“I think ‘fetišh’ is a great intro into the tiny world of this EP,” spill tab said in a press release. “This song is so unapologetic and confident and it’s these things that I feel like I’m most often not, but I want to be. It’s this sort of make believe conversation with someone that’s being delivered in a very dom, assertive way that I fantasise I could one day authentically pull off. In reality it’s a terrifying thing to ask of someone to welcome every part of you, but this song is sort of a brave fantasy of not caring about how I’m received by someone whose perspective I care a lot about.”
“The songs on the EP span across almost 2 years – I feel like I’ve grown more comfortable in my skin and a lot as a producer during this time too, which is also a testament to the support and help of my friends and collaborators,” she added. “I made a lot of these songs during a time in my life where so much was changing, and with a lot of good evolution also came self doubt, imposter syndrome and loneliness. The lyrics talk about fantasies and hidden feelings and private thoughts. I’ve found that channelling this inner dialogue through alter egos in my music makes them more accessible to me in real life. In these sorts of songs I write up versions of myself I wish I could be, it might be my attempt at writing myself into something new.”
Ethel Cain has officially released ‘Famous Last Words (An Ode to Eaters)’, which she uploaded on SoundCloud late last year. Inspired by Luca Guadagnino’s film Bones and All, the track arrives with an accompanying video Hayden Anhedönia co-directed with Silken Weinberg. Check it out below.
‘Famous Last Words (An Ode to Eaters)’ is part of Givenchy creative director Matthew William’s new collaboration project 1017 ALYX 9SM. It marks Cain’s first new music since the release of her debut album, Preacher’s Daughter, which we named our 2022 album of the year.
Blur are back with a new album, The Ballad of Darren, out now via Parlophone. The follow-up to 2015’s The Magic Whip was previewed by the singles ‘St. Charles Square’ and ‘The Narcissist’. “This is an aftershock record, reflection and comment on where we find ourselves now,” Damon Albarn remarked in press materials. “The older and madder we get, it becomes more essential that what we play is loaded with the right emotion and intention,” Graham Coxon said. “Sometimes just a riff doesn’t do the job.” Bassist Alex James added: “For any long term relationship to last with any meaning you have to be able to surprise each other somehow and somehow we all continue to do that.”
Nas has returned with Magic 2, the sequel to 2021’s Magic. Executive produced by Hit-Boy and Nas himself, the 11-track LP boasts guest appearances from 50 Cent on ‘Office Hours’ (marking their first collaboration since 2002’s ‘Projects Too Hot’ and ‘Who I Rep With’) and 21 Savage (on the bonus track ‘One Mic, One Gun’). It’s the rapper’s fifth album in three years, following last year’s King’s Disease III.
Strange Ranger have dropped their new album, Pure Music, via Fire Talk. Ahead of its release, the NYC-via-Philly quartet previewed it with the singles ‘Rain So Hard’, ‘She’s on Fire’, and ‘Way Out’. Following their 2021 mixtape No Light in Heaven, the LP was recorded in a cabin in Upstate New York during a blizzard. “With a few exceptions, I can’t tell whose production ideas were whose, when I listen back to it,” the band’s Fred Nixon in a press release. “We were literally trapped in this cabin, manically working at all hours, and the energy was crazy, in a fun way.” Fiona Woodman added: “Music makes us transcend the feeling of being alienated from or trapped by the world. I want the experience of listening to Pure Music to be euphoric.”
Allegra Krieger, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane
New York singer-songwriter Allegra Krieger has unveiled her new LP, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane. Marking her debut with Double Double Whammy, the album follows last year’s Precious Thing and features the advance tracks ‘Nothing In This World Ever Stays Still’, ‘Lingering’, and ‘Low’. Krieger once again worked with producer Luke Temple, tracking vocals and guitar at Panoramic Studios in West Marin, CA before incorporating additional instrumentation, including horn arrangements by composer Sammy Weissberg and pedal steel by Kevin Copeland of Lightning Bug.
