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Dear EDM Maniacs and to Whom This May Concern, Take a second to imagine a world. A world where after the fireworks, the festival gates open to safety and comfort instead of panic and chaos. A world where blistering feet, stumbling bodies, and dirt encrusted legs are greeted, ON FESTIVAL GROUNDS by an air-conditioned bus, full of people just like you. Imagine a world, where your home for the weekend IS the pregame AND the after-party, with the assurance of shuttles in between the madness. Imagine Home BASS, the perfect oasis, the perfect party, the perfect electronic home for you. More times than I’d like to admit, I’ve emerged from a festival not ready to face the Uber/Lyft/Taxi cab chaos that was about to ensue, and at times faced a two hour wait time to get back to the warm embrace of my hotel room. I’d dodge the after-party advertisers in favor of a relaxing shower and my PJ’s, because let’s be real, there’s never time for both. When I see a reoccurring problem, I seek out a solution, and after the fifth time being stranded outside festival gates with thousands of others waiting on a ride, I knew it was time to find that solution. Cue: Home BASS. The only place in Orlando where you can Photo by: ccclarkebeautyparty after EDC in your onsie with hundreds of other ravers. The only place where you can have brunch with Dirtybird DJs and do goat yoga. Home BASS offers a multitude of amenities spanning from pool parties, festival hair and makeup artists, and even a live seminar about breaking into the EDM industry presented by yours truly, EDM Maniac. But even more than these crazy luxuries offered to us by Home BASS Orlando is the sense of community. I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of Home BASS, Brian Thomas, and the operations manager, Darren Scott. Right away I could tell that these guys have put their heart and soul into this event, and that bringing the dance community together to learn, discover, have a good time, and give back to the community is their top priority. This is evident through their efforts to make even lone ravers feel like part of the family, by matching up attendees that may be coming alone, with people who have similar interests to room with at the Grand Orlando Resort, and the fact that some of the proceeds from the weekend will go to Give Kids the World Village. Click the link to find out more about this awesome local organization that is providing vacations for kids with critical illnesses and their families. Positive reviews for Home BASS come not from YELP, but from palpable, emotional stories attendees tell after this epic weekend. For example, after last year’s Home BASS Orlando comes an electronic love story, a marriage after two lone ravers were matched up and stayed together for the weekend. Complete strangers, turned to lovers and best friends for the rest of their lives. These are the experiences that fuel Brian’s fire as he is coming up with improvements as each year passes by. Imagine a weekend where you can not only party at a world-class music festival, but also come home to a beautiful sense of community and fun. Imagine making new friends, and running into old ones. Imagine bonding, and popping bottles with family as you soak in the melodies of some of today’s great DJs. Imagine Home BASS. Secure your hotel, shuttle pass and resort pass here, and prepare for the best weekend of your life. See you there! Featured Photo by: Maya Dayclub The post Find Your Home For EDC Orlando With Home BASS! appeared first on EDM Maniac. Source

Five Finger Death Punch have released a new music video for their latest single, “When the Seasons Change.” The track appears on the group’s latest album, And Justice for None, which dropped earlier this year. The band has dedicated the clip to hard-working police officers and first responders across the globe, including a hometown hero of the band, U.S. Army veteran and Las Vegas police officer Charleston Hartfield, who passed away in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting after using his body to shield and save others from the onslaught of bullets. Watch the music video below. “Instead of giving you a typical quote about the music video, let me give you some data to ponder,” guitarist Zoltan Bathory said in a statement. “Medical malpractice is the third leading cause of death in the USA right behind heart-disease and cancer. Some research says an average of 250,000 people die every year because of medical errors.” He added, “In contrast, police officers make an average of 50 fatal errors annually, that’s 245,950 less — and most of them are due to split-second decisions in high-risk situations. Of course, loss of life is always tragic but we don’t put all medical professionals on blast or call them names, disrespect them and demonize them. Of course not. They’re doing their best and it would be just as ridiculous as the current, grossly unfair rhetoric against police as a whole.” Five Finger Death Punch recently donated $95,000 of the ticket sales from their summer tour with Breaking Benjamin to C.O.P.S.-Concerns of Police Survivors, which helps rebuild the lives of survivors and co-workers affected by line-of-duty deaths. Breaking Benjamin donated $95,000 to Prevent Child Abuse America, which promotes services that improve child well-being and develops programs that help to prevent all types of abuse and neglect. Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin will hit the road together again this fall, and the tour also features Bad Wolves and In Flames appearing on select dates, with From Ashes to New. Find tour dates here. Source

Following a tease earlier in the week, it’s now been officially announced that the Misfits will indeed be playing a Chicago-area show. The concert will take place April 27th, 2019, at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois, with Fear, Venom Inc., and Power Trip providing support. The show will mark the band’s sixth concert since classic members Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only reunited in 2016 for a pair of Riot Fest gigs. An announcement of the Chicago show touts the concert as “once again featuring Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only sharing the stage,” but makes no mention of the other members. The previous shows have also featured Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein, Dave Lombardo and Acey Slade rounding out the lineup. Tickets will go on sale to the general public September 21st at 10AM CT, with presales starting as early as September 18th. In addition to the two Riot Fest gigs in Denver and Chicago in 2016, the Original Misfits, as they’re being called, have also played shows in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New Jersey. Source

Welcome into the Boiler Room, an international platform that broadcasts underground music as it happens from around the world to a massive online community. Today we will present some of their older gems and latest happenings. Let’s start by dusting off a dirty 3-year old single, ‘Just’ by Bicep. Bicep ‘Just’ Listen to Bicep‘s ‘Just’ a Boiler Room debut: “Just” wastes no time locking the brisk rhythm into place before a wriggling earworm of a lead pans across the channels. Atmospheric swells are pieced by gatling-gun snares; the tension builds but never releases, making this a surefire precursor to the bulk of heavyweight set climaxes you’re likely to hear this summer. As ever, the aural equivalent of 20,000 bicep emojis. -Boiler Room Next, we go to a super smooth techno Boiler Room set by Oliver Koletzki in Berlin.  photo credit Oliver Koletzki Oliver Kolezki is from Berlin, signed by Stil vor Talent and leans toward techno, electronica and triphop with his music. You will be able to find him all around the world on his tour. Catch a glimpse of his set a Burning Man and check out his upcoming tour below. Oliver Kolezki Let’s head to Moscow next to witness KiNK spinning with some vinyl. Based in Sofia, Bulgaria, without a support network, a campaign or any media hype, KiNK‘s music alone created a momentum whose end we have yet to be seen. Finally, plug into what happened most recently, a new comer ODDZ’s Boiler Room set.  ODDZ is a local techno pioneer ODDZ, one founder of the first Palestinian techno label, Harara, and member of Ramallah’s independent RadioNard, ODDZ has dedicated himself to push the scene forward. -Boiler Room We hope you got to discover some new music and thoroughly enjoyed some stable sets that happened in the Boiler Room. You may exit for now, but stay tune on what will happen next… Follow Boiler Room: YouTube SoundCloud Facebook Official The post The Freshest Sounds Boosting from the Boiler Room appeared first on EDM | Electronic Music | EDM Music | EDM Festivals | EDM Events. Source

