The Black Keys have spent the past two decades carrying the banner of blues-rock revivalism into the present. The duo have sold more records than most pop stars and have proven, time and time again, that rock has always been here—if you were willing to look. The band, made up of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, emerged from Akron, Ohio, in the early aughts as a welcome counterbalance to what was monopolizing record shelf space at the time. The New York City alternative scene was thriving, with bands including The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, and Interpol dictating the sound coming out of venues, warehouses, and loft spaces up and down the East Coast. Auerbach and Carney, meanwhile, were crafting a sound that was more Mississippi Delta than Mercury Lounge. The duo’s shared love of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Thin Lizzy, and T. Rex formed the foundation of their lo-fi sound, and they spent the next two decades expanding their range, introducing elements of psychedelia and big-chorus anthems that made them festival-headlining mainstays. Now, The Black Keys are returning with album number 12, the aptly titled *Ohio Players*, a project that bubbles over with the energy of two dudes just here for a good time. “I think once we experienced success, it was like, ‘Let’s try to keep it going and not make the same record again,’” Carney tells ALT CTRL Radio’s Hanuman Welch. “But what happened during this process was the pandemic hits, and after a year of not seeing each other, we walk in the studio to start working on our next record, and something had just changed between us. It was like we finally became best friends; everything was enjoyable. Creatively, we were starting to kind of push things a little bit, but as soon as we finished \[2022 album\] *Dropout Boogie*, before it was even released, we started working on this record. The intention was to call our friends to come in and work with us.” Past collaborations have netted The Black Keys the sort of accolades other bands work their entire careers hoping to achieve. The duo’s *El Camino*, co-produced by Danger Mouse, won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance in 2013. But *Ohio Players* is the first time the band has truly collaborated in the sense of sharing writing and performing duties. And then they brought on some friends. The album’s first single, “Beautiful People (Stay High),” was co-written by Beck and Dan the Automator, and is the result of supporting Beck on tour 20 years ago after meeting him at a 2003 *SNL* after-party. “I just busted out this promo CD,” Carney remembers. “And I was like, ‘This is my band.’ And two weeks later, Beck reached out and took us on tour. So, this track is a result of this relationship and fandom that I have for Beck. We’ve been talking about making music off and on for years, and right when we finished our last record, we’re like, ‘Get down, it’s time.’” The Black Keys managed to enlist another generational talent for the project: Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. “\[Collaboration\] can always fall flat on its face,” says Carney. “And so, we basically spent 80 grand running the gamble of, ‘This could not work,’ because we didn\'t have a song. So, we booked the smallest, tiniest studio in London, really, Toe Rag—it’s where The White Stripes did *Elephant*. It was, like, zero frills. We showed up, and Noel was there—a guy we’ve briefly met a couple of times, and a legend—and we’re now going to write a song from scratch. Within two hours, we had it, and within another two hours, we had the take. Noel was like, ‘I’ve never actually done this before.’” Two decades in, the novelty of working with people whose music they love still hasn’t worn off. “The thing I’m most proud of, as a fan of music, is to have gotten in the studio with people who I’m a fan of and make something I’m proud of and that they’re proud of,” adds Carney. “It just is a really amazing feeling.”
In dance music, few boundaries are as powerful as the wall between the mainstream and the underground. Four Tet is the rare artist who has managed to knock it down. The endlessly curious English producer Kieran Hebden—who has been bridging gaps between far-apart sounds like spiritual jazz, indie rock, R&B, and techno since the late ’90s—surprised fans in 2023 when he teamed up with main-stage party boys Skrillex and Fred again.., transforming Coachella and Madison Square Garden into pop-up raves. What had become of their underground darling? But Hebden isn’t one to unpack. Here, on his 12th full-length, he veers back into the cerebral sounds he’s known for: lush, patient, radiant soundscapes that verge on meditations. “Daydream Repeat,” a clear standout, is twinkling and weightless, the sort of flow-state reverie that can lift you outside of yourself. “31 Bloom” has similarly club-friendly grooves but feels fully rooted, with synths and drums that rub together like sneakers across a dance floor. But no track stretches quite like the mystical, New Age-y “Three Drums,” an eight-minute panorama of birdsong flutes, rainfall textures, and pulsing synths that echo Moby’s 1999 hit “Porcelain.” As the song unfolds into an ambient canvas of sound waves and sighs, it begins to feel less like music and more like breath—a blissful sanctuary to slip into and get lost in. As a destination, it isn’t too far from that of his big-tent contemporaries; dance music, in essence, is about freedom and release. In that way, *Three* finds Hebden doing what he does best: finding clever, unexpected ways to bring disparate listeners into the same space.
