Indie
IMPALA Publishes 12-Point Diversity and Inclusion Charter for Indie Members
“Not discriminating isn’t enough. We must be anti-discriminatory and consciously inclusive,” reads a statement issued Wednesday morning. Following today’s big reveal, guidance and training for members, surveys to gauge diversity and other measures will be put in place, all of which is intended to promote inclusion and diversity across the European independent sector. Those commitments include the mapping and sharing of examples of best practices across Europe; the appointment of a diversity advocate for the lobby body’s board and each of its committees; and the launch of a new program of European and national awards to cast the spotlight on those in the music space working on diversity and inclusion. IMPALA’s charter was prepared by a diversity task force, with veteran British artist...
Nilüfer Yanya Announces New EP Feeling Lucky?, Drops “Crash”: Stream
Nilüfer Yanya has announced the Feeling Lucky? EP. It drops December 11th, and the British artist is celebrating with the new single “Crash”. This is the follow-up to Miss Universe, her debut album and one of our favorite records of 2019. Unsurprisingly for a young songwriter whose first full-length effort blew up, Yanya has been thinking about luck — both consciously and subconsciously. As she noted in a statement, it wasn’t until she’d been working on the EP for a while that she realized the connecting theme. She said, “One of the songs had the theme of luck in it as a concept but then I realized they all do. That got me thinking about luck in general; good and bad. Things out of our control and things in control of us, how often we put acts and happenings down to the fortune o...
Arlo Parks Announces Debut Album Collapsed in Sunbeams, Shares “Green Eyes”: Stream
20-year-old British singer Arlo Parks has announced her debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams. It arrives January 29th, 2021, and to herald its release, she’s shared the new single “Green Eyes”, featuring vocals from Clairo. Parks has developed a reputation as your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter, with co-signs from Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers, and Florence Welsh. Her breathy voice and sensitive lyrics create an atmosphere of vulnerability. To listen to her songs is to be transported to a specific place and time: listening to a friend’s problems over Taco Bell, or trying to get a depressed person out of their bedroom. That immediacy is why her first album-length statement has developed such a buzz. In a statement, Parks explained the goals for Collapsed in Sunbeams,...
CARM (of yMusic) Shares New Song “Land” Featuring Justin Vernon: Stream
After a decade of guesting on high-profile albums, founding member of yMusic CARM (CJ Camerieri) will drop his star-studded solo debut CARM next year. His latest single is “Land”, which reunites him with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. yMusic is a contemporary classical ensemble, and over the last few years they’ve become one of the most in-demand backing bands in the world. Led by trumpeter Camerieri and violinist Rob Moose, they’ve appeared on recent Bruce Hornsby efforts Non-Secure Connection and Absolute Zero, Paul Simon’s In the Blue Light, and Ben Folds’ So There, to name a few. Camerieri has also won two Grammy awards as a member of Bon Iver, and he comes highly recommended by that group’s lead singer. As Vernon said in a statement, “CJ and I have worked together ...
Fiona Apple Performs Music From Fetch the Bolt Cutters Live for the First Time: watch
Fiona Apple performed music from her brilliant new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters live for the first time during a virtual appearance at the New Yorker Festival this weekend. As Pitchfork points out, Apple played three songs “I Want You to Love Me”, “Shameika”, and “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” with the accompaniment of a full band. She also spoke to The New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum about the making of the album and a variety of other topics. Watch it all below. Since the release of Fetch the Bolt Cutters earlier this year, Apple contributed a song to the Apple TV+ series Central Park and narrated a short film about how to document unlawful ICE arrests. She’s also committed to donating her royalties from “Shameika” and “Heavy Balloon” to the Harlem Children’s Zone, which helps support the hig...