He may have graduated from Degrassi: The Next Generation, but it looks like Drake’s love life may be moving on to the next generation too. According to Page Six, Drake was spotted Monday cozying up to model Bella B Harris at a fancy restaurant in Washington, DC. This breaks his previous streak of more age-appropriate paramours, like Jennifer Lopez, in favor of the 18-year-old Harris. That’s a thirteen-year age difference (Drake is 31), which breaks the ‘half-my-age-plus-7′ rule by four years or so. In the above picture, taken from Harris’ Instagram, we can see Drake and Harris’ furtive embrace, captioned by the phrase “no place I’d rather be.” Apparently, the two first met at the “Summer Sixteen Tour” in 2016, hosted by Drake and Future – funny enough, Harris would have been sixteen at the time too. Obviously we don’t know if that’s when they started dating, but yeesh, it raises at least a few red flags for grossness. Of course, Harris is hardly nobody – she’s the daughter of famed music producer Jimmy Jam, and has modeled for Guess, Forever 21 and Fenty and plenty of other brands. (Speaking of Fenty, Rihanna is not pleased by the news of Drake dating a teenager.) What do we say about this? Well, in the end, it’s not strictly hurting anybody, and the entertainment industry is certainly lenient when it comes to letting older men date younger women (see: Jerry Seinfeld, Leo DiCaprio, most other men in showbiz). Still, the age difference is more than a little squicky, especially considering the possibility they first met when she was sixteen. Sixteen, Drake. Who knows? After Heidi Klum ghosted him, and Rihanna rejected him live on stage at the VMAs this year, maybe this handsy-uncle phase is a more comfortable arrangement for him. Source

Ariana Grande‘s been quietly mourning the loss of her ex, rapper Mac Miller, who passed away earlier this month due to an apparent drug overdose. In the wake of the 26-year old’s death, the pop star was forced to disable her Instagram comments after an abundance of Miller’s fans blamed her for his death. Today, she returned to the platform to post a tribute. “I adored you from the day i met you when I was nineteen and I always will,” she wrote. “I can’t believe you aren’t here anymore. I really can’t wrap my head around it. We talked about this. So many times. I’m so mad, I’m so sad I don’t know what to do. You were my dearest friend. For so long. Above anything else. I’m so sorry I couldn’t fix or take your pain away. I really wanted to. The kindest, sweetest soul with demons he never deserved. I hope you’re okay now. Rest.” Accompanying the message is a short video of Miller that represents the pair at their most casual and conversational. Grande and Miller dated for almost two years, collaborating on Grande’s hit “The Way” and Miller’s “My Favorite Part,” before breaking up this past May. Grande is currently engaged to Pete Davidson. See her full post below. Source

Six years after it originally started, the beef between Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly recently reached a boiling part. It all started back in 2012 when MGK called Eminem’s daughter, Hailie (then 15), “hot” in a tweet and started publicly claiming the elder MC had banned him from Sirius XM’s Shade 45. Fast forward to 2018, and MGK stirred things up again with a subtle jab in his guest verse on Tech N9ne’s “No Reason (The Mosh Pit Song)”. Eminem retorted with “Not Alike” on his surprise Kamikaze album, prompting his Cleveland-based opponent to drop “Rap Devil”. That track, which takes on Em’s age, legacy, and behavior, dropped about a week and a half ago. After addressing the song in an interview with Sway, the Detroit legend has finally locked and loaded a proper response with “KILLSHOT”. Some of Em’s lines are direct comebacks to “Rap Devil” lyrics (“So before you die let’s see who can out-petty who/ With your corny lines (Slim you’re old)/ Ow, Kelly, ooh, but I’m 45 and I’m still outselling you/ By 29 I had three albums that had blew”), while others concoct whole new takedowns. He addresses the fact that he didn’t even want to write a response for fear of giving MGK too much validity when he spits, “It’s your moment, this is it/ As big as you’re gonna get, so enjoy it/ Had to give you a career to destroy it.” Marshall Mathers even has a few knocks for Machine Gun Kelly’s (neé Richard Colson Baker) label boss, Bad Boy Records’ Sean “Puffy” Combs. “But Kells, the day you put out a hit’s the day Diddy admits/ That he put the hit out that got Pac killed, ah.” Take a listen to the whole thing below. Machine Gun Kelly isn’t the only rapper to catch shrapnel on Kamikaze. His track “Fall” took shots at everyone from former collaborator Joe Budden to Tyler, the Creator. Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon guests on the song, but has distanced himself from it, saying he disagreed with the lines about Tyler. “Not a fan of the message, it’s tired,” Vernon said of Em’s use of the word “f*ggot” in relation to Tyler. “Asked them to change the track, wouldn’t do it.” Source

The holidays have come early for Sufjan Stevens fans: The musician’s longtime label, Asthmatic Kitty, has announced plans to reissue his 2006 Songs for Christmas collection on vinyl for the very first time. This box set reissue is due out November 9th and features all 42 songs of the original release, spread out across five EPs. According to the label, also included is the original package design, which is comprised of illustrations from Stevens himself, a family portrait painting, chord charts, and lyric sheets. (I purchased the original many moons ago, and the packaging is as fun and festive as it sounds here.) From 2001 to 2010, Stevens would record an annual holiday album that he’d then gift to his friends family. 2006’s Songs for Christmas packaged the first five of those into one neat bundle. In 2012, Asthmatic Kitty released the second batch of albums under the title Silver & Gold. The Songs for Christmas reissue is his second 2006 project to be pressed onto vinyl this year. In August, he finally released The Avalanche on vinyl. Pre-order the reissue here. Revisit a few favorites from Songs for Christmas: Recently, Stevens teamed up with The National to cover Leonard Cohen. He and James Blake also reworked a Moses Sumney song. Source

The following review is part of our coverage of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. “In space,” the tagline for a very different kind of sci-fi film once argued, “no one can hear you scream.” If we are to subscribe to Claire Denis’ vision of the universe, this doesn’t just go for literal screams of terror. In space, no one can hear your wails of despair and isolation, either. Much like on Earth, those cries of existential despair drift unheeded into the void. In her long-anticipated English language debut, the French filmmaking legend extends cinema’s long-term fascination with using galactic exploration to plunge the depths of human loneliness, reaching bizarre and depraved new heights (or lows?). It all begins innocently enough, with Monte (Robert Pattinson) listening to a baby cooing through a makeshift monitor as he repairs a panel on the outside of a spaceship. This oddly charming and domestic spell is quickly broken when the baby starts crying, distracting Monte just enough to make him drop his wrench, which quickly and hauntingly fades out of reach. It’s a subtly subversive way to start any movie set in space: centering the initial actions in a setting so often used as a backdrop for individualistic glory, or probed as a metaphor for strained human bonds, in the most primal and delicate of all human relationships, that of a parent and a baby. As we watch Monte, who appears to be alone on the ship except for this infant, bathe and feed her, and farm food for the two of them from the sparse ship’s surprisingly luscious gardens, it’s clear that High Life is going where few space films have gone before. But this veering-on-wholesome father/daughter adventure has some of its own expectations that will soon be all but completely undermined, as we begin to find out just how — and why — there are a man, a baby, and a cryogenic room filled with unconscious or dead crew people coasting toward a black hole with little to no contact or recognition from the outside universe. Without giving away too much of the unspooling plot — which is really best enjoyed at its own shambolic pace, with little warning or preconceived notions — Monte and his company are convicts, given the option between death and/or incarceration on Earth, or to become guinea pigs for arcane experiments. This is how this particular misfit group of murderers winds up set adrift in the middle of a ceaseless nowhere, both physically and mentally, under the care/torture of a homicidal doctor (Juliette Binoche) with a twisted agenda. In many ways, High Life is exactly as weird as it sounds. It is, after all, about a collection of violent people with proven impulse control issues being subjected to sinister tests and violations by an even more volatile scientist, while inching toward unknown doom (or salvation?) on a ship that looks like the sullen goth cousin of a Thunderbirds vehicle. And Binoche is truly a perverse delight as the sinister Dibs, perfectly straddling the line between camp and menace as she flounces around the vessel’s halls, delivering small monologues about her superior genius and evil. Anyone looking for a full-blown orgy of outlandish spectacle and boundary-pushing will likely be disappointed, though. High Life is, at its lost and searching heart, every bit as stark and remote as its ship appears while suspended in the darkest reaches of space. This isn’t weird in the way that explosive works of provocation, or absurdity, or even loopy humor are weird. High Life is weird in the way that someone casually dropping a completely unnerving observation about the meaninglessness of life into an otherwise light and casual conversation is weird. It is, for all of its action, and unexpected hints of the underbelly of humanity, and bodily fluids, actually quite a languid, melancholy film. It doesn’t shock its viewers, nor does Denis seem to have any interest in doing so. It quietly, meticulously unmoors them instead. With a casual, clinical clarity, Denis and her crew portray space travel for what it really is: an extension of humanity. All of our basest instincts and all of our fears will exist there, as surely as all of our best attributes and bravery. Whether we’re facing our futures from solid ground or the edge of a black hole, we’re still lonely, and terrified, reaching out to each other and trying to find someone or something to hold onto as we teeter on the edge of some abyss or other. Slowly but strangely, High Life delves into this with precision, wit, melancholy, a dash of existential angst, and maybe even a hint of wonder. Source

