Couch Slut have announced a new album: You Could Do It Tonight will be out April 19 via Brutal Panda. The follow-up to 2020’s Take a Chance on Rock ‘N’ Roll was recorded with Uniform’s Ben Greenberg and mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios in London. Check out the new single ‘Ode to Jimbo’ below, along with the album artwork (by Leandro De Cotis and Tahir Carl Karmali) and tracklist.
“‘Ode to Jimbo’ is the first, like, love song that we’ve ever done, and I did that for my friend’s bar that I go to every day,” vocalist Megan Osztrosits said in a statement, referring to the Brooklyn bar Jimbo Slim’s.
You Could Do It Tonight Cover Artwork:
You Could Do It Tonight Tracklist:
1. Couch Slut Lewis
2. Ode To Jimbo
3. Wilkinson’s Sword
4. The Donkey
5. Presidential Welcome
6. Energy Crystals For Healing
7. Downhill Racer
8. Laughing and Crying
9. The Weaversville Home For Boys
Blunt Chunks – the project of Toronto artist Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien – has announced her debut album, The Butterfly Myth. It’s set for release on April 19 via Telephone Explosion. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘Psyche’s Flight’, which features drummer Duncan Hood and keyboardist Nick Nausbaum – Woelfle-O’Brien’s bandmates in Jaunt – as well as percussionist Ed Squires, saxophonist Karen Ng, and keyboardist Diego Gaeta. Check it out below.
“‘Psyche’s Flight’ is a simple song about feeling better and being kinder to yourself,” Woelfle-O’Brien explained in a statement. “It was February, I had lost my Dad a few months prior, and I had the opportunity to partake in an artist residency on a Permaculture farm in Mexico. I escaped the Ontario Winter and felt the warm sun on me for the first time in ages. I wrote this song a week into the residency on the rooftop patio. I finally didn’t feel so depressed anymore and I guess it’s about that freeing, hopeful feeling you get when you travel somewhere new and beautiful. On a production level, I wanted the instrumentals to be euphoric and sunshiny. Like you’re immersed in a beautiful, new landscape for the first time. Duncan’s drumming really spiced things up and Karen’s sax harmonies give the layers of euphoria I was after.”
Recorded at Patchwork Sound studio, The Butterfly Myth also includes contributions from studio head David Plowman, co-producer Nathan Burley, as well as members of Queer Songbook Orchestra, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bernice, Mother Tongues, and more. “Getting together with people to create something is that much more special because, as you get older, you know what it’s like to be home alone, to be a little lost and isolated, wondering where your friends are,” Woelfle-O’Brien said. “To have so many people lift me up when I can’t lift myself up is a really beautiful part of the Blunt Chunks project”.
In 2022, Blunt Chunks released a self-titled EP, which made our best EPs of 2022 list.
The Butterfly Myth Cover Artwork:
The Butterfly Myth Tracklist:
1. Fill My Cup
2. Psyche’s Flight
3. High Hopes
4. Limbo
5. Every Day
6. You Are My Love
7. Breathe
8. Higher
9. Can’t Be The End
Young Jesus has announced a new album, The Fool. The follow-up to 2022’s Shepherd Head is set to arrive on May 24 via Saddle Creek. Today’s announcement comes with the release of two new songs, lead single ‘Brenda & Diane’ and its companion track ‘Hollywood Ending’. Take a listen and find the album artwork and tracklist below.
According to a press release, Young Jesus’ John Rossiter decided to quit music following the release of Shepherd Head to focus on gardening. “You know, when gardening, the right decision to make for the landscape is usually the one that is already happening,” he said. “It just takes time to read what that is.”
After Shahzad Ismaily reached out to him over email, the musicians would improvise whenever they were in the same town, and Rossiter went on to record part of the album at Shahzad’s Figure 8 Studios in Brooklyn. He crafted the songs at home in Los Angeles, working with Alex Babbitt and Alex Lappin.
Speaking about ‘Brenda & Diane’, Rossiter said in a statement:
Brenda and Diane are on the run. The main character thinks he’s better than them. But sits down to talk to them, to humor them. Sees that they have a whole, complex life. Humbling for the main character and his sense of superiority and judgment. Brenda and Diane invite him into life.
As with many of these songs, recording this tune mirrored the content of the song. Alex Lappin, the producer, really challenged me to craft a narrative with the vocal delivery. I was resistant because I like how I sing normally and I don’t like to deviate from my usual delivery– it makes me feel safe. Makes me feel detached.
But we really worked on this one, and I felt I left my ego a bit. Was able, thanks to Alex, to find what the song needed rather than what I wanted.
Of ‘Hollywood Ending’, he added:
The best part of this tune is the strings. Alex Babbitt arranged the strings and his parents, Frank and Cornelia, played cello and violin on it. Around that time, Frank had become very sick.
