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Thom Yorke Releases New Songs From His Confidenza Score: Listen
Thom Yorke has shared two new songs from his score for Daniele Luchetti’s drama Confidenza. The Radiohead and Smile frontman will release the score digitally through XL on April 26, with vinyl and CD coming on July 12. Watch the “Knife Edge” video, made with excerpts from the film, and a visualizer for “Prize Giving” below.
Pitchfork London and Paris 2024 Announce First Wave of Artists
Pitchfork is happy to announce the return of Pitchfork Music Festival London and Pitchfork Music Festival Paris. The London event will take place November 5-10, with performances from Tierra Whack, Arooj Aftab, CASISDEAD, Sega Bodega, Kae Tempest, Empress Of, billy woods, Moor Mother, Chanel Beads, Drugdealer, Snow Strippers, Shame, Marika Hackman, Pom Pom Squad, Friko, and many others in venues across the city.
The Tortured Poets Department /
Taylor Swift’s music was once much bigger than her. A born storyteller, she gathered up the emotional ephemera of her life and molded it into indelible songs about herself, but also about young women—about their sorrow, their desire, their wit and will. She was the girl next door with the platinum pen, her feelings worth hearing about not simply because they existed but because she turned them into art.
Water Damage
Forget music that makes you feel no pain. What about music that makes you feel like nothing at all, that pushes and pulverizes you until every woe, hope, and worry disappears like dust? That is the marvelous strength of Water Damage, an amorphous collective of about a dozen Austin underground heads whose high-volume indulgence in repetition is a force both obliterative and purifying. They ride the divide between noise and rock, pounding out rhythms like a power trio caught on an eternal trip to nowhere, all beneath feedback streaks and microtonal bleats. In New York in the late ’70s, the Ramones at CBGB inspired young composer and avant-impresario Rhys Chatham to repeat an electrified E above drums until the overtones turned into a fever dream, the vision fulfilled by his Guitar Trio. Nearly half a century later, Water Damage have turned that challenge into an obstacle course with In E, their third and best album and a reaffirming testament to just how ecstatic and mighty minimalism can be.
Cher, A Tribe Called Quest, and Dave Matthews Band Inducted Into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024
Cher, A Tribe Called Quest, Dave Matthews Band, and Mary J. Blige are all getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2024. The other performer inductees are Ozzy Osbourne, Kool & the Gang, Peter Frampton, and Foreigner. This year’s Musical Influence...
Bark Psychosis
For Bark Psychosis, making their debut album was an act of obliteration. Over the course of a few singles and EPs in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the quartet—composed of vocalist and guitarist Graham Sutton, bassist John Ling, drummer Mark Simnett, and eventually multi-instrumentalist Daniel Gish—matured from teenagers obsessed with Napalm Death and noise rock to composers of patient and oft-improvisational pop music. But as they set out to work on Hex, they began to think about the whole enterprise differently. They were ready for the band to die.
Drake Taunts Kendrick Lamar Again on Diss Song With AI 2Pac and Snoop Dogg Verses
Yesterday (April 19), Drake officially released the new song “Push Ups,” his response to Kendrick Lamar’s pointed verse on the chart-topping “Like That.” He’s followed it up with another Lamar taunt, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The track, shared on social media, opens with verses made to sound like 2Pac and Snoop Dogg. A third verse comes from Drake without obvious artificial intelligence vocal manipulation. Find the “Taylor Made Freestyle” on X.
The Adept
A veteran of Nairobi’s metal scene and frequent collaborator within the Nyege Nyege collective of experimental electronic artists, Martin Kanja speaks multiple dialects of extremity. As Lord Spikeheart, the vocalist and producer has made bristling grindcore with his now defunct experimental band Duma, along with pounding industrial, creaky noise, and many other kinds of abrasive music. The through line in all his work, which combines global strains of metal, electronic, and traditional music, is intensity. He gravitates toward arrangements that are serrated and dense, seeking catharsis in the clashing. Kanja’s debut solo album surpasses the might of his past work by several degrees while showcasing his flair for integrating disparate sounds. Listening to it feels like moshing in the Mariana Trench, being hurled by the currents through liquid darkness.
Watch Taylor Swift and Post Malone’s New “Fortnight” Video
Taylor Swift has released her first Tortured Poets Department music video. The visual is for the album’s opener, “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone. Watch the new video, written and directed by Swift, below. Just two hours after Swift released The Tortured Poets Department, she surprised fans with a...
David Byrne Covers Paramore’s “Hard Times”: Listen
David Byrne has covered ’s After Laughter single “Hard Times,” returning the favor after Hayley Williams and the band took on Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” in January. Check out the song below, ahead of its 12" release for Record Store Day. Byrne...
Drake Officially Releases His Kendrick Lamar Diss Response, “Push Ups”: Listen
Days after its leak, Drake has officially released his response to Kendrick Lamar’s barbed verse on Metro Boomin and Future’s “Like That,” which took aim at him and J. Cole and is currently No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. On “Push Ups,” Drake targets not only Lamar but also the Weeknd, Rick Ross, Metro Boomin, and Cole himself. Check it out below.