Tim Lambesis seems to be on a mission of redemption, having been imprisoned for one of the most notorious crimes in rock history. The As I Lay Dying singer now says he is pursuing a Masters in Social Work after earning a number of undergraduate degrees over the past 5 years, including his time in prison. For the uninitiated, Lambesis was sentenced to six years in prison for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife. He served two and half years, having been released in December 2016. Earlier this year, many fans were shocked when it was announced that As I Lay Dying were regrouping with Lambesis on vocals. The band has since announced fall tours of North America and Europe. In a new Facebook post, Lambesis posted a smiling photo of himself and offered an update on his life, saying he has been pursuing higher education since his infamous legal woes. He writes the following: I’m slowly getting comfortable sharing parts of my life, little by little. Taken at an end of the school year party last semester. I can’t believe it’s already a new school year! A lot of people have been asking what I’ve done with most of my time over the past 5+ years. School is one of many things. It’s hard for me to sit idle, so I took almost every class I could. I got a handful of undergraduate degrees in the process, but what interested me most were courses in addiction treatment. I ended up becoming a Certified Addiction Treatment Counselor and started working as a case manager for a year in the process of collecting field hours for my certification. Then in 2017 I began a Master of Social Work program. The smile you see here comes from a sense of relief after finishing the first year of the MSW! As mentioned, As I Lay Dying will hit the road this fall for the metalcore band’s first tour in five years. The trek kicks off November 2nd in Phoenix, Arizona. See the full list of dates here. Source

Hodgy, one of the founding members of Odd Future, and dubstep producer Alvin Risk have combined their talents to form a new group called HA. In a statement provided by the two, they say the purpose of HA “are in hopes to uplift, relate to, and expose the nature of mankind, by combining voice, lyric, and emotion, while blending illusive sounds and technique.” They also write that “…moving forward is key to unlocking shackles, chained by society’s normality.” Given the two artists’ respective resumes, one would expect some kind of brash, rattling mashup of rap and Skrillex/OWSLA-esque electronic music. However, on their debut single, “O.P.E.N.”, Hodgy and Risk challenge us to keep an open mind, especially when it comes to collaborating. Here, HA offer up something entirely different, tapping into facets of themselves perhaps fans have never seen before. The new song — said to be the first they produced together — is sweet and suave, a delightful bit of R&B mixed with synthpop and promising indication of what’s to come from the two-piece. Hear it for yourself below. Hodgy’s last full-length was Fireplace: TheNotTheOtherSide from 2016. Risk put out an EP called Ever in 2017. Read HA’s full statement. Source

A great many gin martinis — ice-cold, with a rinse of vermouth and a lemon twist squeezed into life above the glass — are consumed in A Simple Favor, Paul Feig’s effervescent, deliciously campy thriller. It’s enough to make you want one. Like the film, they’re elegant and crisp, an absolute pleasure to consume; like the film, their actual purpose is to get you fucked up and put into the right mood. And best of all, like the film, they’re far from sweet. A gin martini is piney and bright, bitter and crisp, and lingers, tauntingly, on the tongue. When the glass is empty, the enjoyment continues. That’s the purest pleasure of A Simple Favor — it’s the kind of fun that sticks around after the credits roll. It’s not because of the film’s twists and turns, several of which any movie-lover will see coming from a mile away. They’re good, fun twists, but they’re not actually the point of this exercise. The point — beyond getting fucked up and having fun — is climbing into Anna Kendrick’s sensible, energy-efficient vehicle and riding along with her into Blake Lively’s elegant, wild world. It’s a relationship that shouldn’t make sense in a story that should seem absolutely mundane, and yet watching the two of them spar, both face to face and from afar, is one of the most unadulterated joys of 2018. Kendrick plays Stephanie Smothers, a widowed single mother who has wrapped up her whole life in caring for her kid, volunteering for everything, and running a “mommy vlog” full of tips for great gluten-free snacks and creative projects to leave at gravestones. The reason for the latter: her best friend, Emily (Blake Lively), has gone missing. They haven’t been friends for long, and would seem like an odd pair to an outside observer. To any observer, really. Emily is glamorous, bitter, and brash, with a hot husband (Henry Golding) and gobs of cash. She tells Emily to stop apologizing for everything, then with a single arched eyebrow has Stephanie apologizing for apologizing, then apologizing for that, then taking another drink and spilling her guts. In a short time, their friendship — if that’s what it is — blooms, and then Emily asks for her simple favor: Can Stephanie pick up her son from school? She does, and Emily disappears. Feig, and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer (adapting Darcey Bell’s book of the same name), return to Emily and Stephanie’s gin martini sessions throughout the film, and not just because A Simple Favor is nearly always at its best when Lively and Kendrick banter, barefoot and tipsy. They’re a useful tool, a choice that prevents Emily’s early disappearance from cutting off the film’s most gripping element at the knees. It allows us to gradually unspool the thread that makes up both of these characters: Emily, an enigma by design, someone who wants no photographs taken of her and alludes to a shady, fantastic past; Stephanie, a woman who projects a convincing image of nice, normal motherhood, albeit in a quirky, overachieving way. She seems to be a sort of manic pixie dream mom, while Emily’s a rich, drunk take on Serena van der Woodsen — Gossip Grown Woman, if you will. But both are far more complicated than they seem, and as Stephanie lets her guard down and Emily connects with the person behind the facade, they and their relationship become infinitely more compelling, thanks to Sharzer’s sharp screenwriting, some really top-notch casting, and a pair of terrific performances delivered with a giddy wink. Those scenes tell us a great deal about the inner lives of these women, but we’d know them anyway. Such is the strength of the art direction (Brandt Gordon), the production design (Jefferson Sage) and set decoration (Patricia Larman), and especially the costume design (Renee Ehrlich Kalfus — a solid dark horse for that Oscar pool of yours). Stephanie’s Target chic is all color and noise, a sartorial choice made by a woman desperately trying to outpace the darkness of both her past and her present and a fitting costume for a person gunning hard for the title of mother of the century. Yet when she walks into Emily’s modernist palace, she’s a figure of chaos, out of place and disruptive, every pattern and pom-pom screaming that she does not belong. Emily’s wardrobe, opulent and menswear-inspired, telegraphs her complexities nicely. She’s stepped out of the world of film noir, channeling Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, and Lauren Bacall while flaunting her utter disregard for what anyone else thinks of her as a wife and mother. The gradual transformations they both undertake play out in their wardrobes, which the characters treat as costumes, as armor, and as commentary. If the performances, designs, and French pop-drenched score and soundtrack (Theodore Shapiro) are smart — and they are — they’re matched, if not exceeded, by Feig’s direction. Yes, odds are you’ll see the twists coming a mile away. Who cares? The journey there is the point, and Feig makes the ride an unbelievably enjoyable one. He’s careful to give Lively and Kendrick the space to build a relationship that should be utterly implausible into something that works, and matches their wry, even campy enjoyment of the proceedings with wit of his own. Devoted watchers of Turner Classic Movies and collectors of Criterion will make themselves giddy counting the references to classic thrillers of the ‘30s and beyond (the very first thing in this writer’s notes on the film is an all-caps “CHARADE!”), while anyone who likes fun and/or jokes will find some piece of savage, off-kilter humor in nearly every scene. There’s a gag with a three-piece suit near the top of the film that’s the kind of morsel you’ll want to savor over and over again, and a scene with Kendrick blasting music in her car that’s similarly delicious. No scene overstays its welcome, nothing is over-explained, and not even when the threat is most pronounced does the effervescence leave the film. It’s sharp, efficient, and so satisfying — the kind of film which gives the impression that it was really, really fun to make. It was almost certainly fun to write, too. Sharzer’s script does stumble a bit here and there, particularly with regard to Golding, who’s given little to do but look hot — on the upside, it’s an approach that feels subversive, but it his lack of development does seem to be a bit of a missed opportunity. That last bit also applies to the entertaining Greek chorus of parents, led by Girls’ Andrew Rannells, who pop up throughout the film, and a particularly enjoyable graveyard scene in the last act robs what follows of some of its potency. But on the whole, it’s literary and clever, with dialogue as sharp as any comedy this year. It’s also undeniably feminine, but not in the conventional, Nancy Meyers sense. These women are women, messy in the ways women are messy, cruel and funny and smart about their roles in the world and the power they carry. If Double Indemnity were a hangout movie, this would be its sequel. It’s delicious. Put it this way: A Simple Favor is likely to make viewers want to drink a gin martini and wear a pantsuit without a shirt on and maybe start a vlog on which they try to solve a mystery while making novelty baked goods. It’s not aspirational, because this is a bad situation. It just looks like so much fun that you immediately want to get started. It’s potent and chilly and warm, all at once. In that sense, maybe a negroni would have been a better cocktail choice: sweet, bitter, strong, and classic, beautiful to look at, and sure to get you drunk. Trailer: Source

