When Let’s Eat Grandma’s Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton were making their third album, *Two Ribbons*, someone from their record label told them, “You know you don’t have to put yourselves through this, don’t you?” The album is a visceral exploration of the love, loss, grief, and devastation they’ve experienced in recent years. And for the electronic-pop duo from Norwich, England, best friends since childhood, this was the only way through. “I was like, ‘We’re going through it anyway,’” Hollingworth tells Apple Music. “It was hard making the record, but that’s because it was a hard time in general. Even though it was extremely challenging, it gives you a place to put the amount of emotion you have. It was a way of trying to forge meaning out of stuff, especially when it all feels a bit meaningless.” Here, their intricately woven synth-pop brings out a lightness in the darkest of subjects. This is an album about the duo’s personal ordeals, as Hollingworth tries to make sense of the tragic passing of her boyfriend, the singer Billy Clayton, who died at just 22 from a rare form of bone cancer, with both reflecting on cracks in their friendship. “It was the first time that we’ve written that honestly about our lives, and that felt really important,” says Walton. “It’s just very down the line and quite brutally honest. That was important for both of us.” All of which has resulted in a profound and poignant artistic statement—and an album that sees Walton and Hollingworth’s songcraft reaching new peaks. Here, they talk us through *Two Ribbons*, track by track. **“Happy New Year”** Rosa Walton: “I actually started writing this with the intention of it being for the Cyberpunk 2077 game but, in the end, the brief for that was so specific, and I wrote a different track instead. I had the main hook chords for this and then I just sung the words ‘best friend’ and I was like, ‘Oh, wait, I know what this should be about.’ I had loads of things that felt really pressing to write about mine and Jenny’s relationship and looking back on that in a nostalgic way and also looking forward to a new chapter. It made sense to use the metaphor of New Year because it’s often a time when you do that.” **“Levitation”** RW: “This was written about the surreal mental state of feeling detached from reality, in a way that you almost feel high, and there’s positives about it, but then also it can be really scary and alienating. I wanted to write about two sides of that. It’s one that we both sing, and Jenny brought lyrics to it later in the process.” **“Watching You Go”** Jenny Hollingworth: “I wanted to make something that reflected the pent-up emotion of grief and the kind of tension that you feel when you’re in a lot of confusion and distress. The way that the song’s built, there aren’t really clear chords through most of it; it’s very bass-led and kind of churning and then, at the end, there’s this big guitar release. It represents, to me, just how difficult I found it at the time to express myself. There’s a lot of nature imagery on the record because a lot of the record was written spending a huge amount of time outside. This one looks at the images of beauty but also the horror of nature at the same time.” **“Hall of Mirrors”** RW: “This was very production-led in that the shiny, bright metallic sounds came before any of the lyrics or the story. They almost informed the lyrics, in a way. The idea of writing about the hall of mirrors came from the image of the shiny, delayed synth sounds that were like reflections in a mirror, and then from there I realized that I wanted to write a song about my sexuality, which I hadn’t written about before. That was something that I felt like, at that point, I was ready to talk about in a song and the many different emotions in relation to that. I knew that I wanted it to be an uplifting and positive song, but then, in the same way, there’s a lot of secrecy and guilt mixed in there as well. I knew that I wanted to keep it a dance-pop song at the core.” **“Insect Loop”** RW: “This one is very painful and a raw, emotional song. I see it in sections, and all of the sections represent different facets of how you feel about a person. There’s anger, there’s guilt, there’s tenderness in the middle section, and then a release at the end, and we used the production to build that. The end section I imagine as being set on a beach: The big, reverb-y, distorted guitars are like the crashing waves. Both of us are really influenced by our environment and influenced by the Norfolk coastline and the Norfolk countryside.” **“Half Light”** RW: “This was written as a segue between ‘Insect Loop’ and ‘Sunday’ because they’re both very heavy, emotionally intense songs, and we felt like we needed to put in a breather there.” **“Sunday”** RW: “I started writing this one at the beginning of lockdown. I was about to break up with my boyfriend at the time and it was written ahead of that, as a kind of way to prepare myself for the break-up. I really wanted to write something very warm-sounding, which is interesting with it being about a break-up. The warmness was like a longing for how I wanted to feel and how I once felt in the relationship. I think there’s something extra sad about that. A lot of the sounds are very delicate and fragile, and also just really pretty. Again, there’s something really sad about using those sounds in a way which is about something which is ending.” **“In the Cemetery”** RW: “This was a track that Jenny had started, and then I wrote a bit of instrumental around it and then put in some shitty recordings of birds off the internet, and then Jenny went to the cemetery and recorded actual birds. Again, we just felt like we needed to have something in there that just created a bit of space and a break from the high volumes of lyrics.” **“Strange Conversations”** JH: “It’s complicated to talk about this because I feel like a lot of the lyrics are mysterious, even to me. I think when Billy passed away, it made me think a lot about spirituality, not in the literal sense of religion, but just in terms of meaning and what happens when we die, and you are quite confronted with that aspect of life in a way that you’re not previously. It not only represents a conversation with either some sort of higher power or a god, but also the questions that you have for the person that you love who’s passed away, and the way that your relationship continues even when they’ve passed away. I guess the strangeness of it is the fact that it’s obviously one-sided and that you can’t actually get the answers that you’re looking for.” **“Two Ribbons”** JH: “It wasn’t immediately obvious to me as a closer, but it made sense as the record came together because it just felt like it had a mood that was difficult to bounce back from. It also ended up creating a kind of circular, because ‘Happy New Year’ is almost like a response to ‘Two Ribbons.’ Ending on ‘Two Ribbons’ and then starting again with ‘Happy New Year,’ it’s almost like you hear the songs differently the second time you listen on loop because of the context of this song.”
