Cimo Fränkel, a singer-songwriter out of the Netherlands, released a superb holiday single named ‘This Christmas.’ The song comes after Fränkel’s big self titled album release this year, which included songs such as ‘Gamble,’ and ‘Happier Before.’
With the holiday season underway, Fränkel will look to top the year with another well-listened, radio-loved song. Fränkel’s previous songs such as ‘Story,’ ‘All Comes Down,’ and ‘Picture Of Us’ all individually gained over three million streams via Spotify alone — making Fränkel one of the most listened artists out of the Netherlands.
Dua Lipa was one of the performers at the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball last night (December 10). In addition to performing the Future Nostalgia tracks ‘Levitating’ and ‘Don’t Start Now’, she also offered her own take on John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ accompanied by a virtual Zoom choir. Watch her performance below.
Billie Eilish and Doja Cat also made appearances last night, covering ‘Silver Bells’ and ‘Santa Baby’ respectively. You can check that out below as well.
In related news, Dua Lipa recently received the Powerhouse Award at Billboard‘s Women In Music 2020 awards. The award was presented by Bernie Sanders, who said, “She knows the rules have to change, that it is time for new rules.”
2020 brought us no shortage of quarantine Radiohead covers. So when Irish singer-songwriter Rosie Carney wanted to cover ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and realized howmany artists had already done so this year alone, she decided to take on the entire album instead. Following her stunning debut full-length Bare in 2019, as well as April’s i dreamed i was the night EP and collaborations with Haux, The Paper Kites, and Charli Adams, Carney’s The Bends features hauntingly beautiful acoustic renditions of tracks like ‘Black Star’, ‘Bones’, and ‘High and Dry’ that heighten their atmospheric qualities while showcasing the singer’s heartfelt vocals. But Carney and producer JMAC have also come up with inventive ways of amplifying and reinterpreting the heaviness of some of these songs – ‘Just’ swaddles you in an ocean of nightmarish, shoegaze-inspired sonics, dragging you further and further into a bottomless pit; ‘My Iron Lung’ has been transformed into a ghostly piano instrumental, while ‘Sulk’ is lead mostly by Carney’s distorted but still evocative vocals. More than just putting lie to the notion that acoustic Radiohead covers should be banned off the face of the Earth, Rosie Carney’s latest project offers an exciting glimpse into how she might expand her own sound in the future.
We caught up with Rosie Carney for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk about their music.
Do you remember when you first fell in love with The Bends?
It’s funny, because I was never really a massive Radiohead fan. I mean, I’ve always been a Radiohead fan, but not to the extent that I am now. And it’s really since learning these songs that I’ve fully become a massive fangirl. But I think I started to listen to them in 2015 and I went to one of their gigs, and it was such a disaster. I had a massive panic attack just before they came out onto the stage and passed out and missed their first songs.
Could you talk more about that experience? What was it like returning to the album after all these years?
[laughs] That gig was just – it sucked so much. I went there with my friend, and we got there super early and we got right to the front. Seeing them live was amazing – Johnny Greenwood’s band opened, it was like him and [Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and the Indian ensemble the Rajasthan Express, who collaborated on the 2015 album Junun]. It was so good and I was so hyped and then that happened and I woke up in the first aid room and I was crying. I literally passed out as the lights went off and they were just about to come out. And eventually, when I regained consciousness, we ended up right at the back. And we had to leave the gig early because where I live in Ireland it’s like, literally in the middle of nowhere and we had to get a late bus back. So I was angry at myself and I left feeling really salty.
I remember I didn’t really listen to Radiohead for a while because I just felt so bad about it. And then I kind of started listening to Radiohead again when they released their last album, A Moon Shaped Pool. And I watched a film called You Were Never Really Here and Johnny Greenwood did the soundtrack to it and it was mind-blowing. So I kind of went down a rabbit hole again and I listened to The Bends and I skimmed over their work, ’cause there were albums of theirs that I hadn’t listened to. The Bends is definitely the one that I’m most familiar with, but then when I started to learn it, and knowing that I was gonna cover the whole album, it made me reflect on where I am now compared to where I was when I went to that gig. It made me feel really homesick but then I felt really at home in the record as well. It came with a bunch of emotions but it was mainly good.
Could you talk more about that? What do you think about when you compare where you were then and where you are now?
I feel like I grew up really quickly from a young age because I started doing music professionally from such a young age. I was kind of thrown into the deep end of the industry from the age of fifteen. And I thought I was kind of mature then, but when I think about who I was then and who I am now and how much I’ve grown and how much more self-aware – I mean, I haven’t got it figured out completely. This album has definitely taught me some really valuable lessons.
I know that for me, that record was really important growing up and especially in high school. And I know that you’ve been open about your struggles with mental health – I was wondering if listening to that record at the time or now has been significant to you in any way.
I mean, definitely now, this year, that album has become one of the most important albums to me. It’s really deeply impacted me. I was so lost this year, and I really was at a loss for words; I didn’t really know how to express myself and I was really struggling with my sense of identity. I struggled to articulate how I was feeling and whenever I started to learn these songs from this album, I was able to say everything that I wasn’t able to say. It really spoke to me and resonated with me on so many levels. So yeah, it has definitely become like a safety blanket for me.