Seeming to confirm reports that Danny Boyle’s departure from Bond 25 was at least partly due to John Hodge’s script, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have reportedly been brought back to the project. The screenwriters, who have written every Bond film since 1999’s The World Is Not Enough, previously penned a treatment that was set aside when Boyle stepped in. The report comes via The Daily Mail, who say things fell apart with Boyle after Daniel Craig and producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson expressed a desire for a writer other than Hodge, Boyle’s longtime collaborator. It was Purvis and Wade they wanted, apparently, as The Daily Mail quotes a Hollywood executive close to the production as saying their treatment had already been signed off on. Now, the pair will develop their treatment into a script. (Ranking: Every James Bond Film From Worst to Best) It’s very likely, however, that the script wasn’t the only reason for Boyle bailing. The Guardian quotes actor Jonathan Pryce as saying that producers “couldn’t take a socialist Bond,” and also mentions that casting issues could have played a part. They report the possibility that Boyle’s desire to cast actors Tomasz Kot and Said Taghmaoui in major roles may have been met with resistance. “I’m supposed to do the next James Bond, playing the lead bad guy.” Taghmaoui told Abu Dhabi publication The National. “I was cast by Danny Boyle, and just now he left the project, so of course there’s some uncertainty.” As we previously reported, the film’s original release date has been delayed to late 2020 as producers continue their search for a new director. Our fingers are still crossed for Edgar Wright. Source

The Pitch: 1983 A.D., The Shadow Mountains. Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough) live a quiet existence in a beautiful, entirely open-faced cabin. Red cuts down trees, Mandy paints the fantastic vistas of the sci-fi/fantasy novels she loves so much, and they hold one another in the dark nights against the terrors that plague them both. But all is not well in their idyll. There are rifts in the sky. There are strange vans in the nearby town. And Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), the leader of the Children of the New Dawn, has decided he needs Mandy. He doesn’t intend to let her go, in this world or any other. Mandy, Cage’s Fine Girl (Such a Fine Girl): Truly great Nicolas Cage performances have become such an intermittent event in the recent video-actioner phase of his career that when one comes around, it’s important to pay attention, to really savor just what a physical and uninhibited actor Cage is capable of being when he’s working with a filmmaker who knows how to harness his very particular version of energy. As it would seem, Panos Cosmatos is one such filmmaker. The Beyond the Black Rainbow director returns with Mandy, a spiraling death trip of stoned, terrified excess that refocuses the actor’s excessive theatricality into something elemental, and eventually beastly. One of the things about Cage that’s made him such a cult hero over time, and which makes his ’90s run as a Hollywood leading man all the more inexplicable, is the raw, everything-in quality of his turns even in some pretty bad movies. (It’s why his paycheck work is especially dispiriting.) In Mandy, Cage turns Red into a true shell of a man, a being reduced to the sum total of his boundless trauma and his thirst for savage vengeance. It’s a feral performance, all spit and blood and bile, and there aren’t many performers who could deliver it without lapsing into total absurdity. Cosmatos, however, pushes this in its own curious direction, using Cage’s overabundance of passion in tableaux sometimes resonant and hilariously funny in the exact same breath. Mandy is the kind of dramatic gambit it’s almost impossible to imagine without its centerpiece, and in Cage, it finds the hellish, tenacious lifeblood it needs. The Four Bikers of the Apocalypse: You’ve never seen anything quite like Mandy, even if its DNA is assembled in patchwork from so many pulpy, D&D friendly novels of the ’70s and ’80s. It’s like a stoner metal concept album made cinematic, a film whose dramatic and stylistic influences range from Argento to Repo Man to the exhaled haze of a bong rip lilting over dyed lightbulbs. Cosmatos’ film (co-written with Aaron Stewart-Ahn) starts weird and quickly dives face-first; while its comparatively meditative first hour takes a while to linger over Red and Mandy, those moments of serene intimacy go a long way toward lending weight to the film’s increasingly maniacal storytelling. Where so many metal-influenced films flirt with the grotesque, Mandy bathes in it; this is a film perverse in both its buckets of blood onscreen (there are many) and in the ways in which it not only subverts religious iconography, but actively taunts it, challenges it, and occasionally even plays it for a laugh. Roache, who’s outstanding as the addled and violent false prophet Sand, is at once an affront to God and a knowing pantomime of so many people who destroy the world in God’s name. He’s a charlatan who’s existed over and over throughout history, and in Mandy‘s bizzarely mythic way, Cosmatos manages to turn the inevitable war between Red and Jeremiah into the stuff of violent arcana. The Verdict: Mandy is destined to live forever as a cult favorite, but what’s going to set it apart from so many others is the way in which Cosmatos sustains the emotional stakes of Red’s quest through the entire film. Without them, Mandy would still be a deliriously stylish experiment in transposing the warped visual aesthetics of an acid trip to celluloid, in service of an especially brutal revenge thriller. (A revenge thriller set to a stunning, doom-tonal score by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, no less.) But with them, Mandy becomes something more, and something genuinely special. It’s not as though the film is entirely dissimilar from the pulp novels the film invokes in both style and onscreen reference; from the costume design to the unfortunate plot device that tends to spur on stories of broken men seeking revenge, Mandy is as indebted to books of tabletop gaming lore as it is to some of the experimental cinema invoked throughout. It’s an exploitation movie through and through, but it’s also an exceptionally articulate one, and one with a soul humming beneath its forcible spurts of corn syrup. It’s also a film built from demons, planetary alignments, and the minutiae of the transgressively occult. It goes without saying that it won’t be for everyone, but for a select handful of people, it’s probably going to be the best goddamn thing they’ve ever seen. Trailer: Source