The band's new album, 'Two Ribbons', tells the story of the last three years from both Jenny Hollingworth and Rosa Walton's points of view. As a body of work, it is astonishing: a dazzling, heart-breaking, life-affirming and mortality-facing record that reveals their growing artistry and ability to parse intense feeling into lyrics so memorable you'd scribble them on your backpack.
Tove Lo’s fifth studio album is also her first as an independent artist. Full of surprising collaborations, intimate confessions, and sexy, sparkly, ’80s-inspired synths, it marks a new era of creativity and experimentation for the Swedish singer-songwriter who is known as club pop’s rebellious and raunchy cool girl. Lo spent three years writing these songs in Los Angeles and Torekov, Sweden—a small fishing village where she spent summers growing up. That extended timeline gave her space to explore new soundscapes and musical ideas. “I had time to push myself and go to new places,” she tells Apple Music. “I had time for the details. I had time to be myself.” The album reflects a time of transition for the singer—she and her husband eloped to Vegas during the pandemic. Around the same time, she invited a few of her friends to move into her new home in LA, forming what she described as a collective. “It’s been wild, *fun*,” she says. “But there have been moments where I’m like, ‘Where is this going? Who am I? What are we doing?’” *Dirt Femme* explores these questions with sincerity (“Grapefruit,” “No One Dies From Love”), but makes it clear that Lo has no plans to hang up her party-girl crown anytime soon (“Pineapple Slice,” “Attention Whore”). She wrote each song with a certain character in mind: a “horny huntress,” scorned girlfriend, or intense, intimidating Scorpio (see: the album art). “The point is that we all contain multitudes,” she says, “and each of these women is me.” **“No One Dies From Love”** “When lockdown hit, I was already worn out from an intense, emotionally draining year. My go-to collaborator, Ludvig, was, too. We were both in the middle of little existential crises and spent a few weeks in Malibu trying to write some songs. ‘No One Dies From Love’ was the only thing that came out of those sessions. We mostly cried and drank and walked on the beach, talking about those all-consuming relationships where you feel like your whole existence revolves around a single person, and like there won\'t be anything left of you if they leave. Obviously, it’s not true. Time heals most wounds. But it doesn’t feel like that at the time.” **“Suburbia”** “My husband and I both had fairly traditional childhoods, and I’ve always \[sensed\] a certain amount of confusion around my lifestyle—friends and family wondering when we’ll stop partying and settle down. In 2020, we eloped in Las Vegas, and the reaction was pretty uniform, like, ‘Oh, thank god, you did something normal! So when are you having kids?’ People seem to have this idea about how our life is supposed to look, and if that idea doesn’t appeal to you, it makes your head spin. You’re like, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ We made a beat that sounded sad and upbeat at the same time, and it reminded me of the Stepford Wives—that eerie feeling you get in suburbia that everyone is hiding something.” **“2 Die 4”** “My friend Oscar Görres and I were talking about the reemergence of Y2K trends—in music, films, photography, fashion—and it makes us feel old. But sometimes it’s interesting to look at things from a new angle—trance music, for example. When I was a kid, I hated it. I was like, ‘There\'s no vocals, I don’t get this.’ Now I\'m like, ‘How did I ever miss out on all this sick synthy shit?’ So this song kind of channels that era. It’s a slower tempo, but it’s nostalgic to me.” **“True Romance”** “I haven\'t ever really released a ballad before. My songs always have a beat or full production. In opera, they tell the story all the way through and it just builds and builds and builds. So I went into this song with that essence. I wanted it to be about a destructive relationship. The movie *True Romance* popped into my head, and I decided to watch it and then write a storyline into the lyrics. It took me three days to write the lyrics, but I recorded the vocals in one take. We kept it because it just felt raw and powerful.” **“Grapefruit”** “Up until now, I’ve never really been up front about the fact that I had a severe eating disorder when I was a teenager. I did a movie in Sweden, and had to lose some weight for it—nothing extreme, maybe four or five kilos, but I had to lose it in two weeks. I went on a diet for the first time in 10 years and it triggered so many memories—the obsession, the anxiety, being hungry all the time. All these memories flooded back and I was like, ‘Can I do this without falling back into old patterns?’ In the end, I did it and it was fine. To me, it felt like validation that I’d healed. So I started writing about that. When I played this song for my friends, they were like, ‘I never would\'ve known. You\'re so much about body positivity.’ And my response is: ‘Yes, because I went through that.’” **“Cute & Cruel”** “This is my sunset song. It\'s about accepting what love does to you as a human being. I wrote this with Elvira, who is one of my favorite producers in Sweden. She and I really click. There\'s an emotional sweetness to it, a tenderness. This folksy, cinematic sound was new for me, so I wanted to bring in one more voice, preferably someone from that scene. First Aid Kit really elevated the song because they’re so at home in this world. It’s a really unexpected, powerful one.” **“Call On Me”** “I made this song with SG Lewis, who is a close friend. He\'s an emotional party person just like me. He actually wrote this song and then sent it to me, which isn’t something I do very often; it’s hard for me to find a way to make it mine. But I loved this song, so we agreed that I’d play with the lyrics. Initially, I rewrote them to make them more deep and complex, but it actually felt like that took away from the energy of the song. We decided to just let it be what it is, which is a big, fun dance anthem that all my gays are going to love.” **“Attention Whore”** “I wrote this track at four in the morning after having a silly drunk argument with my husband. I don’t even remember what it was about. He was probably just being his great self, but sometimes when I\'m drunk I just decide to get mad like an idiot. You know when you’re just feeling jealous and sassy and maybe a little bitchy? That’s the essence of this song. I\'d just seen Channel Tres live at a festival and was floored by his performance—it was sexy and cool and full of attitude. I knew he’d be perfect for this track.” **“Pineapple Slice”** “SG Lewis and I wrote this song together from scratch, and he kept pushing me to make the lyrics dirtier. Finally I was like, ‘Okay, fine, let me show you what I can do.’ I just went for it. In pop, you\'re supposed to insinuate. You\'re never supposed to say things outright. So it was fun to break the rules and really *go* there.” **“I’m to Blame”** “I wrote this song with Ali Payami, who told me he wanted to make something ‘Oasis-inspired with hip-hop drums.’ I was like, ‘That sounds out of my lane, but let\'s do it.’ Growing up, I listened to a ton of rock and indie rock, and those days came right back to me when we got in the studio. With the help of his guitar and instrumentals, I found a lyrical and melodic place that I hadn\'t gone to yet for this album. It\'s more poetic and nuanced, whereas I’m usually pretty blunt. And the vocals sound less perfect, more alive. It\'s really special to me.” **“Kick in the Head”** “This was one of the first songs I wrote when I was feeling inspired again. I’m singing about being unmotivated, not knowing what to say, how I need someone to shake me, feelings creative people experience when everything feels...flat. But things turned around when Tim, my roommate and one of my producers, brought me this beat. It had a funky bassline that reminded me of Fatboy Slim, and I thought it was so cool and interesting. Even a little experimental. It stands out in the best way and I love having it on this album because I think it helps show my range as an artist.” **“How Long”** “This was definitely written with *Euphoria* in mind. The ominous beat, the darkness, the slow, hypnotic energy...even when we hadn’t written lyrics yet, there was just so much anger in the track. It felt like revenge. I was working on the lyrics for a few days with a songwriter, and had a dream about my husband cheating on me. I\'m the kind of person who will wake up and be mad about something like that. I’ll pretend I\'m not, but I am. I\'m playing out the scenario in my head like, ‘If he did this, what would I do? How would I handle it?’ I’d go through every worst-case scenario. So I wrote about that. He knows I’m like this and will get nervous, like, ‘Babe, you know I didn’t actually cheat on you, right?’ And I just sit there like, ‘I know. I think.’”
At the beginning of her career, Albanian American pop superstar Ava Max was best known for sporting an asymmetrical haircut and her totally ubiquitous club-pop banger, 2018’s “Sweet but Psycho,” with its addictive reclamation of calling a woman crazy. Now, on her sophomore LP, she’s kept all the high-energy Eurodance rhythms in place—but this time, the songs are personal. “I went through a really bad breakup while I was writing, and I had to change course,” Max tells Apple Music. “I couldn’t just make positive, upbeat dance songs. I was hurt. Being in the studio and collaborating, it was hard—but also therapeutic.” Each track details a different stage in her healing process: The 2000s dance-pop-meets-Lady Gaga opener “Million Dollar Baby” is the moment she overcame the breakup; “Ghost” is the stage before—a protagonist haunted by the specter of their ex. Disco rhythms, too, shake the heartbreak loose, like on “Turn Off the Lights” and the ’80s synth production of “One of Us.” “I can\'t even count how many times I\'ve cried and danced on the dance floor this past year,” she laughs. “I want my fans to feel empowered after listening to this.” Below, Ava Max walks Apple Music through *Diamonds & Dancefloors*, track by track. **“Million Dollar Baby”** “It interpolates LeAnn Rimes \[‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’\] only \[on\] ‘in the dark,’ it\'s only those three lyrics, that little melody. I called up LeAnn. And you know what? I love her. This song brought me to LeAnn Rimes. So I\'m happy. I love her. I loved *Coyote Ugly* growing up.“ **“Sleepwalker”** “‘Sleepwalker’ is one of my favorite songs on the album, especially because of the big guitar-sounding solo in it. It\'s so much fun, and I think Cirkut murdered that. He\'s such a talented producer; he\'s the executive producer and backbone of the whole album.” **“Maybe You’re the Problem”** “‘Maybe You\'re the Problem’ was written on a day that I got in a really bad argument with my ex-boyfriend. I went into the studio and started yelling, ‘Maybe you\'re the problem,’ and that\'s how the song was born. I couldn\'t cancel the session. I was so upset that I had to go in. The lyrics and melodies came out of my mouth at the same time. It was written so quickly, within an hour.” **“Ghost”** “I feel a lot of people can relate to this—after a breakup, everywhere you go, you try and forget about this person. They could be so bad, but you still can\'t stop thinking about their face and their smell and the way they talk. You\'re trying to date new people, but their ghost keeps appearing everywhere, and you see them everywhere.” **“Hold Up (Wait a Minute)”** “I love the lyric ‘XO, baby, bye, bye, bye.’ Basically, I\'m not going to stand around for this shit, and don\'t wind me up with all the lines. I never wish ill towards anyone; I hope my ex has a good life. But at the end of the day, we just didn\'t work out.” **“Weapons”** “\[Co-writers\] Ryan Tedder and Melanie \[Fontana\] and I were going back and forth through text messages. I wasn\'t actually in the studio with them; I was in the studio with Cirkut and Madison Love. They were sending me ideas, I sent them ideas, and we finished it in the studio. They were like, \'It\'s a hit!\'” **“Diamonds & Dancefloors”** “I started that title track in the pandemic. It was one of the first songs I wrote for this. The song is really talking about wanting to be on the dance floor, not in my living room, watching another TV show during the pandemic. I wished the world would open. I wanted to be covered in glitter and diamonds on the dance floor.” **“In the Dark”** “I have a 19-year-old niece. She was talking to me in the studio, and she was like, ‘You should write a song about how sometimes guys don\'t want to hike with girls in the morning, how guys just want to bang and leave, and they just want to see you in the dark.’ That has definitely happened to me. I have definitely been banged and never talked to again. Why do guys only love in the dark sometimes? Love me during the day.” **“Turn Off the Lights”** “According to my niece, ‘Turn Off the Lights’ should\'ve come before \'In the Dark,\' but I really think I just wanted to end it more disco towards the end. I was thinking sonically. I wanted a dance record with no meaning behind it. I am so sick of writing breakup records with this album. I just wanted to close my eyes and dance.” **“One of Us”** “There’s the lyrics: ‘One of us would die for love/One of us would give it up.’ \[My ex\] just didn\'t want to do the work. And he was very toxic. That\'s so upsetting. You want to die for someone, and the other person doesn\'t want to die for you; it’s like, what am I doing? You\'re not meeting me halfway. I was crying in the studio. I went for a walk between writing the lyrics and melodies and recording, because I needed some fresh air. It’s the most intense song I\'ve ever written, recorded, and probably will perform.“ **“Get Outta My Heart”** “This song is really just about trying to get this guy out of my head, out of my car, and out of my heart. This is part of the healing process.” **“Cold As Ice”** “I was singing really low on that harmony. I sound like a man sometimes.” **“Last Night on Earth”** “‘Last Night on Earth’ was inspired by my love of end-of-the-world movies like *San Andreas* and *Geostorm*. I love them so much. I watched one, and then I went into the studio the next day and I said, ‘I just want to talk about the last night on Earth.’ We started talking about aliens and then we ended up writing this record about what we want to do at the end of the world: I want to be dancing or making love when the meteor strikes.” **“Dancing’s Done”** “This song almost didn\'t even make the album because I put it in last. This song is, I would say, my most sensual, sexy song. I don\'t usually sing in falsetto. It\'s a different side of me that people haven\'t heard. This song is the beginning of the next phase for me. I feel like I found a sound that I absolutely love.”