The soundtrack to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is out now. It features previously released songs by Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, Billie Eilish, and PinkPantheress, as well as contributions from Tame Impala (‘Journey to the Real World’), HAIM (‘Home’), Lizzo (‘Pink’), Sam Smith (‘Man I Am’), Khalid (‘Silver Platter’), and more. “Greta had a clear vision of the music she wanted – and great instincts,” Mark Ronson, the soundtrack’s executive producer, told Esquire. “My only job was to do the music for the film. What’s amazing is that she was able to edit and finish the film while also giving so much attention to the music. Together, we came up with a little dream list of people to include, like Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, and Charli XCX. Unbelievably, so many of them ended up on the soundtrack.”
Guided by Voices have put out their second album of 2023, Welshpool Frillies, via GBV Inc. It follows January’s La La Land, and unlike the band’s many other pandemic-era projects, they recorded it as a group, tracking their parts live to tape with producer Travis Harrison in a Brooklyn basement. The singles ‘Seedling’ and ‘Meet the Star’ arrived ahead of the LP’s release.
Oxbow have issued their latest LP, Love’s Holiday. Guitarist Niko Wenner and Joe Chiccarelli co-produced the follow-up to 2017’s Thin Black Duke, which includes the early singles ‘1000 Hours’, ‘Icy White & Crystalline, and ‘Dead Ahead’. “The music was chiefly inspired by and written for my family,” Wenner said of the album in a statement. “We’ve had two children born and my father died while writing and working on this record. The songs are just a collection of music that I sang to my babies and then wrote guitar parts for and brought to the band as OXBOW songs.”
Chicago rapper Valee and producer Harry Fraud have come out with a new collaborative record, Virtuoso. “We’ve been quietly working on this project, and it’s finally ready for the world,” Valee said in press materials. “It will be unlike anything you’ve ever heard; so expect the unexpected.” Fraud added, “Valee has been one of my favorite artists since the first time I heard him, and it’s always been a goal of mine to collaborate with him.” The pair offered an early taste of the LP with the songs ‘Vibrant’ (featuring Action Bronson) and ‘Watermelon Automobile’ (featuring Saba and Mavi).
Other albums out today:
Andrew Bird, Outside Problems; Mizmor, Prosaic; Kitba, Kitba; Cut Worms, Cut Worms; Jonny Nash, Point of Entry; Restraining Order, Restraining Order; Paris Texas, MID AIR; Agriculture, Agriculture; Fatboi Sharif, Decay; Oscar Lang, Look Now; Babyface Ray, Summer’s Mine; Lauren Auder, the infinite spine; Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, City of Gold; Half Japanese, Jump Into Love; Mort Garson, Journey to the Moon and Beyond.
The Gaslight Anthem have announced their sixth album and first in nine years: History Books arrives October 27 on Rich Mahogany Recordings via Thirty Tigers. Bruce Springsteen joins them on the title track, which is out today. Check it out below.
“When Bruce Springsteen said I should write a duet for us, I think my head exploded,” frontman Brian Fallon said in a statement. “It will never get old to me that one of the greatest songwriters in the world, and one of my hero’s voices, will forever be captured in a song I wrote at a small wooden desk, in October, in New Jersey.”
The Gaslight Anthem announced they were going on hiatus in 2015 after touring in support of their last album, Get Hurt. “When you have a band reach any level of success or popularity, that’s a gift,” Fallon commented. “It’s truly a miracle to be able to do your art for a living. Having the band come this far and be able to still find inspiration and connection in our music is a treasure. We’re thrilled to be back, and we thank our fans for allowing us time to regroup.”
“None of us wanted to make a very somber or serious record showing how much we’ve matured,” Fallon added. “We’ve all changed and grown and learned so much, but the overall mood was a feeling of excitement to be back together and making music that means something to us.”
History Books Cover Artwork:
History Books Tracklist:
1. Spider Bites
2. History Books [feat. Bruce Springsteen]
3. Autumn
4. Positive Charge
5. Michigan, 1975
6. Little Fires
7. The Weatherman
8. Empires
9. I Live In The Room Above Her
10. A Lifetime Of Preludes
Burial released a new track, ‘Unknown Summer’, which appears on a split 12″ with Kode9 for fabric Originals. It marks Burial’s first new music since last October’s Streetlands EP. Listen to it below.