The Lowdown: Mothers’ debut full length, When You Walk a Long Distance You Are Tired, was a record with a tender touch. In the past two years following the album’s critical success, they’ve moved from Athens, GA, to Philadelphia, perhaps trading in Southern sweetness and charm for something more urgent and fast-paced, as well as signed to a larger record label, ANTI. If When You Walk… was easy listening, Render Another Ugly Method is anything but. Disjointed and disoriented drums stop and start quickly and slowly throughout the album, and guitars drone on to pave a dismal entryway for Kristine Leschper’s haunting, almost monotone vocals. The Good: Render is most successful when Leschper considers the most mundane situations the body exists in, topics that are often taken for granted. On “BEAUTY ROUTINE”, she calls teeth brushing a “distraction” and “an act of desperation,” before she concludes, “Show me a beauty routine that will erase me completely.” “WESTERN MEDICINE” shows a very welcome sarcastic side of Leschper. After detailing a doctor’s visit in which the narrator is told, “Well you seem quite healthy so/ Don’t be needy,” Leschper sighs innocently, “God bless the brave men of western medicine.” Leschper covers simple scenes and interactions on songs like standout “PINK”, ironically mentioning the author Sam Pink, whose writing is known to narrate experiences of the banal and day-to-day. The Bad: Tracks on Render falter when they become more abstract than these typical scenes of recognizable situations, becoming often too self-aware. The song title “BAPTIST TRAUMA” is a curious one, until we realize that the title represents an acronym. “Bearing almost pure tarnish/ Image starving the traffic/ Rake arms/ Unlearn magic again,” the words begin. The Verdict: Lyrics that need to be read aloud to be understood, plus an unsettling discombobulation of tempos, dynamics, and various internal compositions, plus Leschper’s monotonous drone, all co-existing for nearly one hour becomes mentally exhausting and almost frustrating halfway through Render. Music is never required to be relaxing, but if there’s one thing everyone could use once in a while, it’s a break. Essential Tracks: “PINK”, “BEAUTY ROUTINE” Source

BROCKHAMPTON announced their new album, Iridescence, at the end of last month. Now, the hip-hop boy band has revealed the complete details of its major label debut, which is due out September 21st from Question Everything/RCA Records. Specifically, the group has unveiled the album’s heat-vision cover artwork, which features a pregnant woman. They also shared the back cover, which revealed the complete tracklist. Of all the songs the band has recently debuted, only “TONYA” lives on this album. But there’s also another interesting tease. Down at the bottom of the back image, under the production and copyright details, is the phrase, “From the trilogy ‘The Best Years of Our Lives.'” That’s the title BROCKHAMPTON initially teased as their first post-Ameer Van release when they appeared on Fallon back in June. It seems the concept has evolved, however, giving fans even more to look forward to. (Read: The 25 Most Anticipated Albums of Fall 2018) Details of Iridescence come about two weeks after BROCKHAMPTON announced their hotly anticipated “I’ll Be There” North American tour and just days after releasing the trailer for their new documentary, The Longest Summer in America. Drected by Dude Heifetz and premiering September 17th in Los Angeles ahead of worldwide screenings on the 20th, the documentary is follows the group from their signing to RCA, through the sexual abuse allegations against Van, and up to the recording of Iridescence at Abbey Road Studios. Find all the album details below, followed by the Longest Summer in America trailer. Iridescence Artwork: Iridescence Tracklist: 01. NEW ORLEANS 02. THUG LIFE 03. BERLIN 04. SOMETHING ABOUT HIM 05. WHERE THE CASH AT 06. WEIGHT 07. DISTRICT 08. LOOPHOLE 09. TAPE 10. J’OUVERT 11. HONEY 12. VIVID 13. SAN MARCOS 14. TONYA 15. FABRIC THE LONGEST SUMMER IN AMERICA pic.twitter.com/84cDXVMV14 — BROCKHAMPTON (@brckhmptn) September 11, 2018 Source

