Aoife O’Donovan has shared a cover of Sharon Van Etten’s ‘I Love You But I’m Lost’. It’s taken from the upcoming deluxe edition of her Grammy-nominated 2022 album Age of Apathy, which arrives on January 27 via Yep Roc Records. Check it out below.
‘I Love You But I’m Lost’ appeared on Van Etten’s 2014 album Are We There. O’Donovan previously shared a rendition of Bill Callahan’s ‘Drover’.
John Cale’s name may be tied to his unparalleled legacy – both on his own and as one of the founding members of the Velvet Underground – but his restless curiosity as a musician prevents him from moving anywhere but forward. “If you go and end up in a corner that you feel uncomfortable in, something will happen and you’ll come up with a solution,” the 80-year-old said in a recent interview, offering a neat summation of his artistic mantra. The wonder of his music lies not in the solutions it presents but in his willingness to sit in that uncomfortable space, barreling through the noise in ways that can be graceful or disturbing, but always unpredictable. MERCY, Cale’s 17th solo album and first of original material in over a decade, traverses murky grounds without pretending to reach any form of clarity. Yet it moves with intention, collating avant-garde ideas and collaborative sparks into a compelling and oddly touching record that doesn’t guide so much as urge you to wander along the same void.
There is an air of cold stillness about MERCY, which could make for a listless experience were it not for Cale’s keen eye for detail. He revels in brooding, dystopian atmospheres but allows contrasting elements to emerge within them, and here, these often come courtesy of the album’s impressive cast of guests. The title track establishes this gloomy disposition, but Laurel Halo carves space for shimmering beauty in the song’s icy synths as it stretches out to seven minutes, at once responding to and suffusing Cale’s pleas for transcendence. Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, who last year settled on mercy as the only solution to loneliness, makes for a fitting partner on the transfixing ‘STORY OF BLOOD’, the two voices gliding over each other to evoke both the strange physicality and soulfulness that permeates the lyrics: “This is the story, the story of blood/ It starts in the heart/ It moves all around, wake you in the morning/ And brings you down.” And on ‘TIME STANDS STILL’, Sylvan Esso add a touch of lightness to an otherwise morose meditation on history.
Time does seem to stand still on MERCY, where present-day catastrophe spurs an uneasy (and unfiltered) fixation with the past. A throbbing beat by the electronic producer Actress crawls into and jerks away at the ghostly, abstract memories that override ‘MARILYN MONROE’S LEGS (beauty elsewhere)’, and ‘NOISE OF YOU’ proceeds by tumbling further back in time, surefooted at first but slowly growing in desperation the more it longs for a distant sound. Far from the swirl of instrumentation gathering around those tracks is the drumless drift of ‘MOONSTRUCK (Nico’s Song)’, while the groovy ‘NIGHT CRAWLING’ finds Cale reminiscing on his friendship with David Bowie in the ’70s. These songs could easily pander to the listeners’ own propensity for nostalgia, yet rather than heartfelt tributes, they are confrontational and challenging, though ultimately still tender, in their honesty.
Without some of its guest contributions, MERCY‘s oblique lyricism and meandering song structures could leave something to be desired. Though Cale delivers an arresting performance on ‘NOT THE END OF THE WORLD’, it’s not hard to wonder how an extra collaborator might have elevated its sense of drama. It’s a testament to how seamlessly he integrates the often subtle textures handed to him by this younger generation of artists, but also how much we want them – peers and contemporaries – to always venture into these dark and desolate landscapes side by side. In spirit, they often do; ‘EVERLASTING DAYS’, a collaboration with Animal Collective, has an awkward scrappiness about it, but it’s not long before the gauzy effects lock in with the music’s sweeping devastation. “When we try to walk away, when we turn our backs and smile/ Will we see the past that haunts us now?” Cale ponders. The journey the album takes us on is oneiric and starkly personal, but simmering underneath is the firm hope that when we all inevitably end up in a corner, we’ll be looking for the same thing. MERCY doesn’t reveal much about its own character or purpose, but this, it spells out in capital letters.
Beck and Phoenix have announced a co-headlining tour that will take them across the United States this August and September. The 20-date trek, dubbed the Summer Odyssey Tour, will include support from Weyes Blood, Japanese Breakfast, Jenny Lewis, and Sir Chloe. Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster this Friday, January 27 at 10am local time. Find the list of dates below.
Phoenix released Alpha Zulu, the follow-up to 2017’s Ti Amo, back in November. Beck’s last album was 2019’s Hyperspace.
