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Wombo Announce New EP ‘Slab’, Release New Song

Louisville trio Wombo have announced a new EP, Slab, sharing a video for the title track.  Following their 2022 album Fairy Rust, the EP arrives June 9 via Fire Talk. Check out the visual ‘Slab’, filmed by the band’s Sydney Chadwick, Cameron Lowe, and Joel Taylor, below.

“The lyrics were drawn up as soon as we wrote the song, while staring at the concrete walls in Joel’s basement,” Lowe explained in a statement. “The video imagines what would happen if we literally removed the basement wall and instead opened it to a stream of random scenes and ideas like a pharmacy, a replica of Sydney’s house and front porch, the imaginary bedroom, and a journal entry of Sydney’s about a dream she had.”

Slab EP Cover Artwork:

Slab EP Tracklist:

1. Slab
2. In Situ
3. Thread
4. Wolfe Ave 40

Angel Olsen Shares Cover of ‘My Reverie’

Angel Olsen has offered her take on ‘My Reverie’, a song popularized by Larry Clinton & His Orchestra. The cover was recorded for the new National Geographic limited series A Small Light, which features Este Haim as executive music producer. Check it out below.

A Small Light tells the story of Miep Giesa (played by Bel Powley), a Dutch woman of Austrian descent who helped hide Anne Frank and her family in her Amsterdam attic. The soundtrack, out May 23, features covers by Danielle Haim, Kamasi Washington, Weyes Blood, Moses Sumney, and others. Also today, Sharon Van Etten and Michael Imperioli shared their rendition of the Ink Spots’ ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’ for the show.

Sharon Van Etten and Michael Imperioli Share Cover of ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’

Sharon Van Etten has teamed up with Michael Imperioli for a cover of the Ink Spots’ ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’. The Sopranos and The White Lotus actor Michael Imperioli delivers a spoken word verse on the track, which was recorded as part of the soundtrack for the new National Geographic limited series A Small Light. Listen to it below.

A Small Light is based on the life of Miep Gies (played by Bel Powley), the woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family in her Amsterdam attic. Este Haim serves as executive music producer on the show, while Ariel Marx composed the original score.

For A Small Light: Songs From the Limited Series, out May 23, Haim recruited artists including Angel Olsen, Danielle Haim, Kamasi Washington, Weyes Blood, Moses Sumney, and more. Danielle Haim’s rendition of Doris Day’s ‘Till We Meet Again’ and Kamasi Washington’s cover of Charlie Parker’s ‘Cheryl’ have already been released, while Angel Olsen’s version of ‘My Reverie’ just came out today.

Unique Gemstone Jewelry for Sentimental Value

For centuries, gemstones have been revered for their ability to offer emotional stability and spiritual awakening to wandering minds. They can still help control sentiments positively to make the right decisions in life. Ruby is a top gemstone offering all these benefits and more.

Exuding a fiery passion and intensity, ruby is a stunning gemstone that has been cherished for centuries for its deep red color and its association with deep love. Jewelry designers like GemPundit often incorporate this stone into their designs to create unique and sentimental pieces that are perfect for special occasions or as heirloom treasures.

Whether you are looking for a gift for a loved one or simply want to add to your own collection, this stone will inspire you to be bold and define your individuality with a unique masterpiece. Buy Ruby Stone jewelry for its rich sentimental value or to become one with your innate sense of self-awareness. Let’s see how:

History and Symbolism of Rubies

Ruby’s history can be traced back to ancient civilizations, where it was prized for its deep red color and believed to hold special powers. In ancient India, it was known as “Ratnaraj,” or “king of precious stones,” and was associated with the sun and the god of fire. In ancient Greece and Rome, the stone was believed to bring good fortune and protect against harm.

Throughout history, ruby has been associated with love, passion, power, and courage. The deep red color was often associated with blood, which was believed to represent life force and vitality.

In addition to its symbolic meanings, ruby was also believed to have healing properties. Some civilizations used it to help improve blood circulation, protect against negative energy, and ward off evil spirits.

Rubies Are Extremely Durable

A gemstone’s durability is measured on the Mohs scale, which is a numerical scale that rates the hardness of minerals from 1 to 10, with 10 being the hardest. Ruby has a hardness of 9 on this scale, which means that it is very resistant to scratching and abrasion.

Ruby’s durability is due to its chemical composition, which is primarily made up of the mineral corundum. Corundum is a very hard mineral that is found in a variety of colors, including red (ruby) and blue (sapphire). It has tightly packed arrangement of atoms, which makes it very difficult to scratch or damage.

