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Is Vallejo-based hip hop group SOB X RBE breaking up? Rumors have been flying the last few days after member Yhung T.O. shared a text post on Instagram announcing the band’s disbandment two days ago. The message is gone (along with the rest of his posts), but it read, “Gangin 2 will be my last album with SOB. Me and [DaBoii] got sum shit still in the cut fa y’all tho.” Whether or not this is the end for the group remains to be seen; in the meantime, they’ve got an album to promote. In the lead up to GANGIN II’s release on September 28th, they’ve released their new single, “Made It”. It follows “Vibes” as the second single off the album. Produced by X-Slapz, the group’s DJ on tour, “Made It” is a thumping example of the bouncing, youthful exuberance they displayed on their debut GANGIN and their contribution to the Black Panther soundtrack, “Paramedic!”. If this turns out to be SOB X RBE’s swan song, there are worse ways to go out. GANGIN II is due out September 28th, courtesy of SOB X RBE and Empire. Listen to “Made It” on Spotify and Apple Music below. Source

“Nothing Fishy, Just Bass” The electronic dance music industry brought in $963 million to night clubs in 2018, and the global economic value of the EDM industry is estimated at $7.1 billion. These facts can be mind blowing to someone who’s not part of the scene, but attend an event or festival, and you’ll see the love for this music seeping through peoples’ pores, and their willingness to spend money on these events comes along with it. So how do YOU become part of these massive numbers? How do you contribute back to the scene that has given you so much? I sat down with the curator of BassNight, a local bass music lover’s oasis each Sunday night in Orlando, FL, about breaking into the local EDM industry, and tips and tricks for how you can, too. Cue: Loren Hardy, who ironically looks like, and has the same name as Bassnectar, the artist he credits for sky-rocketing him into the scene in 2015. Loren explained how curating BassNight took massive rapid action, networking with motivated individuals, and most importantly, bartering. “DJs are so much more accessible than rock artists, if you reach out to them on social media, they’re likely to respond.” Loren highlights how he manages to book DJs each week for BassNight, it’s as simple as not being afraid to ask. “DJs can come here to get experience so they can put it on their résumé and get more gigs. This is about a springboard effect.” I was shocked to discover that only a small amount of money was needed to boost BassNight from the ground up. “It’s all about bartering with others in the industry, about trading your talents for theirs, about making bridges and uniting people in bass” said Loren. Many local venues are actually willing to lend their space out if they have nothing planned for that weeknight, as events like these allow them to sell drinks on nights they would normally be closed. You bring the crowd, they provide the drank. Loren’s first event involved him and a bunch of his friends acquiring PA gear and converting an alleyway in Longwood, Florida into a bar. Loren wants you to know that all his “conquest of bass” took was a lot of passion. It’s truly awe-inspiring and humbling to witness the amount of talented people that have come together in this industry to create mind-blowing events and keep the music pumping. Loren was tired of waiting around for events in between festivals, so he kicked BassNight into gear to appease those who felt the same. Walking into the Geek Easy, for BassNight, I was greeted by extremely DanceSafe Orlando Boothtalented, local art and clothing vendors like the gorgeous Calypso Arts, the Orlando DanceSafe booth, and people playing video games. There were gourmet snacks and sandwiches, and a selection of craft beer. Towards the back was the production, and Dropkick was on the decks playing a set of all original songs, followed by Orlando native, Rest in Pierce, and Diceman with the New York HEAT. The lasers caught my eye of course, as Beardthug took the stage and shook Orlando to the core with the underground originals. “The missing element of American society is the pow wow, where we come together and stomp the ground, where all politics and differences are left at the door.” When I walked through BassNight’s door, I was greeted as FAMILY. I left feeling inspired, and today I give BassNight the spotlight it so greatly deserves. Thank you Chantalle and Loren for an amazing night, I will be back very soon. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bassnightorl/ Instagram: @bassnightorl The post Want to Start Your Own EDM Club Night? Creator of Orlando’s BassNight Shares How appeared first on EDM Maniac. Source

Savages members Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan have broken off on their own on a new side project dubbed 180dB, kicking off their new collaboration with the debut single, “Road Trip”. According to a press release, “Road Trip” came about as a result of a chance meeting between Milton and Goldie at a political rally last year. Goldie played her “Upstart (Road Trip)”, his collab with Skepta, and challenged Milton to make a “raging punk” interpretation of the track. Well, it’s finally here, a thrashing take with Graves’ lyrics replacing Skepta’s. “Road Trip” features Meredith Graves (vocalist for Perfect Pussy) and drummer Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the first participants in the “continuously morphing supergroup” of 180dB. Right off the bat, it’s got that core Savages energy, with all the distorted power chords and aggressive feedback you could ask for. Along with Graves’ acidic, percussive vocals and Zinner’s devil-may-care drum fills, it’s an explosive debut. 180dB’s first album is set to debut sometime early 2019. Savages’ two albums to date, 2013’s Silence Yourself and 2016’s Adore Life, were nominated for the Mercury Prize, and were met with critical acclaim. Check out the music video for “Road Trip”, directed by Milton, below. Source

Johnathan Rice’s multi-disciplinary career has brought him into contact with a number of fascinating figures over the years. He’s worked most prominently alongside Jenny Lewis as Jenny and Jonny, but he’s also toured with acts like R.E.M. and Phoenix, written for Meryl Streep, and acted alongside Joaquin Phoenix. An interesting conversation with another icon, the legendary Bill Murray, led Rice to pen his latest single, “Meet the Mother”. As Rice explained in a press release, “This song is an outlier in my catalogue because it’s my attempt at writing something funny. I ended up in a conversation with Bill Murray one night about relationships, and he told me, ‘Well, you’ve got to meet the mother. I carried that phrase with me for years. It felt totemic. I don’t necessarily think that we are just facsimiles of our parents. Real life is way more nuanced than that. But songs aren’t real life. Songs are shorter. I always wanted to write a song that had a cyclical refrain, kinda like ‘You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry.’ The song is written in a pretty traditional style, but Tony Berg [(Phoebe Bridgers, Aimee Mann)] and Mike Viola [(Ryan Adams, Panic! At the Disco)] kind of went for a Suicide meets Nebraska thing with the production.” The funny little song comes accompanied by a funny little video starring 69-year-old viral sensation Lili Hayes. The clip was directed by Hayes’ son — the same guy behind the lens of most of her social media videos — Kevin Hayes. Check it out below. Rice also recently shared the track “The Long Game”. Both that song and “Meet the Mother” will appear on a forthcoming solo project, so stay tuned for more. Source