Ice Spice has released a deluxe edition of her debut EP Like..?. It features four new tracks, including ‘How High?’, ‘Butterfly Ku’, ‘On the Radar’, and ‘Deli’. Listen to it below.
Ice Spice recently joined Taylor Swift on a remix of the song ‘Karma’. She also teamed up with Nicki Minaj for ‘Barbie World’, which appears on the just-released Barbie The Album.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is out today, and so is its accompanying soundtrack. It features previously released contributions from Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, Billie Eilish, and PinkPantheress, as well as new songs by Tame Impala (‘Journey to the Real World’), HAIM (‘Home’), Lizzo (‘Pink’), Sam Smith (‘Man I Am’), and Khalid (‘Silver Platter’). Listen to it below.
Britney Spears and will.i.am have joined forces for a new single called ‘Mind Your Business’. It marks Spears’ first new music since last year’s collaboration with Elton John, ‘Hold Me Closer’. Check it out below.
“I’m sooo honored and excited for this release,” will.i.am wrote in an Instagram post. “Thank you @britneyspears…you’re one of the most fearless, strongest, kindest, purest people I’ve met in my life…I always loved working with you and I always will…”
Back in 2012, Spears and will.i.am teamed up for the hit single ‘Scream & Shout’. will.i.am also served as an executive producer for Spears’ 2013 album Britney Jean.
Travis Scott has joined forces with the Weeknd and Bad Bunny for a new single, ‘KPOP’, which he teased on social media earlier this week. Check it out below.
‘KPOP’ follows Scott’s 2022 collaboration with Pharrell Williams, ‘Down in Atlanta’. Utopia, the follow-up to 2018’s Astroworld and his first album since his disastrous 2021 Astroworld festival, is available for preorder but has no release date as of yet.
Last week, Scott announced a launch event in front of the pyramids in Egypt, which is scheduled to take place on July 28. After reports that Egypt’s Musicians’ Syndicate refused to grant permits, citing “the safety and protection of the audience,” Live Nation claimed that the livestream event will still happen as planned. “There have been no changes to Travis Scott’s show in Egypt; any reports to the contrary are false,” the company said in a statement.
Former President Barack Obama has shared his latest summer playlist. It features ‘Not Strong Enough’ by boygenius, Janelle Monáe‘s ‘Only Have Eyes 42’, the Beths’ ‘Watching the Credits’, the Bangles’ ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’, Kelela’s ‘Contact’, as well as songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj, and more. Take a look below.
“Like I do every year, here are some songs I’ve been listening to this summer — a mix of old and new. Look forward to hearing what I’ve missed,” Obama tweeted along with his picks.
In an interview earlier this year, Hasan Minhaj asked Obama if he really curates his own playlists. He answered: “I do! Listen. I am so glad that I have this opportunity. People, they believe the books and the movies, but the playlists, they somehow think — and this is mostly coming from young people like you — somehow, y’all think you invented rock ‘n’ roll. You invented hip-hop. And so the fact that my lists are, you know, pretty incredible — people seem to think, well, he must’ve had some 20-year-old intern who was figuring out this latest cut. No, man! It’s on my iPad right now.”
Like I do every year, here are some songs I’ve been listening to this summer — a mix of old and new. Look forward to hearing what I’ve missed. pic.twitter.com/H2Do2iaD1p
Blur are back with a new album, 
Nas has returned with 
Strange Ranger have dropped their new album,
New York singer-songwriter Allegra Krieger has unveiled her new LP, 
The soundtrack to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie is out now. It features previously released songs by 
Guided by Voices have put out their second album of 2023, Welshpool Frillies, via GBV Inc. It follows January’s La La Land, and unlike the band’s many other pandemic-era projects, they recorded it as a group, tracking their parts live to tape with producer Travis Harrison in a Brooklyn basement. The singles 
Oxbow have issued their latest LP, 
Chicago rapper Valee and producer Harry Fraud have come out with a new collaborative record, 