Were there any songs in particular that you felt resonated even more during lockdown? I know that ‘Bullet Proof…’ just came out and you said that that was especially relatable.
The thing is, they all resonated with me in different ways. But I feel like ‘Bullet Proof’ was definitely the most challenging for me to record because I honestly felt so exposed when I was singing that song. I was feeling so vulnerable. But also ‘Street Spirit’, the last one, that was really emotional to record.
Was there any song that you didn’t really connect to as much at first but that spoke to you more after covering it?
Yeah, so the song ‘Just’. I mean, I love that song, I love the whole album. But ‘Just’ kind of freaked me it out, ’cause I remember my manager messaged me and was like, “Hey, have you started this one yet?” And I was kind of like – first of all, how the fuck am I supposed to learn this on the guitar? Like, the chords in this song are just outrageous and I just kind of didn’t really know what I was going to do with that one, ’cause it’s such a heavy, hard rock song. And then when I started to learn it, that was when I was like, Okay, I know what I’m doing. It’s definitely the darkest and the most experimental on the album; I was referencing My Bloody Valentine and I really wanted heavy, distorted guitars and shit like that. So it took me a little second for that one, but yeah.
There is one song that I wanted to ask you about, ‘My Iron Long’. Obviously, you chose to turn it into an instrumental. What was the inspiration for that?
In my first album, Bare – I mean, love playing the piano, I love piano instrumentals, and I kind of wanted to keep that as a tradition, from my first album having a piano instrumental, I wanted to carry it over into this.
When I listened to all these songs, I could hear myself breaking them down and making them my own, but when it came to that one I just felt like I couldn’t touch that and I just – it’s a really loud, hard song, I love it so much. And I think the only way to make it mine was to just kind of do that. I just didn’t feel like I had to sing for that one – I wanted to keep it very quiet.
How did you approach stripping back the louder songs in general?
The thing is, the real beauty of this project was that I really didn’t overthink it. Like, I was so present while I was on each of the songs, there was no actual plan. After recording ‘Bones’, I had an idea of how I wanted the album to sound but I didn’t really break down every song before doing it. It just came so naturally, which was really like a breath of fresh air.
What was it like working with JMAC for the project?
It was so great. He just got it straight away. I was given so much creative freedom. I don’t have a big professional setup – I mean, I literally recorded the bones of this album on Garageband on my laptop. But Jamie was really able to listen to the songs and amplify them in a way that did my sound and what I was going for such justice.
What do you feel you’ve learned from making this project and how do you think it might inform your music in the future?
I feel like one of the main things with this album – and I’m so grateful for this lesson – one of the main things it’s taught me is to just not overthink things, and to go back to my roots. I put so much pressure on me at the beginning of the year to – you know, everybody was jumping on livestream, it seemed everybody had their shit figured out and I – I felt folk was just uncool, and it really taught me to go with what feels right to me and what I’m good at. And yeah, it’s okay to simplify things, to just strip it back and be simple sometimes. That’s what’s needed.
Does exploring new sounds come with that as well?
Yeah, definitely. I’m currently working on my next album. I’ve just started writing again, because for a long time – another reason why I loved doing this album, it gave me a break from going into my own thoughts and trying to write music. It took me away from that for a while. And I wasn’t afraid to experiment with this album and it’s given me the confidence to explore that more with my next album.
If you could have any artist cover one of your songs, who would you choose?
Oh, God. That’s such a good question. I love Phoebe Bridgers, I think she’s amazing and I love the way she makes songs sad like I do so I’d love to hear her take one of my really sad songs and make it like, holy fuck, like really sad. [laughs]
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Rosie Carney’s The Bends is out now via Color Study.
Girlpool have shared a remix of Alanis Morissette‘s ‘Reasons I Drink’ from her latest album Such Pretty Forks in the Road. The duo’s remix is taken from the new Such Pretty Forks in the Mix EP, which also features contributions from Eris Drew, MUNA, MNDR, and others. Check it out below.
Girlpool’s most recent album What Chaos Is Imaginary came out last year. Alanis Morissette released Such Pretty Forks in the Road back in August. Later that month, Girlpool released their Touch Me (It’s Like I’m Winning It) Remix EP.
Taylor Swift has unveiled the music video for her song ‘willow’, the opening track from her surprise new album evermore. Watch the self-directed clip below.
Recorded at Long Pond Studios, ‘willow’ was produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner and features orchestration by Bryce Dessner. evermore, a companion album to July’s folklore, was announced just yesterday. “To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift explained on social media. “To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.”
In this segment, we showcase the most notable albums out each week. Here are the albums out on December 11, 2020:
Taylor Swift, evermore
Announced just yesterday, Taylor Swift has released a companion album to July’s folklore titled evermore. The 15-track LP features contributions from HAIM, Bon Iver, and the National and, as with her previous album, was made in collaboration with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. “To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift explained on social media. “To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.” She added: “In the past I’ve always treated albums as one-off eras and moved onto planning the next one after an album was released. There was something different with folklore. In making it, I felt less like I was departing and more like I was returning.” Downloads of the album will come with a digital booklet containing 16 photos, while the physical deluxe edition also includes two additional tracks not attached to the digital version.