At Life Is Beautiful 2018, we will have many dexterous performers. Right off the bat we can tell you fans are already wrapping around blocks to see ODESZA, The Weeknd, and Travis Scott. We all know these artists, their stories and who they may or may not have had babies with this past year. What about the others? Take some time to learn about these up-and-coming musicians who might not be on the cover of Teen Magazine, but will have a promising, must-see set this weekend. It’s the little names that make life big Photo via Life Is Beautiful Facebook Elohim Since the age of five, this American singer has made moves. Pre-Elohim would play the piano trying to make a name for herself, but now-a-days Elohim stretches her vocals tall. Full of solace she performs music that twine with artists we all love like Whethan with ‘Sensation’ and Louis The Child with ‘Love Is Alive’. Check out Elohim’s collab with Louis The Child and Original ‘Fuck Your Money’:  Photo via Elohim Facebook 3lau 3lau is an American DJ and Producer that is returning home for Life Is Beautiful– being a Las Vegas native. Justin has killed the game spotlight-centered and behind the scenes. Besides dominating the field with his sound, he works passionately with a team of event coordinators to host the first ever crypto-oriented music festival. The first annual Our Music Festival will take place October 20th in San Francisco. Blast your speakers to ‘How You Love Me’ and ‘On My Mind’ below:  Photo via 3lau Facebook Young Bombs Coming from Vancouver, we introduce you to a couple of guys named Martin and Tristan AKA Young Bombs. Together they have thrived on Adventure-Pop, their style and flare of production. As Young Bombs, they haven’t originated too many songs, but they have hit numerous home-runs with their remixes. With their Facebook bio being ‘Forever Young’, we can expect a spirited set at LIB. Turn up the volume to one of their golden remixes below:  Photo via Young Bombs Facebook We are looking forward to watching these performers light up Life Is Beautiful this weekend! Life Is Beautiful is currently sold out on all general admissions, but some VIP is still available. This event will take place today thru Sunday in Downtown. Time to go in… Photo via Life Is Beautiful Facebook Follow Life is Beautiful: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter The post Life Is Beautiful 2018: Beyond the Big Names appeared first on EDM | Electronic Music | EDM Music | EDM Festivals | EDM Events. Source

Death Cab for Cutie returned last month with Thank You For Today, their first album in three years. In continued promotion of the Kintsugi follow-up, the Washington indie rockers made their debut appearance on Ellen on Thursday. Before a backdrop made to look like streaks of gold, Ben Gibbard & co. performed “Gold Rush”. Not unlike the album from which it came, the performance was fairly tame and nondescript — but hey, host Ellen DeGeneres and the daytime TV crowd seemed to lap it up just fine. To each their own! (Read: Is Narrow Stairs the Saddest Death Cab for Cutie Album?) Watch DCFC down below. Recently, Gibbard and the band covered Frightened Rabbit in memory of frontman Scott Hutchison, who died earlier this year. They’re set to kick off their North American tour tonight in Las Vegas, and you can grab tickets here. Source

