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Before moving the tassel on his graduation cap from right to left, Liam Hughes started a punk band with his best friend, Jael Holzman. For Hughes, the group doubled as a graduate thesis and a sneaky way to access American University’s recording studio. For Holzman, it was an opportunity to vent. She sang openly about her experiences as a trans woman, and those lyrics felt like a beacon for incoming band members Miri Tyler and Guinevere Tully. After releasing a 2022 EP under the name Ekko Astral, the Washington, D.C., punk outfit expanded into a five-piece with more on the line than just a framed degree: Ekko Astral’s community-building efforts in the local scene transformed them into a sounding board for DIY fans who felt seen.
One Million Love Songs
There is a special ache that sets in after any big ending. It doesn’t need to be a breakup; it could be a death, moving out of an apartment, or settling in for bedtime at the end of an especially perfect day. Throughout their seven-year career, Chicago soft rockers Bnny have sat in this wounded sadness like a frog on a pond. Their second album, One Million Love Songs, finds power in it, using rough-hewn layers of guitar to break open singer-songwriter Jessica Viscius’ teary-eyed world.
Celebrated Composer Richard Horowitz Dies at 75
Richard Horowitz, the composer and percussionist who won a Golden Globe Award for his soundtrack, with Ryuichi Sakamoto, to The Sheltering Sky, died in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Saturday, April 13, according to a post on the Instagram page of his wife, Sussan Deyhim. In its own tribute, the New York label Rvng Intl., which reissued Horowitz’s album Eros in Arabia, heralded the “incredible tapestry of music [Horowitz] was a part of,” adding, “now you are all around us, reborn in the ultimate dimension.”
Live Nation to Face Antitrust Lawsuit From Justice Department: Report
Live Nation Entertainment may face an antitrust lawsuit from the Justice Department as soon as next month, The Wall Street Journal reports. The agency began investigating the Ticketmaster parent for potential abuses of power in 2022, amid outcry over various ticketing failures for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The lawsuit would allege that Live Nation’s concert promotion and ticketing operations have undermined competition in the live music market, The Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Angel Olsen Announces 2024 North American Solo Tour
Angel Olsen is ready to look backward. The indie-rock singer-songwriter has announced a short North American solo tour that she’s calling Songs From the Archive Tour. As the name suggests, Olsen will revisit songs and deep cuts from across her catalog for the shows, from Strange Cacti to Big Time. See the complete list of tour dates below.
Shakira Announces Fall 2024 North American Tour Dates
Shakira has announced a tour in support of her new album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. The tour begins in California in November and extends into December. It’s billed as a world tour, so more dates are likely forthcoming. See Shakira’s schedule below. Shakira released Las Mujeres Ya...
Future and Metro Boomin Announce We Trust You Tour
Future and Metro Boomin are following their two new collaborative releases—We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You—with a joint tour. The We Trust You Tour begins this summer at the end of July and stretches into early September. See the hip-hop artists’ upcoming tour dates below.
Mannequin Pussy, Deerhoof, and More Contribute to New Palestine Benefit Compilation
A new benefit compilation, Musicians for a Free Palestine, has corralled Mannequin Pussy, Deerhoof, Frankie Cosmos, and dozens more artists to raise funds for eSims to help Gazans obtain cell service. Organized by Babehoven’s Maya Bon, Speedy Ortiz’s Andy Molholt, and the singer-songwriter Raquel Denis, the compilation features 71 songs, most unreleased. You can buy it now on Bandcamp.
Belle and Sebastian Share New Song “What Happened to You, Son?”: Listen
Belle and Sebastian have shared a new song that was scrapped from their 2023 album, Late Developers, at the last second. “What Happened to You, Son?” tells the story of a music fan obsessing over his idols. Check it out below. “The song is about my youth, and...
Cassandra Jenkins Announces New Album My Light, My Destroyer, Shares Video for New Song: Watch
Cassandra Jenkins is back with a new album, her first for her new label home, Dead Oceans. The singer-songwriter has revealed that My Light, My Destroyer, her follow-up to 2021’s An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, is due out July 12. Jenkins has also shared its lead single, “Only One,” with a Lydia Fine and Tony Blahd–directed music video, which you can watch below.
Green Day, Notorious B.I.G., and Blondie Albums Added to National Recording Registry
Albums by Green Day, Notorious B.I.G., and Blondie will be preserved among “the defining sounds of history” in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today named this year’s 25 additions to the archive, also including songs and albums by Abba, the Chicks, the Cars, Bill Withers, Jefferson Airplane, Kronos Quartet, and Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick. See the full list—including Green Day’s Dookie, Biggie’s Ready to Die, Blondie’s Parallel Lines, Abba’s Arrival, and the Chicks’ Wide Open Spaces—below.
