“Through the writing of these songs and the making of this music, I found my way back to the world around me – a way to reach nature and the people I love and care about. This record is a sensory exploration that allowed for a connection to a consciousness that I was searching for. Through the resonance of sound and a beaten up old piano I bought in Camden Market while living in a city I had no intention of staying in, I found acceptance and a way of healing.” - Beth Orton Many musicians turn inward when the world around them seems chaotic and unreliable. Reframing one’s perception of self can often reveal new personal truths both uncomfortable and profound, and for Beth Orton, music re-emerged in the past several years as a tethering force even when her own life felt more tumultuous than ever. Indeed, the foundations of the songs on Orton’s stunning new album, Weather Alive, are nothing more than her voice and a “cheap, crappy” upright piano installed in a shed in her garden, conjuring a deeply meditative atmosphere that remains long after the final note has evaporated. “I am known as a collaborator and I’m very good at it. I’m very open to it. Sometimes, I’ve been obscured by it,” says Orton, who rose to prominence through ‘90s-era collaborations with William Orbit, Red Snapper and The Chemical Brothers before striking out on her own with a series of acclaimed, award-winning solo releases. “I think what’s happened with this record is that through being cornered by life, I got to reveal myself to myself and to collaborate with myself, actually.” Weather Alive - Beth Orton's first album in six years - is out 23rd September on Partisan Records"
Kurt Wagner’s Lambchop project was once the standard-bearer for fusions of country and indie rock, but over the years, it has become more unpredictable: By 2016’s *Flotus*, the Nashville musician was submerging his voice in watery vocoder, and on 2019’s *This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You)* he spread on a thick layer of synths and drum machines. After the quasi-ambient diversions of 2021’s *Showtunes*, *The Bible* ventures even further afield. In its opening song, you’ll find ruminative piano, horns, strings, a sudden detour into classical music, digital glitches, and Wagner’s voice freshly stripped of artifice, all in the service of a pensive portrait of his aging father—some of the most moving songwriting in Lambchop’s catalog. Produced by Minneapolis’ Andrew Broder and Ryan Olson, frequent Bon Iver collaborators, *The Bible* offers new surprises at every turn, like the disco-house groove and trance synths of “Little Black Boxes,” or the jazzy drum ’n’ bass of “Whatever, Mortal,” or the Lil Jon-styled “hey!” that goes tearing through the placid waters of “Daisy,” a sound so out of place you wonder if you’ve imagined it. Along the way, he considers the George Floyd riots on “Police Dog Blues” and mourns the late rapper The Gift of Gab on “A Major Minor Drag.” The closing “That’s Music” even features quotes from Tommie Smith, an Olympic runner who raised the Black Power fist from the winners’ podium in 1968. Much like Wagner’s patchwork of styles, the cumulative effect of all these images is cryptic yet powerful: a picture of life in America through the eyes of one of the nation’s most idiosyncratic songwriters.
When Melbourne indie rock trio Camp Cope first emerged on the alt-rock scene with their self-titled debut LP, guitarist/vocalist Georgia Maq, bassist Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich, and drummer Sarah Thompson were celebrated for taking down the inherent misogyny in the independent music scene. (“The Opener” from 2018’s *How to Socialise and Make Friends* tackled the subject directly and memorably.) Now on their third LP, the band has ventured into folkier territory: The midtempo “Blue” is a depressed confessional supported by ascendent, Chicks-style pop harmonies, while “Jealous” mirrors the oppressive sentimentality that follows a breakup, with Maq’s voice feeling out all the contours of her fractured refrain, a weeping “Oh, no.” The title track, “Running With the Hurricane,” is a fierce surprise: a bluesy, emo-adjacent shout-along single stuffed to the brim with the oppressive rush of a crush: “I get so bored thinking about anyone else!” Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like it.
This album was made entirely on Wurundjeri & Boonwurrung country, which we are grateful to live and work upon, we pay our respects to elders past & present.
