Singer-songwriter Jorja Smith has unveiled a new track called ‘By Any Means’. It serves as the lead single from the upcoming compilation project Reprise, a collection of songs curated by the Roc Nation label with all proceeds going to organizations in the fight against police brutality, hate crimes, and other civil rights violations. Check out ‘By Any Means’ below.
“The inspiration behind ‘By Any Means’ really came from going to the Black Lives Matter protest and leaving thinking, what can I do to keep this conversation going?” Smith said of her new track in a statement. “It’s not just a post on social media, its life.”
Jorja Smith’s last album was her debut LP, Lost & Found, released in 2018. Earlier this year, she contributed a song called ‘Kiss Me in the Morning’ to the Netflix series The Eddy.
Lost Angeles post-hardcore outfit Touché Amore have announced a new album. It’s called Lament and it’s slated for release on October 9 via Epitaph. The band also shared a new single from the album titled ‘Limelight’, which features Manchester Orchestra frontman Andy Hull and arrives with a visualizer created by guitarist Nick Steinhardt. Check it out below, and scroll for the album’s tracklist and cover artwork.
Produced with Ross Robinson (Slipknot, Korn, At The Drive-In), Lament will also include the previously released song ‘Deflector’, which was unveiled back in September. A press release describes the new LP as “the light at the end of the tunnel” following years of “working through darkness.” The whole album will be accompanied by visuals, also animated by Steinhardt. A deluxe physical edition of the LP will also include a 72-page art book.
Lament marks the band’s fifth studio album and first in over four years, following 2016’s Stage Four.
Lament Cover Artwork:
Lament Tracklist:
1. Come Heroine
2. Lament
3. Feign
4. Reminders
5. Limelight [ft. Andy Hull]
6. Exit Row
7. Savoring
8. A Broadcast
9. I’ll Be Your Host
10. Deflector
11. A Forecast
Malik B., Philadelphia rapper and founding member of The Roots, has died at the age of 47. The news was initially announced by Malik B.’s cousin, Don Champion, via Twitter. No cause of death was revealed.
The group then confirmed the news on Instagram, writing: “It is with heavy hearts and tearful eyes that we regretfully inform you of the passing of our beloved brother and long time Roots member Malik Abdul Baset.”
“May he be remembered for his devotion to Islam, His loving brotherhood and his innovation as one of the most gifted MCs of all time,” the statement.
Malik B. founded The Roots with Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter in Philadelphia in the late 1980s. The rapper appeared on the group’s first four studio albums – 1993’s Organix, 1995’s Do You Want More?!!!??!, 1996’s Illadelph Halflife, and 1999’s Things Fall Apart and left during the recording of 2002’s Phrenology to pursue a solo career. Though Malik was no longer an official member of The Roots, he later appeared as a guest on future albums including 2006’s Game Theory and its 2008 follow-up Rising Down. He released two solo albums, including a 2015 collaborative project with producer Mr. Green called Unpredictable.
Writing on Instagram, Black Thought wrote: “We made a name and carved a lane together where there was none. We resurrected a city from the ashes, put it on our backs and called it Illadelph. In friendly competition with you from day one, I always felt as if I possessed only a mere fraction of your true gift and potential.”
He added: “Your steel sharpened my steel as I watched you create cadences from the ether and set them free into the universe to become poetic law, making the English language your bitch. I always wanted to change you, to somehow sophisticate your outlook and make you see that there were far more options than the streets, only to realize that you and the streets were one… and there was no way to separate a man from his true self.”
Questlove also posted a lengthy tribute on Twitter, which you can read below.
Marilyn Manson has announced a new album titled WE ARE CHAOS. Co-produced by Manson and Shooter Jennings, the LP is set for release on September 11 via Loma Vista. Accompanying the announcement, the shock-rocker has also unveiled the video for the title track, which was directed, photographed, and edited by Matt Mahurin. Check it out below, and scroll for the album’s cover art (painted by Manson) and tracklist.
Manson issued a long statement explaining the concept behind the album:
“When I listen to We Are Chaos now, it seems like just yesterday or as if the world repeated itself, as it always does, making the title track and the stories seem as if we wrote them today. This was recorded to its completion without anyone hearing it until it was finished. There is most definitely a side A and side B in the traditional sense. But just like an LP, it is a flat circle and it’s up to the listener to put the last piece of the puzzle into the picture of songs.
This concept album is the mirror Shooter and I built for the listener — it’s the one we won’t stare into. There are so many rooms, closets, safes and drawers. But in the soul or your museum of memories, the worst are always the mirrors. Shards and slivers of ghosts haunted my hands when I wrote most of these lyrics.
Making this record, I had to think to myself: ‘Tame your crazy, stitch your suit. And try to pretend that you are not an animal’ but I knew that mankind is the worst of them all. Making mercy is like making murder. Tears are the human body’s largest export.”
WE ARE THE CHAOS will be Manson’s 11th studio album, following 2017’s Heaven Upside Down.
WE ARE CHAOS Cover Artwork:
WE ARE CHAOS Tracklist:
1. RED BLACK AND BLUE
2. WE ARE CHAOS
3. DON’T CHASE THE DEAD
4. PAINT YOU WITH MY LOVE
5. HALF-WAY & ONE STEP FORWARD
6. INFINITE DARKNESS
7. PERFUME
8. KEEP MY HEAD TOGETHER
9. SOLVE COAGULA
10. BROKEN NEEDLE
Disclosure have teamed up with Fatoumata Diawara for a new song titled ‘Douha (Mali Mali). The new single, which is taken from their forthcoming album ENERGY, comes with a video directed by Mahaneela featuring dancers in different scenic locations in Italy, South Africa, and New York.