Pond’s natural penchant for bombast made the Perth quintet perennial candidates for turning in a double album, and this 10th LP finally makes it happen. *Stung!* plays like a robust showreel of everything the band does so well, from the glam flourishes of “(I’m) Stung” and Day-Glo bluster of “Neon River” to the tight, Prince-ly funk of “So Lo” and Beach Boys-esque harmonies and hues of “Last Elvis.” Sudden scene changes are always a given with Pond: Observe how the dank drum-fills and Sabbath-style vocal effects of “Black Lung” lead right to the understated quietude of “Sunrise for the Lonely.” Through it all, singer/guitarist Nick Allbrook leads the chameleonic efforts of multi-instrumentalists Jay Watson, Jamie Terry, Joe Ryan, and James Ireland on an extended roller coaster of contrasts. Packing the most disparate elements into a single sitting is “Edge of the World Pt. 3,” an eight-minute odyssey featuring dreamy flute and sax from guest Thea Woodward and a monster guitar solo by Dungen’s Reine Fiske. And yet Allbrook’s coolly charismatic stewardship keeps the album feeling more coherent than chaotic, right up until the well-earned comedown of the closing ballad, “Fell From Grace With the Sea.”
Kelly Lee Owens’ musical journey has been a fascinating one. After spending time as the bassist of the noisy British indie-pop outfit The History of Apple Pie, she took an abrupt left turn into electronic territory with 2017’s self-titled debut album, which melded brainy production with melodic pop gewgaws delivered straight from the Welsh singer-songwriter’s pipes. 2020’s *Inner Song* and the 2022 follow-up *LP.8* ventured further into strange territory, the former featuring a cover of Radiohead’s “Arpeggi” and a feature from art-pop luminary John Cale—but nothing she’s done previously can prepare you for the total rush of her fourth album *Dreamstate*. Owens’ music has always been body-moving even at its most abstract, but on her inaugural bow for the 1975 production impresario George Daniel’s dh2 imprint, she heads full-on into big-room territory—think miles of pulsing synths, dewy rhythmic stretches lovingly ripped from trance’s fabric, and a distinct psychedelic flavor. *Dreamstate* is, in its essence, a capital-B big-sounding record, with guest turns from the type of folks—The Chemical Brothers, Bicep, and Daniel himself all pitch in on programming and production—who know how to play to massive crowds looking to feel something. But the sound of this record retains the trademark wispy intimacy that Owens has proven so good at, launching her to the forefront of electronic pop alongside fellow sneaky-smart dance-pop alchemists like Jamie xx, Caribou, Floating Points, and HAAi. The lush, soaring build of “Higher” dissolves into the type of pulsing synth line that you can practically feel in your bloodstream, while “Air” packs a four-to-the-floor punch as her vocals aerate the neon house-music surroundings. Owens’ pop sensibilities, which she’s cloaked in mysterious left-field sonic shapes in the past, are more present than ever before: Witness the arpeggiated ascent of “Rise,” which features a lovely vocal sigh reminiscent of Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work,” or the bell-clear sincerity of “Ballad (In the End),” the most straightforwardly vocal pop cut of the bunch.