Santi White did a lot of the work on what would become her fourth album, *Spirituals*, at a quiet cabin about an hour outside Vancouver. “It was like me and a woodpecker and some chickens,” she tells Apple Music. But after a long, pandemic-induced stretch stuck inside, tending house and caring for three young children, White felt adrift from herself and her art in ways only isolation could resolve. “It was like the only opportunity to find my way back to myself was through art,” she says. “So, it was really more of a lifeline I was weaving.” Like all White’s work, *Spirituals* is bright and punky and eclectic, bridging gaps between collaborators like Rostam Batmanglij and The Weeknd affiliate Illangelo, dance producer SBTRKT and Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner. But there’s also a heaviness to it that feels new, if redemptive. The title came in a flash. “I realized that these songs were doing the same things for me that traditional spirituals had done for slaves,” she says, “allowing me to experience freedom and transcendence and moving toward evolution through music.” The bird was both a welcome visitor and a kind of guiding spirit. “What’s interesting about the woodpecker is that it burrows beneath the surface like it’s going for something deeper,” she says. “Sometimes they’re not even pecking for food. Sometimes they’re just sending out sound as a signal for mates. And I was so much thinking about being in my own rhythm. That’s what this period was really about: redefining my rhythm during this crazy, tumultuous time.” Here, she provides a track-by-track glimpse into the mood and making of *Spirituals*. **“My Horror”** “It was about being stuck in that role that was just too small to fit my whole self. Like, during lockdown, just being mother all the time—washing dishes and changing diapers and cooking and cleaning. And that’s it. No time to think, no time to shower, no time to sleep. So, it’s the redundancy of this task-oriented thing and not getting a chance to be the me that I am. But it’s also the climate of a world where everything’s so heavy that people have just chosen to disconnect, whether it’s living in the metaverse or doing drugs or just being deep in social media world rather than the real world. Like, what’s it like when everybody around you is just walking dead or sleepwalking—where you’re living an existence where nobody’s actually turned on? I actually did a series of photos that I called my Mom series. There’s one of me standing in front of the refrigerator in a veil with my kids. But there’s another one where I’m standing by the pool, and my kids are swimming, and I’m on fire with a drink in my hands.” **“Nothing”** “If you’re a Black woman, if you’re a woman, if you’re anyone who ever feels unseen, well, what’s the effect of living with that daily? How does that affect who you turn into? From being a child to a grown-up even—what are the things you didn’t even know you were carrying? I think ‘Nothing’ touched on all that for me in a way that was very personal but really connected me to \[Black Lives Matter\] and the struggle outside. And I cried. I was really able to emote finally. It felt really good.” **“High Priestess”** “I wanted to make a song that felt punk in a futuristic way. And I tried so many different things to just get the energy right, including some really bad moves with guitars and stuff that I immediately took out. A big thing I always set out to do in Santigold music is take things that you would never expect to go together and find a way for them to exist together. And I think that’s what’s exciting—for me making the music and for the listener too.” **“Ushers of the New World”** “It’s about us taking responsibility for the future. And instead of trying to tear people down for being uncomfortable, figuring out if we could just look at ourselves and be, like, ‘Hey, *I’m* uncomfortable. Where is this coming from? What’s my trauma? How can I move through this?’ I think that’s the way to create the future that we want. I’ve been reading a lot. More books than I’ve read in a long time—I don’t usually read ’cause I have so many children! We’ve been focusing on policy and legislation for hundreds of years, and we haven’t really gotten nearly where we need to. It’s really that we need to start focusing on our trauma and what we’re bringing to the table and being able to work through that—to work together.” **“Witness”** “I wanted there to be an ethereal quality in many of the songs. ‘Witness’ has it. It’s almost like you’re going through dimensions, or like you’re stuck in the webbing between dimensions.” **“Shake”** “That was just a surprise. I never would’ve thought I would’ve picked a beat like that. And I literally just started singing, ‘Shake/Ooh, shake.’ It was not a voice that I think I’ve used on a song before. And it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever written. That energy—it’s almost like being enraptured.” **“The Lasty”** “It was a fictional story based on George Floyd. In my mind, I created a character who was a regular, nondescript type of person—you know, that nobody was paying attention to. And all these other people had gone ahead and surpassed him and gone beyond him, and he hadn’t stepped into his power yet. And then, all of a sudden, there’s an opportunity where he could be the one to save everybody. ‘Lasty’ is just a word I made up. It has a dual meaning. It’s the person who’s last and also the person who lasts.” **“No Paradise”** “Yes, we’ve been struggling, and things are hard, and we’ve been struggling for generations, honestly. But it’s not for nothing. Like, there’s power in that struggle. There’s resilience that has been shown over and over again. I love the bridge of that song because it sounded like a protest to me—a celebration of the fight. And, of course, it’s referring to that old religious idea of an afterlife where you’re finally rewarded with your peace and your riches. But it’s also about making the changes you need to make in the present.” **“Ain’t Ready”** “As a kid, I did go to church some with my mom mostly, and I did not like it. I thought her church was really boring and stale. It wasn’t me. But my dad’s family was from Baltimore, and his grandma was a pastor, and my great aunt was the organist, and that church was awesome. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a church where it’s got all the ushers dressed in white, and the music is going, and the people are catching the Spirit and falling out. Some people speak in tongues, some people are fainting, and the usher’s job is just to hold them up and fan them as they’re enraptured, you know? So, I pictured these ushers holding this woman. And the woman is in the process of this ascension, and she’s falling out. And that woman is me, but the ushers are me too. So, it’s like my song to myself. Like, ‘You’ve got what you need to do everything you need to do here.’” **“Fall First”** “‘Fall First’ was a song that I started with Doc McKinney, who’s one of my oldest writing buddies. He and I are both like old punkers at heart. And so, we started ‘Fall First’ and just decided to do whatever we wanted. And later, I handed it over to Rostam. He has such good taste and is always excited to mess around. And he just took it *everywhere*.”
In 2005, Swedish singer/songwriter Jens Lekman released *Oh You’re So Silent Jens*, a collection of the songs he’d written from 2003 up until that point. Filled with wry if gently despondent observations and potent melodies, the album placed him among indie pop’s upper tier of troubadours—but in 2011 it was taken out of print, vanishing some of his most beloved songs from availability. *The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom*, an update of *Silent* that blends bits of those early-2000s recordings with newly laid-down tracks, breathes new energy into songs that already sparkled because of their tightly knotted lyrics and Lekman’s deadpan yet melodic delivery. *Cherry* warmly updates Lekman’s earliest material in a way that allows longtime listeners to reflect on his two decades of musical growth while also inviting newer audiences to listen to cuts like the gently undulating “Maple Leaves” (here, with a live string quartet swapped in for the original’s sample-heavy track) and the brightly world-weary “Black Cab” on endless repeat.