There’s this weird serendipity I sometimes experience as a TV critic. Sometimes Twitter, Facebook, Reddit — the modern beacons of our collective outrage — claw their fangs into some unexpecting topic, and I tab back to my other tab and realize an upcoming TV show is about to cover this exact thing, although they must have been in productions months or even a year before. It happened when news broke that Louis C.K. apparently was a total creep prone to masturbating in front of colleagues. I gawked at a second-season episode of One Mississippi, a show Louis C.K. executive produced, when a female radio producer (played by Stephanie Allynne) is subjected to exactly the same kind of conduct Louis C.K. was now accused of. Creator and star Tig Notaro had no quibble calling it as it is. But would we have paid enough attention to that episode without the concurrent #MeToo movement? I don’t know. But when this sort of cinematic foresight happens, it always seems to validate in my mind that hey, this is a thing that’s really happening. We’re not just being reactionary snowflakes as many an angry tweeter may claim. And here we are again. On Tuesday, Twitter was ablaze after long-time Sesame Street writer Mark Saltzman told Queerty that he, personally, always wrote Bert and Ernie as if they were gay. Saltzman is a gay man himself and used his own relationship with acclaimed editor Arnold Glassman as inspiration. Cool. We all pretty much already knew this. The New Yorker ran a cover in 2013 with Bert and Ernie embracing on a sofa as the US Supreme Court decision making gay marriage the law of the land is announced on the television. But taking a page from Donald Trump, whose personal brand on Twitter seems to be taking a small thing and turning it into a big thing, Bert and Ernie creator Frank Oz entered the conversation, clarifying: “It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It’s fine that he feels they are. They’re not, of course. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There’s much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness.” It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It's fine that he feels they are. They're not, of course. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness. — Frank Oz (@TheFrankOzJam) September 18, 2018 His response is unsatisfying for many reasons, but mostly because it’s so clichéd by now. It’s the same response we get when Colin Kaepernick gets sponsored by Nike: Why make this about race at all — let’s just enjoy the game! It’s the same response we get when young people begin embracing emergent sexual identities. A teenager claims to be non-binary on Twitter, and a whole storm of people exhaustedly ask why we need labels at all. There’s a toxic resistance to engaging with why people feel inspired when they finally have a name for their sexuality, when Colin Kaepernick speaks for the black community, or when a puppet they’ve loved since childhood turns out to be gay. “We’re all equal, so why give labels?” is such a lazy response. And worse still, it’s a disingenuous response. After all, the reason there’s resistance to these conversations is because we aren’t yet all equal. Incidentally, while Mark Saltzman and Frank Oz were becoming entwined in this gay-puppet dispute, I was watching a fictional pairing have a similar discussion. Showtime premiered a new 30-minute dramedy called Kidding on Sept. 9th. It stars Jim Carrey as Jeff Pickles, a Mr. Rogers-esque host of the daytime children’s show Puppet Time with Mr. Pickles. Jeff’s teenage son died a year ago, and still wading through his grief, he begins questioning the platitudinal way the show discusses topics it’s uncomfortable with, if it discusses these topics at all. There’s a striking and totally relevant scene at the end of episode 2, which aired Sept. 16th, where Jeff argues with his producer/father Sebastian (played by Frank Langella) about one-such taboo topic: Sebastian: Alright, stop. Why do you keep doing that? Stop. Jeff: Stop what? Sebastian: You keep calling Astronotter a she. Last I checked, he was a he-otter. Jeff: He was a he. Now she’s a she. Sebastian: He’s been a he for 20 years. You don’t just wake up one day and call him a she. Jeff: It happens every day. It’s happening to children all over the world. It’s called gender fluidity. Orange Is the New Black star Ruby Rose has been outspoken about gender fluidity, and in 2015 she explained gender fluidity to Elle: Gender fluidity is not really feeling like you’re at one end of the spectrum or the other. For the most part, I definitely don’t identify as any gender. I’m not a guy; I don’t really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I’m somewhere in the middle, which – in my perfect imagination – is like having the best of both sexes. I have a lot of characteristics that would normally be present in a guy and then less that would be present in a woman. But then sometimes I’ll put on a skirt – like today. Realistically, most adults — even most millennials — might be hard-pressed to explain gender fluidity, so maybe a show with a preschool demographic, like the fictional Puppet Time with Mr. Pickles, doesn’t need to be our definitive guide on the topic, but would it be truly harmful if Astronotter became a she? Maybe small acts of acceptance like the one Mr. Pickles suggests (which, by the way, gets denied in a very Frank Oz-like fashion), would help tear down the resistance audiences feel when they are old enough to discuss a topic. I remember being around six and tattling to my mom that my friend Rose told me women could marry other women. I wanted my mom to validate that I was very right, and Rose was very, very wrong. But my mom explained to me that women could be with other women. She didn’t go into the whole technicalities of civil unions versus actual legalized marriage, but she didn’t have to. That was enough to open my mind up for literally the rest of my elementary and middle-school education. Part of the problem I think Kidding’s Sebastian Picarillo and real-life Frank Oz have, I think, is an instinct that permeates every corner of conservative parenting strategy. If we talk about something — if we even mention it — our kids are bound to get ensnared in the thing. The instinct comes from a good place, but as we’ve learned over and over and over again, for instance, abstinence education just doesn’t work. As much as us thinkpiece-reader-and-writer types may eschew reality television, one of many factors in the recent decrease in teen pregnancy, studies show, was initiated by whatever sex education is to be gleaned from MTV’s popular Teen Mom franchise. Education is everything. So to answer Frank Oz’s tweet, “But why that question?” I’d like to propose, because good can come from it. Good can come from Bert and Ernie being gay. And good can come from Astronotter being gender fluid. Not only does it validate the experience of viewers with similar orientations, but c’mon guys, isn’t it better if the messaging kids get is informed, rather than from other sixth graders? I know there is also a fear such messaging is bound to be hyper-liberalized, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Author Linda Kay Klein released her part-memoir, part investigative-journalism book Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free on Sept. 4th. Despite the book’s many criticisms of the evangelical purity messaging that traumatized many young women in the late ‘90s to early ‘00s (it turns out that it’s kind of hard to be constantly told if you have sex, you’re a slut), she still considers herself a Christian, and it seems her message is to promote healthier sex education, not just to blast conservatism outright. Although I’m not conservative or Christian myself, I was intrigued by a section of her book where she talks about an initiative starting in some more progressive churches (think the ones helmed by female pastors) that use the Our Whole Lives curriculum to teach their youth groups about sex. I went on their website and was pleasantly surprised to see they literally have sections on topics like gender and consent. Hell, we’re lucky to get this at secular high schools. Klein’s book is worth a read because most of it is focused on the alternative — the repercussions of what happens when we’re scared to talk about sex. Women she spoke too often experienced severe anxiety attacks during their first sexual encounters. Here’s one such example, a conversation between a young woman and the author: I ran completely naked through this guy’s apartment to the shower, and that’s the first time I looked down at my vagina and I was like…” Scarlet breathed in abruptly. “I gasped. I’ve never gasped before in my life. It was like…” She cupped her palms and held them, face up, side by side, the edges of her pinkies touching. “That large? Are you kidding me? How is that possible?” I asked. She believes her anxiety around sex caused a physical response: flushed skin, ringing in her ears, and swollen genitalia. The woman’s partner rushed her to the E.R. While her case is extreme, many other women in the book had strikingly severe anxiety attacks during their first encounters, too. People need to know having sex is normal, so their brain doesn’t backfire on them when they do. People need to know that homosexuality is normal, so when they encounter a gay kid in school, they don’t become an insufferable bully. People need to know gender fluidity is a thing, so when a teenager is exploring their sexual identity, they don’t feel completely rejected by the world before even having a chance to explore it. We’re just beginning to understand the mental and physical toll that happens when we decide not to discuss sex, sexuality, gender, and other traditionally taboo topics. Maybe it’s not Sesame Street’s role to explain wet dreams and masturbation — items more appropriate for preteen audiences — but the brand has so much power, if it wants to embrace it, in reducing children’s mental resistance to such subjects in the future. It can do that by introducing elements as perfectly natural — elements like a gay puppet partnership, made up of a tall, yellow guy who is a little OCD and a more free-spirited orange guy that likes to make us laugh. We don’t have to explain everything now, but we shouldn’t actively remove the existence of such things. For a show that was progressive on so many things, in particular race, would it be so much to do, to say, “Y’know, when I conceived these two puppets in 1969, they weren’t gay … but maybe they are now.” After all, as Jeff Pickles tells his resistant producer-father, “It happens every day.” Source

Avenged Sevenfold recently unveiled a new song “Mad Hatter”, which is featured on the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 video game. Now, an action-filled music video for “Mad Hatter,” packed with clips from the upcoming game, has been unveiled. Watch the video below. “Mad Hatter” is the fourth song Avenged Sevenfold have crafted for the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, the previous tracks being “Not Ready to Die”, “Carry On”, and “Jade Helm.” All four songs are included on Avenged Sevenfold’s new EP, Black Reign, which is out today (Sept. 21) and can be downloaded and streamed at Apple Music. M. Shadows recently spoke with Heavy Consequence about the inspiration behind “Mad Hatter,” explaining, “We took inspiration from John B. McLemore’s story in the ‘S-Town’ podcast. It seemed to fit and create an image of hallucinating and mercury poison. The images we were shown made me contemplate what it would feel like to go insane. Very scary stuff and I thought it fit well.” He also gave an update on his vocal cord issues, which caused the band to cancel their summer tour, stating, “I’m doing good. I just got the OK to start light singing again. I’m excited to get the cords back in shape. We’ll be going back to those cities at some point but they won’t be a part of ‘The Stage’ tour.” Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on Oct. 12. Source