Few genres feel as inherently collaborative as jazz, and even fewer contemporary artists embody that spirit quite like Kamasi Washington. After bringing a whole new generation of listeners to jazz through his albums *The Epic* and *Heaven and Earth*, as well as his collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, the Los Angeles native and saxophonist amassed an impressively eclectic set of guests to join his forthcoming bandleader project *Fearless Movement*. Among the guests were Los Angeles rapper D Smoke and funk legend George Clinton, who joined him for “Get Lit.” “That was definitely a beautiful moment,” Washington tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “The sessions were magical; it was like being in a studio with just geniuses.” Originally written by Washington’s longtime drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. (also known as the brother of bass virtuoso Thundercat), “Get Lit” sat around for a bit before the divine inspiration struck to invite Clinton and D Smoke to build upon it. After Washington attended the former’s art exhibition and the latter’s Hollywood Bowl concert in Los Angeles, it couldn’t have been clearer to him who the band needed to make the song shine. Washington compares Clinton’s involvement to magic, marveling in the studio at just how the Parliament-Funkadelic icon operates. “It\'s like we\'re listening to it and he\'s living in it,” he says, conveying how natural it felt having him participate. “When he decides to add something to some music, it\'s like water.” As for D Smoke, Washington was so impressed by the two-time Grammy nominee’s sense of musicality. “He plays keys, he understands harmony, and all that other stuff. He just knew exactly what to do.” As implied by “Get Lit,” the contributors on *Fearless Movement* come from varied backgrounds and scenes, from the modern R&B styles of singer BJ the Chicago Kid to the shape-shifting sounds of Washington’s *To Pimp a Butterfly* peer Terrace Martin. Still, the name that will stand out for many listeners is André 3000, who locked in with the band on the improvisational piece “Dream State.” The Outkast rapper turned critically acclaimed flautist arrived with a veritable arsenal of flutes, inspiring all the players present. “André has one of the most powerful creative spirits that I\'ve ever experienced,” Washington says. “We just created that whole song in the moment together without knowing where we was going.” Allowing himself to give in to the uncertainty and promise of that particular moment succinctly encapsulates the wider ethos behind all of *Fearless Movement*. “A lot of times, I feel like you can get stuck holding on to what you have because you\'re unwilling to let it go,” he says. “This album is really speaking on that idea of just being comfortable in what you are and where you want to go.”
As important as it is to foreground the Tuareg/Nigerien heritage of Mdou Moctar’s scorching psychedelic rock, it’s just as important to note its connection to the American underground. After all, *Funeral for Justice* isn’t “folk music” in any touristic or anthropological sense, and it’s probably as (if not more) likely to appeal to fans of strictly American weirdos like Ty Segall or Thee Oh Sees as anything out of West Africa. Still, anyone unfamiliar with the stutter-step rhythm of Tuareg music should visit “Imajighen” and the lullaby-like hush of “Modern Slaves” immediately, and it pleases the heart to imagine a borderless future in which moody teenage guitarists might study stuff like “Sousoume Tamacheq” the way Moctar himself studied Eddie Van Halen. As with 2021’s breakthrough *Afrique Victime*, the intensity is astonishing, the sustain hypnotic, and the combination of the two an experience most listeners probably haven’t had before.
On Chaz Bear’s eighth studio album under the Toro y Moi moniker, he returns to his roots. No, not the chillwave roots he became celebrated for in the late 2000s and early 2010s with initial singles and *Causers of This*, but his actual roots as a fan of pop punk, alternative, and rap music. “Hollywood,” which begins with a melodic bassline that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Green Day record, features Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and finds Bear waxing somewhat nostalgically about his early days as Toro y Moi. “Poor navigation, who am I to blame?/No one even calls me by my real name,” he sings. “Heaven,” which features BROCKHAMPTON alumni Kevin Abstract and Lev, begins with a campfire-worthy acoustic guitar riff and layered vocals from Bear and his guests. The slow-burning alt-R&B jam finds Toro y Moi showcasing the natural beauty of his voice and imploring the song’s subject to find the joy he finds throughout the album: “Baby, let it go/Let it go.”
The Decemberists’ first album in six years feels like a homecoming. After the somber and reflective *What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World* in 2015 and the synth-laden protest songs of 2018’s *I’ll Be Your Girl*, their ninth LP, *As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again*—their first-ever double album—is a freewheeling and deeply pleasurable odyssey through the Portland folk-rockers’ estimable history. No stone in the band’s past is left unturned here: There are echoes of the wistfulness that drew so many listeners in circa 2002’s instant classic *Castaways and Cutouts*, as well as the flamboyant instrumentation and arched-eyebrow storytelling that marked 2005’s star-making *Picaresque*. Even *As It Ever Was*’ stormy and surprisingly bruising closer, the nearly 20-minute “Joan in the Garden,” instantly recalls the band’s 2009 proggy opus *The Hazards of Love* in its “Aqualung”-esque stomp, complete with meaty guitar riffs. At first glance, Colin Meloy and co. are doing a lot across the ample framework of *As It Ever Was*—but their successfully executed sense of ambition is perfectly complemented by the sweet musical simplicity of these 13 songs, some of Meloy’s most straightforwardly gorgeous music put to tape. Accompanied by The Shins’ James Mercer and R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, the easy jangle of “Burial Ground” is practically The Decemberists’ own take on The Byrds’ classic “Turn! Turn! Turn!” while “America Made Me” leavens Meloy’s acerbic sociopolitical observations with a horn-laden bar-band boisterousness. “Don’t want stunning wordplay/All I want is you,” Meloy nakedly intones on “All I Want Is You,” perhaps a cheeky self-referential moment towards his own penchant for lyrical verbosity. But *As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again* reaffirms that The Decemberists are at their strongest when embracing their most long-held creative tendencies.
