New Album Announcement
Monster Magnet Announce Covers Album A Better Dystopia, Share “Mr. Destroyer” (Poo-Bah): Stream
Heavy psych rockers Monster Magnet have announced a new covers album, A Better Dystopia, out May 21st. As a preview, the band has shared a ripping version of Poo-Bah’s “Mr. Destroyer”. The 13-song tracklist showcases Monster Magnet’s esoteric knowledge of obscure psych rock. They take on Hawkwind (“Born to Go”), cult NYC heavy psych act Dust (“Learning to Die”)”, The Pretty Things (“Death”), and The Scientists (“Solid Gold Hell”), among other relatively obscure gems. The idea for the covers album came after Monster Magnet’s European “Powertrip” tour was halted in February of 2020 when the pandemic hit. To occupy the downtime, the band set out to record a DIY album rather than play streaming shows or sell merch. “We all agreed that we would be bored out of our minds within a month of lockdo...
black midi Announce New Album Cavalcade, Share “John L”: Stream
black midi are back. The London experimental rock band have announced that their sophomore album Cavalcade will arrive in May via Rough Trade Records, and today they’re sharing its lead single “John L”. The record is the highly anticipated follow-up to their widely-praised 2019 album Schlagenheim, and the first new material they’ve shared since last year’s spoken-word Bandcamp project, The Black Midi Anthology Vol. 1: Tales of Suspense and Revenge. Unlike the songs on their debut, which were all written together in the same room and recorded rather spontaneously, the quartet wrote half of this album on their own and then brought them to life in the studio with producers Marta Salogni (Bjork, M.I.A.) and John Murphy (Lankum, Katie Kim). In a press release, vocalist Geordie Greep s...
Low Cut Connie Announce Covers Album Tough Cookies: The Best of The Quarantine Broadcasts
Philadelphia rockers Low Cut Connie have announced a new compilation, Tough Cookies: The Best of The Quarantine Broadcasts, collecting cover songs recorded during the band’s twice-weekly live streams. It will be out on May 19th digitally and on vinyl. As frontman Adam Weiner explained in a press statement, the 23-track LP pulls from his Tough Cookies live stream project with guitarist Will Donnelly, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this month. It contains just a fraction of the more than 500 covers they have performed during the broadcasts. “Two weeks into quarantine, we ‘went live’ in my spare bedroom in South Philly to cheer up our fans. There was no script, no plan, just a couple schmucks trying every form of entertainment to try to lift people’s spirits,” Weiner said. “Now a y...
Slowdive and Flaming Lips Members Form Beachy Head, Announce Debut Album
Rachel Goswell (photo by Autumn Andel) and Christian Savill (photo by Debi Del Grande) Members of Slowdive, The Flaming Lips, The Soft Cavalry, and Casket Girls have formed a new supergroup named Beachy Head. The quintet will release their self-titled debut album on April 30th via member Ryan Graveface’s Graveface Records. As shared on Bandcamp, Slowdive’s Christian Savill started writing and recording demo songs back in 2019 before sending out the musical sketches to Graveface (Dreamend / The Casket Girls) and The Soft Cavalry’s Steve Clarke. Graveface and Savill then recorded the barebones structure of the tracks in Savannah, just two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. After Flaming Lips drummer Matt Duckworth added his contributions, Clarke was able to add harmonies and other ...
John Prine and Friends Live at Newport Folk Festival 2017 Vinyl Announced
John Prine’s headlining set at the 2017 Newport Folk Festival is receiving a special vinyl release. Full of whit and grace, Prine’s set at the 2017 Newport Folk Fest was a guest-heavy affair. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon (making his first appearance at the Fest with the Bill Withers tribute Grandma’s Hands Band) came out for “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)”, followed by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James on “All the Best”, Margo Price for the duet “In Spite of Ourselves”, and Nathaniel Rateliff on “Sam Stone”. The biggest surprise of all, however, was when Roger Waters and Lucius appeared for “Hello in There”. Waters, who had headlined the fest two years prior, was in the middle of his “Us + Them Tour”, but he and his collaborators flew in from the Midwest to sing with Prine on “Hello in There”. ...
L’Orange and Namir Blade Announce New Album Imaginary Everything, Share “Corner Store Scandal”: Stream
Producer L’Orange and Nashville rapper Namir Blade have teamed up for a new collaborative album, titled Imaginary Everything. The project is out on May 7th through Mello Music Group. Imaginary Everything is entirely produced by L’Orange and features appearances from Quelle Chris, Marlowe, Fly Anakin, and Jordan Webb. It arrives on the heels of Blade’s breakthrough 2020 album, Aphelion’s Traveling Circus. To preview their project, L’Orange and Namir Blade shared the lead single, “Corner Store Scandal”, and its accompanying Joel Davis-directed video. “I wrote this song after making an exuberant purchase at a corner store,” the rapper shared in a statement. “Sometimes you just have to allow the mundane to be extravagant.” The track features boom bap production driven by a funky guitar loop an...