Production is now underway on Todd Phillips’Joker origin film starring Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role. Last week we got our first glimpse at Phoenix’s character prior to his transformation into the Clown Prince of Crime. Now, Phillips has shared a camera test in which we get a look at Phoenix in full Joker makeup. Repost from #toddphillips1: Camera test (w/ sound). Joker. pic.twitter.com/R9W2QqKwNS — Warner Bros. Pictures (@wbpictures) September 21, 2018 Titled simply Joker and due for release in October 4th, 2019, the film is directed by Phillips (The Hangover, War Dogs). Phillips teamed up with Scott Silver (8 Mile) to write a script described as an “exploration of a man disregarded by society [that] is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.” As such, the film is meant to be darker and more experimental in tone and content than previous DC comic book films. It also boasts a modest $55 million price tag, which is significantly lower than most other tentpole flicks in the genre. Along with Phoenix, the film stars Zazie Beetz, who plays a single mother who catches the eye of the future Clown Prince of Crime, and Robert DeNiro, who is cast to play a talk show host who is somehow instrumental in the Joker’s origin. Production began this month in New York. Source

Track by Track is a recurring new music feature that asks an artist to break down each song on their latest record, one by one. Listen and subscribe via iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS The storm imagery that swirls throughout Thunder Follows the Light isn’t just an invention of metaphor; there’s a real New England storm to thank for jolting Jordan Lee into action on his third studio record as Mutual Benefit. “I was visiting some friends who live upstate, and there was a big thunderstorm, and for some reason, I was really paying attention to the fact that lightning would strike and later the thunder would happen,” he says. “It was this time of political turmoil in the United States, and I was thinking about all the anxiety that my friends and I were feeling, and that maybe the best way to sum it up was that there are things in motion right now, and we’ll be feeling the effects of them a little bit later. It feels like we’re living in this in-between time.” Fittingly, the confusion of wind and lightning remains at the heart of the resulting music, which finds the typically cloudless skies of Mutual Benefit’s gossamer indie folk darkened by everything from global climate change (“Waves, Breaking”) to the breakdown of American cultural myths (“Come to Pass”) to the unseen emotional tempests within our own heads (“No Dominion”). Faced with that kind of all-consuming adversity, most songwriters would falter into cliches or give over to bad-faith nihilism. That’s what makes the lack of actual doom and/or gloom on Thunder Follows the Light so refreshing (and, at times, therapeutic). Over the course of 10 tracks, Lee offers listeners a gentle, forgiving handbook for making it through the trouble times, one that emphasized honesty, adaptability, and the willingness to reforge the tight bonds of community that we may sometimes allow to go slack. He also delivers some of the most alluring arrangements of his career; on this record, flourishes of prime folk signifiers banjo and harmonica share the same landscape with brooding sax and bass clarinet, which often approximate the mix of fearful awe usually reserved for an approaching thunderhead. It represents a knack for finding beauty in the bleakness, and it makes Thunder Follows the Light a must-listen record and Jordan Lee an increasingly indispensable performer. For the latest Track by Track, Lee sat down with our own Tyler Clark to discuss the ins-and-outs of Thunder Follows the Light. Above, listen to our full audio interview with the musician for his thoughts on how a five-string guitar sparked the record’s sound, why self-care has its limits, and what trees have to tell us about collective action. A condescend, text-based version is below. “Written in Lightning”: I definitely wanted to set the tone and make the listener really clear, what they were getting into. And I was trying to think about all the different effects of thunder and lightning, and I was proud to get down to the nitty-gritty of ions colliding. [Laughs.] But because I was setting the tone for the whole record, I wanted to put a counter-balance to, you know, all of the chaos and uncertainty. So I was having a lot of trouble thinking of a poetic way to talk about the counterbalance. And so I ended up just going with the most blunt thing I could think of, which is love being an armor against it. And I went back and forth for a long time because it’s a little bit cheesy, just to be like, ‘Okay, things are really scary, but we need to love each other.’ But the more I sat with it, the more I thought, you know, there’s times to obscure what you’re trying to say, but this—I want to risk being a little cheesy to say exactly what I’m thinking right now. “New History”: In my opinion, [Johanne Swanson] saved the record. She’s an old friend and a really great solo musician in her own right, and we live in the same neighborhood and go to a lot of the same shows. And I’m always a little nervous to ask someone to collaborate with me if we haven’t collaborated before, because, you know, it’s a pretty intense thing, to—especially with this band, I need it to be exactly the way that I want it to be. And so I don’t want to, like, boss around someone. But I spent a long time working up the courage, and finally it was like, “I would love if you sang on this record.” And she came over and I was planning on just doing this song, because it seemed like a much more powerful statement if there was more than one voice saying it. But it ended up just going so well, and I really loved the way our voices sound together, so she sings on almost every song on this record. And it was all in the last two weeks before I had to turn it in. And so the whole record was just me until—you know, for like a year, and then at the very end it just got way better. “Storm Cellar Heart”: There’s definitely a lot to be gained from taking a break from Twitter or the news cycle and checking in with yourself. I think that’s really important, and it gives you perspective when you come back out and get ready to face the external world. […] But it was important to me, also, I think there’s a conversation about self care that can get a little out of control, where a person can justify any selfish decision they make by saying, “Well, I need to take care of myself,” or something. And so I, when I was writing this song, I was kind of bouncing between those two poles, where it’s important to push yourself sometimes, and you can’t live in a storm cellar. You’ve gotta come out at some point. “Shedding Skin”: On a personal level, I think it’s so important to keep your mind open to the idea that you have destructive behaviors, or that there are assumptions that you have that are deeply held that are actually untrue. I guess I’ve been trying to meditate on that a little bit more and just really open myself up to the idea that I can be different. I think it was really powerful to spend time in forested areas, and when I did see all these cicada shells hanging there, and all these ways in nature that animals not only just change a little bit but literally get rid of their whole bodies, and that’s sort of part of their growth to becoming mature. There’s this tendency as you get older to get more inflexible in your beliefs, and I want to be the opposite. I want to know that I don’t have the answers and that I have to seek them out. “Come to Pass”: This was, I think, the first song that got written for the new record, and it got written on my lucky five-string guitar. Normally, when I finish a project, I’m pretty empty of ideas, and so I need some sort of flicker, so I just take this five-string guitar and try out different tunings that don’t make any sense. That’s what happened with this one. I was having trouble thinking what it would be about, and then I heard this interview where this person was interviewing people who were wearing Make America Great Again paraphernalia. They were asking them, “When was America great? What era are we going back to?” And there wasn’t really any sort of convincing answer that anyone could think of. That really got me thinking of the power of false nostalgia, and how that’s such an easy impulse to fall into. […] I wanted to be able to look clearly in the mirror and interrogate anything that’s imagined to be a golden age. “Waves, Breaking”: This one’s pretty openly about climate change. I wanted it to start off very slow and serene, and then you feel the energy pick up, and then it’s just full chaos by the end. I wanted the music to do the talking more than the lyrics. In writing the song, it’s another big topic where there are lots of things to say, and a lot of them are obvious, but I kind of decided that maybe my allegiance is to nature instead of people. […] If we’re so dumb that we can’t figure out how to live with the other billions of living things that live perfectly symbiotically with each other – if we’re the only things that can’t figure out how to do that, then it probably makes sense that the earth is flushing us out. “No Dominion”: [“Waves, Breaking” and “No Dominion”] are very spiritually connected. I wanted “Waves, Breaking” to be very external and grandiose, and I wanted “No Dominion” to tell a similar story but all internally. […] “Peace is more than just a season” is my favorite lyric on the album, I think. So much so that I say it twice in two different songs. But I think one of the mistakes I made in my thinking was that a lot of my music before now has said, ‘everything is a season.’ You might have a bad season right now, but don’t worry, it’s going to get better. And in a sense, that’s true. But I don’t think I believe that things just get better on their own anymore. And so peace is a thing that you achieve through action. […] It just takes constant work. And so when I realized that error in my thinking before I just wanted to really emphasize that peace is something that you have to want. And it’s something that you have to work for. “Mountain’s Shadow”: This song just tells the smallest little story. I’m a little manic and so my heart gets really closed up and it feels like I just can’t feel positive about anything. And so I was having one of those moments on tour. And then, for some reason, seeing the mountains, it felt like I was exploding with happiness all of a sudden. And I was thinking about that, and also just the tricks of the light that happen when you’re in mountainous regions, where the sun can just be blocked out. And it almost seems like nighttime when you’re in a valley. And all the sudden you turn the bend and everything absolutely changes. And these changes of perspective, and a mountain maybe being something that is big but you have no control over. And the more I thought about it, the more I just wanted to tell this little story. “Nightingale Sing”: This one was kind of a freak accident. Musically, I wanted to try out something in a different time signature than I’m used to. So I was working on doing something in 5/4 time. And I was really stuck on the lyrics. And I went on a trip and had some pretty bad insomnia. I was listening to some [ASMR videos] so I could fall asleep. And it happened to be that this person was whispering an Aesop’s fable about the nightingale. Kind of the funniest part to me is I fell asleep at some point. I only heard the first half of it. I’ve heard actually the moral becomes a lot more muddled by the end. The music industry at its worst, for me, is when I feel like I’m creating value for some corporation. Or someone seeks me out because I’m representative of some artistic energy that they’re too evil to have. So it just seemed like a very timeless story. When you’re being sought out by those types of people, they oftentimes don’t care at all about the art you’re making. If someone made a robot version of you, or a hologram, they might like that better. And so it was kind of my way of saying, “I’ll do that kind of thing sometimes. But I’d much rather fly back and be with my people.” “Thunder Follows”: I highly recommend [the book The Hidden Life of Trees.] It’s this German botanist who is doing groundbreaking research on how sentient trees are, but only in old growth forests. If you just plant a tree in your yard, it acts one way. But if you have trees and a whole ecosystem where they’ve been around for hundreds of years, there’s all this complex communication happening. Another writer termed it the “wood wide web,” which I really like. […] I was reading it, and even though it was about trees, I was just like, “This might as well be about social theory. This is teaching me about how to be a better member of a community with other people.” Because so much of what it’s saying is to be patient, not think about yourself too hard, and literally think about the forest instead of the trees. Source