In January 2021, news broke that the pioneering pop producer SOPHIE had died, aged only 34, after a tragic fall when she was attempting to glimpse the moon. The outpouring of grief was instantaneous and the tributes heartfelt, as artists including Rihanna, Flying Lotus, Sam Smith, Christine and the Queens, Rina Sawayama, and Nile Rodgers honored a visionary talent who had touched—and forever changed—pop with her restlessly inventive and, eventually, mainstream-conquering sound. As Jack Antonoff put it on social media at the time, “she’s been at the forefront for a long time and we see her influence in every corner of music…an artist who truly had the ideas first and the guts to put it out there.” Almost four years later arrives *SOPHIE*, the follow-up to SOPHIE’s 2017 debut *Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides* and the album the artist had been working on—and almost finished—before her death. Promised as her only posthumous album, it was completed by SOPHIE’s brother and studio engineer Ben Long, who’d been working closely with her on the record, and who intimately understood her vision for it. Despite the artist’s undeniable impact on radio-friendly pop, this being SOPHIE, the record isn’t always an accessible, straightforward listen. *SOPHIE* is split into four sections of four songs, each exploring different moods, and each one arriving like a thrillingly abrupt left turn. The record almost feels like a voyaging DJ set through her musical world. There’s ambient music (“Intro (The Full Horror)”), frenetic, crunchy production and late-night club sounds to raise anxiety levels (there’s a song called “Berlin Nightmare”). But then there’s also ebullient and expertly crafted pop moments that will make you want to turn the volume right up, from the summer-ready “Reason Why” with Kim Petras and BC Kingdom to “Why Lies,” also with BC Kingdom and LIZ. Later come softer, often yearning tracks, the kind of songs that showcase what always made SOPHIE’s music—and the hyperpop sound she helped pioneer—so special: its heart. See “Always and Forever,” which features PC Music talent Hannah Diamond’s wispy vocals against softer, yet still bouncing, production and lyrics about transcending time and moving towards the light. Indeed, unlike on *Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides*, there are guests on every song on *SOPHIE*, including Petras and Diamond, as well as Cecile Believe, Jozzy, Bibi Bourelly, and artist, writer, and DJ Juliana Huxtable. And that roster feels poignant for SOPHIE’s final album: This is an artist who has always been synonymous with community, collaboration, and friendship. Her chosen guests here deliver spoken word (on the racing yet strangely addictive “Plunging Asymptote” and the spacey “The Dome’s Protection”), pitched-up vocals (“Live in My Truth”), and lonely, heartbreak-fueled lyricism, as on the gorgeous, ’80s-referencing “My Forever” with Cecile Believe, one of the album’s standout moments. “I want to go back to forever,” she sings. “You’ll always be my forever.” Listening to *SOPHIE* is often an exhilarating experience, but it’s also a bittersweet one, a reminder of the producer’s extraordinary ambition and boundless experimentation—and of how much she still had to give.