For years, Alice Glass was known as the innovative founding member and exhilarating frontwoman of the culture-shifting, goth-y electro-pop duo Crystal Castles; each track on her solo debut showcases her experience. Now that she’s free from her former band and allegedly abusive collaborator Ethan Kath, *PREY//IV* is an exorcism of her past suffering. “Fair Game” is haunted spoken-word techno written from the perspective of an abuser, which she has publicly labeled “trauma core.” “Pinned Beneath Limbs” explores the societal silencing of abuse survivors; “Everybody Else” is an unsettling listen, albeit offset by Glass’ angelic vocal tone—disassociation soundtracked by a child’s music box. If *PREY//IV* is Alice Glass’ first steps into a newfound creative freedom, she’s allowing the listener to hear what it took to get here—human pain articulated through energetic electronics.
The 10 songs that made up the fluorescent, experimental pop of Superorganism’s self-titled 2018 debut were the first 10 songs that the London-based, multi-national collective ever wrote together. When it came to making a follow-up, it was a simple case of keeping the creative spark alight. “We just continued where we left off with the first record,” guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Harry tells Apple Music. “We just didn’t stop writing.” With the group now retooled into a five-piece of core members who go by just their adopted first names—Harry, Orono, Tucan, B, and Soul—second album *World Wide Pop* expands their cosmic horizons through 13 mind-bending tracks of hyperactive synth-pop, warped indie rock, and cosmic electronica. “It’s about big versus small, teamwork, therapy, space, nature,” says singer Orono. Harry also believes it’s a more intimate and personal record than the debut. “The first record, we were trying to figure out what we were,” he says. “This time around, we felt a bit more comfortable owning who we are.” Featuring guests including Stephen Malkmus, CHAI, Boa Constrictors, and Gen Hoshino, it’s another light-speed leap ahead for one of the most forward-thinking groups in modern music. Read on for Harry and Orono’s track-by-track guide to *World Wide Pop*. **“Black Hole Baby”** Harry: “It felt like the opener to me because there’s the ‘welcome back’ theme in it, which I associate with Mase’s song ‘Welcome Back.’ It’s almost like we’re heralding our own return. Oasis did it, too, on *(What\'s the Story) Morning Glory?*, where there’s a song that opens the album \[‘Hello’\] that’s kind of triumphant sounding, and it’s a weird, self-congratulatory, ‘Welcome back, here we are!’” **“World Wide Pop”** Orono: “This is kind of like ‘The Prawn Song’ of this album in that it is kind of about nothing, but then it ended up being about everything and becoming the title of the album. We were trying to decide on an album title, and we were coming up with a bunch of pretty shitty ideas. And one of the ideas was just, why don’t we just call it *World Wide Pop* because we wrote a song called ‘World Wide Pop’ and it seems appropriate.” Harry: “The title has got this pompous vibe to it, like we’re uniting the world or whatever. That sums up what we’re about as a group—we don’t really take ourselves too seriously, but we do take what we do quite seriously.” **“On & On”** Harry: “We initially thought that we’d finished this album just before COVID broke out. Then it turned out we’d finished a demo draft of the record. We went back to the drawing board and reworked a bunch of the songs and wrote some new songs, and the last one of those was this. The initial spark came from the second lockdown. I was waking up feeling like every day was exactly the same as the last day. It started feeling like *Groundhog Day*. I was also listening to ‘Pure Shores’ by All Saints—that’s what triggered the production style of this song.” **“Teenager” (feat. CHAI & Pi Ja Ma)** Orono: “I feel like I’ve kind of cursed myself with this song because in pretty much every interview, they’re like, ‘So, why do you want to be a teenager? Isn’t that cringe and weird because most people hated being a teenager?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, obviously. I’m not meaning that seriously. I don’t mean any of the shit I say seriously.’ It’s still very much more of an observational song more than a personal one.” **“It’s Raining” (feat. Dylan Cartlidge & Stephen Malkmus)** Orono: “This is Tucan’s favorite song on the album because he loves Scott Walker, and that’s why we used a sample. He’s a weird pop legend, so I feel like it’s very fitting that he’s on the album. We were like, ‘So, Scott Walker’s pretty weird. How do we make it weirder? Let’s turn it into a hip-hop song!’” **“Flying”** Orono: “‘Flying’ was originally going to be for an unnamed movie, but then they were like, ‘We don’t want to use that song anymore.’ Originally, the movie people were like, ‘It should be about this and that, and it should be wholesome and fun,’ and I kind of steered it towards that direction. Once they were like, ‘We’re not going to use your song,’ I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m going to make it into whatever I want’ and tried to go in the opposite direction.” **“Solar System” (feat. CHAI, Pi Ja Ma, Boa Constrictors, Axel Concato & Paul Concato)** Harry: “‘Solar System’ always felt like a centerpiece for the record. I always thought it would end up being the end of Side One on the vinyl—that kind of vibe. It just floats along at a pace that, I think, is a perfect balance of how the record feels to my ears.” **“Into the Sun” (feat. Gen Hoshino, Stephen Malkmus, Pi Ja Ma & Axel Concato)** Harry: “This song and some of the others started out with little jam sessions where we were in the room together. But they then evolved so much, where we then go off and work remotely and piece it all together like a jigsaw and a collage anyway, that it ends up being kind of similar to the first record in terms of the process. The major difference is that once we’d all got together and we were working together and touring together and living together and stuff, you know each other’s instincts a lot more.” **“Put Down Your Phone”** Orono: “This was one of the earlier songs. It sounds like a Lil Yachty song to me. I don’t really know why. And the vibe is cool. At first, I was kind of worried, like, ‘Oh, is this too commanding to the audience or listener?’ But then we worked on it a bunch, and it ended up being not just about putting down your phone and stuff; it’s about consumer culture and self-care culture and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, it’s a very dense song, but it’s also very pop and very catchy. I think that dichotomy is interesting.” **“crushed.zip”** Orono: “I wanted to write a very annoying pop song that’s also kind of like an Elliott Smith song—very emo. That’s how I started the idea, and then Stuart Price’s production skills really shine on this one. He really took it to the next level with his ideas and choices. He really took the song to where it wanted to go.” Harry: “I always thought that the song has a *Pet Sounds* kind of feel to it because it’s got these lyrics that are quite sad, but melodically it’s really beautiful. Then Stuart brought this baroque sensibility that I thought just enhanced that even more.” **“Oh Come On”** Orono: “This one we started working on in Chicago with our friend Carter Lang, who is a big-time, big-boy producer now. I was super goddamn depressed that day and was binge-watching *RuPaul’s Drag Race* in my room, and my band were calling me, going, ‘It’s fun. Carter’s cool!’ And I was like, ‘No, Carter sounds lame, and I don’t want to leave my room, and I don’t want to shower. I don’t want to do anything.’ But then they forced me out of the Airbnb, and we wrote that song and it was very cathartic and a good time, so I’m very grateful for that experience.” **“Don’t Let the Colony Collapse”** Harry: “There’s an anxiety to this song, but an optimism as well, which is quite emblematic for the whole record. On the very first demo, there was a version of the chorus that was me singing into my phone on one of the hottest summer days on record. I remember going out, drinking a beer on the street with my mates, and the sky was this really weird orange color, and there was a homeless guy nearby whacking a piece of metal with a hammer. There was just something really David Lynch-apocalyptic about the whole scene.” **“Everything Falls Apart”** Harry: “It’s a nice bookend at the end, and there’s a really nice sentiment to it that ties it all back into the start. From the beginning, there’s this theme throughout the album of things being really hard to hold together and then, in the end, it finishes on quite an optimistic tone. It just feels natural at the end.”
Superorganism return with their second album World Wide Pop in July, their first new music since 2018’s self-titled debut. Blasting back with thirteen tracks that explore the infinite versus the intimate, taking in friendship, time, connectedness, and the universe; World Wide Pop contemplates the contradiction of being hopeful and curious when faced with relentless consumerism and overwhelming noise. However choosing optimism, Superorganism believe in the power of pop music and all the things it can do. World Wide Pop bridges the personal and existential whilst delivering a bag full of tunes laced with deadpan humour. World Wide Pop also brings in an international set of collaborators including Stephen Malkmus, CHAI, Pi Ja Ma, Dylan Cartlidge & legendary musician and actor Gen Hoshino.
When Los Angeles grrrl-punks The Regrettes broke through in the mid-2010s, they were known for their ferocious riffing and unapologetic attitude. On their third album, *Further Joy*, they lean into the light, pairing their withering observations on modern life with exuberant choruses and gleaming guitars. It\'s a move that shows off how Regrettes anchor Lydia Night\'s songwriting has evolved since her band\'s DIY days; the eff-the-world attitude that animated earlier Regrettes releases is still there, but songs like the buzzy disco cut \"Barely on My Mind\" and the bubbly shuffle \"Rosy\" channel that spirit into directions that go beyond three-chord punk and into pop\'s groovier, hookier outer dimensions. *Further Joy*\'s brightness also makes The Regrettes\' more pointed lyrics, like those of the world-weary recovery rebuke \"Step 9,\" leap out of the songs with increased intensity—a jolting combination that reminds listeners how, sometimes, smiles might not be expressing what they seem.
Lorely Rodriguez (aka Empress Of) told Apple Music that 2020’s *I’m Your Empress Of* album was “painful and vulnerable and urgent.” While the five-song *Save Me*—her first collection of music since then—has moments of melancholy (“I want to be somewhere familiar/My mind is in handcuffs,” she sings on “Cry for Help”), it’s hard to feel anything other than joy while listening to it. And that’s if you can keep still long enough to process what Rodriguez is singing. *Save Me* is highly danceable in the way of recent collaborations with MNDR (“Love in Reverse”) and Jim-E Stack (“Note to Self”), the latter of whom pops up here for the women’s empowerment anthem “Turn the Table.” Two other tracks within the painfully short set, “Save Me” and “Dance for You,” are cut from a mold of dance pop at its truest, built from heartache, yet steeped in hope.