In the four years since MØ first made her mark with debut album No Mythologies To Follow, the Danish pop singer has made incredibly great strides in terms of elevating her profile. The artist born Karie Marie Ørsted has collaborated with prominent musicians like Diplo, Charli XCX, Jack Antonoff, and Major Lazer, as well as scored a number of chart hits like “Lean On”. MØ is now prepping to release her sophomore record, Forever Neverland, on October 19th. Early singles “Sun In Our Eyes” and “Way Down” have already given fans a taste of what to expect. Now, a third offering in “Imaginary Friend” has been revealed. It’s a swaying and sensual morsel of electropop, and features MØ’s tempting incantations: “Just watch me, watch me, watch me with your hands (watch me, watch me, watch me with your hands)/ Let my body, body, body be your breath (body, body, body be your breath).” (Read: 2014 CoSign Interview with MØ) Check out “Imaginary Friend” below via its corresponding music video. Co-directed by MØ and frequent collaborator Jonas Bang, it stars the singer as she slinks between gauzy curtains. Source

When you’ve been around as long as Metallica has, and have been as successful as they have, the milestones will start to pile up before you realize it. The latest landmark for the metal kingpins is the news that their 1991 self-titled disc (aka “The Black Album”) has landed its 500th nonconsecutive week on the Billboard 200 chart. The band’s fifth studio effort — still the biggest selling album in the SoundScan era — has a long way to go to beat out the current record of 937 weeks held by Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, but it is still one of only four albums to achieve the 500-plus week honor. It joins such company as Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Legend and Journey’s Greatest Hits. As Billboard reports, Metallica was the group’s first No. 1 album, debuting at the top of the charts in August of 1991 and staying there for four weeks. The band also scored three Top 40 hits from the LP, including “Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters.” Metallica’s fifth studio album has sold over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone and has gone platinum or better in 17 countries. This new achievement for the album has likely been helped by the fact that Metallica kicked off the latest North American leg of their “WorldWired Tour” earlier this month and have been in the news a bunch lately with announcements of a deluxe edition of …And Justice For All and the release of Blackened American Whiskey, a collaboration with master distiller Dave Pickerell and Meyer Sound. Metallica’s Top 5 Songs Tool’s Top 5 Music Videos Behemoth's Top 5 Songs Alice in Chains' Top 5 Videos Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” Annotated Video Source

For My Crimes is the forthcoming album from dream pop songwriter Marissa Nadler, due out next week through Sacred Bones/Bella Union. Following 2016’s stellar Strangers, the LP features boasts guest contributors in Angel Olsen (the album’s title track) and Sharon Van Etten (“I Can’t Listen to Gene Clark Anymore”). Ahead of the record’s release, the Boston-based Nadler is sharing the music video for her collaboration with Van Etten. The minimalistic, monochrome clip finds the two artists performing “I Can’t Listen to Gene Clark Anymore” in a living room-type of setting, the intimate ambiance further emphasizing the song’s sentimental quality. Watch it below. In a previous statement, Nadler spoke about the single’s significance and what it meant to be able to work with Van Etten, one of her “favorite singers and songwriters”: “With memories, sensory stimuli can animate the inanimate and forever assign meaning to almost anything,” explains Nadler. “For me, this often happens with songs or musicians that have soundtracked a particular time in my life. One glimmer of certain songs can bring me right back to childhood, for instance. This song is about a more recent memory but the emotional time travel is real nonetheless. I think a lot of people can relate to the sentiment expressed in this song regardless of the specificity of the musical reference. Or at least that is my hope. For me it’s Gene Clark – for others – someone or something else. But, we’ve all been there. I like to turn those feelings into something beautiful as a way to process them and freeze them forever in time and space.” “I was over the moon to have Sharon Van Etten add vocals to this song. For me, because this is a fairly universal sentiment, I liked the idea of different voices expressing the same emotion. And to have it be one of my favorite singers and songwriters was a very cathartic experience for which I am truly grateful.” For My Crimes officially arrives next Friday, September 28th. Source