The Avalanches, We Will Always Love You
The Avalanches have returned with a new album called We Will Always Love You, out now via Astralwerks. The group’s much-anticipated follow-up to 2016’s Wildflower was described by a press release as “an exploration of the vibrational relationship between light, sound, and spirit” and features collaborations with a wide range of artists including Blood Orange, Rivers Cuomo, Pink Siifu, Denzel Curry, Tricky, Sampa the Great, Leon Bridges, Johnny Marr, MGMT, Jamie xx, Karen O, Kurt Vile, Mick Jones, and more. The cover artwork features an image by Ann Druyan, who is the Creative Director of the Voyager Golden Record Project, and whose “cosmic love story inspired this music.”
Kid Cudi, Man On The Moon III: The Chosen
Kid Cudi has dropped a new album titled Man On The Moon III: The Chosen, out now via Republic. The third in his Man On The Moon series, the album was announced earlier this week and features guest appearances from Skepta and the late Pop Smoke, as well as Trippie Redd and Phoebe Bridgers. The album’s predecessor, The Legend of Mr. Rager, came out in 2010, a year after the Cleveland rapper’s studio debut, Man on the Moon: The End of Day.
Coco Reilly, Coco Reilly
Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer Coco Reilly has come through with her debut self-titled record via her own label Golden Wheel. Released this Wednesday (December 9), the album was recorded three different times in multiple locations but was finished over three years ago with Grammy award-winning engineer Jeremy Ferguson (Cage The Elephant) at Battle Tapes studio in Nashville. Produced alongside Jerry Bernhardt (Erin Rae, Andrew Combs), the 9-track LP features contributions from Dom Billett on drums, Ian Ferguson on guitar, and Will Brown on keys, while ‘Mirror’ was co-written and performed alongside rising folk artist Erin Rae.
Other albums out today:
Boris with Merzbow, 2R0I2P0; Rosie Carney, The Bends; Guided By Voices, Styles We Paid For.
Jon Hopkins has shared a piano rendition of Thom Yorke‘s ‘Dawn Chorus’. The song originally appeared on the Radiohead frontman’s most recent solo album Anima, which came out last year. Listen to Hopkins’ cover below.
“I felt such bliss the first time I heard this piece — it seemed so mysterious and hypnotic, oblique but warm,” Hopkins said of ‘Dawn Chorus’ in a statement. “I thought there was so much beauty in that chord sequence that there was room to explore it on the piano and see what grew from it. One day in early April when everything was particularly quiet and surreal outside, I went into my studio for the first time in weeks and ended up recording the whole thing in one take. I left it very raw and upfront, with just some sub bass and vocal drones in the background.”
Taylor Swift is releasing a new album called evermore tonight (December 10). It’s out at midnight Eastern, and it features contributions from Haim, Bon Iver, and the National. In a tweet, Swift described the album as a companion to July’s folklore, and indicated that, as with that album, Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff are both prominent collaborators.
“Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now,” Swift wrote. You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something!”
She added: “I loved the escapism I found in these imaginary/not imaginary tales. I loved the ways you welcomed the dreamscapes and tragedies and epic tales of love lost and found into your lives. So I just kept writing them. And I loved creating these songs with Aaron Dessner, Jack Antonoff, WB, and Justin Vernon. We’ve also welcomed some new (and longtime) friends to our musical kitchen table this time around…”
Also tonight, Swift will be releasing a video for the album track ‘willow’.
Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now. You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something! pic.twitter.com/wATiVSTpuV
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard have shared a new track called ‘If Not Now, Then When?’. The prolific psych rockers’ latest arrives with an animated music video directed by Dr. D Foothead. Check it out below.
“The song made me consider how individual action or inaction affects the world,” the New Zealand-based director explained in a statement. “What happens when our repressed pain, darkness and confusion manifest and influence our surroundings and relationships? I wanted to explore the journey of a character who has neglected their inner shadow, and how this energy manifests physically and becomes a force of its own.”
‘If Not Now, Then When’ follows on from the release of the group’s most recent studio album KG, which came out last month. Also in November, King Gizzard released a live album called Live In San Francisco ’16 along with a companion concert film.
Chance the Rapper has released a new song called ‘The Return’. It’s one of two new tracks on the upcoming deluxe edition of his and Jeremih‘s mixtape Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama, which is out tomorrow (December 11). Listen to it below.
Merry Christmas Lil Mama: The Gift That Keeps on Giving serves as the follow-up to last year’s Re-Wrapped. It also includes the previously unreleased song ‘Who’s To Say’.
Last year, Chance the Rapper put out his last album The Big Day, which is partially the subject of a new lawsuit from the rapper’s former manager Pat Corcoran. Jeremih was recently released from hospital following a life-threatening battle with COVID-19.
Announced just yesterday, 
Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer Coco Reilly has come through with her 
