New Album Announcement
Playboi Carti Will Release New Album Whole Lotta Red on Christmas
Yes, it’s actually happening. Playboi Carti will finally release his long-awaited sophomore album Whole Lotta Red on Christmas Day. The Atlanta rapper has been teasing the follow-up to his visionary 2018 record Die Lit for over two years, revealing its title back in August 2018 and detailing it throughout 2019. Back in April of this year, he dropped its lead single “@ MEH”, which led many people to believe that the album would arrive before the summer. It didn’t, but Carti said that album was “turned in” to his label on November 23rd, and last week some eagle-eyed fans spotted promotional graffiti that seemed to indicate that Whole Lotta Red would finally be seeing the light of day on Christmas. In typical cryptic Carti fashion, the rapper has eschewed a tracklist ...
Darkside Reunite for New Album Spiral, Share “Liberty Bell”: Stream
After six long years, the wait is finally over: Darkside have returned. The electronic music duo of Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington has announced a new album, Spiral, due out Spring 2021 via Matador Records, as well as shared a lead single called “Liberty Bell”. Formed nearly a decade ago, Darkside found critical acclaim thanks to their 2013 full-length debut, Psychic. Their time in the spotlight was very short-lived, however, as Jaar and Harrington announced their “indefinite hiatus” less than a year later. According to a statement, Spiral was completed in December 2019. It was then mastered by Heba Kadry (Beach House, Slowdive) and mixed by Rashad Becker. Today’s release of “Liberty Bell” provides a first look at what to expect from the forthcoming sophomore album. And it appears to be ...
Four Tet and Madlib Announce New Collaborative Album, Share “Road of the Lonely Ones”: Stream
Electronic music producer Four Tet and hip-hop producer Madlib are joining forces for a new collaborative album. Titled Sound Ancestors, it’s due out next month via Madlib Invazion. The upcoming effort has been in the works “for the last few years,” according to a statement posted to Four Tet’s social media on Sunday. “[Madlib] is always making loads of music in all sorts of styles and I was listening to some of his new beats and studio sessions when I had the idea that it would be great to hear some of these ideas made into a Madlib solo album,” he noted. Four Tet explained further how Sound Ancestors came together using “hundreds of pieces” of music, “Not made into beats for vocalists to use but instead arranged into tracks that could all flow together in an album designed to be lis...
Late Deftones Bassist Chi Cheng’s Spoken Word Album to Arrive in January
A limited-edition album featuring a 2001 spoken word performance by late Deftones bassist Chi Cheng will arrive in late January. The release, dubbed The Head Up Project, contains 24 tracks, all captured during the musician’s set at the Cafe Paris in the band’s hometown of Sacramento, California. Cheng sadly died in 2013 at the age of 42 after a 2008 car crash left him in a years-long coma. The spoken word album is being released via Qumran Records and Buckle Up For Chi, a nonprofit founded in the bassist’s honor that encourages seatbelt use. The Head Up Project is subtitled A Night of Poetry, Belly Dancing, Music, Insults, Alcohol and Other Forms of Flattery. Only 200 copies of the album were made available for pre-order on CD, and according to the purchase link, it’s already out of stock ...
Willie Nelson Announces Frank Sinatra-Inspired Album That’s Life
Ol’ Blue Eyes and the Red Headed Stranger are together again. Two years after Willie Nelson released the Frank Sinatra tribute album My Way, the legendary singer is once again honoring his musical hero with 11 new covers on That’s Life. It’s out February 26th via Legacy Recordings. These classics and standards were recorded at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, where Sinatra was famously the first artist to step up to the mic. Afterwards, the final dotting of I’s and crossing of T’s took place at Pedernales Studios in Austin, Texas. Buddy Cannon and Matt Rollings produced, and while Nelson sings solo on ten of the songs, he’s joined by Grammy-winning vocalist Diana Krall for a duet of “I Won’t Dance”. Nelson and Sinatra were close friends for many years. In the 1980s Sinatra opened for Nelson a...
Tim Heidecker Announces Office Hours Live Album, Shares Fred Armisen Collaboration “Brick by Brick”: Stream
Less than three months after dropping Fear of Death, comedian-musician extraordinaire Tim Heidecker has announced his next release. Titled Office Hours Live presents Slaps, Bops & Bangers, it features songs from his podcast of the same name. Launched back in 2016, the Office Hours Live podcast sees Heidecker conducting phone and video calls with fans and special commentators. He hosts the program with Vic Berger and Doug “DJ Douggpound” Lussenhop, but other celebrities such as Heidecker’s Moonbase co-stars Fred Armisen and John C. Reilly have been known to periodically drop in. (Mac DeMarco and Bon Iver even made cameos during an eight-hour fundraiser recording of the podcast back in March.) A natural extension of the podcast, the forthcoming compilation album finds Heidecker...