There was a time, not so long ago, when things felt relatively simple for Beatrice Laus: She’d write and record songs in her London bedroom, she’d post them online, the world would come to her or it wouldn’t. But it did—very much so. To such an extent and at such a dizzying clip that, still 23 and just two albums into her career, the Up Next alum found herself taking a meeting with Rick Rubin—part mystic, part producer, part institution. “I think we just wanted to meet each other,” she tells Apple Music. “The entire meeting was about life and just catching up. It was almost like a therapy session. I think at the end I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve been making some songs. Do you want to hear them?’” Those songs became part of *This Is How Tomorrow Moves*, a lush and supremely confident third full-length that Laus would go on to record with Rubin at Shangri-La, his legendary studio in Malibu—a long way from said London bedroom. It’s an album about self-realization and growing up, written in the aftermath of a breakup, as Laus—fully online and in the public eye, on tour and away from home—came to terms with a life that had become unrecognizable to her. “I really needed music to help me understand what my brain was going through,” she says. “I just had so much to say. I didn’t really think about the way it sounded. You know when you really badly need to go to the toilet? That’s what it felt like: I really badly needed to write a song.” At Shangri-La, Rubin encouraged Laus to see and hear what she’d written in its simplest and clearest emotional terms. Though she still takes plenty of inspiration from a wide swath of ’90s alt-rock and pop (“Post,” the Incubus-like “Take a Bite”), she is equally at home here at the center of a spare piano ballad (“Girl Song”) as she is amid the fanfare of an incandescent indie-folk cut (“Ever Seen”). It’s the sound of an artist finding clarity and herself, an artist leveling up. “I think being in a space like Shangri-La, and knowing that you’re making this record with Rick, it definitely kind of kicks you,” she says. “Like, ‘All right, it’s time to shine.’” Read on as Laus takes us inside a few highlights from the album. **“Girl Song”** “I think you can argue that ‘Girl Song,’ out of all the songs on the record, is the most tragic. I wrote it because I’m still trying to figure that one out, just in terms of growing up and loving myself and the way I look and physical appearance and all that mumbo jumbo. But it sits at number six, just because I just felt like it was perfect. It had to be perfectly in the middle of the record because it didn’t suit the beginning or the end. It was just how I felt at that moment.” **“Beaches”** “I wrote ‘Beaches’ because of how terrified I was getting into this. I am the sort of person that values feeling comfortable and loyalty and trusting people around me, not changing a lot of things. But I would’ve been an idiot if I had said no \[to Rubin\]. I remember my boyfriend being like, ‘Are you crazy? You have to go.’ I’m so used to making music back at home, not in a massive, fancy place.” **“The Man Who Left Too Soon”** “I actually wrote it in LA, in my hotel room. I’ve never really experienced death in family. I always wondered how that felt like. My current boyfriend, unfortunately, lost his dad around his twenties; I really got to see how that would feel like and how that would affect someone. I wanted to write about it so I can understand what that would mean to other people and what that would mean to him and what that would mean to me.” **“This Is How It Went”** “It makes me so anxious: A very intense thing happened to me, and I needed to write about it. I have to say all this shit.”
For their third album, Kentucky hardcore troupe Knocked Loose chose a title that resonated deeply with vocalist Bryan Garris. During an airplane takeoff that triggered Garris’ fear of flying, the woman seated next to him offered the comforting words, “You won’t go before you’re supposed to.” “The line struck him so strongly that it immediately occurred to him that it should be the title,” Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale tells Apple Music. “It also became a lyric in the last song, ‘Sit & Mourn.’ Like the rest of our records, this is a collection of stuff from Bryan’s personal struggles dealing with anger and loss and depression and sadness. It’s a reminder to him—and all of us—that we’re still here. We made it through all the hardships that came with the past four years of writing this.” Musically speaking, Knocked Loose entered the writing sessions for *You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To* with a very different mindset than the one that drove their 2019 breakthrough *A Different Shade of Blue* and revered 2021 concept EP *A Tear in the Fabric of Life*. “There was just way more pressure, and we had way more experience,” Hale says. “Some people view the third album as a make-or-break record. We had pressure from the fans and the outside world, but more so pressure from ourselves. We thought, ‘How can we possibly outdo what we’ve done before?’ It was tough, but I think we were able to come up with a record where every song accomplishes something unique.” Below, he discusses each track. **“Thirst”** “This was written in the first session that we ever had for this record. It was written before *A Tear in the Fabric of Life* even came out. It came from a jam session we were having where we wanted to create a really difficult song on drums to challenge our drummer Pacsun. We wanted something super short, super intense, and we just made it as complex as we could. And to start the record, it’s something we’ve never done before—a super in-your-face jump scare.” **“Piece by Piece”** “This was our attempt at doing kind of a Hatebreed-esque banger. It has a hook to it, but the hook is one of the mosh parts in the song, akin to \[Hatebreed’s\] ‘Perseverance.’ One of the things we wanted to accomplish on this record was to create stuff that was hooky and catchy, but at the same time crazy heavy. In many ways, I think that it’s the most hardcore song on the record, and that’s what we love about it. It’s our version of a catchy hardcore track that can really connect with people.” **“Suffocate” (feat. Poppy)** “We wrote this song after we thought we had a finished record. Before we went to record, Poppy slid into Bryan’s DMs asking if we would be interested in collaborating on some music. Me and Bryan are huge Poppy fans, so of course we said yes automatically. That same day, Bryan called me like, ‘Hey, man—I’m coming over. We need to write another song.’ We wrote the track the next day, and it was one of the smoothest writing experiences on the record because we wrote it knowing Poppy was going to be a part of it. And because of that, we were able to do some sassy parts that maybe we wouldn’t put on a normal Knocked Loose song but that really work with her voice. I think it’s one of the most special songs we’ve ever written.” **“Don’t Reach for Me”** “This was our attempt at writing a song with a more rock- or pop-oriented structure. It’s different from stuff that we\'ve done before because it has a slightly melodic chorus with a hook. It has a soft bridge with a jam part and some cleaner guitar. And a lot of it is midtempo, besides the very beginning. It only gets fast very briefly. That’s very new for us. There’s like seven mosh parts, so we needed to balance those. It took a long time to figure out, but I think the final product really succeeds in that juxtaposition.” **“Moss Covers All”** “This was written in the second writing session that we did for this record, up in Michigan. We woke up one morning, started jamming, and we were just not coming up with a lot of stuff we liked. We were pretty much just throwing paint at the wall and getting aggravated. When we took a break, I had an idea and basically wrote this entire song in my head in about a minute. I voice memo’d it briefly on my phone and then immediately started putting it down without telling the guys. When they came back, I played it for them—and what I played is pretty much exactly what’s on the record. It’s short, sweet, and super heavy, with a breakdown and a spooky lead that goes directly into the next song.” **“Take Me Home”** “‘Moss Covers All’ and ‘Take Me Home’ are very much connected songs. ‘Moss Covers All’ was written first, but then we really felt the need to have a song on here that’s meant to scare you. We didn’t worry about a mosh part or any sort of heaviness. We just wanted a scary track that’s uncomfortable and throws the listener off guard. When we were thinking about what shape that could take, I immediately thought of that spooky lead from ‘Moss Covers All,’ which we ended up looping as the blueprint for this track.” **“Slaughterhouse 2” (feat. Chris Motionless)** “This song started as an inside joke because Motionless in White was kind enough to reach out to Bryan and have him collaborate on one of their songs, ’Slaughterhouse,’ a very heavy, politically charged track. We’re all huge Motionless in White fans, so of course he accepted. And then we were able to tour with them. As soon as Bryan did that track, we were joking that we should do a song called ‘Slaughterhouse 2.’ We were just kind of laughing about it for a while, but then we thought we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t do it. Chris was down from the beginning, and his voice is amazing on this. It was a challenge to match the theme and vibe of the original song, but I think we were able to create something that’s not just a great sequel, but that really stands on its own as a highlight of the record.” **“The Calm That Keeps You Awake”** “The funny thing about this one is that the song totally revolves around the huge breakdown at the end. That part was written first, as part of another thing that was written before *A Tear in the Fabric* had even come out. So, like four years ago, we needed to write new parts because the rest of the song we’d written wasn’t up to par, but that breakdown was super necessary. In doing so, we created this really cool, Meshuggah-esque, kind of Sepultura-auxiliary-percussion vibe that’s one of the most unique parts of the record.” **“Blinding Faith”** “We definitely have some jabs at religious hypocrisy throughout the Knocked Loose discography, and this is just kind of an update on that situation. We hadn\'t done one in a while, and it was something that was feeling close to home for Bryan at the time. To me, this sounds like a mix of some of our greatest riffs that we’d written over the course of a year—it’s kind of a riff-salad song. In some ways, it’s one of the heaviest and scariest songs on the record, so we put it out as a single to say, ‘If you thought we were going to get any softer, absolutely not. And here’s proof.’” **“Sit & Mourn”** “This one revolves around the melodic lead and the kind of ambient post-rock breakdown at the end. We wrote that in the first writing session in Joshua Tree, and it took us a while to come up with more parts that we felt were that good. But the song is very, very anthemic. It sounds very dark and melancholic, but at the same time, the lyrics are positive in a way. Thematically, it’s kind of a title track in the way that the lyrics relate to the name of the record. I know it was a very cathartic song for Bryan. In many ways, it’s the saddest song on the record, but in other ways it’s the most positive. And it’s mentally exhausting from start to finish. It ends with a sound clip that I won’t disclose, but it’ll take you by surprise.”
