A collabo between two indie stars in this video filled with artful, and occasionally and variously split-screened visual compositions.
Welcome to camp Emo Pointe, where there's a healthy dose of comedy and slasher horror flick homages mixed in with the usual Summer fun activities.
An Intimate set-up with J. Balvin and Maria Becerra get contrasted with uptempo dance and performance shots at a colorful container yard.
Space Afrika, the Manchester electronic duo made up of Joshua Inyang and Joshua Reid, have announced a new album called Honest Labour, their first since last year’s well-received hybtwibt? dub-techno mixtape. Titled after the loving nickname of one of Inyang’s Nigerian family members, Honest Labour brings guitar and strings into their drizzly experimental soundscapes, and lead single “B£E” is a thrilling collaboration with the Lancashire MC Blackhaine. “Ultimately this is an homage to UK energy, and an album about love and loss,” Space Afrika explain in a statement. Listen to “B£E” below.
Right now, the Philadelphia 76ers are tied 1-1 with the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the NBA playoffs. And as part of their Phila Unite campaign, the Sixers have tapped the great Philly rapper Tierra Whack to record “76,” a musical tribute to the team filled with references to its players.
“Been winnin’, just ask Ben Simmons, practice from start to finish, Doc Rivers layin’ up with winners,” she raps. “Embiid, big stepper, stampede, team player like Tyrese Maxey, I get all up in your face like acne, Tobias comin’ for the top spot, I’m flyin’, tryna beat the shot clock, Shake Milton, makes millions, hard ball, no loss, no feelings, got Green, three rings like Danny, I ball hard for my family.”
Tierra Whack is known for her colorful visuals, and the accompany music video for “76” combines her playful aesthetic with a drumline and actual footage of the 76ers playing on television. Watch and listen below.
New York R&B dance-pop singer and Artist To Watch Amber Mark is finally releasing her official debut album later this year. She shared its lead single “Worth It” back in April, and today she’s sharing a second single called “Competition.” “I hold this one so close to my heart. ‘Competition’ comes from a state of always comparing yourself to others and how ruthless that competitive nature can be towards yourself and towards others,” Mark says in a statement. “The song is a reminder of how much stronger we are together.” Listen below.
’Rain’s new album, Fatigue, is coming out in a couple weeks. We’ve already heard “Two Face” and “Blame Me” from it and today we’re getting another new song, “Suck Teeth.” “I’m thinking through childhood and having children, wondering if it’s possible for someone to prevent their failures and shortcomings from getting passed on,” Taja Cheek said of the track in a statement, continuing:
“‘Suck Teeth” was originally going to be the name of the entire album because I loved how it encapsulated a very Black sound of disapproval, annoyance, and disappointment. This song also includes a hand game I made up with my collaborator Ben Chapoteau-Katz to add to the percussive sound in the second verse. I wanted to very specifically invoke children’s play, even if it wasn’t obvious, I wanted the listener to feel it.
Listen below.
Atlanta indie rockers Lunar Vacation have become the latest signees at Keeled Scales, the Austin label that has recently brought us gems from the likes of Katy Kirby, Buck Meek, and Sun June. Although not announcing an album today, the band is sharing a promising new track called “Shrug.” After hooking me with catchy guitar riffs and vocal melodies aplenty, the song sold me once and for all with the line, “This isn’t how I want to be/ I didn’t know I could care that much and/ Invited but I’ll never show/ Sit at home playing too much Wilco.” As if there is such a thing as too much Wilco!
Back in May, the Goon Sax announced their third album, Mirror II. Along with the news, they shared a lead single called “In The Stone” — a promising first glimpse that landed amongst our favorite songs that week. Today, they’re back with another.
The trio’s latest is called “Psychic.” Here’s what Louis Forster had to say about it:
“Psychic” exists in the fragile intersection of fantasy and reality — a supernatural world you escape into until you feel realities grip on your collar. As you’re dragged back to linear time and supposed objectivity, the supernatural reinstates its claim to a more powerful truth. Eventually, the friction between these worlds causes you to question your faith in both, wondering to what degree truth can be chosen and what forces from both are too strong for you to stand in their way. Much like “In The Stone,” this song is a conversation. Two people’s truths of the search for this very thing.
“Psychic” also comes with a video directed by Christine Marie Jones. Check it out below.
This Friday, the popular and influential Queens-via-South Carolina producer Pi’erre Bourne — maker of off-kilter and hallucinatory trap beats for figures such as Playboi Carti, Young Nudy, and sometimes himself — will release his new album The Life Of Pi’erre 5. Today he’s sharing one last single from the project, a team-up with Lil Uzi Vert called “SOSSBOY 2.” It’s the kind of woozy, booming, halfway melted rap song Bourne specializes in. His dazed, sighing vocals are a good match for his own production, and they nicely complement Uzi’s more melodic, jittery, staccato approach. Zone out to it below along with prior singles “4U” and “Groceries.”