“I’m too busy dancing to the drum in my head,” Lights sings on her fifth full-length album, a fitting declaration for an artist who’s always followed her muse wherever it leads, and who’s always taken her time to get her hybrid sound just right. *PEP* is the Ontario-bred singer’s first proper album in five years, and its epic opener, “Beside Myself,” is the sound of all that pent-up energy being released in a grand, wide-screen display. From there, Lights resumes her expertly executed tightrope walk between alt-rock and dance-pop, reconnecting with former collaborator Josh Dun of twenty one pilots for the future-funk of “In My Head” and fellow Canadian singer Kiesza for the club-thumping blues/trap mash-up of “Money in the Bag.” But, as ever, Lights’ radiant vocals—powered by equal doses of attitude and vulnerability—serve as the connective tissue between her genre-bounding adventures. And there’s no greater showcase for them than the aptly titled “Voices Carry,” which isn’t a cover of the ’Til Tuesday standard but belongs to a similar late-’80s milieu, yielding a heart-racing pop anthem that sounds like it’s beaming in from some parallel-universe John Hughes soundtrack.
As the title of this mixtape suggests, Toronto pop chameleon ELIO isn’t afraid to burn it all down. The lead-off quasi title track, “inferno,” wastes no time working itself up into the sort of urgent dance-pop earworm that’s earned her co-signs from Charli XCX and Troye Sivan. But 50 seconds in, the tape seemingly melts down, the song abruptly comes to a halt, and we hear ELIO declare: “No, I don’t want to write like that.” Those words comprise the opening line to the following “TYPECAST,” a futurist-R&B creeper where ELIO announces her refusal to be put in a box. And the rest of *ELIO’S INFERNO* reaffirms that sentiment, as she veers between breezy indie-pop relationship requiems (“new and improved”); jittery, synthy love songs (“Vitamins”); and profane gothic-soul kiss-offs (“Read the Room”). But no matter what form her tracks take, they’re united by ELIO’s incomparable candor and belief in music as therapy: While the closing “off my chest” begins with a playful admission of anxiety, the song’s ascendent rock-anthem structure packs all the stress-relieving power of a deep exhale.
For the last half-decade, Tegan and Sara have been stuck in the past. In 2017, the Quin twins embarked on a 10th-anniversary tour of their alt-pop classic *The Con* and followed it up by writing a memoir of their adolescent years, *High School*, which in turn spawned an album of rerecorded teenage-era demos (2019’s *Hey, I’m Just Like You*) and a spinoff TV series based on the book. On paper, the first track on the sisters’ 10th album, “I Can’t Grow Up,” appears to be born from a similar retro-gazing impulse. But within its opening seconds, a flurry of chopped-up vocals, pitch-shifted hooks, and heart-racing digital beats betray a different intent: this is the sound of Tegan and Sara slingshotting themselves into the future. The sisters didn’t intentionally set out to reinvent themselves as hyperpop prophets—it’s just what happens when pandemic lockdowns give you too much time to tinker with beatmaking apps on your iPhone. “I wanted to make something really energetic because we were trapped in slow motion,” Sara tells Apple Music. “With the pandemic, the tires screeched, and we were stuck for years. So, I definitely didn’t want to make a slow, sad record. I was like, ‘Let’s make something crazy!’” But as much as *Crybaby* is a high-energy rebuke to pandemic malaise, it’s also a vessel for the existential crises and big life changes that arose while they were sheltering in place, chronicling Tegan’s travails as a new dog owner, Sara’s difficult path to becoming a mother, and the sisters’ shared anxieties over the fate of their musical partnership. “It’s a record full of questions,” Tegan says. “Like, ‘What is our future? What do we do next? What is the purpose of all of this? What’s the point of our band?’ This era of Tegan and Sara that we’ve been in is over—the pop era is over, our thirties are over. So, what are we going to do? Well, I think we’re just gonna have to go forward.” Here, Tegan and Sara offer a guide to leaving the past behind as they talk through some of *Crybaby*’s tracks. **“I Can’t Grow Up”** Sara: “Through much of the pandemic, and really a couple of years leading up to the pandemic, I’ve been on my own personal journey with my partner around IVF and starting a family. A lot of these songs started because it seemed I was going to be forced into a new stage of adulthood. And I’ve sometimes embarrassingly struggled with that—even just small details, like, I’m 42 and I don’t have a driver’s license! I had to go back and figure out all of these kinds of details of my life that made me feel like a child. Here I am thinking, ‘Oh, I’m very accomplished! I’ve written books and traveled the world and put out albums—but why do I feel so immature?’ This song was really the big spark for this album.” **“All I Wanted”** Sara: “This is very specifically about the journey towards parenthood and the disappointment that comes when we weren’t successful \[at conceiving\]. We worked for years to try to have a child. There were lots of highs and lows, and there were moments where, when we wouldn’t be successful, I grappled with the feeling of relief and the guilt that sometimes came with that—like, ‘Is this actually what I want? Did we fail because I actually don’t want to have a kid?’ Maybe there was some part of me that was rebelling against the idea that parenthood is this ascension into some other higher level. There’s actually a lot of freedom in not having to enter into that sort of structure and that standard approach to life.” **“Fucking Up What Matters”** Tegan: “I had gotten a dog at the beginning of COVID, and it had been something I had prepared a lot for but still wasn’t prepared for in the end because it was a loss of autonomy and independence. For 39 years of my life, I was responsible just for myself, but all of a sudden, I was responsible for this intense border collie/German shepherd. All of a sudden, we had this dog, and every four seconds my partner was like, ‘Did you take the dog out? Did she poop yet? How many poops did she have? What did the poop look like?’ And I just had this slow unraveling, where I was like, ‘Is this the life that we live? We don’t tour anymore. It feels like we don’t make records anymore. Am I just going to be here, using up all the resources, slowly driving me and my partner insane?’ And then you just start to daydream: ‘What happens if I dismantle this relationship? Sure, it’s really good and I’m happy, and I finally have all this time with you…but what if I just destroyed that?’ I saw a lot of people around me asking that question about themselves, too, and Sara and I were asking it about ourselves. We left our record label because we didn’t want to be on a major anymore. We weren’t sure about if we wanted to make pop music anymore. We left our managers of 18 years. We were dismantling our own life. And sometimes that can feel really good, like wiggling a tooth that’s loose. It hurts, but it also makes you feel alive.” **“Yellow”** Sara: “Tegan and I have very publicly talked about how, over the past year, we’ve been doing some therapy together again as we rebuilt our business infrastructure, reconnected, and solidified our sister-slash-collaborative bond. We were getting ourselves prepared to go back into the world and start doing this again. So, this is one of the only songs that really focuses on that relationship between myself and Tegan, and how much we’ve been through.” **“I’m Okay”** Sara: “The real signature fingerprint for the album is this sample program that’s an app on my phone called Keezy. I made vocal samples and melodies and glitchy things on my phone because all of my legitimate musical equipment was in storage, and it was the pandemic, and I was too lazy to go get any of it. I ended up making a ton of music just using this crazy little weird app. And I think that’s probably why the hyperpop thing comes into play with the crazy drums and these glitchy sounds. But really, it was just because I had my iPhone, and I was like, ‘I can make music with anything!’” **“Pretty Shitty Time”** Tegan: “I remember when the pandemic started, there were so many people saying, ‘Oh no, now we’re gonna get pandemic albums!’ But then, there was a slew of albums that came out that were so upbeat, like Charli XCX or Dua Lipa. But I was like, ‘Wait, why can’t we talk about the biggest event of our generation?’ Isn’t that our job as artists? So, this is literally my pandemic song—it was a pretty shitty time. And yet I was writing that in my cabin on a remote island off the coast of Vancouver with my partner and my dog, looking at the ocean and feeling pretty frickin’ happy too. So, there might’ve been a little residual guilt in the lyrics. Here’s this incredibly powerful and monumental thing that’s occurring all over the world and affecting billions of people, but like most people, I’m only thinking about my own depression and my own anxiety and my own loneliness. And I think it’s hilarious those lyrics are juxtaposed with a completely upbeat banger. It’s such a party song.” **“Under My Control”** Sara: “This is a song about me and my partner—a conversation about relationships, fertility, life. We weren’t on the precipice of breaking up or anything. We’ve been together almost 12 years, but when you start to talk about something substantial like having children, it sets off tremors in every other area of your shared existence. We moved back to Canada \[from LA\], and we had to deal with immigration, and we bought a home together in Vancouver, and it was a brand-new city for us, and we had to reestablish our community and our social network. And in the midst of that, we’re dealing with hormones and fertility treatments. We were having a lot of really challenging conversations.”
Hanna first announced the album during a live performance of her debut single, "Out Loud". The album has been in the making since 2017 and, as of October 2020, will not include any material released prior to the lead single "Call Me Crazy" . On September 6, 2017, Hanna released her debut single "Out Loud" to help promote her book, Adultolescence. The song was a success, reaching #3 on iTunes and #30 on the Billboard Digital Sales Chart, which inspired her to start work on a debut album. On August 14, 2018, Hanna released the album's originally intended lead single, "Honestly", and its encore. The songs were a success and shot to #1 and #2, respectively, on the iTunes US chart. Despite its success, the song was later scrapped from the album. On September 25, 2020, Hanna released "Call Me Crazy" as the official lead single for the album. A month later, Hanna released the album's second official single "Shut Me Up" on October 30, 2020.
Little Dragon have announced their new EP ‘Opening The Door’, set for release on 16th September on Ninja Tune. Released is new single “Frisco” - a bouncy minimal dance track about “renewal, letting out your full potential and moving with the wave of change and life” The EP also features “Stay”, a collaboration with respected East Atlanta rapper JID (signed with J. Cole’s Dreamville label who has previously collaborated with the likes of Joey Bada$$, A$AP Ferg, 6LACK, Ella Mai and Method Man). “We found out JID was a fan of our music and so started listening to his,” explain the band. “The feeling quickly became mutual. His writing and singing is so sharp and creative we had to ask him to be on a track!” The result is a sultry track that muses on the tribulations of being in a long term relationship, “showing your vulnerability and expressing your wishes to keep dreaming and growing with that person” A second collaboration, and final track on the EP, comes in the form of “Peace” an ethereal, rhythmic song which features the acclaimed Swedish musician Stefan Sandberg, who contributes flute to the track. Speaking about the release of the EP, the band said: “‘Opening The Door’ represents being brave and moving forward into the unknown. Endless possibilities and embracing uncertainty. We have so much new music to share, and it feels like we are finally opening the door and releasing it out from our bubble and into the universe!” The band are also currently touring across the US and Canada alongside Leon Bridges, with shows still to come in NYC, Boston, Washington, Portland, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, Santa Barbara and many more. The EP follows the release of recent singles “Drifting Out” (a triptych comprising three takes on a central track, with contributions from Kelsey Lu and renowned cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Jakob Koranyi), “The Other Lover” (a collaboration with Moses Sumney), and the release of their “New Me, Same Us Remix EP” which featured the likes of Midland, Octo Octa, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Ela Minus and many more. Their most recent album ‘New Me, Same Us’ was released on Ninja Tune in 2020 and lauded by the likes of the New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, The Guardian, Mixmag, Crack Magazine and many more. Entirely self-produced and recorded at the pioneering Swedish band’s