New Music Releases
Chance the Rapper Drops New Song “The Heart and the Tongue”: Stream
Chance the Rapper is back with a new single. It’s called “The Heart and the Tongue” and it comes with an introspective music video filmed during quarantine. Stream it below. In his typical slick delivery over a trip-hop beat, “The Heart and the Tongue” sees Chance the Rapper ruminating on truth as a concept. “My heart and tongue are fighting/ My mind is undecided,” he raps. “It’s not like Trump and Biden/ It’s more like something private/ Like when yo’ cousins are fighting/ One of ’em gets excited/ You can’t just jump the gun and pick a side and jump inside it.” It’s funny hearing him bring up the election considering he supported Kanye West in his presidential run only to perform at a post-inauguration performance for Biden six months later. In the song’s accompanying music video, Ch...
Rising UK Singer Karl Benjamin Announces Debut EP DRIST, Shares “Friends”: Stream
Karl Benjamin has been buzzing in the UK for his smooth vocals and rich blend of R&B and soul. Today, the singer announced his debut EP, DRIST, out on March 26th via Atlantic Records. DRIST stands for Deep Rooted Insecurities and Shy Tendencies. Benjamin further elaborated on the title’s meaning in a press statement: Being trapped in the house with my own thoughts for so long has really shown me how much this word means to me. I’m an antisocial extrovert that’s had the time to analyze their own DRIST, and in doing so, I’m slowly understanding myself and my cerebellum more each day. I wrote this EP with my DRIST in mind. I hope it reaches those with similar thought patterns to mine. To accompany the announcement, Benjamin shared his latest single, “Friends”. Stream it below. Written as ...
The Mars Volta Announce Staggering 18-LP Box Set with Unreleased Material
After an eight-year hiatus, an impressive new archival release from The Mars Volta is on the horizon. La Realidad De Los Sueños is a staggering 18-LP box set that arrives April 23rd and contains the experimental rockers’ entire studio discography alongside unreleased material. After breaking up in 2013, guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala focused on their other project At the Drive-In. But earlier today, the band teased a mysterious something-or-other with altered artwork from De-Loused in the Comatorium. This unleashed a frenzy of speculation among fans in places like Reddit, but few imagined anything as robust as an 18-disc deluxe drop. Translating to “the reality of dreams,” La Realidad De Los Sueños takes is name from lyrics in “Concertina...
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Gets “Ultimate” Reissue with 159-Song, 8-Disc Box Set
Yoko Ono Lennon has announced a massive deluxe reissue of John Lennon’s debut solo album, titled John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – The Ultimate Collection. Ahead of its release on April 16th, preview the collection with “Mother (Ultimate Mix)” below. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was originally released on December 11th, 1970 following the break-up of The Beatles earlier that year. Influenced by his experiences with primal therapy, it features minimal production with simple and sparse instrumentation. The new box set contains 159 tracks across six CDs and two Blu-ray audio discs, including 87 never-before-heard recordings. There are unreleased and rare demos, rehearsals, outtakes, jams, and studio conversations detailing how the songs came together. All of the tracks have been mixed from scrat...
Charli XCX Teams with No Rome and The 1975 on New Song “Spinning”: Stream
Charli XCX (photo by Philip Cosores); No Rome and The 1975 (photo via No Rome’s Instagram) Charli XCX has teamed with No Rome and The 1975 for a new song, “Spinning”. Stream it below. London-based Filipino musician No Rome officially announced the collaboration in early February. He revealed the song was already mastered, but the music video was still in the process of being edited. Several weeks later, Charli went a step further, excitedly dubbing the three of them a supergroup. The British singer-songwriter shared her experience of working with No Rome and The 1975 in a tweet. “I think Rome and The 1975 guys are so talented, it’s honestly so cool to have this song with them,” Charli wrote. “I feel like we all speak the same musical language in some way, and that language is stunnin...
Small Black Share New Single “The Bridge”: Stream
Over five years after delivering their last full-length, 2015’s Best Blues, Small Black are set to return next month with a new album called Cheap Dreams. Early singles “Duplex” and “Tampa” arrived over the last few months, and now the chillwave pioneers are back with “The Bridge”. Built off a patiently sanguine piano line, “The Bridge” is an ode to Rockaway Beach, a favorite oasis for New York escapists. For those spending most of their time in the concrete jungle of the boroughs, it’s a magical slice of Atlantic coastline, and the song’s dreamy longing transports listeners right back to those shores. As singer Josh Kolenik explained in a statement, the lyrics are specifically from the point of view of his Uncle Matt, an individual Small Black fans may recognize from the band’s first-ever...
