Röyksopp have teamed up with Detroit-based R&B artist Maurissa Rose for the new single ‘Feel It’. It’s lifted from Profound Mysteries III, the final installment of their Profound Mysteries series. Listen to it below.
“’Profound Mysteries’ is – among many things – an esoteric tribute to some of the genres and time periods that has forged Röyksopp,” the band explained in a statement. “’Feel It’ is (specifically) a nod to the danceable, eclectic blend of musical styles, which originated on the Ibiza club scene in the mid 80s and early 90s, commonly referred to as Balearic beats. The track itself is a house-influenced Italo-dub, blending genres in a ‘if it works, it works’ aesthetic. An approach that’s always been very dear to us.”
Profound Mysteries III includes the earlier singles ‘Speed King’, ‘The Night’ featuring Alison Goldfrapp, and ‘Me&Youphoria’. According to the duo, it “concludes our triple album endeavor. Beneath its golden, shimmering sheen, lie levels of ambiguity and contrast; the sweet and the harrowing, the wonderful and the wrong. We are human, we dream.”
Okay Kaya, the moniker of Kaya Wilkins, has shared a new song, ‘Inside of Plum’, taken from her forthcoming album SAP. Following previous cuts ‘Spinal Tap’ and ‘Jolene From Her Own Perspective’, the single arrives with a video made in collaboration with visual artist Austin Lee using DALL·E 2 – OpenAI. Watch and listen below.
Speaking about the new track, which was inspired by ketamine therapy, Kaya said: “The doctor said ketamine treatment could interrupt behavioral patterns by growing new literal physical branches in your brain, providing cognitive flexibility. My doctor described the brain as a snow globe and the treatment as a fresh layer of snow enabling new slopes. Mood-riding.”
“I wanted to explore what it would be like to be the ripple, move through,” Kaya added of the video. “Whether it’s mundane objects, zoomed in on the natural or magical imagery and shapes.”
Jimmy Eat World have released a new song called ‘Place Your Debts’, which follows their June single ‘Something Loud’. Co-produced with Justin Meldal-Johnsen, the track comes with a music video co-directed by and starring Jim Adkins. Check it out below.
“The ‘debt’ you rack up is the time you spend avoiding doing the work to know yourself,” Adkins explained in a statement. “You buy an ending every time you start something, and the cost is determined by how closely you pay attention to your personal condition.”
“It’s a series of many, many edits of me singing to the camera,” he added of the video. “While every shot is different in terms of background, I’m framed with as close to the same composition in every one.”
Knifeplay started out as the bedroom project of Tj Strohmer, who grew up in rural southern Maryland and is now based in Philadelphia. Following a couple of home-recorded EPs, the band homed in their somber, at times discordant brand of shoegaze on their 2019 debut album, Peartly. In 2021, Strohmer entered the studio with Jeff Zeigler, known for his work with bands like Nothing and the War on Drugs, for the two-track Hurt Someone EP, which retained the chilling intensity of the band’s earlier material while smoothing out some of its rougher edges. Once again working with Ziegler, Knifeplay – with a band that includes bassist Alex Stackhouse, drummer John Sciortino, keyboardist Max Black, and guitarist John Klein – then recorded their outstanding sophomore LP, Animal Drowning, which is out today on Topshelf Records.
The atmosphere that permeates a lot of the album’s songs is one of bleak desolation, grappling with themes of death, abuse, and self-destruction against a grim political landscape. But Strohmer’s songwriting immerses us in this murky world through the lens of empathy rather than disaffection. Animal Drowning swells with beauty and longing more than it tumbles into oblivion, with layers of lush, eerie instrumentation strung across its stunning highs and crushing lows. Any time it sounds nearly broken, like in the cathartic climax of ‘Promise’, it also sounds reborn.
We caught up with Knifeplay’s Tj Strohmer for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about his upbringing, nihilism, the process behind the band’s new album, and more.
You’ve talked about how the single ‘Promise’ was influenced by your upbringing in rural southern Maryland. Can you talk more about your memories of growing up there and how it shaped your worldview early on, in relation to the song or just in general?