A couple months later, I was visiting family in Chicago over Thanksgiving. I went to the church I grew up going to with Alex and his brother Ben Babbitt. Ben played organ (pipes throughout the church!) and Alex and I sang, standing at opposite ends of the church. Improvising. We really grew into our voices in there, everything became so resonant, swirling. When we finished we knew we were present for something very special. We reached places vocally and emotionally that we don’t get to often. A few months later, Frank passed. This song is dedicated to the memory of Frank Babbitt.
In December, Young Jesus’ ‘The Weasel’ featured on the soundtrack of Brit Marling and Zal Batmangli’s FX showMurder At the End of the World. Revisit our inspirations interview with Young Jesus.
The Fool Cover Artwork:
The Fool Tracklist:
1. Brenda & Diane
2. Two Brothers
3. Rabbit
4. Rich
5. Moonlight
6. MOTY
7. The Weasel
8. Am I The Only One?
9. Sunrise
10. Dancer
11. God’s Plan
Kelly Moran has announced a new LP called Moves in the Field, which is slated for release on March 29 via Warp. Following 2023’s Vesela EP, it marks the composer and pianist’s first album since 2018’s Ultraviolet. To mark the news, Moran has shared the new single ‘Butterfly Phase’. Check it out along with an album trailer below.
“In early 2020, Yamaha loaned me a Disklavier player piano — a special instrument that allows you to record your performance for the piano to play back on its own,” Moran said in a press release. “I was initially working on a duet for myself and another pianist, but when the pandemic hit, the player piano became my duet partner.
“I began writing a series of duets for myself and the Disklavier, exploring all the different ways I could utilize this instrument to merge its inhuman capabilities with my own playing,” she continued. “The Disklavier allowed me to record multiple layers of my playing so I could create music on the piano that would require more fingers or greater endurance than I physically have – like chords that had more than 10 notes in them, or chords that were spaced out farther than my hands could stretch. Sometimes I’d record a pattern and then speed it up to play back faster than I could ever physically play. My imagination exploded at all the possibilities this instrument allowed me to create, and these explorations culminated in my new record Moves in the Field.”
Moves in the Field Cover Artwork:
Moves in the Field Tracklist:
1. Butterfly Phase
2. Superhuman
3. Don’t Trust Mirrors
4. Dancer Polynomials
5. Sodalis (II)
6. Leitmotif
7. It’s Okay to Disappear
8. Hypno
9. Moves in the Field
10. Solar Flare
Another Michael have shared the details of their new album Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down, which has been set for release on May 31 via Run for Cover. It was originally announced alongside its sibling record, Wishes to Fulfill, which came out in September. Today, the band has unveiled a new song from it called ‘Is There A World?’. Listen to it below.
1. I’ve Come Around To That
2. Seafood
3. Mudslide
4. Is There A World?
5. I’m Your Roommate
6. Another Reindeer
7. Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down
8. Maureen
9. I’m Not Mad Anymore
10. The Diner’s Spoon
11. Like I Won A Car
Jim White has released a new track called ‘Marketplace’. It’s the second single from the drummer’s debut solo album All Hits: Memories, following lead offering ‘Names Make the Name’. Check out Anna White’s video for the song below.
“‘Marketplace’ emulates the sound and energy of the Saturday morning Victoria Market in North Melbourne,” White explained in a statement. “All kinds of people, boxes, trucks, yelling, chickens, fish, vegetables, bakers, donuts, and musicking, flowing through all the other markets.”
All Hits: Memories is due for release on March 29 via Drag City.
Bullion has offered another preview of his upcoming album, Affection, which is due out on April 26 via Ghostly. Following the producer’s Carly Rae Jepsen collaboration ‘Rare’, the new song, ‘A City’s Never’, features Animal Collective’s Panda Bear (aka Noah Lenox). The track came together while the two artists were living in Lisbon at the same time, though they never actually met, writing and completing the song over DMs. Check it out below.
Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker has shared a new single, ‘Fool’, which will appear on her upcoming album Bright Future. Following earlier cuts ‘Ruined’ and ‘sadness as a gift’, the track comes with a video directed by Lenker’s brother, Noah, and featuring her family and their dogs. Check it out below.
‘Fool’ was one of the first songs recorded for the album. “I feel like I can hear her laughing and smiling when I listen back to this song,” producer Philip Weinrobe said in a statement. “The joy is palpable. It’s easy to forget that Adrianne can do unbridled ecstatic happiness just as deftly as every other emotion in the human experience.” He added, “The fireplace was ripping, Oso was barking, and the vibe was just right. After we captured this one I knew we were gonna make a special record.”
Bright Future is set for release on March 22 via 4AD.
Moor Mother has released a new song, ‘All the Money’, lifted from her forthcoming album The Great Bailout. Following lead single ‘GUILTY’, a collaboration with Lonnie Holley, Mary Lattimore, and Raia Was, the track was co-produced by Vijay Ayer and features Alya Al Sultani. Check out director Cauleen Smith’s video for it below.
The Great Bailout, the follow-up to 2022’s Jazz Codes, comes out March 8 via ANTI-.
