Collaboration
Pearl Jam Side Project Painted Shield Announce Debut Album, Share “I Am Your Country”: Stream
With Pearl Jam’s Gigaton touring plans on hold due to the pandemic, guitarist Stone Gossard focused his attention on officially launching his new side project called Painted Shield. Along with Gossard, the group features Mason Jennings, veteran drummer and former Pearl Jam collaborator Matt Chamberlain, and keyboardist Brittany Davis. Today, they’ve formally announced their self-titled debut album, due out November 27th. While Painted Shield are only now stepping into the spotlight, the band’s origins actually date back to 2014. Gossard and Jennings previously teamed up for two joint singles — “Knife Fight” and “Caught in a Mess” — under the name Mason and Stone, and it was at that moment their chemistry was born. The pair ended up hitting the studio together a few years later, and th...
Sylvan Esso Shares Video for New Single “Frequency”, Directed by Moses Sumney: Watch
On September 25th, electropop duo Sylvan Esso will let loose their third studio album, Free Love. The follow-up to 2017’s What Now is being teased today with a new single dubbed “Frequency”, as well as its video directed by friend and fellow musician Moses Sumney. Here, Amelia Meath’s vocals roll gingerly over the track’s glitchy blips and beeps, rising and falling like a frequency wave. She sings about being irresistibly drawn to someone’s energy field, to the point that she’d like to be a part of it, too. This abstract idea is visualized pretty literally in Sumney’s corresponding clip. In it, a soaked Meath is seen dancing alone outside on a suburban lawn. Slowly but surely, though, more and more people — a delivery person, golfer, neighbor, etc. — are pulled into her orbit and join her ...
Homeboy Sandman and Quelle Chris Announce New Album Don’t Feed the Monster, Share “Trauma”: Stream
Queens rapper Homeboy Sandman has announced a new album, Don’t Feed the Monster, produced entirely by Detroit’s own Quelle Chris. The collaborative effort is expected to arrive October 16th via Mello Music Group. The upcoming hip-hop project consists of 15 tracks, and features one lone vocal contribution from Quelle Chris himself. According to a statement, the full-length represents a “turning point” for the two artists, who used this new music to help process and better understand their own personal struggles and complex emotions. “I was having a hard time and this record saved me,” Homeboy Sandman remarked in a statement. “Thank Quelle and thank God and shout to Gabor Maté.” Praising his friend and colleague, Quelle Chris said that Homeboy Sandman “finds balance in using his words t...
Gorillaz Announce New Song with The Cure’s Robert Smith
Gorillaz have The Cure for your quarantine blues. For the sixth installment of the Song Machine series, the venerable virtual rockers have announced a new single featuring the Godfather of Goth, Robert Smith. No release date has been set and few details are known. But the band left a few tantalizing bread crumbs on Twitter. They wrote, “Coming up on Song Machine… It’s @RobertSmith.” This was followed by a spaceship emoji, as well as the instructions to “Follow your nearest Song Machine NOW!” That cartoon rocket seems more significant combined with the accompanying promotional pic. It features the cartoon band dressed as astronauts and exploring a rocky orb in space. Looming in the distance is the Earth, and looming close by is Robert Smith, looking like the dark side of the moon ...
Colin Meloy and Laura Veirs Join Raye Zaragoza on New Song “They Say”: Stream
Colin Meloy (photo by David Brendan Hall), Raye Zaragoza (photo by Cultivate Consulting), and Laura Veirs Folk artist and protest music songwriter Raye Zaragoza has announced a new album, Woman in Color. Due out October 23rd through Rebel River Records, it’s being previewed today with a single called “They Say”, featuring harmonica from The Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy and banjo arrangements courtesy of veteran folk musician Laura Veirs. A timely number, it finds Zaragoza taking the US government to task for its piss-poor response to the coronavirus crisis. “This song is about the dysfunction of American power structures. It’s about how the systems built to support the people don’t support all people,” she explained in a statement. “Especially during a pandemic, it’s been ex...
Bilal Releases New Star-Studded Album VOYAGE-19: Stream
Veteran R&B and soul artist Bilal has returned with his first album in five years. Stream VOYAGE-19 below via Bandcamp. The long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s In Another Life was created over the course of just three days last month in partnership with Brooklyn-based studio HighBreedMusic. Joining the Grammy-winning musician remotely was a long list of special guests, who all recorded their parts in real time as part of a live event. Among those who participated: Erykah Badu, Robert Glasper, Nick Hakim, Cory Henry, Madison McFerrin, Marcus Strickland, and Jaime Woods. Ben Williams, Ray Angry, Brandee Younger, Marcus Gilmore, Louis Cato, and Melanie Charles also appear on the project. VOYAGE-19 is broken up into three separate parts, one for each day: “Day One – Warning-19”, “Day Two...