Where I grew up was very conservative and kind of traditionally American. I felt like my whole schooling and upbringing within the context of this system we have over here was more or less just preparing me to work a boring job that is in service of the system and not in service of the self or a sort of spiritual or artistic path. It felt like I was being put on a conveyor belt, basically, and everything was building up to this future that I didn’t really understand. The older I got, it just seemed like there has to be more to life-type thing. I guess just thinking about the lyrics – that statement, “You are what you are,” I don’t think there’s a defined thing I’m trying to say with that. I think that’s just a cynical expression, and I’m using it in this way where it’s true for a lot of people, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m not trying to preach a philosophy or anything like that, but I’m just trying the make people think about this situation that we’re all in together.
When you grow up in America, and especially with the way the schools are, it really is soulless. When I say, “Where rivers meet in lakes of mud,” that’s the imagery of the place where this is occurring, but it’s also imagery of stagnation – which, that’s kind of how I felt. I mean, where I grew up was a beautiful place, and I honestly had a really great childhood. But it did feel like like, once I started getting into more progressive ideas, there was a lot of pushback from everyone around me about that. And I kind of saw that the options for life were like: go to college and get a job, trade school, get a job, or – the people who I sort of maybe connected with more were just weren’t really interested in that, or they were just tricking themselves to be interested in that, which I did for a while too. But then there’s a lot of people who, like, do drugs and kind of fall apart. There’s a big problem in America with opiates right now, and I honestly feel like that’s part of it, because we’re not being nurtured to discover ourselves in any type of way. Art and spirituality and these things that are more than work and money in this system, there’s just no value to any of that in America. And that’s why our culture is just so bleak right now and devoid of any authenticity.
Again, the song, it’s not like I have this defined message or philosophy. I just wanted to touch on this feeling and this thing that I was reflecting on, because once I started doing this music thing, I’m more or less removed from all that. Because even though I work for a living – I move furniture for a living – I would rather do that and be able to make my music and kind of struggle through it than chase after security.
When did you start to feel adrift with that system and wanted to escape from it? Did music play a role in that?
I was always an outcast since – I feel when you’re a little kid, everyone’s kind of the same in a way. But I guess during my early adolescence, I discovered punk music, for one, in like fifth grade. And it was all over from there, pretty much. I had a guitar teacher who, honestly, taught me more about just being cool than playing guitar. But punk music and skateboarding informed my worldviews early on, or inspired me to question what was going on. And here’s the other contradiction, and I feel like you could read this into the song too – is growing up, I was told you can do whatever you want and be whatever you want, which is totally true. But once I actually got into the world, I realized how much resistance there is to that for someone like me, I guess – anyone who’s an artist or whatever, really. The older I got, the more I was able to intellectualise what I already felt from a really young age, which was rebellion against any kind of institution that was trying to tell me what life is supposed to be. Even all the way into college, though, I was afraid to really take the leap away from doing something that was, like, practical. I would have been told that this is foolish, you know, because I really have no plan for my future that’s secure.
I guess something just clicked when I was in my early 20s, where I was like, I need to make this music, and this is all I’m gonna care about, basically. And that’s kind of where I’m at now. I’m not trying to say, though, that it’s better, or that I’m enlightened or anything like that. This is just my thought process, because I feel like the life that I’m living and what led me up to making this record, which could have only been made in this set of circumstances, is so at odds with what the “system” or whatever, my upbringing would have me be doing.
The title of the album is Animal Drowning, and the band is called Knifeplay, which sort of gives listeners a hint of the kind of heavy themes you’re exploring. Despite the bleak sentiment of a song like ‘Nobody’, though, the music suggests there might be a strange beauty to that kind of darkness. How conscious are you of how those intense feelings are packaged in your music?
I’m not really conscious of how they’re packaged, but I feel like, you know, I’m not a total nihilist. I’m not a nihilist at all, in fact. But especially living where I live, being the age that I am, with the interests that I have, there’s flirtation with nihilism. But I think the reason that there is that dichotomy of [nihilism] and beauty within that album and all of our music is that, I’m a person, and it’s not just all this doom and gloom all the time. I feel differently about my circumstances and the world and everything from day to day.
I do think my personality comes through in this way, and honestly, it does come back again to where I grew up. I have a value for wholesomeness and goodness, and I think the reason I’m so drawn to writing about the more tragic or darker themes is because it does really bother me how the world is. It’s just so at odds with what I feel, what my spirit is.
I am becoming more conscious, though, of it, because now we’ve made two records. Because before, I was like, I’m just writing these songs as they fly through my head. And now I’m starting to understand what my voice is with this band, the stuff that I am able to talk about, and whatever my unique perspective is, putting that into the music. I think consciousness of that might actually help me to write something that is more controlled in the future, and even getting into this stuff in a more direct, more calculated way, maybe with our next release.