Fred Gibson (aka Fred again..) is the kind of artist who can turn his formidable talents to anything—glossy pop productions for acts like Little Mix and Rita Ora; crowd-pleasing radio hits fronted by George Ezra and Ed Sheeran; thumping UK rap cuts featuring Stormzy and Aitch; electrifying club collaborations with Skrillex and Swedish House Mafia. His intuitive ability to create moments for others notwithstanding, Gibson—as previously demonstrated on his *Actual Life* series of albums—truly excels as a musical diarist of sorts, documenting short flashes of the world around him through sound. *ten days* is the latest chapter in the Grammy-winning producer’s story: 10 slices of contemplative electronica, each preceded by a short interlude of candid or off-the-cuff audio that grounds the track in a palpable experience. Front-loaded with softer grooves and evocative vocal performances, *ten days* is never too far removed from the ambient roots of Gibson’s tutelage under mentor Brian Eno—starry-eyed love song “adore u” utilizes the peerless tones of Obongjayar to great effect, while Sampha’s understated performance on “fear less” seems to ascend through sun-warmed air to end in the cool, echoing outer reaches of the atmosphere. Conversely, “just stand there” freefalls through SOAK’s poignant spoken-word delivery into a momentum-building drop that rattles on re-entry. The lively zeal that Anderson .Paak and CHIKA bring to “places to be” at the album’s midpoint signals a switch-up in energy, and the latter half is dominated by more euphoric, emotional beats. “glow,” featuring a who’s who of leading dance music figures—Four Tet, Skrillex, Duskus—caters to the ravers; Joy Anonymous lend their signature class of boundless rapture to the anthemic “peace u need.” Elsewhere, a remix of “where will i be” strips the bright optimism from the original Emmylou Harris recording, rebuilding it into something more warped and existential. Despite his meteoric rise, Gibson is a DIY producer at heart, driven to find the soul-stirring sample potential in even the most mundane, everyday noises, and it’s cheering to note this romanticized inclination hasn’t been lost along the way. *ten days* may find him at that rarefied level of success that often translates as isolating and detached, but his discerning artistic choices—hi-hats that sound like they’ve been struck with cushion-tipped drumsticks and resonant basslines—soften the edges, retaining the intimacy and connection at the core of the Fred again.. brand.
“There\'s something about this record that feels like I\'m coming home,” Maggie Rogers tells Apple Music\'s Zane Lowe about her third full-length *Don\'t Forget Me*, which is the Maryland-born singer-songwriter\'s first project since completing her master\'s degree in religion and public life at Harvard Divinity School. Being away from the music business, she says, allowed her time to think about her life as an artist while also diversifying her mind. “I was trying to put so much in music,” she says. “Now my life is a lot more balanced and a lot more full—and I\'m not saying by any means I have it figured out.” *Don\'t Forget Me* finds Rogers still on a path toward “figuring it out,” marrying the kineticism that made her breakthrough single “Alaska” such a sensation eight years prior with bigger sonic structures and wiser lyrics. Opener “It Was Coming All Along” thrums with plush synths and strings, as well as a sampled phone call that brings Rogers\' lyrics about “trying to be brave these days” to life. “The Kill” possesses a grandness that recalls a sunny drive on an open road, which makes its story of a doomed relationship hit even harder. That energy, together with a wiser perspective, enabled her to her explore stories from beyond her personal realm. Take “So Sick of Dreaming,” a sauntering, Nashville-tinged cut about the travails of twentysomething life punctuated by a frustrated monologue about being stood up for Knicks tickets. (“And by the way, the Knicks lost,” she dryly notes.) It\'s based on “a story that a friend had told to me the night before about another friend of hers that was going through this thing,” she says. “I never would\'ve thought it was material; I had only written songs about things that were so personal to me.” Broadening her songwriting is another way Rogers lets loose on *Don\'t Forget Me*—and it\'s apparent across the album\'s 10 songs, which are confident even when they\'re grappling with regret and frustration. “I\'m so focused and clear about the things that I want, and I\'ve had different goals for every record or things that I really want to accomplish,” Rogers says. “The goal on this album cycle is, I\'m trying to have fun. And if I don\'t think it\'s going to be fun, you probably won\'t find me there.”
