Wayne Kramer, the co-founder, lead guitarist, and vocalist of the legendary Detroit proto-punk band MC5, has died. The news was confirmed on Kramer and the band’s social media pages. “Wayne Kramer passed away today peacefully from pancreatic cancer,” a follow-up message read. He will be remembered for starting a revolution in music, culture, and kindness.” Kramer was 75.
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Kramer founded MC5 in nearby Lincoln Park with fellow guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith and singer Rob Tyner. In 1967, the band – whose name is short for Motor City 5 – became the house band at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, and they were managed by John Sinclair, a poet, left-wing activist, and co-founder of the White Panther Party. Along with progressive politics, Sinclair introduced the then 20-year-old Kramer to the world of free jazz, an influence they incorporated into the band’s increasingly heavier sound. They protested against the Vietnam war by playing outside the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
MC5 signed to Elektra, and their debut album, Kick Out the Jams, was recorded live at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom and released in 1969. The band put out two more major label albums, 1971’s Back in the USA and 1972’s High Time, for Atlantic Records, before playing a farewell show at the Grande Ballroom on December 31, 1972.
In 1975, Kramer was convicted of, among other charges, selling drugs to undercover officials, and was sentenced to four years in prison. While incarcerated at FMC Lexington, he befriended Red Rooney, a jazz trumpeter who had played with Charlie Parker. Upon his release, he briefly teamed up with Johnny Thunders in the band Gang War and joined Was (Not Was).
In 1994, Kramer signed with Epitaph, releasing his solo debut, The Hard Stuff, the following year. He published a memoir of the same name in 2018. He put out two more solo albums in the ’90s, Dangerous Madness and Citizen Wayne, and in 2001, formed a supergroup to perform MC5 music that featured the likes of the Cult’s Ian Astbury and Motorhead’s Lemmy. In 2009, Kramer, his wife Margaret Saadi Kramer, and Billy Bragg launched Jail Guitar Doors, providing instruments, workshops, and prison concerts across America. A new MC5 release was scheduled for spring 2024.
Among those paying tribute to Kramer following his death was former collaborator and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who wrote on Instagram: “Brother Wayne Kramer was the best man I’ve ever known. He possessed a one of a kind mixture of deep wisdom & profound compassion, beautiful empathy and tenacious conviction.”
The Last Dinner Party understand the implications of suddenly being heralded as one of the world’s most exciting young bands. Following the success of their debut single, ‘Nothing Matters’, last April, the group – vocalist Abigail Morris, guitarists Lizzie Mayland and Emily Roberts, bassist Georgia Davies, and keyboardist Aurora Nischevi – spent the rest of 2023 playing sold-out headline shows around Europe and the US and taking their time to roll out their debut album, sharing five singles ahead of its release. They began 2024 as the recipients of both the Brits Rising Star and the BBC Sound of 2024 awards, which means they’ve also been accused of being an “industry plant” by people who don’t quite grasp just how swift and powerful the UK hype machine is. Morris has compared it to “going in a car really fast and not being in charge of the steering wheel,” but the group makes an effort to stay grounded by focusing on the process of writing, playing, and rehearsing that’s led them this far.
The marvelous thing about Prelude to Ecstasy isn’t the audience it’s already reached as a debut album, but the commitment to craft and world-building that’s apparent as soon as you press play. The whole thing starts with an orchestral overture, signaling the sort of theatrical bombast and ambition that bands – especially “post-punk” bands that grow weary of the descriptor – don’t embrace until much later in their discography. As a group that formed just before the pandemic, they’ve had to take the fundamentally uncool path of taking themselves seriously, fleshing out songs, and establishing a strong visual identity before transferring any of their ideas to the stage. Now that it’s become a live spectacle, their vision feels clearly defined yet fluid, just as the dress codes they set for their gigs – Folk Horror, Velvet Goldmine, A Night at the Opera – are meant to foster community and self-expression rather than adherence to any particular aesthetic. The Last Dinner Party, who call the record “an archeology of ourselves,” may like doing things the old-fashioned way, but the assemblage of historical fashion feels fitted to the intensity of the present moment, not a retread of the past.
Intentional as it may be, this approach is also the inevitable product of a group who spent their formative years on a platform that creatively threaded the worlds of Sofia Coppola and Virginia Woolf, where scrolling rendered Mr. Darcy and Effie Stonem part of the same cinematic universe and Hozier could be tagged under a quote from The Secret History. Their cultural influences come through in the music, but you don’t need to have any nostalgia for the age of Tumblr to appreciate what the band is doing on a song like ‘My Lady of Mercy’, which starts out as a fiery piece of goth pop before exploding operatically in scale, then landing on a sludgy outro. The band’s melodic sensibilities are undeniable, and even the songs that aren’t singles – ‘The Feminine Urge’, ‘Mirror’ – boast big, catchy choruses; but it’s the way they build, embellish, and juxtapose their parts that makes an impact. ‘Nothing Matters’ began as a ballad rather than a driving baroque pop song, while ‘On Your Side’, one of a couple actual ballads, ends with synths that swell into the ether, an improvised coda courtesy of producer James Ford.
