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Jenny Owen Youngs Announces New Album ‘Avalanche’, Releases New Song

Jenny Owen Youngs has announced her first full-length studio album in over a decade. Avalanche is set to arrive on September 22 via Yep Roc Records. To celebrate the news, Youngs has shared the LP’s title track, which was co-written with Madi Diaz and is accompanied by a live performance video featuring Peter Silberman of the Antlers. Check it out below, alongside the album artwork and tracklist.

“An avalanche is an extreme force, it can cause great harm, and when it’s over, you can be certain things will be different than they were before,” Youngs reflected in a statement. “When it came time to name the album, this song leapt forward as the title track, because the unifying theme of this body of songs, to me, is the idea of moving from destruction to restoration, traveling through pain to possibility.”

Avalanche was recorded with producer Josh Kaufman. In addition to Madi Diaz and Peter Silberman, it features contributions from Christian Lee Hutson and drumming from the Walkmen’s Matt Barrick.. “There’s a good deal of heartbreak and disappointment in this music, but it ultimately gives way to excitement and promise, to the incredible, immeasurable bliss of falling in love and finding yourself again,” Youngs added. “These songs travel the whole emotional spectrum.”

Earlier this year, Youngs released an ambient record titled from the forest floor.

Avalanche Cover Artwork:

Avalanche Tracklist:

1. Avalanche
2. Knife Went In
3. Goldenrod
4. Everglades
5. Bury Me Slowly
6. Next Time Around
7. It’s Later Than You Think
8. Salt
9. Set It On Fire
10. Now Comes the Mystery

Will Butler + Sister Squares Announce New Album, Share New Single ‘Long Grass’

Will Butler + Sister Squares have announced their new self-titled album, which will be out on September 22 on Merge Records. The follow-up to 2020’s Generations includes the previously released track ‘Willows’, as well as a new single, ‘Long Grass’. Check it out below.

Sister Squares — Sara Dobbs, Julie Shore, Jenny Shore, and Miles Francis — have been touring and recording with Butler for nearly a decade. “I met Jenny—my wife!—in college, the year before I joined Arcade Fire,” Butler explained. “When I needed a band to tour Policy, I asked [Jenny’s sister] Julie to join because I trusted her musically. And I asked Sara, Jenny and Julie’s childhood friend, because I knew she was super talented.”

“After Generations, I considered making a weird solo record,” Butler remarked. “Me alone in the basement, etc., etc. Mostly I realised that what I wanted was the opposite.” He ended up co-producing the record with Francis, who commented: “Will and I organically discovered our relationship as a production duo through making this album. We didn’t have to talk too much about things as they happened, because the music just flowed. As a producer, working with Jenny, Julie, and Sara is the dream. They connect so innately. In one motion they can conjure a mood, or get at the root of a feeling.”

In a press release, Butler also said leaving Arcade Fire was “maybe the most complex decision of my life. I had spent the preceding two years at home with my three children. I was 39 years old. I was waking up every morning and reading Emily Dickinson, until I had read every Emily Dickinson poem. I was listening to Morrissey, to Shostakovich, to the Spotify top 50. I had unformed questions with inchoate answers. But, honestly, I was feeling great about the record.”

Of the album’s lead single, he added: “I had read this novella called Jamila by a Soviet/Kyrgyz author named Chingiz Aitmatov from the ’50s. It’s about an artist looking back on his childhood in a small town in Kyrgyzstan in WWII. It’s about love, and becoming an artist, and melancholy, and vast landscapes with a single train track running through them. And it reminded me of young adulthood, of wandering moodily down the train tracks. Maybe the song is also about leaving behind the things that formed us, but trying to remember the world as it used to be?”

Will Butler + Sister Squares Cover Artwork:

Will Butler + Sister Squares Tracklist:

1. Open
2. Stop Talking
3. Willows
4. Long Grass
5. Me & My Friends
6. Saturday Night
7. Car Crash
8. Sunlight
9. Arrow of Time
10. I Am Standing in a Room
11. Good Friday, 1613
12. Old Year
13. Hee Loop
14. The Window

Sen Morimoto Announces New Album ‘Diagnosis’, Unveils New Single

Chicago artist Sen Morimoto has announced his new album Diagnosis, which is due for release on November 3 via City Slang and his own Sooper Records. It includes the previously unveiled single ‘If The Answer Isn’t Love’, and the title track is out today alongside an accompanying video. Check it out below.