Without much warning, Animal Collective have reissued their 2005 album Feels on vinyl. The experimental group’s seventh album has long been out of print, but it returns to double-LP today via My Animal Home. Producer Scott Colburn recorded Feels at his Seattle, Washington-based studio, Gravelvoice back in 2005. AnCo had no demos to show Colburn, however, so the first time he heard the songs was during a live show at Neumos on August 22th, 2004. A bootleg recording of that performance (captured by Sparkel Girl) is also being shared today as a new live album called Live at Neumos. As Brian “Geologist” Weitz explains in a press release, “The show was the first time [producer] Scott Colburn heard any of the Feels songs. We had already asked him to record the album but we didn’t have demos and he wanted to hear the material first. He was playing in Climax Golden Twins at the time, who were also on the bill with us and Black Dice that night, so this was the test. Luckily, our set sealed the deal and we all moved into his house six months later to start tracking. A small part of us never left. If we’ve seemed a bit rushed after Seattle shows in the years since, it’s because we were in a hurry to get back there for another late night VHS horror movie screening.” Take a listen to Live at Neumos below, and purchase the Feels reissue at My Animal Home. Last month, Animal Collective released Tangerine Reef, an audiovisual collaboration with “avant-garde coral macro-videography” duo Coral Morphologic (marine biologist Colin Foord and musician Jared McKay). Source

DC Comics is shriveling up in the face of controversy after a panel in a newly released Batman comic showed everyone what Bruce Wayne’s really hiding under that utility belt. Batman: Damned, written by Brian Azzarello, drawn by Lee Bermejo and released earlier this week, turned plenty of heads when one panel offered up a tasteful outline of Bruce Wayne’s, ahem, nude form in the Batcave. Granted, the Cave’s pretty dark (and by the looks of things, a little chilly), but Bat-fans finally got to answer the question they’ve been asking since the character’s inception: What does Batman’s penis look like? The answer: well, it looks like this (click through, but it’s probably NSFW). While the comic is a part of DC’s brand new Black Label, creating dark, gritty comics for a presumably adult audience, the attention drawn to Batman’s Night-wang has proven a little too much for DC to handle. The offending member is already censored on digital versions of the comic, and The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that all future re-printings of the issue will feature that censored image. Sources say the decision was based on the image not adding to the story. More’s the pity. Someday, we will all tell our children and our grandchildren of this day — the moment we finally saw Batman’s dick, and how it was so cruelly and swiftly snatched away from us. Source

Nirvana’s third and final studio album, In Utero, is now a quarter-century old, having been released on September 21st, 1993. The band had the daunting task of following up the album that changed the face of rock music — 1991’s Nevermind — but instead of building on that mega-selling disc’s commercial appeal, Kurt Cobain and company chose to get rawer and heavier on In Utero. [Read Also: In Utero at 25, Nirvana’s Insubordinate Masterpiece] In Utero would go on to sell 15 million copies worldwide, so it didn’t exactly push away the masses, but in its lyrics, its music, its imagery, and in the weight Nirvana carried going into recording the effort, there is a heightened sense of heaviness that permeates throughout the album. Here, we look at the 10 Heaviest Moments on Nirvana’s In Utero. –Spencer Kaufman Managing Editor, Heavy Consequence _________________________________________________________ 10. Kurt Cobain’s Scream a Minute into “Scentless Apprentice” Fans who popped in the In Utero CD for the first time would be greeted with the relatively radio-friendly “Serve the Servants” as the lead track, thinking the album just might have a commercial sheen to it, but a minute into the second track, “Scentless Apprentice”, Cobain made it clear that the band wasn’t pandering to any record label demands on their third album, delivering the song’s “go away” scream like man possessed. –Spencer Kaufman _________________________________________________________ 09. The Second Verse from “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle” “Our favorite patient/ A display of patience, disease-covered Puget Sound/ She’ll come back as fire, to burn all the liars/ And leave a blanket of ash on the ground” Cobain could be singing about Frances Farmer, a Seattle-born actress who found fame working for Paramount Pictures in the ’30s before public and media scrutiny of her erratic behavior (later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia) left her to wither away in mental institutions. He could also be singing about a demonic creature off a metal album cover hellbent on fiery revenge and burning everything to the ground. To be honest, at this point in his career, Cobain probably would’ve felt like a kindred spirit with either one. –Matt Melis _________________________________________________________ 08. The old man on a cross in the “Heart-Shaped Box” music video Oh, here’s a nice colorful music video for the album’s first single … wait, what the heck? Is that a half-naked old-man in a Santa hat being crucified while crows peck at the cross? The “Heart-Shaped Box” video was the first visual fans got of the new album, and while the song itself is not among In Utero’s heaviest, the imagery in the video was heavy as hell. –Spencer Kaufman _________________________________________________________ 07. Dave Grohl’s Drumming on Tourette’s The song may be a 95-second joke or fuck you (depending on how you choose to color it) directed at the types of unit-shifting suits who dubbed Nirvana “moderate rock,” but it’s also some of the purest, and heaviest, joy on In Utero. As Cobain blurts out random bits of verbal rubbish, Grohl pounds away like his only diagnosed tic is to kick a hole in his kit and destroy the rest with his bare hands. His doing so feels less like a mission and much more like an uncontrollable urge. –Matt Melis _________________________________________________________ 06. The chorus of “Pennyroyal Tea” Cobain sweeps the listener into the comfort of the haunting verses of “Pennyroyal Tea” before launching into the pure heaviness of the chorus, delivering the quiet-loud-quiet dynamics that powered many a Nirvana hit. His raspy vocals are provided a mighty backbone by Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. –Spencer Kaufman _________________________________________________________ Source