Last month, in-demand pop producer Jack Antonoff finally returned with his own project Bleachers, whose last full-length project arrived in 2017. Last month he announced their third studio album Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night and released the lead single “Stop Making This Hurt.” This new record will also feature the two new Bleachers songs from last year, “45” and the Bruce Springsteen collab “Chinatown.”
In September, the Swedish singer-songwriter José González will release Local Valley, his first album in more than six years. González recorded the LP in his home studio outside Gothenburg during quarantine. On the album, he sings in English, Swedish, and Spanish. We’ve already heard the early tracks “El Invento” and “Visions.” Today, González has shared a new one called “Head On.”
“Head On” is not a Jesus And Mary Chain cover — or, for that matter, a cover of the Pixies’ Jesus And Mary Chain cover. Instead, it’s a hushed but propulsive acoustic song, with González playing intricate acoustic guitar over a straightforward four-four beat. The song has a video from director Mikel Cee Karlsson, and while González appears in the clip, it mostly follows the progress of fractal pixelated lights around the walls and floors of a dark house. Check it out below.
Last month, Nathan Williams announced a new Wavves album called Hideaway, the project’s first new collection in four years and one that marks its return to Fat Possum. So far, we’ve heard a couple tracks from it, including “Sinking Feeling” and “Help Is On The Way.” Today, he’s back with another.
Williams’ latest preview of Hideaway arrives in the form of its title track. The album’s title apparently references a shed in Williams’ parents’ backyard, where he secluded himself and wrote these new songs. In the song “Hideaway,” a ragged but jaunty rhythm leads Williams to a desperate chorus, pleading to get back to that hideaway. The song comes with a clip directed by Jesse Lirola, billed as the second in a trilogy of Hideaway videos.
Check it out below.
Pom Pom Squad are back with the another single from their forthcoming album Death Of A Cheerleader. “Crying” is arguably the best track on the record; it’s an old-timey, indulgently depressed anthem with great quips (“If I’m a bitch/ At least someone is”) and just flat-out complaints (“Naturally, I’m alone again”). It’s like the whole song is sung in one drawn out, dramatic sigh.
Minneapolis-based punks VIAL are another band to check out if you enjoyed “brutal” or “good 4 u” by Olivia Rodrigo. That being said, their sound is entirely their own; it’s an intense mix of post-hardcore and pop. This new track, “Roadkill,” weirdly reminds me of Panic! At the Disco’s “Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time,” though that could just be the B-52’s influence.
“Roadkill” is a fierce, brooding anthem with killer lyrics: “I can’t stand/ Your condescending tone/ When you talk to me/ And every other woman in the scene.” It’s from their forthcoming album LOUDMOUTH, which was produced and mixed by Henry Stoehr of Slow Pulp and co-produced by Avery Springer of Retirement Party, and it’ll be out this summer.
Tkay Maidza has put out “Kim” and “Syrup” this year already and today she’s officially announcing her next EP, Last Year Was Weird, Vol. 3, which will end the trilogy of releases she started in 2018 that included 2020’s Last Year Was Weird, Vol 2, which was one of the best EPs from that year. She’s also sharing a new single, “Cashmere,” which shows off yet another of Maidza’s many sides — this one’s dreamy and soulful and comes with an eye-popping video courtesy of Jasper Soloff. Check it out below.
“‘Brando’ refers to a very dramatic friend I had in high school whose whole personality was the media he consumed,” Dacus said in a statement. “He showed me a lot of amazing movies and music, but I think he was more interested in using me as a scrapbook of his own tastes than actually getting to know me. He claimed to know me better than anyone else but I started to feel like all he wanted from me was to be a scene partner in the movie of his life.”
Appropriately, Brando is filled with nods to classic film: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, It’s A Wonderful Life, A Streetcar Named Desire, Casablanca. Dacus threads all that through some evocative writing and a hook that gets at the message behind the song: “All I need for you to admit is that you never knew me like you thought you did.”
Laura Stevenson is going the self-titled route for her sixth full-length album, a move that somehow feels appropriate for the singer-songwriter, who is perpetually underrated and ahead of the curve, as we explored when she released her last album The Big Freeze in 2019. Stevenson wrote the album while she was pregnant with her first child. It was produced by John Angnello and features longtime collaborator Jeff Rosenstock.
Laura Stevenson is being introduced with “State,” a glowering track that alternates between hushed intimacy and furious bashing. “I’m in a state, but I stay polite,” Stevenson sings on it. “It keeps me alive/ It’s easier, right?”
“Someone I love was hurt and almost killed by another person and I was so absolutely consumed with this level of rage that I had never known before and it was really powerful and frightening but somehow freeing when I was willing to just let it wash over me,” Stevenson said of the track in a statement.