“The video for diagnosis is an over the top story about the music industry and an artist who thinks they can fix it from within (he can’t!),” Morimoto said in a statement. “I worked with New Trash again to continue the story from ‘If The Answer Isn’t Love’ and they really brought the Faustian nightmare to life. The way the video is edited feels so true to how we experience life now. It’s a hyper-capitalist information overload where every part of your story is happening all at once.”

“I’ve now released a couple of albums in a time when the most commercially exploitable asset an artist has is their social identity and their trauma,” Morimoto added of the LP. “Over this time the discussion of this pattern has come up repeatedly with peers who felt similarly tired of being expected to share every private detail of an immigrant household or to romanticize the struggle of their working class upbringing only to find questions on the craft itself reserved for artists without those burdens. While the songs on my third album range in topic from love to radicalization to spirituality and the internal effects of life under capitalism, every song on Diagnosis is, at its core, an attempt to flip the lens around. To hold a magnifying glass over the systems we live in and empower us to investigate them with the same scrutiny.”

Diagnosis Cover Artwork:

Diagnosis Tracklist:

1. If The Answer Isn’t Love
2. Bad State
3. St. Peter Blind
4. Diagnosis
5. Pressure On The Pulse
6. Naive
7. Feel Change
8. What You Say
9. Surrender
10. Deeper
11. Pain
12. Forsythia (レンギョウの旋律)
13. Reality

Joanna Sternberg Shares Video for New Song ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Ahead of the release of their new album I’ve Got Me this Friday (June 30) via Fat Possum, Joanna Sternberg has shared one more single from it. ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ follows earlier cuts ‘Mountains High’, ‘People Are Toys to You’, and the title track. Check out its accompanying video, animated by Sternberg, below.

“I was surprised that my friends encouraged me about this song because originally I was too embarrassed to even consider showing it to anyone,” Sternberg said in a press release. “It is about looking back on a romantic relationship and realising all of these things that you thought were normal at the time were actually very damaging to you, including the relationship itself.”

Blonde Redhead Release New Song ‘Melody Experiment’

Blonde Redhead have unveiled a new song called ‘Melody Experiment’. It’s the second offering from their first new album in 8 years, Sit Down for Dinner, following ‘Snowman’. Give it a listen below.

“This song is a conversational piece between two people,” Kazu Makino said of ‘Melody Experiment’ in a statement. “One is questioning the intentions, integrity, and consequences of one’s emotions and actions. She is hypersensitive. The other keeps things simple, allowing himself to go with the flow. Musically, I was able to find something that is quite true and natural to myself, and now I want to continue on this path.”

Susanna Announces New Album ‘Baudelaire & Orchestra’, Shares New Single

Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanna has announced a new album, Baudelaire & Orchestra, which comes out July 28 via SusannaSonata. It’s the latest in a series of albums exploring the work and persona of French poet Charles Baudelaire, following 2020’s Baudelaire and Piano and last year’s Elevation. Listen to the new single ‘Obsession’ below.

On the new album, Susanna is joined by Oslo’s KORK orchestra. The music was arranged by Jarle G. Storløkken, with contributions from composer Jan Martin Smørdal, while Deathprod produced and mastered the record.

“I’ve been wanting to develop this material since the first Baudelaire album,” Susanna remarked in a press release. “There’s a bit more complexity in the harmonies and the rhythms than you can hear in the bare piano arrangements. I think these songs have become even more accessible in these orchestral versions, and I hope many more people will be able to enjoy the music.”

Baudelaire & Orchestra Cover Artwork:

Baudelaire & Orchestra Tracklist:

1. Sarcophagi
2. Obsession
3. The Ghost
4. Burial
5. Heavy Sleep
6. Destruction
7. Rewind
8. Longing for Nothingness,
9. Alchemy of Suffering
10. Elevation
11. The Vampire

Young Thug Shares New Song ‘Money’ Featuring Juice WRLD and Nicki Minaj

Young Thug has released Business Is Business (Metro’s Version), a new deluxe edition of his latest album, which came out last week. Metro Boomin serves as the album’s executive producer. The new version of the LP includes the new song ‘Money’ featuring Nicki Minaj and the late Juice WRLD, which you can hear ibelow.