Photography by Calla Flanagan In recent years, as film projection has been reduced to the margins of the industry thanks to the comparative cost-effectiveness (for studios, anyway) of digital photography and projection, it’s become a precious luxury for some moviegoers who believe that film-forward exhibition is the way in which some movies have to be seen. A handful of prominent filmmakers (Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino) have led the charge on select modern productions being exhibited in the increasingly rare 70mm format, one which both enlarges the overall panoramic size of the image and enhances its clarity and color. However, an even more intriguing shift has begun in the last few years in certain independent theaters: 70mm repertory screenings. Classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and West Side Story have been re-popularized in the larger format thanks to their grand scale, and whether it’s simply aesthetics or something deeper, these screenings have connected enough with audiences that some studios have even started to offer blow-up prints of their modern productions. (For one example, Warner Bros. has circulated blow-ups of Wonder Woman and Kong: Skull Island in the past year.) To get a closer look at the process behind exhibiting one of these increasingly rare prints, the Music Box Theatre in Chicago welcomed us up to their projection booth to get a closer glance at the delicate work which goes into taking these prints away from the days of teen projectionists carelessly mishandling them in mall multiplexes, and turning them into what the Music Box’s assistant programmer and technical director Julian Antos calls “museum pieces.” This past week, Consequence of Sound spent a morning preparing for the theater’s upcoming 70mm Film Festival with Antos, to discuss what goes into mounting a print, taking care of it, and what’s helped them come back into such high demand in the first place. Can you talk a little bit about how 70mm has been revived here in the last few years, and how you/the theater have worked to foster that revival? The interest was revived by one film: The Master, in 2012. Prior to that, I don’t think the Music Box had run 70mm in a few years. So when they heard The Master was being released on 70mm, and a few prints were being made…there was a preview screening here, and they probably had a week’s worth of notice. These [projectors] ran 35mm all the time, but the 70mm parts were all mismatched and everything really needed to be tuned up. So they spent a lot of time that week getting that show up and running, and it was so beautiful, and it’s one of the most beautiful things we’ve probably had on that screen. There’s been incredible audience demand for it ever since. So we’ve been putting a lot of work into these machines and training projectionists, and there’s been a shocking amount of interest in the format, especially since film has sort of faded from day-to-day multiplex use. Other cities always do really well with 70mm fests, too. What do you personally think factors into the appeal of the 70mm revival? It’s very beautiful. The images are really sharp. The color, especially…the color and brightness play off each other. The brightness is measured at the same level, but for 70mm, it’s more evenly spread across the frame. It’s really sort of an intense image. In cases like Lawrence of Arabia or 2001, it’s just like being there. It’s very much cinematic and sort of like looking at a painting, but it’s also very tangible and real-feeling. What are some of your favorite 70mm prints that have run here so far? West Side Story always looks really great, The Master especially because it’s on…print stock has really improved in a lot of ways over the years, so seeing The Master shot on modern film stock, a modern print, it’s really incredible. It’s kind of funny that as the industry transitioned to mostly digital filmmaking, the film stocks were better than they ever had been. What a shame. It’s funny, the first couple 70mm fests before I was here, they didn’t show many blow-up prints. [Editor’s note: a blow-up print is an enlarged 70mm print of a film shot on 35mm or digital, created retroactively.] Maybe one or two. Once we started doing this year after year, we started running out of titles to bring in. So we started bringing in a lot of blow-up prints from the ‘80s. A lot of them look really stunning. The thinking is sort of “oh, it was shot on 35mm, what’s the point of showing a blow-up?” But I think it really brings out a lot of detail. Especially during that era, there was a lot of places showing certain films on 35mm and 70mm, depending on their means. Yeah, a lot of major cities would have at least a few 70mm screenings. Walk me through the process of running one of these films, from the time you get it in the mail to the time you mount and project it. How long does it normally take? What goes into it? The prints usually come via DHL or FedEx. Most of them are stored in California. If we’re lucky, sometimes they come in these beautiful boxes. That’s how Fox sends their archival prints, they’re all double-packed. They’re heavy individually, but they’re manageable. Most of them come in these terrible cans, that have been going across the country for decades. They weren’t well-designed in the first place. When you get a new print in these cans, one trip across the country and it’s already all dinged up. It’s a one-of-a-kind print, stored in this terrible can. Nobody’s come up with a better way to do it. This one’s already been inspected, we inspect them as soon as they arrive in just in case there’s any issues. We want to catch them as soon as possible. We usually do runthroughs if it’s a film we haven’t shown before, and that helps us catch any issues as well. For newer prints that have a DTS soundtrack, which is if there’s a timecard on the print and it syncs up to a CD, those we always do a full runthrough [for] if we haven’t run them before, because there could be some issue with the timecard printing. We had Cleopatra, and half of the movie you had to set the sync offset a certain number of frames, and then after the intermission, you had to remember to reset it to a different number, and it just had “acoustic” written on the disc. But yeah, Cleopatra was maybe the best print we’ve ever shown. When you get these prints, like The Thing this year for example, which have faded color, was that unavoidable? The color fading is specific to Kodak stock between 1950 and 1982, it was Eastmancolor print stock. Kodak acknowledged this, but the thinking was that the release prints are not a permanent record. The negative stocks don’t have the same fading properties, but the print stocks until 1982 (except for Technicolor print stocks), they fade. In 1982, Kodak developed LPP print stocks, which I believe stands for Lowfade Positive Print, and the color remains intact. That was partly because Martin Scorsese was so upset that all of the prints of his films were fading, and he threw a big fit. (laughs) The Thing is right at the cutoff, it was late in ’82 that Kodak changed the stock. We don’t like to show faded stuff, but in the case of The Thing, it played at a couple other venues and people really wanted to see it. It’ll still look really good, your eyes will just have to adjust to the color after a bit. It’ll sound great, and we’ve been upfront about it. Can you talk a bit about the magnetic sound process of 70mm, and how you set it up for different prints? The way the mag sound works is that it’s actually bound with an adhesive onto the film. There are six tracks: surround, left, left center, center, right center, and right. But it’s just an adhesive coating, and if your projector’s not set up really well, it’ll start to flake off. It’s also really easy to de-magnetize it. We spend a lot of time going through all the metal parts in the projector with what’s called a degausser. Sometimes, on an older mag print, you’ll hear a little click-click-click on one of the tracks, and that’s from a sprocket that was magnetized in one specific part, so every time the film runs over that sprocket, you can hear it. The mag sound is really cool, but it’s very delicate, and they don’t make the prints anymore. You can only do 70mm with DTS sound now. They’re all pretty much irreplaceable, so it’s nice that the studios still lend them out. What’re some of the key things that go into protecting a print like this? For shipping and receiving and things like that, I’ve developed a number of methods for making sure that things don’t get lost. (laughs) The one good thing about these cans is that they’re very easy for FedEx to identify, so if one gets lost in shipment, you can just go and say “hey, i’m looking for a really ugly box.” Which I’ve done before. For projection, for all film formats, we spend a lot of time very carefully inspecting all the prints, and going over every frame, and repairing anything that needs to be repaired. Typically, the studios do a really good job of making sure that everything is in projectable condition, and they usually won’t send a print out if there’s any serious issues. But yeah, inspection is really important. We always do scratch tests every time we set up for this festival, so we’ll run a loop of film through the projector like 200 times, and make sure we’re not adding anywhere, which is really easy to do for 70mm because the image area is so big, and [the film is] just sort of flopping around in there. You have to make sure the loop sizes in the projector are exactly right. We have these lamps, so when the film is coming up on the reel, we’ll sort of look and make sure nothing terrible is happening. But if you do everything right, it’s not hard to keep the prints in good shape. You just have to be very careful and conscientious. For a long time, when film projection was common, people could be a little careless, and a lot of what you see on older prints in terms of wear and tear is just sort of…guys not cleaning the projector, it was a first-run movie and this part in the projector wasn’t working and the service technician couldn’t come out for a week to fix it, a lot of stuff like that. We’ve sort of transitioned to these things being museum pieces, and requiring a lot more care. On the programming end, what makes you gravitate to a certain print? Obviously, some of it is just “things people want to see,” but what makes you want to run or re-run a certain film? There’s not a lot to choose from. There are maybe 60 or 70 prints out there to show, so there’s stuff we cycle in and out every year. West Side Story we show every year, because people love that movie, I love that movie, and people come out for it. 2001, even though we’ve shown it a few dozen times this year, we’ve still added two more screenings and they’ll probably sell out. Which is great! It’d be nice if there was that amount of attention for Ryan’s Daughter or something like that. (laughs) If there’s a finite number of 70mm prints floating around in the ether, is there anything you’d really like to show that you haven’t yet? I would really like to show Ryan’s Daughter. There’s one print of it, the sound isn’t on the print, it’s on what’s called an “unmarried track,” so it’s a separate 35mm film with six-track magnetic sound, and we’d have to bring in dubbers and other special equipment to sync it all up, and it’d be very expensive and it’ll probably never happen. I would like to see that, someday. I’ve not seen the movie, it’s supposed to have a lot of rainstorms and stuff like that. I’m sure it looks great. It plays in California every once in a while. The 2018 70mm Film Festival at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre will run September 14-27. Tickets and passes are available now through the Music Box’s website. Source