Phoebe Bridgers Covers Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” in a Church: Watch
In addition to releasing one of the year’s best albums so far, Phoebe Bridgers has spent the summer months covering a number of iconic artists. In June, she shared her official recording of John Prine’s “Summer’s End”, which she then followed up with a rendition of Gillian Welch’s “Everything is Free”, done in collaboration with Courtney Barnett. Now, Bridgers has taken on an alt-rock classic in “Fake Plastic Trees”. The indie folk artist’s Radiohead cover came as part of the BBC Radio 1 program Phil Taggart’s Chillest Show. And chill it certainly was. Bridgers recorded her delicate version of The Bends original inside of a church with help from rising R&B star Arlo Parks, who provided icy piano accompaniment. Bridgers previously covered “Fake Plastic Trees” live in concert in 2017, as...
Japanese Breakfast and Crying’s Ryan Galloway Form BUMPER, Share pop songs 2020 EP: Stream
Quarantine has been somewhat of a double-edged sword. While it’s put great distances between close friends, it’s also forced people to find new ways to connect. Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner and Crying’s Ryan Galloway, for example, live just three blocks away from each other in New York, but haven’t been face-to-face in months. But while they’ve been separated, they’ve also been working on new music together under the moniker BUMPER. Originally, Zauner had reached out to Galloway simply to contribute a guitar line to her forthcoming Japanese Breakfast album. “I just wanted to work with people that really inspired me creatively,” she told Rolling Stone. “We worked together and made something that was totally out of the realm of what I would usually make. I realized that Ryan had...
King Khan Announces First-Ever Jazz Album The Infinite Ones, Shares “Wait Till The Stars Burn”: Stream
After putting out garage rock records for the last two decades, King Khan is looking to try something new on his next effort. Enter: The Infinite Ones, his first-ever jazz album, due out October 30th via Ernest Jenning Record Co. and Khannibalism. The 11-track effort boasts contributions from Sun Ra Arkestra members Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott. Calexico bandmates John Convertino and Martin Wenk also appear on select songs. According to King Khan, The Infinite Ones comes from “a place from deep within the soul” and serves as a tribute to iconic composers like Alice Coltrane, Ennio Morricone, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, John Carpenter, and Quincy Jones. The Canadian musician explained further, “In my 23 years of being a composer of music I have had the great opportunity to score severa...
Julia Stone Reveals New Song “Unreal”, Produced by St. Vincent: Stream
St. Vincent (photo by Ben Kaye) and Julia Stone (photo by Brooke Ashley Barone) Julia Stone returned this past July with her first solo single in eight years, “Break”, produced by St. Vincent. It turns out there’s quite a lot more to come from this pair, as a “greater body of work” is eventually coming down the line, according a statement. As another preview of this larger collaborative project, Stone and St. Vincent are now sharing a new track called “Unreal”. Not unlike her previous offering, Stone again sidelines her folk roots here, leaning further into synthpop territory. It’s a new look for the veteran Australian songwriter, but one that works in much the same way acts such as Sylvan Esso have built electronic music using the foundation of folk stylings. According to Stone, this late...
Big Sean Unveils Guest-Heavy New Album Detroit 2: Stream
Big Sean has returned with his new album Detroit 2. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. Today’s release is the G.O.O.D. Music rapper’s first record since 2017’s I Decided and the direct sequel to his 2012 mixtape Detroit. The 21-track project features loads of high-profile features from the likes of Post Malone, Eminem, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Ty Dolla $ign and, Nipsey Hussle. Anderson .Paak, Jhené Aiko, and Hit-Boy, also guest on the album, as do Tee Grizzley, Kash Doll, Wale, and Boldy James. Additionally, Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, and Dave Chappelle appear on three different versions of a track called “Story”; Big Sean used a similar track format on Detroit with Common, Snoop Dogg, and Jeezy. The guest list is a positively monumental merging of veterans and ...
Actress Announces New Album Karma & Desire, Shares Sampha Collaboration “Walking Flames”: Stream
This past spring, electronic music producer Actress shared a mixtape called 88. Proving he’s not quite done with 2020, the English artist has now announced a new full-length album: Karma & Desire is expected to arrive next month through Ninja Tune. According to a cryptic statement, the upcoming LP is “a romantic tragedy set between the heavens and the underworld.” Its 17 songs are said to carefully examine “the same sort of things that I like to talk about – love, death, technology, the questioning of one’s being.” The producer born Darren J. Cunningham is assisted on the album by Zsela and Aura T-09. Mercury Prize-winning R&B crooner Sampha also appears, contributing to lead single “Walking Flames”. A meditative number featuring strings and mellow, muted percussion, today’s offeri...