Unique Color That’s Deep and Intense

The color of ruby can vary in intensity and hue depending on its origin and the lighting conditions. The most prized rubies are those with a deep red hue, sometimes referred to as “pigeon’s blood” red. They are uniform in color and free from any visible inclusions or imperfections.

The amount of chromium present in the crystal structure of a stone determines the intensity and hue of the color. Some rubies may have a pink or purple tint, while others may have a more orange or brownish-red hue.

The most sought-after rubies come from Myanmar (formerly Burma), which is known for producing rubies with a deep red color and excellent clarity. Other sources of high-quality rubies include Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Mozambique.

The way this stone interacts with light can also affect its appearance. Some rubies may appear more transparent in natural light, while others may appear opaque. Some varieties may also exhibit a phenomenon known as asterism, which is the appearance of a star-shaped pattern in the stone when it is viewed under a single light source.

Enchanting Designs and Settings

From simple and classic to ornate and elaborate, the most popular designs for ruby jewelry include solitaire rings, three-stone rings, halo rings, and vintage-inspired designs.

Solitaire rings feature a single ruby stone as the centerpiece, while three-stone rings and halo rings incorporate multiple smaller stones around the center ruby for added sparkle and glamour. Vintage-inspired designs may feature intricate details and filigree work for a romantic and antique look.

The stone can also be set in different metals to create a unique look. The metal also impacts the durability and maintenance of the jewelry. For example, yellow gold is a classic choice that can add warmth to the ruby’s red color. Silver is an affordable option to provide a modern and minimalist look while you can also opt for Panchdhatu, which is an alloy of five metals (gold, silver, copper, iron, and zinc), adding a unique and cultural touch to ruby jewelry.

So, unique ruby jewelry is a beautiful and meaningful choice for those seeking sentimental value. However, when ready to buy ruby stone, consider factors such as the quality and origin of the stone, as well as the design and setting. It is also important to purchase from a reputable and trustworthy jeweler providing a certificate of authenticity with each purchase.

Naked Lungs Announce Debut Album ‘Doomscroll’, Share New Song ‘Pressure’

Irish noise-punk quartet Naked Lungs have announced their debut album, Doomscroll, with the new single ‘Pressure’. Recorded and mixed by Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox at Sonic Studios in Dublin, the new LP comes out August 18. Lead single ‘Pressure’ arrives today along with a video directed by the band’s bassist, Ryan Mortell. Check it out and find the album cover and tracklist below.

“Keeping in line with the lyrics, the video explores the concept of anxiety and toxicity boiling over to manifest itself as a literal monster for us to overcome,” Mortell explained in a statement. “By showing the negative means we use to overcome these feelings, we can explore the journey one might take to escape this self-fulfilling prophecy of toxicity. The visuals are highly influenced by the work of New-French Extremity directors such as Julia Ducournau and Gaspar Noe – I was especially influenced by Noe’s Enter the Void in which the protagonist spirals into a psychedelic trip through their memories following their untimely death.”

Doomscroll Cover Artwork:

Doomscroll Tracklist:

1. Gack
2. Second Song
3. River (Down)
4. Relentless
5. Shell
6. Outcome
7. Pressure
8. Database
9. The Garden
10. Boo Boo

Local Natives Announce New Album ‘Time Will Wait for No One’, Share New Single

Local Natives have announced their fifth studio album: Time Will Wait for No One arrives July 7 via Loma Vista. Today’s announcement comes with the release of the new single ‘NYE’, which you can check out below, along with the LP’s cover art and tracklist.

Time Will Wait for No One, the follow-up to 2019’s Violet Street, was recorded in Los Angeles with producer John Congelton. “This record was made during a time of metamorphosis for us,” the band said in a statement. “Former selves melting away as some of us became fathers, endured periods of isolation, loss, and identity crisis. The highs and lows we were feeling at the same time were so extreme.”

“There was a moment halfway through making the album, we played one of the most emotional concerts of our lives,” they continued. “A sold out show at the Greek Theater in LA, our first performance in almost two years, but we didn’t know how we could move forward. As individuals and as a band, we were on the verge of a collapse. Time flows on uncontrollably and change is relentless, and the people you love are the only constants. Out of that reckoning we dissolved everything down to start again, and had the most prolific period of songwriting in our history. This is the first chapter, Time Will Wait For No One.”

Time Will Wait for No One will include the previously shared single ‘Just Before the Morning’.