Mahaneela, who has previously collaborated with the likes of Sampha and FKA twigs, said about the video: “Right now, all over the world, we’re going through an incredibly strange time. I wanted to make something that was visually beautiful, but also felt symbolic of what we’re all going through. People feel more isolated than ever and I wanted to create something joyful that really shows the power music and movement has and the connectivity it brings.”
Disclosure previously worked with Diawara on the 2018 track ‘Ultimatum’. Earlier, the group unveiled ENERGY’s title track, as well as ‘My High’ featuring Aminé and slowthai. Earlier this year, Diawara made an appearance on Gorillaz’ new song ‘Désolé.
Brutalist, a Melbourne-based duo comprised of Lucianblomkamp and John Hassell, have revealed a new song South Street. The track comes as the first glimpse into their upcoming EP, which is due to be released on the 18th of September.
Talking about the song Hassell stated “South Street is an unsuspecting street in West London where I spent many years collaborating with Lucian (albeit from distance). There was always a wistful melancholy to the place, and this track was the final track written there before my friends there had to move out. It only felt right to make some kind of homage to it.”
Mina Tindle, aka French singer-songwriter Pauline De Lassus, and Sufjan Stevens have teamed up on a new song called ‘Give a Little Love’. The track is taken from Mina Tindle’s upcoming album SISTER, which is set for release on October 9 via 37d03d. Check out the song below, alongside a music video shot by De Lassus on a beach in Puglia, Italy, featuring dancer Moira Cappilli.
“I have always deeply loved Sufjan Stevens music,” De Lassus said in a statement. “His words and melodies have resonated in me for the last 15 years. He is also a dear and generous friend. And I am so grateful he gave me this beautiful song to sing for the album.”
Foxes, an artist who recently resurfaced with her single Love Not Loving You, is back with another euphonious song named Woman. Chatting about the song, Foxes said “There’s a lot of injustices in the world right now and I hope this single can be interpreted by any woman, in any situation, facing injustice, facing any situation that they know is wrong, and helps them to stand up and say no to what isn’t right.”
Foxes first grew to fame after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album Glorious, and her collaboration with EDM superstar Zedd, named Clarity came to light.
Courtney Marie Andrews has a unique knack for writing about loneliness – about the nuances of it, the way it can affect a relationship or how it seeps into every facet of day-to-day life. It’s what made ‘Table for One’ such an enduring highlight off her 2017 album Honest Life, and what led to some of the most heart-rending highlights of her ambitious 2018 LP May Your Kindness Remain. “I am a lonely woman who loves you/ Lonely, I have always been/ Many things have found their way between us/ But none more than my loneliness,” she sang on the rousing ‘Lift the Lonely from Your Heart’.
Andrews’ most recent effort, Old Flowers, is a breakup album that delves into the dissolution of a nine-year relationship, which makes these themes feel all the more pronounced. But rather than merely focusing on the loneliness that comes with heartbreak, Andrews uses it as an opportunity to reflect on her own self – like on that track from her previous album, the stunning ‘If I Told’ finds her acknowledging that it’s always been a part of her personality, describing herself as a loner who “can’t change, but for you, I’d compromise”. In that context, a line that would otherwise come off as an empty platitude – “I’m alone now/ But I don’t feel alone” – acquires a different kind of resonance as she comes to terms with her own emotional growth.
For the most part, though, loneliness is implied rather than explicitly laid out on Old Flowers – as Andrews recounts both the highs and lows of the relationship, she’s accompanied by spare, stripped-back instrumentation that serves as a stark contrast to her last album’s full, expansive sound. With help from multi-instrumentalist Matthew Davidson and Big Thief’s James Krivchenia, the simple sonic palette of the album makes for a raw, intimate listening experience that hints at that emotional gap while drawing attention to Andrews’ sharp, poignant lyricism, which is at its most potent when there’s a striking specificity to it; on ‘It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault’, she traces her intense emotional reaction to the women in her family, then admits that I “still cry more than a person should/ But it’s this feeling inside that’s changed/ Like I’ve gone bad, but the world is good.”
Though her lyrics never stop feeling personal or earnest, there are times when there’s not enough detail for them to really stand out, especially when they’re laced around these bare-bones instrumentals. But Andrews is a supremely expressive singer, and this is enough to make these songs rise above and resonate on a deeper level; she evokes an encompassing feeling of desperation and anguish on the funereal ‘Carnival Dream’, which finds her repeating the question: “Will I ever let love in again?” But then, on the title track, she regains confidence in herself as she reaches a liberating realization: “You can’t water old flowers.”
It’s an emotional arc we might have heard a hundred times before, but what renders Old Flowers special is the fact that it’s imbued with the kind of empathy and open-heartedness that made 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain such an endearing listen. Despite all the pain and hurt she’s gone through, that part of herself remains intact, and the lack of bitterness in her voice is a powerful testament to that. On the wonderfully emotive closing track, ‘Ships in the Night’, Andrews writes a letter to her ex-lover, wishing them all the things that are necessary for a sense of closure: “Hope you laugh, hope you care/ Hope your days are even better than the ones that we shared”. But it’s another line, earlier on the album, that manages to encapsulate the sentiment of Old Flowers in just one line: “I hope one day we’ll be laughing together or alone.”
Andrea Minini, freelance illustrator and designer based in Italy, has developed over the years a unique look and style that makes his work easily recognizable. Using Adobe Illustrator to create moiré patterns, his wonderful animal illustrations stand out as one of the most minimal yet detailed ways to graphically portray life.