All my friends were playing in these bass-guitar-drum bands,” speaks Jens Lekman, casting his mind back over twenty years to his first rudimentary experiments with sampling using his father’s old cassette recorder, and an instinct to create music that would set him far apart from his Swedish pop peers. “I’m going to sound like Scott Walker. But I’m going to do it in my bedroom.” Works of sweeping, maximalist, orchestral wonder sung in a sumptuous tenor, weaving lifts from obscure fleamarket vinyl records with by turns burningly romantic and mordantly funny true-life tales from the sleepy-shadowy suburbs of Gothenburg – Lekman’s early songs come from a different time, a different place. An era when the internet was young, limitless and disruptive, sample culture was turning music inside out, and anything felt possible. After initially finding an audience through peer-to-peer file sharing sites, Lekman signed to Secretly Canadian Records in 2003, and went on to release a slew of cherished material, including three cult limited-edition EPs – Maple Leaves, Rocky Dennis and Julie – later collected on the 2005 compilation album Oh You’re So Silent Jens. His DIY fantasias found their fullest and most celebrated form in 2007 on his second album proper, the exquisite Night Falls Over Kortedala – Lekman’s self-professed “dream record”. It went to number one in Sweden and was later hailed as one of the 200 best albums of the 2000s by Pitchfork, as well as one of the top 100 albums of the 21st century so far by The Guardian. Now, like Oh You’re So Silent Jens, it no longer exists in its original form. Oh You’re So Silent Jens enigmatically disappeared in 2011; Night Falls Over Kortedala followed suit in early 2022. Lekman’s impulse for giving old music fresh life and context has led him to remake the records under new names, each delicately positioned in dialogue with the past – the same albums, just different. The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom and The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom are a pair of lovingly and painstakingly assembled reduxes each keeping the same core tracklisting, spirit and source material as the originals, but blending brand new versions of some tracks, in part or in whole, together with many tracks left largely as they were. Both records are fleshed out with rare, previously unreleased, and even previously unfinished old songs, as well as other contemporaneous material such as cassette diaries. On The Cherry Trees, two of Lekman’s best-loved early breakout singles are completely reimagined – ‘Maple Leaves’ as a tender ballad burnished with warm strings; tragi-comic illegal taxi ride to oblivion ‘Black Cab’ in two different versions, a handsome full band pop song and a gentle acoustic lullaby. The Linden Trees repackages all the true-life tales, magic, and mystery of Night Falls for a new age, yet in wholly familiar form, from the joyous ‘The Opposite of Hallelujah’ to hilariously uplifting missive ‘A Postcard to Nina’ and open-hearted love-song ‘Your Arms Around Me’. Taken together, the new albums form a sort of belated farewell to Lekman’s formative days as a bedroom Scott Walker, panning for sample gold in stacks of vintage vinyl. Albeit not a farewell to the original albums themselves, which will live on in fans’ record collections, and perhaps illicit corners of the internet. Spread to the wind. “I feel like these new records are like portals that can lead you to the old records if you want,” Lekman reflects. “I think that they can lead you to another time and a place, where you could work with music in a different way.”
This is the reissue of "Night Falls Over Kortedala". “All my friends were playing in these bass-guitar-drum bands,” speaks Jens Lekman, casting his mind back over twenty years to his first rudimentary experiments with sampling using his father’s old cassette recorder, and an instinct to create music that would set him far apart from his Swedish pop peers. “I’m going to sound like Scott Walker. But I’m going to do it in my bedroom.” Works of sweeping, maximalist, orchestral wonder sung in a sumptuous tenor, weaving lifts from obscure fleamarket vinyl records with by turns burningly romantic and mordantly funny true-life tales from the sleepy-shadowy suburbs of Gothenburg – Lekman’s early songs come from a different time, a different place. An era when the internet was young, limitless and disruptive, sample culture was turning music inside out, and anything felt possible. After initially finding an audience through peer-to-peer file sharing sites, Lekman signed to Secretly Canadian Records in 2003, and went on to release a slew of cherished material, including three cult limited-edition EPs – Maple Leaves, Rocky Dennis and Julie – later collected on the 2005 compilation album Oh