Like you said, as a person, your perspective changes all the time, and I’m curious how you go about capturing that. Writing is one thing and recording is another, but I know you spent quite a bit of time on post-production as well on this album. During that period of time, did the shape or the atmosphere of the record shift at all?
No, because we actually had demos of all the songs that were incredibly fleshed-out. It had pretty much everything you hear on the album in the demo, so we went in with a pretty distinct vision for that. But Jeff Ziegler was able to bring it to life in this way that I could never have done.
What was it like seeing that?
I remember the first time, actually, because we did the EP first that came out last year. And I remember sitting in his chair when it was close to done, and I just looked back and my bandmates and I was like, “I can’t even believe this is us.” [laughs] I’d never heard our music sound so good like that. It was great, and I think we’re only going to do studio albums from here on out.
One of my favourite lines on the album is from ‘Hearts’: “Darkness helped us become the same/ Now time works on the wound that throbs when songs play.” This is also related to the song ‘Deserve’, but I’m curious if music has a healing purpose for you, or if it’s more a tool to kind of contain or channel that hurt in some way.
I remember being in second grade, which was the first time I really started listening to music. I just listened to alternative rock on the radio or whatever, I wasn’t really exposed to any kind of underground music for a while. But I still remember the feeling I got when – it was this band Everclear, they’re a ‘90s alternative rock band – in second grade, and even still, to this day, every now and then, their songs would make me feel so hard. I still get that feeling now when I listen to really moving music, and I think I’ve just been chasing that my whole life. This is an obvious statement, but you feel understood by it, you know. And then once I started making records for myself, especially because when I started this project I was going through a lot of hard shit, I noticed that each release was like a period of my life. And now I look back on each one, and I see it as a way of getting through whatever I was dealing with at a certain time. So yeah, I do use it in that way, but it’s not really a conscious thing. I’ve just always been drawn to it.
How do you think you’ll remember this album, or what do you hope it inspires when you look back on it?
I will remember it as when I started taking this more seriously. It’s our first studio album, we put so much work and time into it, more than anything that maybe a lot of us have ever done ever. But certainly for me – I mean, I went to college, I got a degree, and this was harder than that. I pray that time is nice to the album, for me and for other people. But now that I made this, I feel locked in right now, in a way, where I’m ready to make another one. I want to write another one, which we’re already working on – it’s kind of early stages. But that’s how it affects me the most – it’s the first time I really, really tried, all the way, and didn’t hold anything back. I dumped all my money into it, I dumped so much time into it that it had a negative effect on other parts of my life. But I feel like it was worth it, everything.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Ben LaMar Gay has announced a new album, Certain Reveries, which is slated for release on November 11 via International Anthem. The LP is a long-form composition by Gay, performed alongside percussionist Tommaso Moretti and split into 11 tracks for the digital release. To accompany the announcement, the Chicago-born composer and multi-instrumentalist has shared the 11-minute lead single ‘Água Futurism’, along with a live performance video filmed by Chris Strong. Check it out below.
NxWorries, the duo of Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge, are back with their first new song in six years. ‘Where I Go’, which features H.E.R., arrives today alongside an accompanying video. Check it out below.
NxWorries’ debut album, Yes Lawd!, came out in 2016.
Brimming underneath the apathetic sprawl that permeates Dry Cleaning’s music is an extreme sensitivity to the world. As anyone who was at least intrigued by the London band’s remarkable 2021 debut New Long Leg will be quick to point out, what they brought to the table is more than a joyless recreation of what countless post-punks have done before – thanks in large part to vocalist Florence Shaw’s idiosyncratic lyrics and inimitable delivery, but also the way Tom Dowse’s guitar, Lewis Maynard’s bass, and Nick Buxton’s drums sludged and coiled around her. The album was far from monotonous, and if you’re willing to pay close attention, you might end up discovering different shades and colours in it. Which is why, when I saw them live under the heat of the early June sun at Primavera Sound 2022, I thought it was pretty funny that the screen behind them drained into black-and-white halfway through a song, as if to better match their moody (but actually pretty animated) performance. If they had gotten to play more material off their upcoming album, the environment might have actually seemed like the perfect fit – even to someone not too keen on following the trail of Shaw’s disaffected musings.
