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Underground Rap Wouldn’t Be the Same Without Black Kray
Most of the kids, who wore baggy black pants with too many zippers, like it was the agreed-upon uniform, moshpitted, as Black Kray surfed from 2014 Raider Klan-influenced essentials like “Princess Cuts Mah Wrist” to ominous-sounding jerk with this year’s “Spin da Block Lyke ah Fan,” that recalls a Xaviersobased mixtape. (On Xavier’s Keep It Goin Xav, one of the rap projects of the year so far, the 20-year-old mentions that he’s rocking Goth Money merch.) Behind him a somewhat strange slideshow was projected, with images of Osama Bin Laden and child soldiers (Goth Money always had a bizarre Juelz Santana–like infatuation with the Taliban) underneath No Limit–style army tanks and the Goth Money logo, an homage to Cash Money Records’ trademark badge. He has so many songs that the crowd was able to rap along only sometimes. I just stood silently, rocking my head, taking it all in.
Charli XCX Enlists Julia Fox, Chloë Sevigny, and More to Star in Extremely Charli XCX Video for New Song “360”: Watch
Charli XCX has enlisted an all-star cast of internet celebrities in the very meta video for her new song “360.” The short, directed by Aidan Zamiri, brings together a committee including Julia Fox, Rachel Sennott, Hari Nef, Gabbriette, Alex Consani, and Emma Chamberlain to anoint the next “hot internet girl,” before the video proper gets under way and scoops up a Chloë Sevigny cameo. Watch it go down below.
Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, MC5 Drummer and Last Surviving Band Member, Dies at 75
Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, the longtime drummer of the iconic Detroit proto-punk band MC5 who earned his nickname due to his rapidfire drum style and its militant rat-tat-tat sound, has died, the Detroit Free Press reports. Thompson, according to the report, was rehabilitating from an April heart attack. He was 75 years old.
Megan Thee Stallion Shares Video for New Song “Boa”: Watch
Following “Cobra” and “Hiss,” Megan Thee Stallion is back with another serpent-themed song. The new song, “Boa,” is produced by LilJuMadeDaBeat and samples Gwen Stefani’s 2004 single “What You Waiting For?” It also arrives with a music video, starring Megan as the protagonist of a video game called The Curse of Thee Serpent Woman. Watch it below.
8 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Yaya Bey, Amen Dunes, and More
With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week’s batch includes new albums from Yaya Bey, Amen Dunes, A. G. Cook, Chief Keef, Sisso & Maiko, Les Savy Fav, Keeley Forsyth, and YhapoJJ. Subscribe to Pitchfork’s New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.)
Funeral for Justice
Uranium extraction is backbreaking work. Workers spend hours in the mines operating heavy machinery while risking exposure to radioactive chemicals. In Niger, uranium comprises almost its entire export product, but its government sees virtually none of the profit. Instead, France, its former colonial occupier, still controls most of the country’s supply, using the minerals to power a third of its domestic electricity while almost 90 percent of Nigerien citizens are left without access to power. And though France finally relinquished all military bases in Niger following a 2023 military coup, many of its mines remain active to this day, leaking radon into the water supply of surrounding towns.
Poetry
Dehd is as much a rock band as they are a viable alternative to Red Bull. The Chicago trio’s previous two—great, but relatively interchangeable—albums, 2020’s Flower of Devotion and 2022’s Blue Skies, established Dehd as something you reach for when you want to feel hypercharged. Singer Emily Kempf’s vocals have the endearing, squealing quality of a hog call, and Jason Balla makes the guitar sound like his strings are fruit-colored rubber bands. Their music offers a reliable path to sun-kissed paradise, if your version necessitates dirty knees and sticky fingers. But on Dehd’s latest album, Poetry, the band tries the backroads. With more ambitious melodies and compositional complexity, Dehd sends a lightning bolt through their already electric sound.
