I think the lyrics say something that I barely hear, and I feel like lots of people are saying something similar, but I feel like only The Beatles could say exactly this. It’s such a thing that we feel, it’s such a human feeling.”
Last month, Eilish performed ‘Therefore I Am’ at the American Music Awards. She also picked up four nominations for this year’s Grammy Awards: three for ‘Everything I Wanted’ and one for her James Bond theme ‘No Time to Die’.
Phoebe Bridgers appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a festive performance of her track ‘Savior Complex’. The live rendition, filmed at LA’s famed Magic Castle venue, comes a day after the singer-songwriter unveiled the music video for the Punisher single, which was directed by Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge and starred Normal People actor Paul Mescal. Check out her performance below.
‘Savior Complex’ also appears on Bridgers’ new EP Copycat Killer, which features reworkings of four tracks from her sophomore album. She recently received four Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist and Best Alternative Album for Punisher, and shared a cover of Merle Haggard’s ‘If We Make It Through December’ to benefit the Downtown Women’s Center.
Maria Carey has enlisted Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson for a new version of her Christmas song ‘Oh Santa’, which originally came out in 2010. The new song, co-written with Grande and Hudson, was recorded as part of her Apple TV+ holiday special, Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special. Check it out below, alongside a festive music video.
Earlier this year, Mariah Carey released her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which was later accompanied by a new album of rarities. Ariana Grande’s most recent album, Positions, came out in late October. Last year, it was announced that Jennifer Hudson would be portraying Aretha Franklin in an upcoming biopic.
The Weeknd has shared a new remix of ‘Blinding Lights’ featuring Spanish pop star Rosalía. Listen to the new version of the After Hours track below.
After Hours, the Weeknd’s most recent studio album, arrived in March. After receiving zero nominations for this year’s Grammy Awards, the Weeknd responded by calling the Recording Academy “corrupt”. Several artists, including Halsey, Drake, and others, have since spoken out against the Grammys.
Rosalía released her latest album, El Mal Querer, in 2018. Earlier this year, she joined J Balvin and Daddy Yankee on the remix of Sech’s ‘Relación (Remix)’ and collaborated with Travis Scott (‘TKN’) and Arca (‘KLK’).
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