Beck and Phoenix Summer Odyssey 2023 Tour Dates:
Aug 1 Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena ^#
Aug 3 Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater ^#
Aug 5 Concord, CA – Concord Pavilion ^#
Aug 7 Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum ^#
Aug 8 San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena +#
Aug 9 Orange County, CA – OC Fair*
Aug 11 Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center +#
Aug 12 Las Vegas, NV – Michelob Ultra Arena +#
Aug 15 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre +#
Aug 18 Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP ~#
Aug 20 Houston, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion ~#
Aug 21 Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion ~#
Aug 22 Austin, TX – Moody Center ~#
Aug 31 Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion #
Sep 2 Detroit, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre ~#
Sep 3 Toronto, Ontario – Budweiser Stage ~#
Sep 5 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway ~#
Sep 8 Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at the Mann ~#
Sep 9 New York, NY – Madison Square Garden ~
Sep 10 Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ~#
^ with Jenny Lewis
+ with Japanese Breakfast
~ with Weyes Blood
# with Sir Chloe
The Filipino producer Eyedress has shared a remix of his track ‘House of Cards’ by My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. The song appears on Eyedress’ 2022 project FULL TIME LOVER, and the remix arrives as part of Lex Records’ 20th-anniversary remix series. In a press statement, Eyedress said having Shields rework the track is “a dream come true.” Take a listen below.
In 2017, Shields teamed up with Brian Eno for the song ‘Only Once Away My Son’, which they followed the next year with ‘The Weight of History’. My Bloody Valentine’s last album, mbv, was released in 2013. Last Friday, Eyedress dropped his new mixtape Committing Crimes on Friday.
Heather Woods Broderick has announced her fifth album, Labyrinth. It’s due for release on April 7 via Western Vinyl, and today, she’s shared a new single, ‘Crashing Against the Sun’, which is accompanied by a Jeremy Johnstone-directed video. The track follows November’s ‘Blood Run Through Me’, which features vocals from the album’s co-producer D. James Goodwin and singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan. Check out the new track below, along with Labyrinth‘s cover art and tracklist.
‘Crashing Against The Sun’ is about “‘coming to terms with the realities of today, and moving through the present with a presence of mind and recognition of all the possibilities the future holds,” according to Broderick. “It’s about what we cling to as reassurance or validation in our world, and how these things are often fleeting. The song illustrates a curiosity as to how those same sentiments can also have dual existence and present positivity. The subtleties of existence are full of variability. Our experience can often feel redundant, but uniqueness lies in the details. Essentially, time flies, enjoy the ride.”
Introducing Labyrinth‘s themes, she said: “Many of us yearn for stillness and peace, as an escape from the movement all around us. Yet movement is perpetual, happening all the time on some level. It’s as wild as the wind, yet eternally predictable in its inevitability. It is linear in part, but infinite in its circuitry. Our lives just punctuate it.”
Labyrinth Cover Artwork:
Labyrinth Tracklist:
1. As I Left
2. I Want To Go
3. Admiration
4. Crashing Against The Sun
5. Wandering
6. Wherever I Go
7. Tiny Receptors
8. Blood Run Through Me
9. Seemed A River
10. What Does Love Care
Runnner has shared a new song, ‘runnning in place at the edge of the map’, lifted from his upcoming debut full-length. It follows the previously unveiled singles ‘NYE’, ‘bike again’, and ‘i only sing about food’. Check it out below.
“I wrote this song about feeling frustrated in my communication and video games,” Noah Weinman explained in a statement. “I’d work myself into a kind of mute, catatonic state and the more I tried to think through it the more stuck I felt. The only way I could picture it was like when your character in some open world game is just running into that invisible wall over and over again.”
Runnner’s Like Dying Stars, We’re Reaching Out is set to arrive on February 17 via Run for Cover.
As the head of a nonprofit organization, you’re well aware there are various fundraising strategies you may employ. You are always rethinking your tactics and looking for new ways to advance your cause. It is crucial to utilize up-to-date fundraising technologies in order to efficiently manage operations, engage with donors, and raise awareness about your cause.
Technology advancements have made a dramatic impact on the fundraising industry. Thus, it may be time to try something new in your campaigns if you still employ antiquated practices like sending actual thank-you notes to donors.
In the digital era, where you can do almost anything online – even gamble from the comfort of your home on Sloto – you can surely get technologies that can support your fundraising activities. Here is a list of the most effective online fundraising options for nonprofit organizations.
By conducting donor research, you can learn more about your present supporters and reach out to potential new ones. Your marketing efforts will be more successful once you have a clear picture of who is interested in your cause.
Do you know the median age of your contributors? Where exactly do they make their home? What kind of employment do they do? Find out how generous they tend to be. A cutting-edge donor research platform will have the answers to these issues. When a user makes a donation, the system records details about them and adds them to a continually updated database.
These frameworks are easy to learn and adapt to your requirements. That data may be readily available to you, the user. By compiling demographic data such as age, social media profiles and occupation, you can construct a detailed profile of a potential donor.
Finding and keeping reliable volunteers is a challenge for many nonprofits. There used to be a great deal of paperwork and calls involved in managing volunteers.
Information about your volunteers, like their availability and contact details, may now be kept in one convenient location. Volunteers can be kept up-to-date on the progress of individual projects through the use of automated emails.
Tools for managing volunteers can help you stay on top of your many projects and charity groups.
You could lose money and donors if you aren’t using a donor management system. These resources are useful for spreading the word about your campaign, convincing potential contributors to contribute, and keeping in touch with current backers.
