Fiona Apple has scored The Court Watchers, a new short film about the importance of court watching for the National Courtwatch Network. She also serves as one of the film’s narrators, talking about her own court watching experience. Watch it below.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Apple explained that part of her involvement in the PSA was due to her own arrest for drug possession in 2012: “It was drugs, it was hash. I wasn’t violent. But I could have gone away for 10 years, you know? And that’s happening to people all of the frickin’ time. It’s happening to people every day. For less.”
“Court watching is really the gateway to a better community, a better world, because it will make you care,” Apple added. “It makes you care about people you don’t know. And we need more of that. We really need more of that.”
Injustice happens in empty courtrooms. But in a growing number of places, people are holding the system accountable by showing up in court. Volunteering to court watch. Documenting what they see.
We’re watching. This powerful short film (scored by Fiona Apple!) tells our story: pic.twitter.com/zMFiZo2WNR
Kae Tempest has announced Nice Idea, a Record Store Day-exclusive EP produced by Dan Carey. Today, they’ve shared the EP’s title track, which marks their first solo music since last year’s The Line Is a Curve. Give it a listen below.
“This is a song about wanting to stay in bed all day with the person you’re in love with,” Tempest said of ‘Nice Idea’ in a statement “Imagine you could just shut the whole world out and enjoy each other. Nice idea.”
Fenne Lily has shared a new track from her upcoming album Big Picture, which was led by the single ‘Lights Light Up’. Listen to ‘Dawncolored Horse’ below.
The new song takes its title from a Richard Brautigan poem, ‘The Horse That Had a Flat Tire’. In a press release, Lily explained, “[Brautigan] talks about the woman he loves as being a ‘breathing castle.’ I truly don’t know what that means, but for me he’s distilled a feeling of absolute closeness. When you know someone so well it feels like you’re almost living inside them. That can be claustrophobic, but before it’s too much, it’s incredible.”
“A lot of the music I was listening to while I was writing seemed to be old kind of country stuff; the album Anymore For Anymore by Ronnie Lane and Slim Change was a big one (‘hear Roll On Babe from ’74’) — anything that sounded warm and comfortable, just people in a room playing what came most naturally,” she added. “When I brought this song to the band it easily fell into that sort of world — it felt stable, which is cool for a song that came from a place of total instability.” The song features Joe Sherrin on lead guitar, Kane Eagle on bass, James Luxton on drums, Phil Cook on bango, and Brad Cook on mellotron.
Big Picture is due for release April 14 through Dead Oceans.
The New Pornographers have released a new track, ‘Angelcover’, lifted from their forthcoming LP Continue as a Guest. Listen to it below.
“I pictured this one as a weird little George Saunders-esque sketch, a snapshot,” frontman A.C. Newman explained in a statement. “I found myself a lot more concerned with performance and/or delivery, changing melody and phrasing to get a better performance, less concerned, less precious about the original melody or lyric that I wrote. With that in mind, I had the idea of angels visiting me in the night with the message that ‘melody ain’t got nothing on delivery.’ Kind of a fever dream, where feelings take on their own personality and shape.”
Continue as a Guest, the New Pornographers’ first album for Merge, arrives on March 31. The band previously previewed the record with a video for the lead single ‘Really Really Light’, which made our Best New Songs segment.
Naima Bock has unveiled a new song called ‘Lies’. The track was engineered and produced by Ali Chant and arrives with a music video directed by Kit Harwood. Check it out below.
“‘Lines’ is about what we do to each other, some call the dance of intimacy, exchanges,” Bock explained in a statement. “What we are given, carry with us, then subsequently pass on to others good and bad. How the recipient is often undeserving of the negative side of this reality. It’s about trying to dodge blame and the loneliness of guilt. It’s about the irony of impermanence and unhealthy patterns coexisting; ‘nothing stays’ but ‘nothings changed’. The idea of change I had grown accustomed to but the reality that some things won’t change until you actively work on them is something new to me, preferring to adopt a slightly lazy attitude and misunderstanding the saying ‘all passes’. Sometimes it doesn’t pass quickly enough. It’s also a song about anger, and the familiarity of not knowing where to put it.”
Alison Goldfrapp and Paul Woolford have teamed up for the new single ‘Fever’. It follows last month’s ‘Digging Deeper’, a collaboration with German producer Claptone. “I love the simmering and explosive energy Paul has brought to my track ‘Fever’,” Goldfrapp said in a press release. “I can’t wait to hear it out on a sweaty dancefloor.” Take a listen below.