Kid Cudi to Release Man on the Moon III: The Chosen This Friday
Kid Cudi has been teasing the final installment in his Man on the Moon trilogy for months now. Thankfully, the wait is almost over. The rapper revealed earlier today that Man on the Moon III: The Chosen is due out this Friday, December 11th via Republic, bringing a decade-long narrative silence to an end. When breaking the news, Cudi shared some crucial details about Man on the Moon III: The Chosen. The album is broken up into four parts — Act 1: Return 2 Madness; Act 2: The Rager, The Menace; Act 3: Heart of Rose Gold; and Act 4: Powers — that span 18 tracks in total. Throughout it, he brought in Pop Smoke, Skepta, Trippie Redd, and Phoebe Bridgers (!) to collaborate on a few songs. Cudi began this trilogy years ago when he dropped Man on the Moon: The End of the Day in 2009 and Man ...
Heem Announces New Project, Shares “The Realest” featuring Benny the Butcher: Stream
Benny the Butcher is best known as one of the leaders of the prolific Griselda crew alongside Conway the Machine and Westside Gunn. However, the Buffalo rapper is also the head honcho of a different collective called the Black Soprano Family, which consists of a number of underground MCs including the rookie Heem. Back in April, Benny signed a deal to make BSF an imprint of eOne, and over the summer he released their debut project, Benny the Butcher & DJ Drama Present: The Respected Sopranos, which featured numerous amazing verses from Heem that hinted at his potential star power. Today, Heem has announced his first solo project, Long Story Short, and he’s giving listeners a fitting preview by sharing a song called “The Realest” that features The Butcher himself. Over an instrumental t...
Greta Van Fleet Announce New Album The Battle at Garden’s Gate, Unveil “Age of Machine”: Stream
Greta Van Fleet have announced a new album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate. In advance of its April 16th release, the young rockers have unleashed the LP’s latest single, “Age of Machine”. The Battle at Garden’s Gate marks Greta Van Fleet’s sophomore album, following their 2018 debut, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, and a whirlwind of success since exploding onto the scene with the single “Highway Tune” in 2017. The Michigan band’s experiences over the past three years have helped inform the new album, with bassist Sam Kiszka stating, “I suppose that everything has changed except what got us here in the first place. Everything — our perception of the world, perception of life itself, what it means to be an artist, what it means to be part of a beautiful, gorgeous society. We’ve gained a larger u...
The Hold Steady Announce New Album Open Door Policy, Share “Family Farm”: Stream
The Hold Steady have announced their eighth studio album, Open Door Policy. The follow-up to last year’s Thrashing Thru the Passion is due out on February 19th via the group’s own Positive Jams label and Thirty Tigers. The new full-length was almost entirely written and recorded prior to the pandemic. However, “the songs and stories explore power, wealth, mental health, technology, capitalism, consumerism, and survival – issues which have compounded in 2020,” according to frontman Craig Finn. Recording took place at The Clubhouse in Rhinebeck, New York with assistance from producer Josh Kaufman and engineer D. James Goodwin. The album is The Hold Steady’s second to feature their current six-piece lineup, which has been described by Finn as the band’s “best” iteration. Editors’ P...
Lil Wayne Announces No Ceilings 3 Mixtape, Out This Friday
Dust off your Obey streetwear and load up Temple Run on your iPod Touch because we’re going back to the early 2010s, folks: Lil Wayne is about to drop a mixtape on DatPiff. Weezy just announced that the long-awaited third installment of his No Ceilings mixtape series will be hitting the once-essential online rap distributor this Friday, November 27th. The project will be “hosted” by DJ Khaled, who posted two preview clips on his Instagram earlier today: one features a verse from Drake, and the other sees Wayne freestyling over the beat of Lil Baby and 42 Dugg’s “We Paid”. “The mixtape game seemed to be a dying art and since I’m one of the pioneers of the craft, and it played such a big part in my career, I felt it was only right to resurrect it,” Lil Wayne told Complex. “Als...
The Soviet Machines Premiere Jack Endino-Produced Song “Get Your Kicks”: Stream
Minneapolis three piece The Soviet Machines lived out an alt-rock dream when they traveled to Seattle to work with producer Jack Endino (Nirvana’s Bleach). The band is now premiering the music video for “Get Your Kicks”, the lead single from their upcoming debut album, exclusively via Heavy Consequence. The Soviet Machines’ vintage power trio approach is well suited for Endino, who captured many of the Seattle grunge scene’s legendary guitar bands. He’s got major credits on records by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, and countless others. Most recently, Endino has produced the acclaimed works of US doom institution Windhand. The veteran recording engineer’s touch is apparent on “Get Your Kicks”, an upbeat rocker with solid tone — mostly recorded live without overdubs. The S...