Listen to Cristal Cozart’s “Burntup;)”: The Ones
Lately I’ve been lost down the wormhole of Philly producer Trini Viv, whose interstellar funk beats sound a little like the electro plugg of North Carolina beatmaker Dylvinci meets the dreamscapes Ethereal used to hook Carti up with eons ago. They possess you with their smooth yet madcap grooves, like on Lisha G’s “Whatcha Got” or Sprout’s “YouSuck”—both completely hypnotic. The same could be said for Cristal Cozart’s “Burntup;).” Trini’s slowly unfurling digital keys and synths feel like getting caught in a mirage, though they’re also oddly relaxing. Cristal’s extremely chill shit talk is a perfect match: “Nigga think I need him, nigga please, I don’t even need my pops,” she raps, so unbothered. We need a joint tape stat.
Nas and DJ Premier Tease Album, Share New Song “Define My Name”: Listen
Nas’ iconic debut album, Illmatic, celebrates its 30th anniversary today (April 19). To mark the occasion, the Queens rapper has released a new song with one of his most famous Illmatic collaborators, DJ Premier. Listen to the hip-hop artists’ “Define My Name” below. Also below, see Nas’ upcoming tour dates.
8 Takeaways From Taylor Swift’s New Album The Tortured Poets Department
In the 18 months between 2022’s Midnights and Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swift managed to grow into an even bigger cultural force, releasing three deluxe reissues of Midnights, as well as Taylor’s Version re-recordings of 2014’s 1989 and 2010’s Speak Now. Between records, she embarked on the ongoing Eras Tour, a three-hour career retrospective that’s boosted local economies, grossed over a billion dollars, and attracted the level of media attention usually reserved for the deaths of well-liked presidents. Swift was already one of her generation’s biggest musicians when Midnights dropped, but everything that’s happened in the interim has cemented her as an astronomical superstar.
8 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Taylor Swift, Bbymutha, Pearl Jam, 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 Taylor Swift, Bbymutha, Pearl Jam, Chanel Beads, Cavalier, Ekko Astral, Lord Spikeheart, and Big|Brave. 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.)
Final Summer
For someone who’s spent nearly half his young life as a professional musician, Dylan Baldi still has solid work-life boundaries: The free jazz, ambient instrumentals, and acoustic experiments he’s posted to Bandcamp have yet to leach into the bottle-rocket pop-punk of Cloud Nothings. But the first single off their new album, Final Summer, has finally allowed one of Baldi’s extracurricular activities to infiltrate the band’s creative process. “I’m trying to [run] a marathon in every state,” he recently boasted, and while countless time trials and deadlifts have been set to “Stay Useless” and “Psychic Trauma,” “Running Through the Campus” suggests a more focused sort of cardiovascular exercise. “It’s just a thing I do for myself,” Baldi rasps, sounding like someone in tune with the discipline of physical and mental upkeep, and the usefulness of tracking incremental progress and pragmatic goals. That’s really where Cloud Nothings find themselves on their latest album, the first since Baldi entered his thirties. It’s a satisfying series of sprints from a band committed for the long haul.
This Ain’t the Way You Go Out
After giving birth to her first child, Otis, in 2021, UK songwriter Lucy Rose developed excruciating back pain. After an unpleasant encounter at the doctor’s office and months of Rose’s own research, she finally figured out that she had a rare, severe form of pregnancy-induced osteoporosis and eight fractured vertebrae. Already reeling from the depression and burnout that inspired her 2019 record, No Words Left, Rose endured months of recovery before she could again sit at the piano and write, now with Otis in her lap. Unlike the emotional intensity of No Words Left, her new music was surprisingly energetic and joyful. She would record these songs over two days with her longtime band, recruiting producer Kwes. to help her further embellish her sound. On This Ain’t the Way You Go Out, Rose expands her capabilities as a songwriter and musician while maintaining the warmth that’s made her a British folk staple for over a decade.
Taylor Swift Releases New Album The Tortured Poets Department, Plus 15 More Songs: Listen and Read the Full Credits
Some two months after announcing it at the 2024 Grammy Awards, Taylor Swift released her new album, The Tortured Poets Department, overnight. Two hours later, she surprise-released a 15-track expansion of the album, dubbed The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology. “I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you,” she wrote on social media. Listen to both parts in full below.
The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
Joseph Thornalley values his privacy. On the rare occasion that the London-born artist gives an interview, he keeps his cards close, only offering enough details to foster more curiosity. Thornalley, who records under the name Vegyn, doesn’t often perform live and mostly steers clear of social media, but has worked with megastars like Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Kali Uchis, and Dean Blunt. His music doesn’t provide many intimate details either, but it does reflect his eclectic influences, ranging from dubby ambient to lush techno to toystore electro, as well as his deep love of hip-hop. Even if it isn’t explicitly personal, his music is always meticulously constructed and frequently gorgeous, the product of a songwriter’s approach to textural electronic production. Thornalley’s new album, The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions, is another ornate but shadowy collection in his discography. It sounds incredible, but ultimately doesn’t reveal much beyond his wide-ranging taste.
The Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts Dies at 80
Dickey Betts, a guitarist and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, died at home in Osprey, Florida, this morning (April 18), Rolling Stone reports. The cause was cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Betts’ manager David Spero told the publication. Betts was 80 years old. Born in West Palm...
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