Time Will Wait For No One Cover Artwork:

Time Will Wait For No One Tracklist:

1. Time Will Wait For No One
2. Just Before the Morning
3. Empty Mansions
4. Desert Snow
5. Paper Lanterns
6. Featherweight
7. Hourglass
8. Ava
9. NYE
10. Paradise

Albert Hammond Jr. Previews Upcoming Album ‘Melodies on Hiatus’ With Eight New Songs

Albert Hammond Jr. has shared eight new songs from his forthcoming album Melodies on Hiatus. The 19-track LP, out June 23, has already been previewed with the lead single ‘100-99’. Check out the new tracks below, along with a video for ‘Old Man’.

Albert Hammond Jr. co-wrote Melodies on Hiatus remotely with Simon Wilcox, who penned lyrics to Hammond’s demos. “I’m going through changes — and these songs reflect behaviors and moments of mine — but as time has gone on, they have taken shape and become universal. I think that’s a testament to the words Simon wrote and how they fit with the melodies,” Hammond said in a statement, continuing:

I think this is the best collection of music that I have made. I wasn’t trying to make a double album; I wanted to make a deconstruction of a band. Gus and I would make demos, and then we would build them out with a band and expand on them. This time we thought, why don’t we leave them in their drum machine demo form and make an album like that? What a contrast to Francis Trouble.

This is the first time I’ve written lyrics with someone like this. She wrote lyrics to my demos. So there were phrasings I might not even keep if I were to write lyrics, but she kept some of those — I think it’s very interesting, little one-off things you say in the moment, she would write around them. It weirdly sounds and feels more like me than when I write them myself. I think it’s clearer because she is so talented.

I was in one place when I made the album and then another place now, and the music and lyrics still hit as hard. That’s the meaning of it. I wrote it in one way, life ended up in a different way, and it still resonates with me. I think it has a story, an arc, and I tried to make it varied musically and melodically so it felt like something spanning a career and not just an album. This is this guy’s life, sonically.

I don’t know what more I can say about it. You also need both sides — let’s not get so serious about it; it’s just music, you know? It’s just that music feels serious because it can hit your unconscious mind or your soul. It hits somewhere in your gut and makes you think in a different way. It can change your perspective on stuff. And that’s so cool.

Empowering Women Through Art: Inside the “Ways of Seeing” Exhibition at Museum 54

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The Museum 54 in Tribeca, New York City hosted a 3-day pop-up exhibition titled “Ways of Seeing,” which explored female identity from a subjective viewpoint. Throughout history, artists of various mediums have portrayed women as objects existing only in the spiritual or ideal realm. The exhibition’s curator, Yahan Wang, and the team of Museum 54 sought to challenge this passive position and empower women by showcasing sculptures, paintings, drawings, photography, and video installation that reflected their positive and direct perspective.

According to Wang, they  have curated artworks from six female artists, each with their unique style of expressing the female identity and body using various mediums. The goal is to present women through a lens that is entirely their own, rather than through the eyes of observers.

Drawing from her experience working in Artnet and the art industry, Wang exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding curator by making informed decisions on the selection and presentation of artworks. Her aim is to effectively communicate the narrative behind each piece, while also making the exhibition accessible to audiences with varying levels of art knowledge. Ultimately, Wang was delighted with the exhibition’s outcome, as it surpassed her expectations in terms of visitor numbers and also because of the connections she formed with both the artists and visitors.

Wang expresses that while some individuals may spend their entire lives searching for their passion, she considers herself fortunate to have discovered hers at an early age. She feels deeply passionate about her role as a curator and helping artists, stating, “I am dedicated to my work and committed to supporting and promoting artists.”

Wang explains that a crucial aspect of her job involves coordinating with clients, a skill that is comparable to how she communicates and collaborates with artists as a curator. She believes that comprehending the artists’ requirements for an exhibition is analogous to understanding an artist’s creative approach in a curation project. As Wang puts it, “Both roles require effective communication and a deep understanding of the individual’s objectives.”

Album Review: billy woods & Kenny Segal, ‘Maps’

When billy woods raps, “I’m home, but my mind be wandering off,” it comes off as a bit of a paradox. For a large part of Maps, his new collaborative album with Kenny Segal, the state of wandering off is home. But that song, ‘NYC Tapwater’, is about returning to the physical place you call home, which is where this “hero’s journey” begins. “I feel I got to come home from a journey to have anything to really say, right?” woods said in an interview with Rolling Stone. On songs like ‘NYC Tapwater’ and ‘Kenwood Speakers’, he reckons with the cultural demise of the city in a way so cutting and subtle it couldn’t come from the lens of an observer. This is just one of the roles woods occupies throughout Maps, along with that of a passenger, a person drifting from place to place with no apparent purpose other than to document what he finds. This results in disconnected vignettes that say much more about his own rise to success and the wider systems at work than whatever the latest stop on tour is.