Wesley Joseph Drops Thumping Track “Thrilla”: Stream
23-year-old UK rapper Wesley Joseph has released “Thrilla”, his first new song of 2021. The booming track is co-produced by Jai Paul collaborator Lexxx and Joseph himself. It arrives via a self-directed music video featuring one of the two working DeLoreans in the UK. Stream the clip below. “Thrilla” is propelled by a heavy 808, but the production is also layered with funk-inspired guitar licks and gothic strings. In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac, Joseph said he freestyled the song’s lyrics while drunk “off the rum and orange juice.” Accordingly, most of the track features swaggering rhymes, but Joseph also gets introspective at times. “Visions in my dreams, who do you believe / They fear the change,” he raps. “Looking hollow tomorrow, dividing barricades / Thought I saw the fu...
Iggy Pop and Jazz Icon Dr. Lonnie Smith Cover Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman”: Stream
Iggy Pop and Dr. Lonnie Smith, photo by Don Was Iggy Pop and jazz icon Dr. Lonnie Smith have teamed up for a cover of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman”. The track is taken from Smith’s new album Breathe, which is out later this month. It might seem like an odd pairing for rough-and-tough proto-punk legend and a Hammond B3 organist to join forces for a cover of a classic psych-rock tune — and it is, but it also comes together shockingly well. Smith and his bandmates give the song a loungey, tropical makeover while Pop offers an uncommonly sweet and sultry vocal performance for a man of his gritty stature. The way Smith tells it in a statement, the whole process seemed like a quick and organic happy accident. “I was playing with my trio at Arts Garage in Delray Beach in Florida,” Smith said. “Ig...
Rostam Announces New Album Changephobia, Shares Single “4Runner”: Stream
After dropping a handful of standalone singles, Rostam has announced a new solo album is on the way. It’s called Changephobia and it’s due out June 4th via Matsor Projects/Secretly Distribution. Best of all, you can stream a new track from the record, titled “4Runner”, below. Changephobia spans 11 tracks in total, including the previously release singles “These Kids We Knew” and “Unfold You”, which Rostam used to explore new-to-him sounds like retro bebop and ’90s neo-psych rock. Not only is it the ex-Vampire Weekend member’s third studio album, but it’s also his first full-length LP in four years following 2017’s Half-Light. In a press release, Rostam said that he was compelled to write Changephobia after meeting a stranger on a park bench. The two opened up to one another ...
Japanese Breakfast Announces New Album Jubilee, Shares “Be Sweet”: Stream
Michelle Zauner has announced a new Japanese Breakfast album called Jubilee, due out June 4th via Dead Oceans. Today, Zauner is getting the party started with the lead single, “Be Sweet”. The singer-songwriter’s third studio album follows 2016’s Psychopomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet, but it finds her traversing new emotional ground. While her first two albums dealt with the devastation she felt after her mother’s death from cancer, Jubilee is meant to be just that: a celebration marking the passage of time. In a statement, she explained the intention behind the project and its first single “Be Sweet”, saying, “After spending the last five years writing about grief, I wanted our follow up to be about joy. For me, a third record should feel bombastic and so I ...
Grimes Releases New Music via Cryptocurrency Art Auction, Rakes in $6 Million
Grimes has released new music, but it’s not available as a physical release or via streaming services. Instead, the unreleased material accompanies cryptocurrency art pieces in WarNymph Collection Vol 1, a collaboration with her brother Mac Boucher which made Grimes more than $6 million via auction. The art isn’t physically available, either, but comes in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFT). WarNymph contains 10 different pieces. As Exclaim points out, Earth is accompanied by the unreleased track, “Ærythe”, while Mars is soundtracked by “Mars Theme”. The collection was made available on the NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway and sold out in 20 minutes. A percentage of proceeds from the sales will be donated to environmental NGO Carbon 180, presumably in an attempt to offset the electrici...
Maple Glider Unveils New Song “Good Thing”: Stream
Melbourne songwriter Maple Glider has signed to Partisan Records and shared the new single “Good Thing”. The artist born Tori Ziestch joins a stacked Partisan roster that includes Laura Marling, Fela Kuti, IDLES, and Fontaines D.C. She has a sweet, smoky voice which she likes to keep at a whisper — the better to add drama when she unleashes a powerful belt. Her label debut “Good Thing” is a slowed-down guitar track, with stately strumming enlivened by the occasional crisp snap of a drum. Lyrically, the song explores the sadness and confusion of a relationship near its end. “But I guess that’s how we learn,” she sings as the music swells. “By setting fire to things that bring us life/ Before we’ve got to watch them burn.” In a statement, she explained the intention behind the track, w...