Stumpwork, Dry Cleaning’s sophomore album, doesn’t stray too far from the bizarre, brilliantly hypnotic sound the group conjured on New Long Leg. Shaw’s writing once again anchors itself in the push-and-pull of precision and distraction, her perceptiveness countered by beguiling non-sequiturs stretched further by the steady tangle of instrumentation. But just as her lyrics take on new meaning when you register the context, the subtle differences between the two records reveal themselves when you zoom out. More than sound or structure, it’s the temperature that’s shifted; a New York Times profile likened the debut to “a wet, wintry day” and noted the new album has the “dazed, heat-hazy vibe of a drunken summer afternoon,” which is a fairly accurate assessment, even if it undermines the complex ways that dynamic plays out across these 11 tracks. The progression of ‘Driver’s Story’, for instance, is more reminiscent of their earlier material, which contributes to the irony of Shaw reiterating the sort of critical language they’ve surely grown accustomed to: “It’s cool stuff but we want different styles,” she notes dryly, before offering a sly twist: “One can only wait and not see.”
You don’t even have to look that hard, only around: ‘Driver’s Seat’ is sandwiched between the shimmering, locked-in groove of ‘Gary Ashby’, which showcases Dry Cleaning’s melodic capabilities, and the scorching, distorted funk of ‘Hot Penny Day’. Each palette serves a distinct purpose. Shaw has described ‘Graby Ashby’ as “a lament about a pet tortoise, escaped as a result of family chaos,” but in the song’s bright bubble, that chaos remains out of view, even for a keen observer. It’s more something to be felt through the eyes of a child, and it’s this feeling that Stumpwork traces, all the way to the album’s conclusion, which frames child-like curiosity as the ideal lens through which to experience the world. Although the jangly ‘Kwenchy Kups’ obscures its narrative subjects, a certain giddy innocence is part of the thrill, as the simple anticipation of seeing otters is enough to dispel the anxiety of everything else: “Things are shit but they’re gonna be OK.” (The rub? “There aren’t any otters.”)
‘Hot Penny Day’, meanwhile, turns disparate observations into a striking display of Shaw’s surreal yet intuitive lyricism, which unfurls within the confines of a wandering mind but reflects much more about society at large. Shaw wrote much of it at a flea market, so at least the first lines scan as sincere – “If I could live across the road from a boot fair/ Wouldn’t that be something” – but the rest of the song relishes in blurring the line between diaristic and imaginative detail, or just pure wordplay. The band is fully tuned into the intensity that others might find absurd or alienating; when she relays confessions like “Our relationship/ Well, it’s not what you think,” everything comes to a boil. But they still know when to pull back. On the title track, Dowse trades the crunch that marked New Long Leg for a cleaner sound punctuated by reverb, while Shaw intones, “What I really love is to not use something to its full capacity/ Not full power/ Half its potential/ Medium.” This penchant for restraint justifies itself on the following track, ‘No Decent Shoes for Rain’, where, just as Dowse’s guitar starts to sizzle, the song deflates – a glare turned to a sigh.
When Dry Cleaning were lumped in the category of talky English post-punk bands alongside acts like black midi, Squid, and Black Country, New Road, their sound seemed more in line with what the term signified, if only because some of those other bands ventured way beyond those bounds. Though Stumpwork sticks to the band’s strengths rather than redefining their approach, its versatility is easy to savor and harder to ignore. Who knew that Dry Cleaning could sound that much like the Radio Dept., and on a song called ‘Conservative Hell’, no less? Yet experimentation is less the goal than a means of getting closer to the core of a song. ‘Don’t Press Me’ is surprisingly upbeat, but it’s most exciting for capturing the band’s dynamics in the span of less than two minutes.
‘Liberty Log’, on the other hand, stretches gloriously across its 7-minute runtime, growing more claustrophobic as Shaw entertains herself on a streaming service. “It’s a weird premise for a show, but I like it,” she repeats, which is how the friend who’s tagging along to the Dry Cleaning gig might respond to your pitch. This doesn’t escape Shaw. “If you like this you may like/ Weird weird weird weird,” she trails off, before clapping back: “You’re weird!” The song rambles into a dizzying cacophony, and by the time the final secret is revealed – “For a happy and exciting life/ Locally, nationwide or worldwide/ Stay interested in the world around you” – it sounds labored, muted, trademarked. Still, it feels like their motto.