Even a cursory, breeze-through listen makes it clear woods has a lot to say. Line by line, as always, there’s a strange pleasure in trying to untangle his knotted, artful rhymes and trace his shifts in perspective. But Maps is especially fascinating considering the scope of his discography; conceptually, as a kind of travelogue, it veers away from last year’s Aethiopes and Church, two vastly different albums in their own right, but at the same time seems to follow the same fragmented, dream-like logic, which woods doesn’t so much rest in as try to rip into. For many like-minded artists, dense lyricism against dreary, diffuse instrumentals is a comfortable vibe; for woods, it’s a challenge to find comfort amidst the unsteadiness. His second full-length collaboration with Segal, Maps both warps and perfects his approach while pushing him to explore new territory.

‘Soft Landing’, which flips the chorus of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’, paints a conflicting portrait of dissociation, one where the high is illusory and short-lived but offers a rare moment of clarity that’s “nothing in the thought bubble/ From up here the lakes is puddles, the land unfold/ Brown and green, it’s a quiet puzzle.” The sparkling guitar that opens the song, peacefully countering woods’ darker dispatches, fizzles out, not clearing the way so much as passing the responsibility to him. Some of the album’s most transcendent, meaningful moments are like this, brief and dreamy, often compelling woods to lean into simpler, more direct language. You can chalk this up to his masterful ability to, well, map out a song in order to land the right punch, but it always works in tandem with, or even inspired by, Segal’s production. The feverish jazz of ‘Blue Smoke’ seems to tease the fire out of woods’ delivery, which remains cool and wryly frustrated. Then, a song called ‘Bad Dreams Are Only Dreams’ begins with the lines, “I can’t quite grab the new me/ Old self dozing in an aisle seat,” and barely a minute passes before the instrumental evaporates, denying any further self-inquiry.

The perpetual jet lag woods finds himself trapped in invites a variety of moods. Along with Segal’s production, some of the guests serve to pull him out of the haze: ‘Babylon By Bus’ and ‘Year Zero’, which boast verses from ShrapKnel and Danny Brown respectively, turn the blurry darkness woods normally crawls through into a menacing sprawl. Others, like Quelle Chris and his Armand Hammer partner Elucid, linger in the fog as a means of fleshing out a narrative. At their best, these appearances not only feel perfectly suited, but shed a light on woods’ headspace: “Strangely I feel right at home on my own,” goes the hypnotic chorus from Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring on ‘FaceTime’, trading in his experience as a touring musician. “When you was askin’ bout touring/ I get crux of the question,” Aesop Rock raps on ‘Waiting Around’. “It’s just the bulk of the answers are of another dimension.”

Time and time again, though, woods levels with us. “I say I’m at peace but, it’s still that same dread,” he admits on ‘Agriculture’, as if contesting the serenity of the instrumental – and his own expected growth. On ‘The Layover’, he raps: “I already knew the options was lose-lose/ Baby, that’s nothing new.” Despair is a loop, but there are new feelings and experiences to factor in that send Maps flying in different directions. The strange loneliness of ‘FaceTime’ may have its charms, but it offers no consolation against death, and so woods can’t fully succumb; no amount of poetic symbolism or doomsaying can distract him from the moment. That’s where many of the songs on Maps – especially ‘Soft Landing’ and the striking closer, ‘As the Crow Flies’ – eventually lead him. Whatever you call home, there’s nothing more compelling, so much that whenever and wherever it finds woods, he seems to run out of words. For such a master wordsmith, that certainly says something.

Sum 41 Announce Breakup

Sum 41 have announced that they are breaking up. The pop-punk veterans shared a statement on social media today (May 8), revealing that they will be disbanding after releasing and touring in support of their upcoming album Heaven :x: Hell.

“Being in Sum 41 since 1996 brought us some of the best moments of our lives,” the band wrote. “We are forever grateful to our fans both old and new, who have supported us in every way. It is hard to articulate the love and respect we have for all of you and we wanted you to hear this from us first.” The band continued:

Sum 41 will be disbanding. We will still be finishing all of our current upcoming tour dates this year, and we’re looking forward to releasing our final album, Heaven and Hell, along with a final worldwide headlining tour to celebrate. Details will be announced as soon as we have them.

For now, we look forward to seeing all of you skumfuks on the road and are excited for what the future will bring for each of us. Thank you for the last 27 years of Sum 41.

Thank you for the last 27 years of Sum 41.

Su 41 have released a total of seven albums, beginning with their 2001 debut All Killer No Filler. Their most recent LP was 2019’s Order in Decline.

 

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