BENEE Launches Olive Label, Signs Muroki: Exclusive
“I was listening to the track every day at one point,” she says, praising his “smooth and soulful” vocals. “Muroki’s such a sweet and genuine guy, just the sort of artist I’d like to work with.” BENEE introduced Elton John to Muroki when she met the Rocket Man on his Beat 1 radio show, and she’s currently touring with the teen in NZ. Leading Olive is label manager Trieste Douglas, formerly A&R for Universal Music New Zealand, and Poppy Tohill, from BENEE’s management team at CRS, Billboard can exclusively reveal. “The Olive team is already packed with some hardworking badass women,” comments BENEE (real name Stella Bennett), “and I feel this is an important time for us in the music business to come together and make some really cool shit happen.” She’s only 20 years of age, but BENEE i...
Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner Details New Memoir Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner, best known for her indie rock project Japanese Breakfast, has shared details about her new memoir Crying in H Mart. The book arrives April 20th, 2021 through Knopf Publishing. Based on a 2018 New Yorker article of the same name, Crying in H Mart details how the death of Zauner’s mother forced her to wrestle with her Korean-American identity. In one particularly wrenching moment, which inspired the piece’s title, she recounts coming apart in the Asian supermarket chain H Mart. She writes about, “Sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, ‘Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?’” Ultimately, Zauner leaned on writing as a way to process her grief, which manifested in two stellar stu...
How Mushroom Group’s Michael Gudinski Pivoted and Built New Channels During the Pandemic
Michael Gudinski always has something extra up his sleeve. When the 360-degree company became a fashionable term, Gudinski had his own spin. Mushroom Group, his independent music empire, was a “365” company, reflecting the number of days it operated in a regular year. Launched in 1973, Mushroom Group today spans more than two-dozen companies and brands from Frontier Touring, one of the world’s leading independent promoters, to The Harbour Agency, labels I Oh You, Liberation and Bloodlines, Mushroom Music Publishing, neighboring rights operation Good Neighbour, and the new addition, Reclusive Records. The pandemic has caused income to dry up for so many entertainment companies, particularly those exposed to concerts and touring. Mushroom Group is built on a bedrock of live music. Gudi...
Sylvan Esso Break Down Their New Album Free Love Track by Track: Stream
Our Track by Track feature provides musicians the chance to guide fans through each track on their latest album. Today, Sylvan Esso gives us some much needed Free Love. Sylvan Esso have today shared their third studio album, Free Love. Stream the 10-track effort below via Apple Music or Spotify One of the fall’s most anticipated releases, Free Love follows Sylvan Esso’s 2017 record What Now. Self-produced in the band’s own studio in the woods of North Carolina, the LP is billed as their “first true ‘band’ record.” It finds vocalist Amelia Meath and producer Nick Sanborn working hand and hand on all elements of the songwriting and recording, instead of one focusing on melody and the other on beats. Sylvan Esso describe the album as “about being increasingly terrified of the world aroun...
Bree Runway Shares New Song “Little Nokia”: Stream
Emerging songwriter Bree Runway has shared the thumping new song “Little Nokia”. Born Brenda Mensah in Hackney, London, Bree first gained international attention for the 2019 EP Be Runway, and she blew up earlier this year when the music video for “Apeshit” went viral. She specializes in what she calls “destructive pop,” and she’s happy to plunder sounds from other genres to make her point. “Little Nokia” is a great example of her wandering ear — it’s built around heavy-metal guitars, placed within a hip-hop structure, and finished with a sugary pop topline. Lyrically, the song is about a gorgeous guy who spends all his free time doing drugs, which she references by the names of celebrities who use them. In a statement, she explained that the song is based on a true story. She sa...
People Club Share New Song “Lay Down Your Weapons”: Stream
German indie outfit People Club have shared the stunning new song “Lay Down Your Weapons”. The Berlin quintet first began to attract international attention last year with the soul-inflected EP Kil Scott. But “Lay Down Your Weapons” finds the band exploring a more muscular rock and roll sound. That may have to do with the subject matter; as People Club explained in a statement, the new track is inspired by police brutality towards marginalized groups. They wrote, ”Lay Down Your Weapons’ is about issues that weigh heavy on our hearts. It was originally written in 2017 about issues of police brutality and the police militarization that black and brown folks have disproportionately faced, and unfortunately we are still fighting these issues today. We are so proud of all the people on the...
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 ...