Origins is a recurring new music feature in which we task an artist with breaking down the influences that birthed their latest single. Ron Gallo’s on a journey. And journeys, it appears, are good for productivity. Last year, the Philly-based pop-rocker dropped HEAVY META, a wild and (appropriately) heavy exploration of a tumultuous relationship, which he followed up earlier this year with his Really Nice Guys EP. Now, Gallo’s back with another full-length, Stardust Birthday Party, which arrives on October 5th via New West. Gallo calls Stardust Birthday Party “a spiritual 180” from HEAVY META, a project he describes in a press release as “my ‘frustrated with humanity’ album.” After witnessing his ex overcame a drug addiction after a trip to a South American healer, the singer decided to see what fruit he might find on the holistic side of the fence. The result is this album, which chronicles Gallo’s “journey through awakening via self-deconstruction.” He notes a feeling of kinship with jazz legend John Coltrane, who wrote in the liner notes of A Love Supreme that, in 1957, he “experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life.” The songs on Stardust Birthday Party follow Gallo’s march towards a more compassionate life, and “Love Supreme (Work Together!)”, which Consequence of Sound premieres today, speaks directly to Coltrane’s own outlook — both in its title and themes. “I think at one point I wanted to change the world,” Gallo says in a press release, “but now I know I can only change myself, or rather just strip away everything that is not me to reveal the only thing that’s ever been there. And that’s what this album is about, it’s me dancing while destroying the person I thought I was, and hopefully forever.” “God loves it when we work together,” he sings against the upbeat track’s rich, jangly guitars and vibrant percussion. While Gallo’s sentiments may resonate as saccharine, his infectious yawp and party-starting rhythms exude an authentic, urgent sense of exuberance. Hear it below, and pre-order Stardust Birthday Party here. Gallo spoke further to CoS about his love for Coltrane, as well as the tiny moments, apps, and feelings that served as the Origins for this particular track. John Coltrane: Coltrane, to me, IS music, the essence of it. His influence on this song is pretty heavy, not musically, because I wouldn’t even consider myself a musician or this song music by comparison, but the spirit, the title (lifted from his masterpiece album), the lyrics (one verse’s lyrics list the four parts of “A Love Supreme”—Acknowledgment, Resolution, Pursuance, Psalm), and the homage to supreme love – oneness, unity, the common thread in all things, god, whatever you wanna call it. I was listening to “A Love Supreme” while writing the words to this song. In the liner notes of that record Coltrane wrote: “During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace. ALL PRAISE TO GOD.” THAT’S IT RIGHT THERE. I know this video is not “A Love Supreme” but I do think this video of the Coltrane quartet playing “My Favorite Things” in Belgium in 1965 is the greatest performance of all time, everyone should just watch it and then quit music and quit writing about music and destroy their phone. That’s what I did. View of Earth from an airplane/airplane food: I wrote this song on an airplane, I was eating bowtie pasta, really gross-tasting but very cute airplane food. I was looking out the window down at the earth and from that angle you can’t see the details or individual things that make up the planet. It’s just one thing. No people, no stuff, no world problems, no differences. Zoom out and you and me and all our shit doesn’t even exist. I think that’s good perspective to remember what divides us is all in our head. iPhone GarageBand: I wrote this song on the GarageBand app on my iPhone while sitting on an airplane. Such a great app. You can really rip on that thing. I looped a drum beat and just started layering bass and strumming the fake digital guitar. Creating organic guitar rock music is over-rated, look at the Billboard charts, I bet a human playing an instrument didn’t even perform on any of the top 10 songs right now. Anyway, great app, get into it, the key to becoming a true artist is right in your pocket!!!!! Compassion: What is the world lacking? Compassion. You know what’s a really beautiful thing? Compassion. When you feel compassion, or witness compassion it is like a key to unlock an explosion in your heart, to feel alive, to feel human, to remember the point of this whole existence that we forget on a daily basis. So I say to myself and all: Give to those in need, it’s easy, it’s an almond milk latte, it’s a minute out of your day you spend concerned with your own meaningless crap. Go out and walk around and try to imagine what it is like to be the people you see. What’s it like to be an ant in a bathtub? A chandelier hanging from a ceiling? Before you go on a Facebook tirade: Try and remember all evil and hateful action is result of that persons own internal pain and delusion, remember that they are you also. Compassion is what can make a world a better place, powerful stuff, feels great. I typed “compassion” into YouTube and this Thai Life Insurance commercial came up now I feel warm. Adyashanti: In February, I went on a week long silent meditation retreat with a teacher I’d been very into for last couple years named Adyashanti. Awesome guy, amazing speaker and the retreat was completely transformative and informative about what I really am beyond the things I identified with my whole life (name, body, job, beliefs, opinions, thoughts, my past, etc.). I came back from that retreat on cloud 10 and rewrote the lyrics to the first verse because originally it was about my bowtie pasta airplane food and figured this song could probably have more meaning and weight than that. Source

Listen and subscribe via iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | YouTube | RSS Kyle Meredith rounds up veteran rock acts Local H, Cowboy Junkies, and Shawn Mullins to discuss their classic albums, update fans on their new projects, and share their stories from a lifetime in the music business. — Local H’s Scott Lucas talks about the 20th anniversary of Pack Up the Cats, the 10th anniversary of 10 Angry Months, and a new concept the band’s currently working on for the next LP. — Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins weighs in on the Pink Floyd influence of All That Reckoning, revisits 1998’s Miles From Our Home, being close friends with Townes Van Zandt, seeing America from a Canadian perspective, and going back to the site of the original Woodstock. — Shawn Mullins celebrates 20 years of “Lullaby”, explains why he re-recorded Soul’s Core, offers up an anecdote of being recognized by Dokken in an elevator, and shares a heartbreaking moment about losing his wife to suicide. Kyle Meredith With… is an interview series in which WFPK’s Kyle Meredith speaks to a wide breadth of musicians. Each episode, Meredith digs deep into an artist’s work to find out how the music is made and where their journey is going, from legendary artists like Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, U2 and Bryan Ferry, to the newer class of The National, St. Vincent, Arctic Monkeys, Haim, and Father John Misty. Check back Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for new episodes. Rate the series now via iTunes. Follow on Facebook | Podchaser | Twitter youtube Source

This past June, Angélique Kidjo released a track-for-track covers album of Remain in Light, the 1980 landmark album from the Talking Heads. Along with the Grammy-winning talents of the Beninese singer-songwriter, the project featured guest contributors in Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, Blood Orange, and Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Bruno Mars), who oversaw all the production. Now, Kidjo has partnered up with Amazon Music to drop a new version of her cover of “The Great Curve”. Previously, Blood Orange mastermind Dev Hynes lent his talents to Kidjo’s original reimagining; this updated Amazon edition includes even more extra star power: Alicia Keys provides additional vocals and The Roots’ own Questlove mans the drums. (Read: Ranking: Every Talking Heads Album from Worst to Best) Take a listen to this wondrous version below. Talking Heads’ Remain in Light was said to have been heavily inspired by West African music, and Kidjo intended to use her cover album to “pay back the homage.” She added in a statement, “We all know that rock music came from the blues and thus from Africa. Now is the time to bring rock back to Africa, connect our minds, and bring all our sounds to a new level of sharing and understanding.” “The Great Curve” (Cover) Artwork: Source

In April, FIDLAR hit the liquor cabinet and got wasted. June saw them have a cigar and jam out to Pink Floyd. And, just last month, the California punk rockers lit one up on the single “Are You High?”. Things for FIDLAR take a serious turn here in September, however. On their latest single, “Too Real”, Zac Carper and his crew take all the internalized anxiety and frustration that comes with being a goddamn American in 2018 and they let it fly in the form of screeching guitars and even more savage screaming. The rage is real here — critiques for all political parties, for society as a whole, for the evolution (or de-evolution) of the human race. It’s all very dismal, but also — and this is what hurts the most — entirely accurate. “Was that too fucking real?” Carper repeatedly asks on the track, which is actually more kick-ass noise-rock than punk and I am Here For It. Maybe it is too real, but also maybe that’s what we need to hear. (Read: The 100 Best Pop Punk Bands) Check it out below via its music video, which features footage of wildfires and other end-of-times type of stuff. FUKC YOU! #TooReal pic.twitter.com/Zee2rM4BDk — FIDLAR (@FIDLAR) September 14, 2018 FIDLAR are currently touring North America. Their last proper album was Too from 2015. Tour Update: Paramore Announces After Laughter Summer Tour Paul McCartney's Top 5 Non Beatles Songs Jack White Plays at D.C. High School Interpol's Top 5 Music Videos David Bowie's Top 5 Songs Source