The Last Dinner Party don’t shy away from polished, extravagant production, which marks even mellower, seemingly off-the-cuff moments like ‘Ghuja’, a song written in Nishevci’s mother tongue of Albanian that also laments her distance from it. The album’s gorgeous, flamboyant qualities don’t detract from the unbridled emotion and complexity at its core, and although I’m curious how ‘Portrait of a Dead Girl’ would sound with a few layers stripped out, the maximalism works because of how desire, envy, shame, and deep, deep yearning are all entwined in the band’s universe. The music earns its dramatic flair thanks to the strength of the songwriting, but also because it always stands in the door of more than one of these shades of feeling, and it veers into fantasy as part of a confession, never masquerading as such. A single line might be direct (“I will fuck you like nothing matters”) or subtly ambivalent (“Pray for me on your knees”), but sung in unison, it feels sincere. As a whole, Prelude to Ecstasy doesn’t feel like a lofty concept album, but an honest extension of themselves.
Still, it’s all about performance, which is really the thematic heart of the album. A lot of it’s tied up with gender: between ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’ and ‘The Feminine Urge’, Morris juggles the natural and rather private tendency “to nurture the wounds my mother held” with the imagined power and glory of projecting your life as an emperor. ‘Beautiful Boy’ longs for a different facet of male privilege, based on a friend of the singer’s and therefore treated with a different kind of earnest intimacy. But the framing of the album makes it feel self-aware, not least because it’s bookended by two extremely sobering moments: “I am not the girl I set out to be/ Let me make my grief a commodity,” Morris sings on ‘Burn Alive’, a sentiment she returns to on closer ‘Mirror’. But exposure – being seen for entertainment – is also a matter of survival, the Last Dinner Party suggest, so they’re giving it their all. They’re not afraid to be indulgent, and having arrived with a fully-realized sound and a distinct formula, they can now afford to mess it up a little; there’s a lot more beauty and bliss snuck into the chaos.
The Blessed Madonna has linked up with Chicago-born singer Clementine Douglas for the new single ‘Happier’. Check it out below.
Last year, the Blessed Madonna joined forces with Joy Anonymous and Danielle Ponder for the collaborative EP Carry Me Higher. ‘Happier’ follows her recent collaborative singles ‘Serotonin Moonbeams’ (with Uffie), ‘We Still Believe’ (with Jamie Principle), Fuck what u heard’ (with Todd Edwards), ‘Shades of Love’ (with the Joy), and ‘Mercy’ (with Gabriels’ Jacob Lusk).
Usher has teamed up with Nigerian producer and singer-songwriter Pheelz for his latest single, ‘Ruin’. Dave Meyers directed its accompanying video, which you can check out below.
Next week, Usher will headline the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show in Las Vegas. On the same day, he’ll release his new album, Coming Home, which also features Burna Boy, Latto, The-Dream, and H.E.R.
Last Thursday, pianists Kenny Fu, Lily Petrova and Nikita Demidenko came together for a mighty showcase of Nikolai Medtner’s music. The concert was the debut for The Forgotten Melodies Society and was held at the Razumovsky Academy Recital Hall in London.
The society was founded by pianist Nikita Demidenko to give a performance platform to rarely performed works. The idea for the society came after the realisation that there weren’t enough performance opportunities for music students. Originally, it was to be a society highlighting only Medtner’s music, however, through Medtner, Nikita soon discovered a passion for programming and performing rarely performed works by all composers. Nikita runs the society with Co-Director Lily Petrova- also a pianist who performed at the concert.
The programme of the evening consisted of Medtner’s ‘Forgotten Melodie’s’ cycle op.38 in the first half. The cycle began with the Sonata-Reminiscenza performed by Kenny Fu. The sonata introduces the audience to an array of different thematic material which Medtner then uses as the base to the seven miniatures that follow, performed by Lily Petrova. The second half of the programme was the performance of Medtner’s behemoth ‘Night-Wind’ Sonata performed by Nikita Demidenko.