studio, ‘New Me, Same Us’ saw the band go back to basics, falling back in love with their instruments: drums, bass, keyboards, harp, guitar and voice, to produce some of their most focused and best music to date. The album hit #5 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart in the US, with Mixmag calling it “a futuristic record bursting with lush textures and elevated by lead singer Yukimi Nagano’s sublime vocals” and the Guardian finding them on “on deliciously soulful form”. The band’s hugely popular and highly regarded live performances have spawned a decade-spanning touring career, including festival highlights such as Coachella, Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Bestival, Sonar, All Points East, Dimensions Festival, Parklife, Lovebox, Love Saves The Day, Melt and Dour; co-headlining the Hollywood Bowl and Berkeley’s Greek Theatre with Flying Lotus supported by BADBADNOTGOOD and sold out two nights at London’s Roundhouse. While the global pandemic put touring on hold, the band also joined NPR Music for an intimate Tiny Desk (Home) Concert filmed at their long-term home-built studio in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Alison Wonderland tells Apple Music she wrote her third album “after having the rug pulled from under me in a lot of different aspects of my life. I was at complete rock bottom, and I had no one except myself to deal with what was going on.” Rather than revert to old habits, however, the DJ, producer, and singer found strength within. “When I was writing, I listened back to my other albums and thought, ‘OK, you’re victimizing yourself in all these albums,’ and I don’t want to be the victim anymore. I thought, ‘I’m going to change the narrative—I’m going to bring power back into anything that’s negative in my life.’ And so, I thought that I would use the term ‘loner’ as an empowering word and not make it a negative thing.” The concept of polarity became a driver, thematically and musically, Alison channeling moments of extreme light and darkness while contrasting her trademark electronic approach with more organic instrumentation. Here, the Sydney-born, LA-based artist walks through *Loner*, track by track. **“Forever”** “I can pinpoint exactly where I was when this song happened. I was in a Starbucks drive-through with my friend, and I was crying. I was trying everything to get my life back together, and I had no answers. I was so frustrated, and I felt so alone. I was crying to my friend and said, ‘It’s going to feel like this forever—nothing’s going right no matter how hard I try.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘It will feel like forever until it doesn’t.’ That’s the truth. It felt like forever. And then, one day, it didn’t.” **“Safe Life”** “I’m saying I’m not about the safe life. I’m sick of doubting myself. I’m not gonna play it safe, and I’m just going to live my life to the fullest. There’s a lot of freedom in taking risks and putting yourself out there, and it does feel like a weight off your shoulders because fear holds us back. It\'s my favorite drop I’ve ever made.” **“Fuck U Love U”** “This song is basically about my relationship with music. It’s kind of like, fuck you, but I love you so much, and I hate you, but I want it so badly. Again, that polarity, when you love something so much that you’re working so hard for it—there’s this extreme frustration and anger that can come with that if you’re not getting it.” **“New Day”** “This is a very hopeful song. It’s reminding myself that even if today doesn’t work out the way I want, tomorrow will be a new day and you’ll have another chance. My feet will touch the ground, and I have a chance to try again, and I’m grateful for that.” **“I’m Doing Great Now Thanks (Interlude)”** “It’s a message that I’m doing great now, thanks. At the end, I wrote a poem for the listener. I believe words are very powerful, and I’m putting out something really good into the air for them. You’ll only really know what I’m saying if you play it backwards.” **“Something Real”** “It’s the only love song I’ve ever written. I don’t ever feel that inspired by positive things when I’m making art, but this is the happiest song I could make. When I listen to it now, I am smiling because I know that when I wrote it, I was purely happy and grateful and in disbelief that I had changed my reality so much. I’m so happy I was able to channel that energy into sound.” **“Eyes Closed”** “I was in a hotel room in Berlin, and I was about to play a warehouse party, and I recorded those vocals in my hotel room. I wanted to make something musically with the polarity in it, so it’s very industrial and then it goes into a really long breakdown that is minimal, and then it goes back into this industrial kind of drum ’n’ bass influence.” **“Bad Things”** “I wrote this at the start of a rebirth, and it was about not letting negativity invade my space anymore. I wanted to remind myself I’m still here and I’m still breathing and I’m lucky to be doing so and to be grateful for that. I wanted it to be very euphoric. I’m acknowledging the darkness, but I’m inviting in the light.” **“Thirst”** “It’s about how no one can really be me, as much as they try. I wrote it about how I’m one step ahead always, because I’m just being myself.” **“Cocaine”** “This song is funny. I was sitting on a couch in an Airbnb in Auckland, and my voice memo that I wrote for the demo, which was only one take, I kept as the final vocal. I was so inspired and so annoyed. I was picturing these people in the industry who think they know you, but they do not: the guy at the club with the bad leather shoes and the pants that are too tight and the sports jacket, with the used-car-salesman personality. Something had triggered me during my time of healing, and I was so pissed off.” **“Fear of Dying”** “I wrote this about my manager. He’s also my best friend. We’ve done this together, DIY, from the start. He’s the only person who ever believed in me when no one else did. I do not know what I would do without \[him\]. It’s a huge fear, and I felt like I needed to write it out and acknowledge it. I’m just scared of losing him.” **“Loner”** “‘Loner’ is an open letter to the things I wanted but never got. It’s an open letter to my trauma, it’s an open letter to my loss. I find it very difficult to listen to. It’s the one song I’ve played to friends, some very unemotional males, and I’ve made them cry because they knew what I went through. This is a really intimate song for me. It’s the scariest one to put out.”
An electro-pop reverie recalls toxic affairs and broken promises.
Passions run high on the sisters’ bass- and breakbeat-driven LP.