You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To
The verdict on You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To appears to be well settled among the Knocked Loose faithful. That’s if the reaction videos for “Blinding Faith” are to be trusted—and they probably should, since the lead single of the Kentucky quintet’s titanic fourth album is all reaction shots: That’s a seven-string Ibanez Iceman; oh shit, a SECOND breakdown; 3 members of the band screaming within 5 seconds is fucking god-tier. That’s not entirely accurate because Bryan Garris is not really screaming, but making a death metal gurgle so heinous that it can’t be compared to any actual vocalizing so much as Banned from TV, Joe Theismann’s leg injury or the Alien chest-burster.
Beabadoobee Announces Album, Shares Video for New Song “Take a Bite”: Watch
Beabadoobee has announced her third studio album: This Is How Tomorrow Moves, is out August 16 (via Dirty Hit). Below, watch the music video for the new album’s opener, “Take a Bite.”. Rick Rubin produced This Is How Tomorrow Moves at his Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu. “I...
Steve Albini Did the Work
Late last summer, I needed to talk to Steve Albini about Sparklehorse. A session he had helmed for the late Mark Linkous more than a dozen years earlier at Electrical Audio, his efficient and economic Chicago studio, had been salvaged by the singer’s family and was about to be released. Within an hour of my Tuesday morning email, he’d volunteered access to his memories: “I’m in session all week,” he wrote. “I typically start work at 10.30 these days so any time before that I can talk.”
Five More Families Settle Lawsuits Against Travis Scott and Live Nation Entertainment Over Astroworld Tragedy
Five more wrongful death lawsuits filed against Travis Scott, Live Nation Entertainment, and others following the deadly crowd surge at the 2021 Astroworld tragedy have been settled, including one that was going to trial this week, reports The Associated Press. Terms of the various settlements were confidential and attorneys declined to comment after the most recent court hearing because of a gag order in the case.
Animal Collective Announce Sung Tongs 20th Anniversary Reissue and Live Album, Share Song: Listen
Animal Collective are ringing in the 20th anniversary of their seminal LP Sung Tongs with a special reissue on colored vinyl. What’s more, they’re also releasing Sung Tongs Live at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, a live recording of Panda Bear and Avey Tare playing the album in full in 2018, for the first time digitally and physically. Both are slated for release on October 4 via Domino. Animal Collective have shared a live rendition of “Kids on Holiday,” which you can listen to below.
Two Shell Share New Song “Gimmi It”: Listen
Two Shell have released a new track, “Gimmi It,” on the heels of last month’s FKA twigs collaboration, “Talk to Me.” Check out the new single below. The British dance duo premiered “Gimmi It” at Coachella, a set attended by the likes of Yeat, David Guetta, and Jaden Smith, a press release notes. Their last EP was Lil Spirits, which followed 2022’s Icons.
Britpop
The logic of today’s pop culture is lore, and the keepers of the lore are the fandoms. As recently observed in the Swiftieverse, the stans cannot live on songs alone—they demand worldbuilding. They shall have Easter eggs. They will make video essays about whether or not Harry Styles wears a wig. These are ideal conditions for A. G. Cook, the producer and persona at the heart of the PC Music universe. His third solo full-length is a dizzying concept album that spills over into animated videos, bespoke websites, and several millennia’s worth of made-up lore. Appearing in the midst of the megawatt rollout for Brat, the Charli XCX album on which Cook returns as a lead producer, Britpop was never going to be the biggest pop album of the year as measured by social clout—but it just might be the biggest by volume.
empathogen
Sitting in the backless hot seat of NPR’s Tiny Desk earlier this month, Willow seemed more uninhibited and confident than ever. That’s a change of pace for an artist who’s existed under the harsh microscope of celebrity her entire life. But here, backed by bass, guitar, piano, and drums, she swayed and beamed like no one was watching. She “just wants to feel it and be in the vibe,” Willow said on a call beforehand, a predictably heady desire that nonetheless suited the band’s sleek renditions of old and new songs. They gave the peppy twang of her 2015 megahit “Wait a Minute!” a sloping, jazzy remix falling somewhere between Alanis Morissette and Esperanza Spalding, and they sanded down the light pop-punk edges of her cathartic 2022 ballad “Split,” putting more emphasis on her breathy falsetto. But a version of “symptom of life,” a single from her new album empathogen, best illuminated the next phase in Willow’s evolution. Over crawling bass riffs, drums, and siren-like guitar, Willow articulated ideas about pain and anxiety she’s been picking at her whole career: “It’s like a turtle in the sand/Making way to the ocean/Almost meeting the end/Because the birds are in motion.” On empathogen, she follows suit, keeping things poetic without getting too sappy, staring mortality in the face while she begins the musical healing process in earnest.