Body Meat Announces Debut Album Starchris, Shares Video for New Song: Watch
Body Meat, the solo project of Philadelphia producer Chris Taylor, has announced his debut album. Starchris arrives August 23 via Partisan. Taylor has shared his new album’s lead single, “High Beams,” which blends together trap, nu-metal, and dance to tell the story of a programmer’s first-level boss fight. The new song also comes with a music video, which you can watch below.
Loma Announce New Album, Share Video for New Song “How It Starts”: Watch
Loma—the art-rock trio of Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, and Jonathan Meiburg—have announced their first new album in nearly four years. How Will I Live Without a Body? comes out June 28 via Sub Pop. Today, they’re sharing the new song “How It Starts” with a video that’s both directed by and starring Emily Cross. Watch it below.
Spiritualized Announce Songs in A&E Vinyl Reissue
On June 21, via Fat Possum, Spiritualized are reissuing their 2008 album, Songs in A&E, as part of their ongoing Spaceman Reissue Program. The record, written and recorded after J Spaceman’s hospitalization with life-threatening double pneumonia, was remastered for the vinyl reissue by Matt Colton at Metropolis. It comes with new artwork and uploads of the “Soul on Fire” and “You Lie You Cheat” videos, officially online for the first time. Check them out below.
Menomena Surprise Release New EP The Insulation: Listen
Menomena have surprise-released The Insulation EP. It’s the Portland art-rock group’s first new music since releasing Moms in 2012. Listen to the three-song EP below. While Menomena never formally broke up, original member Brent Knopf left the band in 2011 and remaining members Danny Seim and Justin Harris continued under the moniker for several more years. After releasing fifth album Moms, Menomena toured around the globe. They played their last show in 2014 in their hometown of Portland, Oregon.
I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!
I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! starts in a better place than girl in red’s 2021 debut, if i could make it go quiet. Gone are Marie Ulven’s intrusive thoughts about physically hurting her loved ones and herself, the spiraling anxieties that seemed to plague her every moment. In their place, she’s discovered a newfound self-confidence and some much-needed stability. Maybe, as she suggests on the opening song “I’m Back,” taking some time away from the music industry helped. But mental illness is a lifelong struggle, and while she’s eager to say, “I love being alive,” she’s careful to caveat it: “At least for now.” On her second album, Ulven approaches familiar topics—unrequited love, self-doubt, the pains of growing up—with a stronger sense of self, sounding both softer and more fierce than before. As a queer pop star with a firm grasp on her own emotional failings, girl in red addresses common issues from a unique perspective. But too often, her lyrical ambitions fall short of their lofty goals.
So Medieval
In a parallel universe—one where indie rock reigns supreme and continually seeks out poets of deadpan absurdism—critics are already celebrating So Medieval like a promising novelist’s debut splash. The blurb touts “a tale of musical ambition and romantic anguish, told through continental capers involving raw halloumi, a Formula One audiobook, and the ‘shitpost sagas’ of once-in-a-generation voice Arthur Nolan.” Our expectations are pegged to Blue Bendy’s chatty UK peers—Dry Cleaning, Squid, et al.—then sharply raised as we learn the band has “coined a formally daring new language,” perhaps positioned “between the indie disco and the next morning’s social media scroll.” Emblazoned on the back cover of this literary-musical opus are quotes from Jarvis Cocker, Yung Lean, and for some reason Zadie Smith.
Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn
For almost two decades, Anoushka Shankar has been on a mission to liberate the sitar from both the rigid strictures of the Indian classical tradition and the Orientalist cliches of hippie spirituality that the instrument often invokes in the West. She’s no iconoclast; Shankar continues to perform Hindustani classical music, including compositions by her father, the late Pandit Ravi Shankar. But for the London-born musician, who grew up between the UK, Delhi, and Los Angeles, that tradition represents just one of the many possibilities presented by the medieval stringed instrument.
Coachella 2024
Toward the end of No Doubt’s Saturday night performance on Coachella’s main stage—a performance that was the subject of near-endless rumors about the presumably astronomical fee the long disbanded group must have commanded for a pair of one-off gigs—Gwen Stefani offered the night’s lone detectable lie. After knocking out 10 quick push-ups, and before launching into “Just a Girl,” the 54-year-old Orange County native observed, “We are absolutely in the future right now.” A nice thought, maybe, but one that was tough to square with the onslaught of nostalgia that defined their set, the rest of Saturday’s bill, and post-COVID Coachella writ large.
Jamie xx and Honey Dijon Share New Song “Baddy on the Floor”: Listen
Hot on the heels of his Coachella set, Jamie xx has shared a new song that he played at the festival. “Baddy on the Floor” features Honey Dijon and was created by the two DJs over video calls during the pandemic. Check it out below. Jamie xx has...
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