The music of Nikolai Medtner is sophisticated and refined. These fine musicians had no problem with this and managed truly to present Medtner’s music in the light it should always be! Kenny immediately transported us to an intimate atmosphere from the opening bars of the Sonata-Reminiscenza. He played with such artistic sensibility, and through his remarkable sense of line, Kenny’s introduced the audience to all the thematic material vital to the rest of the works. The audience were truly treated to a huge array of contrast and characteristics through Lily’s performing of the rest of the movements in the cycle. At moments, she played with utmost delicacy, improvised freedom and then quickly transported us elsewhere with sparkling brilliance and elegance.
Nikita Demidenko’s performance of the huge ‘Night-Wind’ Sonata was majestic. A sonata most pianists dare not undertake due to the shear size, technical challenges and endurance needed to be able to perform it. Nikita did so with a commanding authority and his execution was effortless. Although it was an evening dedicated to Nikolai Medtner’s music, the concert didn’t end there as we were surprised with a delightful encore! Nikita gave a performance of Cuban composer- Lecuona’s ‘Mazurka Glissando’ leaving a smile on the audiences faces.
The performers of the evening are students of the sought-after piano professor Tatiana Sarkissova who teaches at The Royal Academy of Music. Professor Sarkissova was also in the audience together with her husband, renowned pianist Dmitry Alexeev and I am in no doubt that she was extremely proud with having listened to such fine performances and having nurtured such refined and sensitive musicians.
For the forgotten melodies the future looks bright! I managed to speak with both Nikita and Lily after their magnificent performances and they are already busy preparing the programmes for future endeavours! A few future projects include a feature concert at The Royal Academy of Music Summer Piano Festival where students will be playing the music of English composers linked with the Academy itself. As well as a concert dedicated to the forgotten music of Latin American classical composers. However, their biggest project on their agenda will definitely be the creation of the International Medtner Piano Competition in London.
Music students can sign up for future student concerts which happen once a month at the Annunciation Church in Marble Arch via the society website: https://forgottenmelodiessociety.com.
The Last Dinner Party have released their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, today via Island. The 12-track LP includes the previously unveiled tracks ‘Nothing Matters’, ‘Sinner’, ‘My Lady of Mercy’, ‘On Your Side’, and ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’. “Ecstasy is a pendulum which swings between the extremes of human emotion, from the ecstasy of passion to the sublimity of pain, and it is this concept which binds our album together,” the band said in a press release. “This is an archeology of ourselves; you can exhume our collective and individual experiences and influences from within its fabric. We exorcised guitars for their solos, laid bare confessions directly from diary pages, and summoned an orchestra to bring our vision to life. It is our greatest honour and pride to present this offering to the world, it is everything we are.”
J Mascis has returned with a new solo album, What Do We Do Now, via Sub Pop. The follow-up to 2018’s Elastic Days was recorded at Mascis’ Bisquiteen studio in Western Massachusetts and features the early singles ‘Can’t Believe We’re Here’, ‘Set Me Down’, and ‘Right Behind You’. “When I’m writing for the band, I’m always trying to think of doing things Lou and Murph would fit into,” Mascis said in a statement. “For myself, I’m thinking more about what I can do with just an acoustic guitar, even for the leads. Of course, this time, I added full drums and electric leads, although the rhythm parts are still all acoustic. Usually, I try to do the solo stuff more simply so I can play it by myself, but I really wanted to add the drums. Once that started, everything else just fell into place. So it ended up sounding a lot more like a band record. I dunno why I did that exactly, but it’s just what happened.”
Liquid Mike – the Michigan-based power pop outfit led by guitarist and vocalist Mike Maple – have dropped their latest album, Paul Bunyan’s Slingshot. Featuring the advance tracks ‘K2’ and ‘American Caveman’, the album takes its name from an obscure art piece in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that a teenager drunkenly cut in half one night. “I’ve always thought it was funny how many Midwest towns claim to be the home of Paul Bunyan or have some sort of connection to him because they’re always the smallest little towns,” Maple explained. “This album is about living in a place like that.”
Vera Sola has put out her second album and first in five years, Peacemaker. The Shades follow-up was recorded in Nashville over the fall of 2019 with co-producer Kenneth Patten.”The Colt Single Action Army…the Peace-maker…is the gun that quote-unquote tamed the American West,” Sola explained. “So it has this thematic resonance with the thrust of the record, as well as a personal significance to my family lineage of old west gun slingers. It’s the ultimate irony—not only in the sense of peace made violently, but also in that it’s this beautiful word that wraps around something horrible. It really gets to the complexity of the music. That complexity is important to me, that staring down and reintegrating of the shadow is important to me. It’s a reclamation.”
Runnner has unveiled a new ambient LP, Starsdust, following up 2023’s Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out. It spans twelve songs, including the previously released ‘ten’ and ‘eleven’. “I made one rule for myself while making this record and it was that I wasn’t allowed to record any new audio,” Noah Weinman explained in press materials. “Every sound on this album is a repurposed stem from Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out. I was allowed to pitch, flip, stretch, and chop anything I wanted, but everything had to begin from something already recorded for the last album.”