Fiddlehead Announce New Album Between The Richness, Share “Million Times”
Back in 2018, Fiddlehead made waves in the hardcore scene with their terrific debut album Springtime and Blind. Now, the melodic hardcore band that features members of Have Heart and Basement have announced its follow-up, Between The Richness. It’s won’t arrive until late May, but they’re previewing it today with an excellent lead single called “Million Times”. Although the members of the band come from the hardcore scene and play a style of music that can more or less be described as such, Fiddlehead don’t make fast, rowdy, or angry music. Their songs are often energetic and loose, but they pull a lot from the Revolution Summer emotional hardcore wave of the mid-to-late ’80s: bands like Rites of Spring, Dag Nasty, and later Fugazi and Dischord Records. These aren’t songs for mos...
Posthumous Tony Allen Album to Feature Damon Albarn, Danny Brown, Skepta & More
Last year, legendary Nigerian drummer Tony Allen was working on a new album when he suffered an aortic aneurysm and passed away at the age of 79. His collaborators have finished what he began, and the posthumous release There Is No End will arrive on April 30th, the anniversary of his death. You can catch a preview with lead single “Cosmosis”, which was co-written by Damon Albarn and features Skepta and Ben Okri. Allen pioneered the Afrobeat sound, drawing influences from American jazz, Ghanian highlife, and Yoruba polyrhythms to develop new grooves that continue to resonate today. He built his towering reputation by collaborating on over 30 albums with Fela Kuti, and his skills were so advanced that when he left to pursue a solo career, Kuti hired four drummers to replace him. Allen ...
Kenny Mason Announces Angelic Hoodrat: Supercut Project, Shares “Pup”: Stream
Kenny Mason turned Atlanta hip-hop on its ears with last year’s debut album, Angelic Hoodrat. The genre-mashing artist is now set to keep his momentum going with a new project dubbed Angelic Hoodrat: Supercut, which features the new single “Pup”. Due out April 16th, Supercut consists of 12 new tracks and a quartet of features. Denzel Curry, a frequent collaborator who has emerged as something of a mentor to Mason even though he’s only a year older, appears on “A+”, while Freddie Gibbs drops in on “Much Money”. Alongside those heavy-hitters, Mason welcomes a pair of fellow risers, with Dallas’ Angel White featuring on “Titan” and bi-lingual New Jersey singer-songwriter contributing to “Breathe”. The new collection was first teased last month with “Partments”, a low-key track that further pe...
Claudio Sanchez Announces New The Prize Fighter Inferno Album, Shares Origins of “Sweet Talker”: Stream
Our new music feature Origins tasks artists with providing some behind-the-process insights into their latest single. Today, Claudio Sanchez returns to his The Prize Fighter Inferno moniker for “Sweet Talker”. With work on Coheed and Cambria’s next record on hold during COVID-19, frontman Claudio Sanchez turned towards a project that had been largely dormant for nearly 15 years: The Prize Fighter Inferno. Writing new solo material became an outlet for dark times, as the trauma of the pandemic was compounded by Sanchez’s grandfather falling ill and his wife being diagnosed with an auto-immune disease. Out of that isolation comes The City Introvert, the first Prize Fighter Inferno full-length since the moniker’s 2006 debut, My Brother’s Blood Machine. Out April 23rd via Evil Ink Records...
The Breeders and Tkay Maidza Share Covers from 4AD’s 40th Anniversary Compilation: Stream
UK independent record label 4AD turned 40 years old in 2020. In belated celebration, the label has announced a new covers compilation called Bills & Aches & Blues, out on streaming services April 2nd. As a preview, the first five songs from the release are streaming below. Today’s cache of tracks include The Breeders covering His Name is Alive’s “Dirt Eaters”, Tkay Maidza’s version of Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?”, and U.S. Girls’s rendition of The Dirty Party’s “Junkyard”. You’ll also hear Aldous Harding covering Deerhunter and Maria Somerville playing an Air Miami song. Other artists featured on the compilation include Big Thief, Bradford Cox, tUnE-yArDs, Future Islands, Helado Negro, SOHN, and many more. Check out the full tracklist below. The first 12 months o...
Matt Berry Announces Psych Rock Album The Blue Elephant, Shares “Aboard”: Stream
When he’s not playing a Staten Island-based vampire in What We Do in the Shadows, the English actor Matt Berry makes freaky psych-rock music. He’s released upwards of ten albums over the last 25 years, and now he’s announcing that his latest will be titled The Blue Elephant. The full album is out in May, but today he’s giving fans a taste with a new song called “Aboard”. Like his previous six records, most of which have arrived in the last ten years, The Blue Elephant will be released via the legendary London label Acid Jazz. The imprint is famous for putting out music that’s super out-there, and Berry’s ear for tantalizing psychedelia fits snugly into their renowned catalog. His 2020 record Phantom Birds was a detour into classic folk, but a press release promises that...
