Yasmin Williams has shared a new track, ‘Hummingbird’, taken from her upcoming album Acadia. Featuring Tatiana Hargreaves on fiddle and Allison de Groot on banjo, the song arrives on the heels of lead single ‘Virga’. Listen to it below.
“Being thrust into the folk genre has granted me several invitations to play at various folk and bluegrass festivals,” Williams explained. “This style of music is not one that I grew up with and is still relatively new to me; however, I can’t help but be somewhat influenced by the amazing musicianship of all the bluegrass, folk, and old-time musicians I’ve seen in the last few years. Although this wasn’t on my mind consciously when I wrote this tune, I assume these influences entered my subconscious.”
Alexandra Levy, aka Ada Lea, has announced a new EP titled notes. Following 2021’s one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden, the six-track effort arrives October 4 via Saddle Creek. The new single ‘come on, baby! be a good girl for the camera’ was co-produced by Phoebe Bridgers collaborator Marshall Vore. Check it out below.
“I wrote this song while on a very challenging tour that took everything out of me,” Levy explained in a statement. “Over the years, I’ve developed a suspicion that your skin must be made of macho steel to ‘make it’ in the industry — you’ve gotta be able to suck it up, put a nice smile on your face, and do a little dance with a twinkle in your eye. The chorus runs with that belief, in a cheeky, noncommittal and playful way.”
Earlier this year, Sting formed a new power trio, Sting 3.0 – featuring longtime guitarist Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas – which will head out on a North American tour later this month. To celebrate the occasion, the band has shared a new song called ‘I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)’. Producer Martin Kierszenbaum plays organ on the track. Check it out below.
‘I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart)’ marks Sting’s first new song since his 2021 album The Bridge.
Ethel Cain has shared her cover of American Football’s ‘For Sure’, alongside a self-directed video. It’s taken from the upcoming American Football (Covers), which features takes on songs from the band’s 1999 self-titled debut LP by Iron & Wine, Manchester Orchestra, Blondshell, and more. American Football have also released a newly remastered version of the original track from the 25th anniversary edition of the LP. Take a listen below.
“I knew I wanted to do ‘For Sure’ immediately,” Cain, aka Hayden Anhedönia, said in a press release. “It’s always stood out to me every time I spin the record, and I knew exactly how I wanted to translate it into my sound. My favourite part of the entire track is the sound of the train going by the apartment I lived in back in Pennsylvania, stretched out like a synth at the beginning and end. American Football is one of those bands that really marked such a moment in time with their debut record, a mark with so much longevity that it found me the same way at 20 years old that I imagine it found everyone else the day it was first released: as an instant classic. Their sonic storytelling has inspired me in more ways than I can count over the years, so being asked to contribute to this covers edition was truly an honor. American Football forever.”
American Football’s Steve Lamos had this to say about ‘For Sure’: “It’s a simple-but-powerful statement on change and uncertainty that still rings as true for me in middle age as it did when I was in my mid-20s. It also showcases some of my all-time favorite Mike vocals: the ‘ooooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ of ‘June seems / too late / delayed / maybe for the better’ are, to my mind, perfection. Ethel Cain has somehow made me like this track even more than I already did.”
Lamos, a college professor by day, came across Cain’s music through one of his students. “They wrote a brilliant paper explaining how Cain’s ‘American Teenager’ created a lush sonic landscape through textural elements, careful pacing, and plaintive lyrics,” he explained. “Cain bathes ‘For Sure’ here in similar luxury. She takes her time with each note, each phrase, and each vowel. In the process, she manages to intensify the ache and longing of the original: the ‘ooooohs’ and ‘aaaaahs’ echo almost endlessly here.”
American Football (25th Anniversary Edition) and American Football (Covers) are both out October 18 via Polyvinyl.
Kelly Lee Owens has unveiled ‘Higher’, the third single from her upcoming album Dreamstate. It follows previous cuts ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Love You Got’. Check it out below.
Dreamstate, Owens’ fourth studio album, is slated for release on October 18 via dh2.
Touché Amoré have released ‘Hal Ashby’, the second preview of their upcoming album Spiral in a Straight Line. Following lead single ‘Nobody’s’, the track is named after the acclaimed American filmmaker known for his work in the counterculture era of ’70s cinema (Being There, Harold and Maude). It arrives with an accompanying video directed by Sean Stout, which you can check out below.
“The ‘Hal Ashby’ music video is half a love letter to Hal and half a dream-like interpretation of the song as a whole,” frontman Jeremy Bolm said in a statement. “Something that can be misunderstood as this or that – and finding the grace in-between.”
mxmtoon has announced a new album called liminal space, which arrives November 1 via AWAL. Along with the announcement, the singer-songwriter has shared ‘the situation’, a collaboration with Kero Kero Bonito. Check it out and find the album cover (by KangHee Kim) below.
“In the turmoil of the last two years since my second record, I’ve felt suspended in a transitory landscape that often at times felt endless,” mxmtoon shared in a statement. “It’s easy to feel trapped in something you barely understand, and life has thrown an onslaught of questions towards me that I can only respond with, ‘I have no idea how to answer this.’ So, suspended in the unknown I wrote these songs. I tried to unravel how I’ve chosen to fulfill the roles I’ve been given in my own life, and at times how I’ve failed to keep up with them.”
“liminal space is an album for people struggling to understand agency, who bathe in the bittersweet and lose themselves wandering in their own endless hallway with no ending,” she added.”
Speaking about ‘the situation’, mxmtoon said:
What is there to say… we get older, then we die, and there’s nothing you can do about it! A lot of the songs on this record deal directly with the concept of girlhood and the cycle of life. I was twenty-three when I wrote ‘the situation’ and I feel like I grew up with this idea that my early twenties were gonna be the time of my life where I’m the hottest and most fun I’ll ever be. Society as a whole really pushes the narrative that women reach a peak and then slide down for the rest of their lives… and that’s just stupid. I always love to use some sarcasm in the mix when I’m writing songs that tend to be pretty emotionally raw though, and ‘the situation’ was the perfect opportunity to make fun of how dumb that is. Getting to work with Kero Kero Bonito on this song in particular was such a dream come true too. I’ve been listening to KKB since 2013, and Sarah’s vocals have been stuck in my head since Intro Bonito. Her contribution to the song was so perfect and fun, it really glosses up the song to be externally peppy when the whole thing is about dying! She’s amazing.
yunè pinku has released a new song, ‘Half Alive’. It’s taken from her upcoming EP Scarlet Lamb, which is out October 4 and includes last month’s ‘Believe’, a collaboration with Cecile Believe. Check out ‘Half Alive’ below.
Jane Remover has dropped two new songs, ‘Magic I Want U’ and ‘How to Teleport’. They follow another pair of tracks, ‘Flash in the Pan’ and ‘Dream Sequence’, which came out in July. Take a listen below.
Jane Remover released her most recent album, Census Designated, last year.
Naima Bock has offered another preview of her upcoming full-length Below a Massive Dark Land. ‘Feed My Release’ follows previous offerings ‘Kaley’, ‘Further Away’, and ‘Gentle’. Listen to it below.
“‘Feed My Release’ is mostly about regret,” Bock explained in a statement. “It’s a simple song I thought wasn’t worth recording for a long time until I started singing it with violinist Oliver Hamilton and his harmonies brought it to life. Then Holly Whitaker joined along with her amazing voice, as well as Cassidy Hansen, Clem Appleby and Meitar Wegman adding their parts and the song in its current form was born! It’s a very collaborative arrangement & recording, everyone’s contribution to it is really their own.”