Kirin J Callinan is back with If I Could Sing, his first collection of original material since 2017’s Bravado. Following 2019’s covers album Return to Center, the LP was previewed by the singles ‘Young Drunk Driver’, ‘ANÆMIC ADONIS (you made me a promise)’, ‘Eternally Hateful’, and ‘Crazier Idea’. The Australian singer-songwriter was set to release the record last June, and some fans got to hear it via a listening session and USB drives distributed at his live shows. Since releasing Bravado, Callinan has also worked on Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want To Turn Into You and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Special.
Jawbox’s J. Robbins has issued a new solo album, Basilisk, via Dischord. Robbins engineered, mixed, and produced the record, which was recorded between 2021 and 2022 with the assistance of Brooks Harlan (bass), Darren Zentek (drums), Gordon Withers (cello and guitar), John Haggerty (guitar) and Dave Hadley (pedal steel). “The musical connection had always already been there, but the energy that came from all being in the same room doing this together – something we had just spent a year wondering if we’d ever get to do again — was wonderful,” he said in a statement. “It felt like having been lost in the desert, and then finding an oasis. I’ve never been so happy with a session — both the results and the experience, and the outcome was exactly what I had wanted: something more stripped down and very immediate.”
Released via Bella Union, Terrapath is the debut album by Brighton band Plantoid. Combining progressive rock, jazz, and folk, the LP was preceded by the singles ‘Modulator’, ‘Dog’s Life’, and ‘Pressure’. “Sometimes, when we play the record as a whole, it sort of feels like we’re entering this universe that we’ve created,” singer Chloe Spence reflected in a statement. “The sounds, the art, and where our minds go while we’re playing the album takes us to this alien planet that no humans have reached.” Drummer Louis Bradshaw added, in a way many of the songs on this album are about everything we’ve all amounted to in life at this point, lyrically and musically. The album marks a new direction and a homage to our past selves.”
Other albums out today:
Vijay Iyer Trio, Compassion; Maria W Horn, Panoptikon; Toechter, Epic Wonder; Lee “Scratch” Perry, King Perry; Topographies, Interior Spring; Lao, Chapultepec; L Devine, Digital Heartifacts; Gabby Barrett, Chapter & Verse; KMFDM, Let Go; Slope, Freak Dreams; Slope, Freak Dreams; Ian Wellman, The Night the Stars Fell.
Lil Yachty has dropped a new song called’A Cold Sunday’. The track arrives alongside an accompanying video directed by AMD Visuals. Check it out below.
Earlier this year, Lil Yachty collaborated with Faye Webster on her latest single ‘Lego Ring’ and teamed up with Chief Keef on ‘Say Ya Grace’. His last album was 2023’s psych rock-inspired Let’s Start Here.
Ahead of their upcoming Horns, Thorns en Halos Farewell Tour, Porno for Pyros have released a new single called ‘Little Me’. It follows November’s ‘Agua’ and the holiday offering ‘Pete’s Dad’. Check it out below.
Speaking to Songfacts.com, guitarist Peter DiStefano said of the track: “Perry [Farrell] had a girlfriend at the time and he thought she was pregnant — he thought he was going to have a kid. Then it turned out that she wasn’t pregnant. It’s a love song, but it’s a wild love song. I love the guitar riff.”
Grace Abrams has covered Ethel Cain’s ‘American Teenager’ for triple j’s Like a Version series. Watch it below.
“I am a huge fan of Ethel Cain,” Abrams said of her choice. “I listen to her music all the time — in the shower, driving, crying — and so any excuse to do it in a more proper setting. I was really stoked.”
“The production is incredible,” she added. “I think it’s such an amazing song. The feeling’s kind of really specific and it feels like this coming-of-age thing. I’m such a fan of her writing. Her voice on it is unbelievable and impossible to beat, so I took a stab but I just admire everything about her.”
Gracie Abrams is nominated for Best New Artist at the 2024 Grammys.
Burial has unveiled his new two-track single ‘Dreamfear / Boy Sent From Above’, which marks the producer’s first solo material on XL Recordings. The 12″ vinyl version is set for release on February 9. Take a listen below.
In 2020, XL released Burial’s collaborative EP with Four Tet and Thom Yorke, ‘Her Revolution’/’His Rope’.
The Last Dinner Party
J Mascis
Liquid Mike
Vera Sola has put out her second album and first in five years, 
Runnner
Kirin J Callinan is back with 
Jawbox’s J. Robbins has issued a new solo album, Basilisk, via 
Released via 