The original Business Is Business features guest spots from Drake, Future, 21 Savage, Lil Gotit, Yak Gotti, Travis Scott, Bslime, and fun.’s Nate Ruess. Young Thug is currently incarcerated and awaiting trial on RICO gang charges.

Olivia Rodrigo Announces New Album ‘Guts’

Olivia Rodrigo has announced her sophomore album, Guts. The follow-up to 2021’s Sour arrives September 8 via Geffen, and its first single, ‘Vampire’, will be out this Friday, June 30. It finds Rodrigo reuniting with producer Daniel Nigro, who worked with her on her debut.

“For me, this album is about growing pains and trying to figure out who I am at this point in my life,” Rodrigo said in a statement. “I feel like I grew 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20—it was such an intense period of awkwardness and change. I think that’s all just a natural part of growth, and hopefully the album reflects that.”

Last year, Rodrigo took home the Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Pop Solo Performance.

Guts Cover Artwork:

The Armed Announce New Album ‘Perfect Saviors’, Share Iggy Pop–Starring Video for New Song

The Armed are back with news of their next album: Perfect Saviors lands August 25 via Sargent House. The follow-up to 2021’s ULTRAPOP is led by the single ‘Sport of Form’, which features vocals from Julien Baker and comes with a video starring Iggy Pop as God. Check it out below and scroll down for the LP’s cover art and tracklist.

Introducing Perfect Saviors, the Armed said in a statement: “Too much information has made us dumb and confused. Too many ways to connect have inadvertently led to isolation. And too much expectation has forced everyone to become a celebrity. Predictable primal dangers have given way to newer social ones. And the result is a world that is confounding and terrifying—but ultimately still beautiful. We hope this record is exactly all of that, too. Perfect Saviors is our completely unironic, sincere effort to create the biggest, greatest rock album of the 21st century.”

The Armed’s Tony Wolski produced the new LP with Ben Chisholm and Troy Van Leeuwen, while Alan Moulder handled the mixing. In addition to Julien Baker, it features Ken Szymanski, Randall Lee, Dan Greene, Urian Hackney, Cara Drolshagen, Patrick Shiroishi, Sarah Tudzin (illuminati hotties), Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Mark Guiliana, Matt Sweeney, Bryan Aiken, Jacob Bannon (Converge), Julien Baker, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), Josh Klinghoffer (ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers), Chris Slorach, Zach Weeks, Brian Wolski, and Derek Coburn.

Commenting on ‘Sport of Form’, Wolski said:

There are two types of sport — those of measure and those of form. A sport of measure like basketball, football, or soccer has a point system and a sort of binary path to victory. A sport of form is something like diving, figure skating, or bodybuilding — something with evolving standards and a layer of subjectivity and some sort of critical component.

The world that surrounds us is complex, and our lives are truly more akin to a sport of form than one of measure. Yet, so many people see it as exactly the opposite.

Lyrically, this song is about the human need to win a game that we’re not even actually playing. Sonically, it is a reflection of that cognitive dissonance through a constant whiplash between beauty and ugliness, severity and tenderness, obscenity and grace.

Perfect Saviors Cover Artwork:

Perfect Saviors Tracklist:

1. Sport of Measure
2. FKA World
3. Clone
4. Modern Vanity
5. Everything’s Glitter
6. Burned Mind
7. Sport of Form
8. Patient Mind
9. Vatican Under Construction
10. Liar 2
11. In Heaven
12. Public Grieving

The Knife’s Olof Dreijer Releases First Solo Music Since 2009

The Knife’s Olof Dreijer has shared his first solo material since 2009. ‘Rosa Rugosa’ arrives today via Hessle Audio, marking the Swedish musician’s debut for the UK label run by Ben UFO. The connection came after Ben UFO included Dreijer’s ‘Echoes From Mamori’ on an EP for his Melodies Record Club series. Listen to ‘Rosa Rugosa’ below.

“I’m surprised to see how much fun I’m having making my own music after a longer period of working on other people’s projects,” Dreijer said in a statement. “I’ve been trying to make some colourful, energetic music with emotional melodies. I hope there’s room for that out on the dance floors.”

Earlier this year, Dreijer released Souvenir, a five-track collaborative EP with Mt. Sims.