You’re So Silent Jens. His DIY fantasias found their fullest and most celebrated form in 2007 on his second album proper, the exquisite Night Falls Over Kortedala – Lekman’s self-professed “dream record”. It went to number one in Sweden and was later hailed as one of the 200 best albums of the 2000s by Pitchfork, as well as one of the top 100 albums of the 21st century so far by The Guardian. Now, like Oh You’re So Silent Jens, it no longer exists in its original form. Oh You’re So Silent Jens enigmatically disappeared in 2011; Night Falls Over Kortedala followed suit in early 2022. Lekman’s impulse for giving old music fresh life and context has led him to remake the records under new names, each delicately positioned in dialogue with the past – the same albums, just different. The Cherry Trees Are Still In Blossom and The Linden Trees Are Still In Blossom are a pair of lovingly and painstakingly assembled reduxes each keeping the same core tracklisting, spirit and source material as the originals, but blending brand new versions of some tracks, in part or in whole, together with many tracks left largely as they were. Both records are fleshed out with rare, previously unreleased, and even previously unfinished old songs, as well as other contemporaneous material such as cassette diaries. On The Cherry Trees, two of Lekman’s best-loved early breakout singles are completely reimagined – ‘Maple Leaves’ as a tender ballad burnished with warm strings; tragi-comic illegal taxi ride to oblivion ‘Black Cab’ in two different versions, a handsome full band pop song and a gentle acoustic lullaby. The Linden Trees repackages all the true-life tales, magic, and mystery of Night Falls for a new age, yet in wholly familiar form, from the joyous ‘The Opposite of Hallelujah’ to hilariously uplifting missive ‘A Postcard to Nina’ and open-hearted love-song ‘Your Arms Around Me’. Taken together, the new albums form a sort of belated farewell to Lekman’s formative days as a bedroom Scott Walker, panning for sample gold in stacks of vintage vinyl. Albeit not a farewell to the original albums themselves, which will live on in fans’ record collections, and perhaps illicit corners of the internet. Spread to the wind. “I feel like these new records are like portals that can lead you to the old records if you want,” Lekman reflects. “I think that they can lead you to another time and a place, where you could work with music in a different way.”
The singer lays bare her emotions on a dazzling second album.
In May 2021, amidst a wave of anti-Asian hate crimes in the US stemming from the pandemic, the Los Angeles Public Library posted a video of four young girls from Los Angeles playing a song called “Racist, Sexist Boy” for AAPI Heritage Month—two minutes of wonderfully sludgy outrage inspired by an interaction that drummer Mila de la Garza had with a classmate just before lockdown began. The song quickly went viral, creating an audience for The Linda Lindas before they’d ever had a chance to launch a proper tour. “In a way, I felt like we kind of had something to prove, to show for ourselves that we\'re actual musicians,” Mila tells Apple Music. “We\'ve been around for three years, and it\'s not just that we had one viral moment then we were going to go away.” While most teenagers spent the pandemic fumbling through remote school and social isolation, The Linda Lindas seized the opportunity to record their debut album. (They released a self-titled EP in 2020.) Written and rehearsed almost entirely through Zoom while all of its members—Mila and her sister Lucia, their cousin Eloise Wong, and Bela Salazar—were also feeling their way through the chaos of high school and middle school from home, *Growing Up* is a set of blistering, deeply felt pop-punk that meets the moment head on, whether they’re grappling with solitude (“Why”), self-care (“Remember”), spirals of thought (“Talking to Myself”), or disgruntled house cats (“Nino”). Here, the band takes us inside every song on the album. **“Oh!”** Mila de la Garza: “‘Oh!’ was actually written all together on our front porch.” Lucia de la Garza: “We had amps inside and we had cords running out the screen door to Bela and Eloise on opposite sides of the porch. The neighbors didn\'t like it, but it\'s okay.” Eloise Wong: “There was a situation at school where I tried to help someone who was being bullied, but then it kind of just blew up in my face. I wasn\'t really sure what to do and I was kind of angry at stuff. That\'s how the lyrics came about.” **“Growing Up”** Lucia: “It was hard being at home and feeling at this age that I had to figure out who I was. I felt like I was supposed to know what I want to do with my life. We were all apart from each other, and I didn\'t want to grow up in a way, and I realized you can\'t make growing