If you are yet to get involved in the exciting world of digital gaming, then where have you been?! Far from the stereotypes of gaming formed in the eighties and nineties, today’s gaming landscape is a progressive mainstream entertainment industry that impacts everything from sportsto pop culture.
Plus, the best thing is that you don’t even need to go out and buy a console or gaming PC. Now that gaming is a digital activity, all you need to play the latest and greatest titles is any device with a screen which you can connect to the internet.
Read on to find out more about getting started with digital gaming.
What Equipment Do I Need?
As mentioned above, you don’t need necessarily need any specific equipment to get started with digital gaming. However, if there are certain types of games you enjoy playing more than others, in the long run, you may want to consider investing in a console or gaming PC.
Fear not, though; even if you do want to get yourself a console, there’s no need to buy the costly 5th gen PlayStation or Xbox. Older consoles like the Xbox 360 are still compatible with gaming platforms and are even cheaper when you purchase them second-hand.
For casual gaming, you can do a lot with your smartphone. The variety of gaming apps that are currently available is huge and encompasses short and sweet hypercasuals, premium-quality flagship games, and everything in between.
For many people, their trusty laptop or home PC is an easy way to start gaming in the digital realm. Unless your goal is to start gaming competitively, you’ll find that the majority of the titles you’d like to play are fully compatible with machines from the last decade. You may need to do some minor upgrades, like adding more RAM or using an ethernet cable for your internet connection, but other than that, you’re pretty much good to go.
What Games Can I Play?
Now that we’ve covered what you need to start playing digital games let’s get on to the good part: the games themselves. We could devote an entire series of articles to the various gaming experiences that you can play today, but here’s the lowdown on the most popular:
Battle Royale
One of the newest gaming genres to have emerged in the 21st century, battle royale games combine the best bits of a multitude of gaming genres, from action to strategy and, of course, multiplayer gaming. The gameplay of battle royale games varies from title to title, but you can expect to engage in survival tactics as well as combat.
iGaming Games
iGaming is an umbrella term used to define digital poker, casino gaming, and other wagering activities. This is a genre known for integrating the gameplay of card and table classics like poker and roulette with cutting-edge technology. Expect to find free to play games, real-money online tournaments and even virtual reality games.
Role-Playing Games
AKA RPGs, role-playing games are a staple of the digital gaming industry. These games are narrative and immersive and typically involve guiding a character on a quest in a fantastical world. Within the RPG genre, you’ll find tons of sub-genres, as well as more recent variants like open-world RPGs, which feature expansive environments that you’re free to explore.
Kelela has dropped a new song called ‘Happy Ending’, which was produced by LSDXOXO with additional production from Bambii. It arrives with an accompanying video Kelela co-directed with Alima Lee that highlights Black rave culture in New York City. Check it out below.
Last month, Kelela returned with her first single in four years, ‘Washed Away’.
John Cale has announced a new album, Mercy, which is set for release on January 20 via Double Six/Domino. The LP will include the previously released single ‘Night Crawling’, as well as the new track ‘Story of Blood’, which features Weyes Blood. Check out its Jethro Waters-directed music video below, and scroll down for the album artwork and tracklist.
“I’d been listening to Weyes Blood’s latest record and remembered Natalie’s puritanical vocals,” Cale said of the collaboration in a press release. “I thought if I could get her to come and sing with me on the ‘Swing your soul’ section, and a few other harmonies, it would be beautiful. What I got from her was something else! Once I understood the versatility in her voice, it was as if I’d written the song with her in mind all along. Her range and fearless approach to tonality was an unexpected surprise. There’s even a little passage in there where she’s a dead-ringer for Nico.”
Mercy also features contributions from Animal Collective, Sylvan Esso, Laurel Halo, Tei Shi, Actress, and more. Weyes Blood’s upcoming album, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, comes out November 18.
Mercy Tracklist:
1. Mercy [ft. Laurel Halo]
2. Marilyn Monroe’s Legs (Beauty Elsewhere) [feat. Actress]
3. Noise of You
4. Story of Blood
5. Time Stands Still [feat. Sylvan Esso]
6. Moonstruck (Nico’s Song)
7. Everlasting Days [feat. Animal Collective]
8. Night Crawling
9. Not the End of the World
10. The Legal Status of Ice [feat. Fat White Family]
11. I Know You’re Happy [feat. Tei Shi]
12. Out Your Window