100 gecs have released a new single, ‘Hollywood Baby’, lifted from their upcoming album 10,000 gecs. Laura Les and Dylan Brady have also revealed the album’s tracklist. Check out the self-directed video for ‘Hollywood Baby’ and see the full tracklist below.
1. Dumbest Girl Alive
2. 757
3. Hollywood Baby
4. Frog on the Floor
5. Doritos & Fritos
6. Billy Knows Jamie
7. One Million Dollars
8. The Most Wanted Person in the United States
9. I Got My Tooth Removed
10. MeMeMe
Mediocre, the Boston-based duo of Piper Torrison and Keely Martin, have announced To Know You’re Screwed, their debut EP for Dangerbird Records. Today, they’re previewing it with the single ‘To Know You’re Screwed Is to Know a Lot’, which arrives with a self-directed video. Check it out below.
“We wanted to capture the chaotic and futile experience of running away from your own mess – literally and figuratively,” Mediocre said of the new song in a statement. “Sometimes the awareness of being screwed is comforting, but sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
To Know You’re Screwed EP Cover Artwork:
To Know You’re Screwed EP Tracklist:
1. To Know You’re Screwed is to Know a Lot
2. Pop Song Baby
3. Wash the Paint
4. Tiny Toad
5. Together Together
Xiu Xiu have released ‘Pahrump’, the second preview of their forthcoming album Ignore Grief. Following lead single ‘Maybae Baeby’, the track arrives with an accompanying video directed by the band’s Angela Seo. Check it out below.
“‘Pahrump’ is a dissonant string ensemble piece that features intense, harmolodic saxophones by Patrick Shiroishi,” Seo explained in a statement. “It details the avoidable disaster of someone I love having chosen the sloshing path of cocaine and booze over her children, who I also love. She lives and will likely soon die in the nightmare town of Pahrump, Nevada.”
Ignore Grief is set to arrive on March 3 via Polyvinyl.
NOIA – the alias of Barcelona-born, Brooklyn-based singer and producer Gisela Fullà-Silvestre – has teamed up with Ela Minus for a new single, ‘Didn’t Know’. It’s set to appear on her upcoming debut LP gisela, which is out March 31 (via Cascine) and includes the previously released single ‘eclipse de amor’, featuring Buscabulla. Check out the Lola Blanc-directed video for ‘Didn’t Know’ below (via Metal Magazine).
Discussing the new song, NOIA said in a press release:
“didn’t know” is an ode to my friends in nyc. an ode to all the bad dating we’ve done in this city and how we’ve survived through staying together and laughing together. it’s also an ode to the nightlife of this city. I borrowed a couple of dialogue lines from Mad Men for the lyrics: this song is playfully centered around the idea of singing to the ultimate fuckboy, don draper. I have collected so many whatsapp audio messages (or whatsapp podcasts lol) from my friends sharing their late night experiences, so I wanted to bring those bits and pieces of dialogue into the song, that’s why there’s that sound design club bathroom moment in the song and that’s why you can hear them discovering the magic of autotune towards the end of the song.
I had to invite Ela Minus to sing this song as a duet: she is one of my good friends with whom I’ve shared these experiences with, endless dinners in Brooklyn laughing away our love adventures. but also, when i started this beat (with a drum machine and not in the box as I usually make beats) I realized I was getting inspired by her amazing beat making style. so I sent the track to her during the pandemic and she recorded her beautiful airy vocals in it, half in English, half in Spanish.
Musically this is my Prince song, it’s definitely a hot pink song. I wanted the voices to feel like a wall of airy rhythmic sexy vibes. but then the beat and the bass to feel chaotic and industrial.
Of the video, she added:
Lola Blanc is an amazing director and artist, and she knows how to find that sweet spot between humor, horror, high fashion and feeling. The concept behind this surreal video was friends being VERY bored and done with fuckboys, so bored they can only yawn and roll their eyes. We also created the ultimate fuckboy, seating in his office, gaslighting his gf on the phone like a pro. At the same time, we wanted this video to feel very earnest, since at the end of the day this song is about friendship and laughing away the love troubles so half of the video is just dancing and having fun. Some of the visual references for this video were Prince (Batman era), the 5th Element (the movie!), Almodovar’s Women on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Mad Men, Sex and the City, Thierry Mugler, y2k fantasies and mars attack. Yuri Tachi created the styling for this video, which was a vision of rainbow colors and textures.
Last year, Ela Minus followed up her 2020 debut album Acts of Rebellion with ♡, a collaborative EP with DJ Python. Read our interview with Ela Minus and DJ Python.