up happen. You can\'t stop it from happening either. I was really, really nostalgic and sentimental about all the times that we had, because I didn\'t realize how much the band meant to me until it wasn\'t really in full swing anymore. I think I was realizing that music is special to me, too. All the parts of my life that were suddenly gone.” **“Talking to Myself”** Mila: “It\'s basically about needing someone else to talk to. Because being by yourself can be a blessing, and it\'s like you need that sometimes, but you also, you can\'t be by yourself forever. The song is about having someone else to take you out of a spiral, having someone else to bring you back up when you push yourself down so much.” **“Fine”** Eloise: “I think that a lot of oppression in society is just so normalized. In the words that we say and the things that happen, I feel like we\'re just taught to see it and just not blink an eye. It happens all the time, but no one does anything about it, because, you know, it\'s fine. But sometimes it gets to a point where it\'s not fine, where it\'s hard to take. Because some of these things that are just normal shouldn\'t be normal, and they push other people down, and it\'s not okay. I was kind of fed up about that and wrote that song.” **“Nino”** Bela Salazar: “On our EP, I wrote a song called ‘Monica,’ and that was about my other cat. I would play ‘Monica’ and my cat Nino would get really pissed. I don\'t know how he understood, but he would just start yelling. So I was like, ‘Okay, I have to write you a song now, because it\'s not fair.’” Mila: “I feel like I was most nervous for Nino\'s reaction to ‘Nino.’ Like, what if Nino doesn\'t like it?” Bela: “He was purring when he heard it, so that\'s a good sign.” **“Why”** Mila: “It\'s just pandemic stuff, missing people. I feel like during the pandemic we all kind of figured out more of who we are.” Lucia: “Isolation brings up a lot of emotions that you didn\'t know were there. I feel like being by yourself for that long kind of takes a toll on your mental health. Eloise\'s lyrics are very poetic on that one, I just have to say.” **“Cuantas Veces”** Bela: “I grew up listening to a lot of bossa nova, and I wanted to mix some of the stuff that I listened to into what we\'re doing. I chose to do a song in Spanish because I\'m not very good at sharing my emotions and this felt like a way that I could do it, but also have it still be a little bit more intimate and personal. I wasn\'t completely ready.” **“Remember”** Lucia: “There was a lot of feeling like every day is the same during the pandemic. There was a lot of feeling like I could have been doing so much more with my day. I didn\'t learn anything in school; I didn\'t pay attention; I was just lounging around watching Netflix all day. I was trying to find a way to forgive myself for not doing anything during my pandemic, and I think this song is just about forgiving yourself for that. Kind of remembering that it\'s okay to make mistakes and it\'s okay to regret and it\'s okay to not be okay sometimes.” **“Magic”** Lucia: “Teenagers complain—that\'s just how it is. I\'m around them every day. It’s a thing. But I always remember that I\'m super fortunate—to have discovered music and discovered a passion for it at my age. And obviously the world needs to be better and the world needs to change. Magic is always treated as like a curse and a gift—it depends on who is wielding it. But what if it’s this fantastical thing that might could save us all? What if *we* are the magic?” **“Racist, Sexist Boy”** Mila: “Before, it was more of an angry song, directed at one person. But now it\'s more a prideful song about bringing people together. Telling people that they\'re not alone, because other people go through that stuff too.” Eloise: “You write that song and it\'s made for blowback—you expect all the racist, sexist boys out there to be like, ‘What? Racism doesn\'t exist. Sexism doesn\'t exist.’ But instead we got all these positive comments. It was so cool just to see. There is good in this world, you know?”
SEULGI’s debut solo EP, released after eight years with the massively popular K-pop girl group Red Velvet, is unlike anything the five-piece has ever done. It opens with the title track—a spooky whisper-seduction not unlike Selena Gomez’s biggest singles. (When she belts later in the track, Destiny’s Child’s balladic moments might be a more direct comparison.) Then: strings, a crashing crescendo around the bass-blasting “Dead Man Runnin’.” The retro R&B of “Bad Boy, Sad Girl” partners SEULGI’s breathiness with the album’s sole feature, rapper BE’O. “Los Angeles” is yet another detour—smoke machine techno. Where Red Velvet excels at all things bright and ebullient, *28 Reasons* showcases an edgier side of one of the group’s most distinct talents.