Disturbed have unleashed a new song from their upcoming seventh studio album, Evolution, due out October 19th. The tune, called “A Reason to Fight,” shows the softer side of Disturbed in a passionate, acoustic ballad. Watch the music video below. “The message behind ‘A Reason to Fight’ is a personal one,” Disturbed singer David Draiman said in a statement. “We’ve all seen people that we care about fall victim to addiction. Dan (Donegan, Disturbed’s guitarist) sent me a rough idea for the song and it hit home particularly hard.” “I know people who’ve battled addiction and have seen it in their face — the shame they have — feeling they’ve let themselves and others down,” Donegan added. “We wanted to write a song with a positive message for people in that situation to stay hopeful and not give up the fight, as challenging as it may be. It’s an everyday struggle, but there can also be a light at the end of the tunnel.” Draiman added, “The chorus goes, ‘When the demon that’s inside you is ready to begin and it feels like it’s a battle that you can never win, when you’re aching for the fire and begging for your sin. When there’s nothing left inside, there’s still a reason to fight.’ Hopefully, it’s a message that resonates.” “A Reason to Fight” is the second song the Chicago hard rockers have released off Evolution, the first being “Are You Ready,” which currently sits at No. 3 at rock radio. Director Matt Mahurin, who has worked with everyone from U2 to Metallica, directed the music video for “A Reason to Fight”. Mahurin is also the director behind the music video for Disturbed’s Grammy-nominated version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.” In other news, Disturbed recently announced the initial cities for their 2019 North American “Evolution” tour. Source

Last month, a photograph of Mumford and Sons in the studio with Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson surfaced and stirred quite a bit of controversy. Peterson’s views on things like white privilege, gender identity, and feminism — while well articulated and considered — have turned him into a contentious personality favored by the far right and opposed by the left (though he would identify himself as “a classic British liberal” and notably is no darling of the alt-right). Now, the British band has responded to the criticism they received for appearing so close to such a polarizing figure. Speaking with CBC Radio, frontman Marcus Mumford and guitarist/banjoist Winston Marshall were asked rather directly about the image with Peterson. Marshall said that he’d become interested in Dr. Peterson’s work in psychology after reading both his books. After being introduced by a mutual acquaintance, he invited the doctor down to the band’s London studio, one of many visitors they welcomed. “I think with the controversial stuff that you’re talking about, I don’t think [Peterson’s] psychology is controversial, but the quasi-political stuff…” Marshall said. “I think it’s a conversation we’re having a little bit as a band and, do we want to get into the political stuff? Probably not.” “I don’t think that having a photograph with someone means you agree with everything they say,” Marshall said when asked if he was considered about losing fans. “Because then I wouldn’t be able to have a photograph of anyone at risk of trying to offend anyone so I think I don’t see the harm in engaging in conversation.” Mumford was than asked if he believed a musician’s political views should be taken into account by fans. He responded by saying that while “most people start bands because they like playing music” and not to be political figures, at some point you reach a status where you’re responsible for how your opinions and choices are perceived by the public. That said, Mumford argued that taking a picture with someone doesn’t indicate an alignment of beliefs: “We love the opportunity to disagree and I think that’s something that’s at risk of being quashed to too much of an extent. And really, I think over the last couple years we’ve been in listening mode — I don’t think any of us listen enough, I don’t think we listen enough as a culture — so, we’ve spent as much time as possible making the most of the real privilege that we get to meeting people and listening to them. Whether or not people then assume that we just endorse politics when we’re not saying anything about politics is their end choice and we certainly hope people don’t feel alienated… I think if we stop listening then we stop progressing, right?” “The divisive side of things is something that we find tiring and a shame that it’s such a dominant part of the discourse right now,” concluded Marshall. “And if there is any opportunity to unite, we think that’s what we were excited about.” Read more of what they had to say at CBC. The interview came as Mumford and Sons announced their new album, Delta. Set for a November 16th release, the record has been previewed with the lead single “Guiding Light”. Source

Norah Jones has been steadily dropping new music the last few months, including her first single in two years, June’s “My Heart Is Full”. The jazz-pop singer/pianist returns with more material today, this time with a little help from Jeff Tweedy. Jones and the Wilco frontman collaborate on a track called “A Song With No Name”. An aching bit of Americana, it features Jones reflecting on the way she gives herself to a partner: “Do I love you too much? Do I hold you too tight?” For his part, Tweedy handled some acoustic and electric guitar arrangements. Take a listen below. Jones recently teamed up with Willie Nelson to cover Frank Sinatra’s version of “What Is This Thing Called Love”. Her other past collaborations include Foreverly, her 2013 covers album with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Jones’ last proper full-length, Day Breaks, came out in 2016. As for the Wilco leader, Tweedy recently embarked on a North American tour to support his most recent solo album, Together at Last. He also just announced plans to release a career-spanning memoir. “A Song With No Name” Artwork: Source

EarthGang, our former Artist of the Month, are rumored to be dropping their debut album, Mirrorland, before the end of the year. The highly anticipated LP would mark the follow-up to February’s reigning Royalty, the last in their trilogy of EPs. The Atlanta-bred duo teased the LP earlier this month with a song called “Up”; now, the Dreamville act has broken off a second cut. Titled “Stuck”, it sees them charming a lover while channeling the funk and psychedelic stylings of hometown heroes Outkast. “I’m stuck to you, I’m sorry I can’t get loose,” EarthGang confess on the song, which also features contributions from R&B artist Arin Ray. “I pinky promise I won’t hurt you no more.” (Read: The 25 Most Anticipated Tours of Fall 2018) Hear it below. As we await Mirrorland, catch EarthGang live on J. Cole’s ongoing “Kill Our Demons” tour. Source