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Michael Mayer first encountered Olaf Dettinger in 1997, at a party in Bautzen, a small East German town halfway between Dresden and the Polish border. Dettinger played an opening set of battle-style Chicago hard house—a far cry from the mischievous minimal techno that Mayer had packed his crate with—and presented the visiting headliner with a demo tape of his productions. Mayer wasn’t wowed by the demo’s relatively straightforward club tracks, which paled in comparison to the squirrelly, idiosyncratic music that Mayer and his friends in Cologne—Wolfgang and Reinhard Voigt, Jürgen Paape, and Jorg Bürger, among others—were putting out via a tangled web of labels and an even more chaotic array of aliases, a network they’d established out of their hometown’s Delerium record store. The music wasn’t bad, Mayer told Dettinger, but he found the sound derivative and the choice of instruments—a standard array of Roland 303, 808, 909, and the like—predictable. Besides, he added, in Cologne they’d moved from drum machines to samplers, a shift that had opened up new possibilities in sound design.
Lady Gaga Bringing New Gaga Chromatica Ball Concert Film to HBO and Max: Watch the Trailer
Lady Gaga is releasing a new concert film on HBO and Max. The special, Gaga Chromatica Ball, premieres on Saturday, May 25. Watch the trailer below. The new movie (directed, produced, and created by Lady Gaga) captures Lady Gaga’s September 2022 Chromatica Ball performance at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. According to the HBO press release, the film includes “breathtaking live performances of some of Gaga’s biggest and most cherished hits, including ‘Stupid Love,’ ‘Bad Romance,’ ‘Just Dance,’ ‘Poker Face,’ ‘Shallow,’ ‘Rain on Me,’ and more.”
Steve Albini Remembered: Cloud Nothings, Nirvana Biographer Michael Azerrad, and More React to Death of Legendary Rock Figure
Figures in the music world and beyond are reacting to the death of Steve Albini. Michael Azerrad, the author of the 1993 biography, Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, wrote on X of the In Utero producer and engineer, “He had a brilliant mind, was a great artist and underwent the most remarkable and inspiring personal transformation.”
Steve Albini, Storied Producer and Icon of the Rock Underground, Dies at 61
Steve Albini, an icon of indie rock as both a producer and performer, died on Tuesday, May 7, of a heart attack, staff at his recording studio, Electrical Audio, confirmed to Pitchfork. As well as fronting underground rock lynchpins including Shellac and Big Black, Albini was a legend of the recording studio, though he preferred the term “engineer” to “producer.” He recorded Nirvana’s In Utero, Pixies’ Surfer Rosa, PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me, and countless more classic albums, and remained an outspoken critic of exploitative music industry practices until his final years. Shellac were preparing to tour their first album in a decade, To All Trains, which is scheduled for release next week. Steve Albini was 61 years old.
Listen to Sidewaalk Kal’s “Reflections”: The Ones
A sharp pen and a good ear for beats is all you need. That’s what you get on Sidwaalk Kal’s brUUUuuuhHHHhhhh, 11 joints of tough-minded East Coast rhymes spiced up with a flow so buttery that if he ever dropped an 05 Fuck Em-length mixtape, I could down it no problem. One of the tape’s standouts is “Reflections,” where Brooklyn producer Hajino’s rainy-day head knocker sets the tone and Kal blacks out with the ease of a Tyshawn Jones kickflip: “Scratchin’ on the noggin and plottin’ deep on the cash moves/’Cause cash rules, this world nutty everyday cashews.” I’m going to play this one into the dirt.
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