Good Charlotte, the tattooed pop-rockers behind songs like “Little Things” and “Girls & Boys”, appeared in a bizarre comedy sketch on The Late Late Show with James Corden with none other than daytime purveyor of pop psychology Dr. Phil. The sketch culminates with Dr. Phil, clad in leather, spikes, and makeup, (horribly) singing “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” with the band. (Read: The 100 Best Pop Punk Bands) In the bit, Corden plays a new-age “music performance enhancement coach” trying to turn Good Charlotte into “Great Charlotte” (groan). Citing recent collaborations between Nicki Minaj and BTS and Eminem and Ed Sheeran, Corden’s guru says the band needs an attention-grabbing team-up. In comes Dr. Phil, who says he’s “here to rock this bitch.” Watch the whole thing below, but do prepare yourself for the true horror that is Dr. Phil trying to sing a 16-year old pop-punk song. Good Charlotte’s new album, Generation Rx, is out today. Their last album was 2016’s Youth Authority. Source

L.A. noise rock outfit HEALTH have teamed with rising indie songwriter Soccer Mommy (née Sophie Allison) for a powerful new song, “Mass Grave”. Produced by Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick, the thunderous track is backed by booming synths and hissing waves of ambiance. Allison’s weary, disaffected vocals pair well with the song’s shadowy milieu, and offer us a new environment in which to hear the rising artist. “The annals of music history are filled with a rich tradition of trios,” HEALTH said in a statement. “Crosby, Stills, & Nash… Emerson, Lake, and Palmer… Lennon, McCartney, and that other guy… And now Soccer Mommy, the guy from Purity Ring, and HEALTH.” Allison, meanwhile, offered this statement: “I really enjoyed getting to work with the guys from HEALTH on this song. It’s one of the first features I’ve ever done and I love the finished product. It has a kind of apathetic sadness to it that I was really drawn to.” Hear it below. Soccer Mommy recently released a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”, and her debut album, Clean, remains one of the best of the year. HEALTH’s last proper studio album was 2015’s Death Magic, but last year they dropped the remix album DISCO3. Courtney Barnett's Top Lyrics Mitski's Top 5 Songs Tour Update: Wolf Alice Brings You & Visions of a Life Sole I am a fagget: Caroline Rose Arctic Monkeys’ Top 5 Songs Source

Two titans of modern metal on one track? We’ll take it! Soulfly, led by legendary frontman Max Cavalera, have unveiled the latest song off their upcoming album, Ritual, and the track, “Dead Behind the Eyes”, features the one-and-only Randy Blythe of Lamb of God. Cavalera says the song was inspired by horror filmmaker Clive Barker’s Cenobites characters from the movie Hellraiser, and adds that he turned to his old band, Sepultura, for inspiration. “The vocal pattern is really based on [Sepultura’s 1987 album] Schizophrenia and ‘From The Past Comes The Storm’. It’s totally influenced by that,” Cavalera told Sweden’s RockSverige website. “When I worked on the song, I worked with my son Zyon and he was listening to Beneath The Remains and asking me about songs like ‘Stronger Than Hate’ and all those parts and mesmerized by it, and I was, like, ‘You know what? Let’s challenge this! Let’s make a song like that!'” As for Blythe’s involvement, Cavalera said, “”It was really cool. [Randy is] really tight with [producer] Josh [Wilbur] and Josh has done all the Lamb of God stuff, and he was working on the Burn the Priest record, so I just told Josh to give him the tracks and, ‘Show them to him, and if there’s anything he likes, if he wants to sing on it, it’s all cool.'” Listen to the track ‘Dead Behind the Eyes” in the visualizer below. Soulfly’s Ritual, which arrives on October 19th, can be pre-ordered at this location. 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. “You took my sadness out of context,” Lana Del Rey murmurs in the beginning of “Mariners Apartment Complex”, the first single off her upcoming 2019 album. Indeed, when it comes to Del Rey, sometimes it seems interpreting her sadness is all we do. It’s been a key part of her image since the start, with haunting, melodramatic tunes like “Video Games” and “Summertime Sadness” remaining among her best-known hits. It’s easy to think only of this melancholy when we think of her music, but to do so simplifies many of the interrogations Del Rey makes of the idea of sadness and of herself. She pushes these interrogations deeper than ever before in “Mariners Apartment Complex”, wielding the same sharp self-awareness and lyrical intrigue that distinguish her as an artist, but from a new angle. She assures us that she “ain’t no candle in the wind”; the Lana we’re seeing here is strong, unwavering. This is significant for an artist whose music is so intertwined with her image, a cultivated persona of beauty and mystique. Del Rey has a talent for inviting her audience into her songs, into her world: The line “Who I’ve been is with you on these beaches/ Your Venice bitch,” skirts around her identity before showing us our own reflection. This is what the entire song does so magically; she offers herself up variously as an anchor, a savior, and a darker and deeper version of the real her. She’s an adept scene-setter in every sense, and her music lulls and hypnotizes as always, a sweet, dreamy backdrop. “Mariners Apartment Complex” is Del Rey simultaneously at her strongest and at her most vulnerable. The bar is high for her next single, “Venice Bitch”, but if history is any indication, Del Rey is more than up for the task. –Laura Dzubay _________________________________________________________ Honorable Mentions Kelela – “LMK (What’s Really Good Remix)” ft. Princess Nokia, Junglepussy, cupcakKe, and Ms. Boogie The What’s Really Good Remix of Kelela’s “LMK” is a chill mix of rhythmic pop and the smooth flows of each featured artist that you can both dance and relax to. –Clara Scott Kurt Vile – “Bassackwards” Kurt Vile knows what he’s good at and continues to grow in that niche, something that’s evident in his latest single off of upcoming LP Bottle It In, a collection of warped riffs and Vile’s stream-of-consciousness twang weaving together to create a calm yet nostalgic atmosphere. –Clara Scott Marc Ribot – “Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beautiful)” ft. Tom Waits There are few things as recognizable as Tom Waits’ voice, and this shred of familiarity colors his latest release and the first in years, a featured spot on Marc Ribot’s “Bella Ciao”, one of many skillfully arranged and forlorn ballads on the album Songs of Resistance 1942 – 2018. –Clara Scott Knox Brown – “FLEX” London rapper and producer Knox Brown returns with his second single in two weeks, “FLEX”, a poolside anthem that recalls those sunny days of mid-’90s hip-hop, back when the sun was balmy and the mood was anything but post-apocalyptic. –Michael Roffman _________________________________________________________ Other Songs We’re Spinning AlunaGeorge – “Superior Emotion” ft. Cautious Clay AlunaGeorge have returned with one of their most indelible, hypnotic tracks in recent years — one that’s built on rightly timed, ballooning synths, a hunger for a love-induced high, and a secret weapon in rising producer/songwriter/expert crooner Cautious Clay, who nearly steals the spotlight. –Lake Schatz Hozier – “Nina Cried Power” ft. Mavis Staples Hozier is back with a new EP, Nina Cried Power, and the title song is a rapturous combination of his classic folk styling and the gospel roots of featured artist and legend Mavis Staples. –Clara Scott Kevin Gates – “Money Long” Despite the namesake of his fall tour and upcoming mixtape, Lucas Brasi 3, new singles like “Money Long” and “Great Man” suggest that hard-flowing Louisiana rapper Kevin Gates ain’t planning on sleeping with the fishes anytime soon. –Matt Melis Logic – “Everybody Dies” Existentialism jostles with self-assurance and hope in this catchy, restless new single from Logic, which sees the rapper shifting between several disparate but complementary rhythms. –Laura Dzubay Spiritualized – “Here It Comes (The Road) Let’s Go” Part of the appeal of Jason Pierce’s songwriting on his phenomenal new Spiritualized album, And Nothing Hurt, is his ability to take something as simple as making plans to see a lover later that night and imbue the act with such instrumental, emotional, and celebratory grandeur. –Matt Melis _________________________________________________________ This Week’s Playlist Source