Each week we break down our favorite song, highlight our honorable mentions, and wrap them all up with other staff recommendations into a playlist just for you. For a guy that spends most of his days getting high playing video games, John Carpenter sure packs a hell of a punch at 70 years old. It’s been over 35 years since he last scored a Halloween movie — 1982’s cruelly underrated Halloween III: The Season of the Witch — and yet he still walks through this stuff without stepping on a single crunchy autumn leaf. Maybe it’s because he’s spent the last few years playing his hits on the road (and for last year’s Anthology collection), or maybe it’s because he’s been jonesing to set things right for the franchise. Either way, “The Shape Returns”, the first track we’ve heard off his forthcoming score for David Gordon Green’s Halloween, is a visceral piece of music. Right from the start, it’s a trip back home, what with the signature sting and the familiar piano scale, but this isn’t exactly the Haddonfield, Illinois that we “last left” in October 1978. No, it would appear Carpenter’s taken a few notes from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ approach to the theme last year, leaning hard on dreadful minimalism. But that’s always been in Carpenter’s bag of tricks and treats. He revels in the “less is more” approach, only now he’s not exactly pulling away when he goes for the stab. Instead, he’s making every swell count, which warrants a more theatrical production in a manner that John Ottman failed to do with 1998’s H20. Carpenter will always be the Master of Horror; his oeuvre is timeless. And while he’s not angling to make another movie anytime soon, it’s clear he has never stopped peaking when it comes to scoring. Much like Lost Themes, Lost Themes II, and last year’s Anthology, Carpenter is as unstoppable as the Shape that defined him. Happy Halloween, indeed. –Michael Roffman Editor-in-Chief _________________________________________________________ Honorable Mentions The Smashing Pumpkins – “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)” “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)” is a methodical alt-rock burn, buoyed by searing rhymes and foreboding lyrics: “Spit like a poet’s gun,” Billy Corgan sings, and true to his word, he does. –Laura Dzubay Khalid – “Better” Khalid’s trademark emotional honesty flourishes on new single “Better”, which finds him celebrating companionship with an unnamed listener against a scintillating R&B backdrop. –Laura Dzubay HEALTH/Soccer Mommy – “MASS GRAVE” HEALTH and Soccer Mommy’s collaboration is everything you’d expect from a song called “MASS GRAVE”: dark and haunting, with a sweeping, industrial atmosphere and a chorus that repeats like a curse. –Laura Dzubay Wale – “My Boy ( Freestyle)” ft. J. Cole Both Wale and J. Cole get ample chances to shine in “My Boy (Freestyle)”, a catchy collaboration as rhythmically cohesive as it is energetic and alert. –Laura Dzubay _________________________________________________________ Other Songs We’re Spinning Cat Power – “Stay” (Rihanna Cover) Chan Marshall sticks to the minimalist genius of past Cat Power ballads, choosing to pair her smoky, aching vocals with nothing more than skeletal piano chords on this Rihanna smash. –Lake Schatz Noname – “Don’t Forget About Me” Noname’s new album, Room 25, is full of neo-soul magic, but “Don’t Forget About Me” is a standout, balancing characteristically soft energy against an intimate, unshakable hook. –Laura Dzubay Amigo the Devil – “Everyone Gets Left Behind” Folk rock troubadour Amigo the Devil’s “Everyone Gets Left Behind” is a ridiculously infectious song that features drumming from the one-and-only Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine. –Spencer Kaufman Erin Rae – “Bad Mind” Emerging Nashville songwriter Erin Rae plaintively shares a tragic family story that shaped her own sexual journey in a time and place where being different felt like it had dire consequences. –Matt Melis Matthew Dear – “Horses” ft. Tegan and Sara Glitchy microhouse is rarely this beautiful as Matthew Dear and Tegan and Sara sing of a love with equestrian strength and grace. –Ben Kaye _________________________________________________________ This Week’s Playlist Source

French technical metal act Gorod are gearing up for the release of their 10th album, Aethra, due October 19th, and the band has teamed up with Heavy Consequence to offer up the first taste of the disc in the form of the track “The Sentry” (listen below). Aethra, which features a lyrical concept centered around different cults associated with the moon, was produced by the band’s guitarist Mathieu Pascal and mixed by Daniel Bergstrand (Meshuggah, Behemoth), with Pascal stating, “The sound is powerful but still natural and balanced.” As for the song “The Sentry”, singer Julian Deyres tells us, “The concept behind ‘The Sentry’ is that of worldwide myths and beliefs concerning the owl, and more specifically the barn owl. This nocturnal bird that is almost always associated with the moon in many different cultures is also generally considered as a guardian of the kingdom of the dead. This explains the title, and the lyrics are a global presentation of how human beings can perceive a same symbol in different places in the world. He adds, “We chose to release this song first because we see it as a good introduction to the new material on this album. This track is straight in your face, groovy, fast, and also showcases a brand new melodic orientation in Gorod’s music.” Take a listen to “The Sentry” below, and pre-order Gorod’s new album, Aethra, via Overpowered Records, Amazon, or iTunes. The band will be touring Europe in November, with dates listed here. Source

Lily Allen is just weeks away from embarking on her first North American headlining tour in four years. In anticipation, the UK singer-songwriter filmed a session for triple j’s Like A Version cover series. Allen’s performance was highlighted by a cover of the Lykke Li original “deep end”. Li’s version, off this year’s excellent so sad so sexy, lived on throbbing and trap-like beats. Allen’s, however, is more of the moody piano ballad variety, aptly shot in a dimly lit studio setting. (Read: The 100 Greatest Debut Singles of All Time) Allen also performed “Family Man”, taken from her own 2018 record, No Shame. Additionally, she chatted briefly with triple j about her family and early years. Watch all the footage below. Last night, Wolf Alice beat Allen to win this year’s prestigious Mercury Prize. On Twitter shortly after, Allen jokingly said she’d been “robbed” of the award and vowed to win it in 2019. Someone call 999 I’ve been robbed. https://t.co/3k3KkT51oi — LILY ALLEN (@lilyallen) September 20, 2018 I adore @wolfalice tho, and they are very deserved winners. Next time……… imma win that bitch. — LILY ALLEN (@lilyallen) September 20, 2018 In related news, in a new memoir, Allen revealed she had been sexually assaulted by a music industry executive. She described the industry as being “rife with sexual abuse.” Source

CoSigned R&B crooner Gallant and indie god Sufjan Stevens have been working together over the last couple years They first teamed up for the debut episode of the former’s “In the Room” series in 2016, performing a rendition of Stevens’ “Blue Bucket of Gold”. Later that year, Gallant joined Stevens at Coachella to pay tribute to Prince with a “Purple Rain” cover. In 2017, they covered Drake’s “Hotline Bling” on Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell Live. Now, they’re back together again on Gallant’s newest single, “TOOGOODTOBETRUE”. Also featuring Rebecca Sugar, creator of Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe, the track is part of Gallant’s forthcoming This Does Not Fit project. Rising and falling like hurried, breathy sighs, the song twinkles over the trio over voices and layers of genre-less instrumentals. Take a listen via the visualizer below. Gallant will embark on his “Too Good To Be Tour” next month alongside Jamila Woods and Cautious Clay. Stevens, meanwhile, recently announced plans to release his Songs for Christmas on vinyl for the very first time. The 42-track collection from 2006 will be reissued as a five-EP box set on November 9th. Source

Arcade Fire are nearing the end of their Everything Now world tour, but they still have a few tricks up their sleeve. To kick off their show in Los Angeles on Thursday night, the band surprised fans with a full album performance of their masterful debut, 2004’s Funeral. It marked the first time the band had ever done so. “We’re not sentimental, but it’s just been 14 years since Funeral so we felt like playing it,” frontman Win Butler explained to the audience at one point. (Read: 13 Things You Didn’t Know About Arcade Fire and Funeral) Watch fan-captured footage from the show below. Arcade Fire’s tour concludes this weekend with a pair of shows at the Greek Theatre in Berkley, California, along with a headlining appearance at Las Vegas’ Life is Beautiful Festival. Source