Using a customer relationship management system has several benefits, but one of the most attractive is the reduction in paperwork. Commonplace chores in campaign administration, such as evaluating data, polling participants, and assembling thank-you mailings, will be within your reach.
Reports may be accessed from anywhere, making it possible to monitor a campaign’s development and evaluate the efficacy of various tactics with relative ease. You may tailor your CRM to your NGO’s operations for maximum convenience and productivity.
People spend about 4 hours a day, every day, staring at their phones. Buying clothes, event tickets, and even paying rent are just some examples of things people do on their smartphones. That doesn’t mean they can’t give to your cause.
You will lose a lot of money if funders must go to great lengths to send you funds. The best solution would be to give contributors the ability to make instantaneous contributions. Donors may quickly and easily support your cause using text-to-donate fundraising tools.
Independent businesses, musicians, and nonprofits can all find success with crowdfunding projects. More money and attention will be given to your cause if you have a crowdfunding page that is both unique and attractive.
Create interesting material, which is the most crucial aspect of a successful crowdfunding website. Blog posts, videos, as well as other forms of media can be used to educate and enlighten the public about your cause. To monitor the success of each page, a top-tier crowdfunding platform will furnish you with comprehensive monitoring and statistics.
You can see how many individuals have visited, who has donated, how long they stayed, what they did while there, and what material they interacted with.
To accept donations and other payments online, you’ll need payment processing software to facilitate the transaction behind the scenes. This tool essentially serves as a mediator between the organization, donor, and financial institution.
An effective payment processor typically empowers nonprofit organizations to process contributions through multiple payment methods, offers a simple user interface, produces ready-built and custom reports, and maintains high payment security standards.
They should also integrate with other nonprofit solutions.
Organizing a fundraising event is generally the best course of action to attract new donors, enhance donor participation, and raise more money. As a result, software designed specifically for such events can help with all stages of the event’s lifecycle.
Fundraising tools for events should facilitate the creation of online event pages to publicize the activities.
It should allow for digital bidding at auctions and provide free and paid admission alternatives and interactive in-person, online, and hybrid experiences. In addition to ticket sales, other forms of financial support can be collected with the help of some tools.
Take Away
Cutting-edge fundraising software is available to help groups like yours make the most of the shift to digital fundraising. With the correct tech stack in place, your team can raise more money faster and with fewer headaches.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this best new music segment.
On this week’s list, we’re highlighting one of three tracks we got to hear from boygenius’ long-awaited debut album, ‘20$’, which stands out for its surging desperation and climactic intensity; ‘Chosen to Deserve’, the explosive and irresistibly hooky lead single from Wednesday’s Dead Oceans debut Rat Saw Gold, which was inspired by Drive-By Truckers’ ‘Let There Be Rock’; ‘Tropic Morning News’, the lead single from the National’s upcoming album, which pushes against the dreariness of its subject matter with a deceptively light and richly expressive sound; MSPAINT’s catchy yet feverish ‘Delete It’, which features guest vocals by Militarie Gun leader Ian Shelton; ‘For Granted’, the lead single from Yaeji’s debut LP, an inward-looking track whose anxiety bubbles into frenetic drum’n’bass; and Fenne Lily’s ‘Lights Light Up’, the beautifully warm and poignant lead single from her new album Big Picture.
Best New Songs: January 23, 2023
boygenius, ‘20$’
Song of the Week: Wednesday, ‘Chosen to Deserve’
The National, ‘Tropic Morning News’
MSPAINT feat. Militarie Gun, ‘Delete It’
Yaeji, ‘For Granted’
Fenne Lily, ‘Lights Light Up’
Sam Smith was the musical guest on last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, where they performed ‘Gloria’ and ‘Unholy’ with Kim Petras. Watch it happen below.
‘Unholy’ marked the first song by openly nonbinary and trans artists to top the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the first single by both Smith and Petras to hit No. 1. It will appear on Smith’s fourth studio album, Gloria, which arrives on January 27. The singer is set to head out on a tour of Europe and the UK this April before embarking on their first North American tour since 2018.
Neil Young has shared a tribute to David Crosby in the wake of his death on Thursday (January 19) at the age of 81. Young posted the statement on his website Neil Young Archives, calling his friend and former bandmate in Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young “the soul of CSNY.”
“David is gone, but his music lives on,” Young wrote. “The soul of CSNY, David’s voice and energy were at the heart of our band. His great songs stood for what we believed in and it was always fun and exciting when we got to play together. ‘Almost Cut My Hair’ and ‘Deja Vu,’ and so many other great songs he wrote were wonderful to jam on and [Stephen] Stills and I had a blast as he kept going on and on. His singing with Graham [Nash] was memorable, their duo spot a highlight of so many of our shows.”
“We had so many great times, especially in the early years,” Young continued. “Crosby was a very supportive friend in my early life, as we bit off big pieces of our experience together. David was the catalyst of many things. My heart goes out to Jan and Django, his wife and son. Lots of love to you. Thanks David for your spirit and songs, Love you man. I remember the best times!
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