On Demi Lovato’s eighth studio album, catharsis comes from recovery, from exorcising demons and excising trauma—and there’s no better avenue for that then a sick guitar lick. *HOLY FVCK* is stacked with ascendent pop-punk (“SUBSTANCE”), grunge-y anthemic rock (“SKIN OF MY TEETH”), biblical references (“HEAVEN”), and diaristic revelations about inappropriate sexual relationships (“29”). “My biggest hope for \[the\] song \[‘29’\] is that others going through a similar experience know they aren’t alone,” they tell Apple Music. “And that it’s time to take our power back.” The sentiment doubles as a mission statement: This is the sound of a young artist claiming autonomy. At the beginning of their career, Lovato made playful pop-punk under Disney’s Hollywood Records label, starting with 2008’s debut, *Don’t Forget*. Echoes of that can be found on this release, but comparatively, it’s child’s play: Lovato has never sounded harder, or wiser, than they do on *HOLY FVCK*, so turn it up loud. Below, read a track-by-track guide to the album Lovato wrote exclusively for Apple Music. **“FREAK”** “This song is about feeling like you don’t belong but owning it anyway, because it doesn’t matter what others think about you. By acknowledging that you are a freak or outcast, you are basically saying that there is nothing anyone can say that will hurt your feelings. I wrote this song with YUNGBLUD while I was in an angry phase, but it turns out that I am proud of it. I am giving myself the power back.” **“SKIN OF MY TEETH”** “I wanted to make an anthem for people in recovery from addiction. I wanted to humanize the disease for people who’ve never experienced it and don’t understand it. That’s partly why I get so detailed about it in the bridge, which is my favorite part of the song: \[I sing\] ‘I am just trying to keep my head above water/I am your son, and I am your daughter/I’m your mother, I’m your father.’ It is making a statement about how I am just like everyone who suffers from addiction. We’re all the same. It was so cathartic for me because I had just come out of treatment again. I wanted to make a statement of saying, ‘I see what you’re saying, this is what I’m going through, and you’re not going to make me feel bad about it.’” **“SUBSTANCE”** “I wanted to make a point about how we live in a world where nothing feels real anymore. The content we intake, the things we do in our day-to-day lives, so much of it lacks substance. We’re always on our phones and the internet, so I wanted to write a song about how I miss the substance that used to be the world we live in. Some of the lyrics that resonate with me would be in the pre-chorus: ‘Whoa, I know we’re all fucking exhausted.’ We’re all still coming out of COVID, which is a time where we all live off of TV, social media, whatever could distract us on our phones. I know we’re all exhausted with it. And ‘Am I in my head or have we all lost it?’ is asking if we have lost the substance in human-to-human connection and the ability to be fully present in the moment. The writing process for this was so effortless, and my co-writers were so amazing.” **“EAT ME”** “Being able to collaborate with Royal & the Serpent on this song was so amazing and exciting. I am sick of people thinking or talking about me in a certain way that isn’t truthful, and I am done letting it affect me and my life. Coming out as non-binary was a way for me to let people know that I am not the person that everyone wants me to be, but rather, the person I am. My hope is that this song will help others feel more comfortable with their identity, and to not feel ashamed of how others may perceive them.” **“HOLY FVCK”** “This is the title track of the album, and the whole album has this feel of good versus evil, with some religious undertones. Even the title fits that theme, with *holy* being good and *fuck* being bad. It’s a very sexually charged song, and I wanted to flip the phrase on its head to ‘I’m a holy fuck.’ In the studio, I was very much like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m singing this!’” **“29”** “Now that I am older, I have had a lot of time to reflect and think about past experiences I have had in my life, whether that be romantically or not. Writing this song allowed me to express my thoughts in a way that I hadn’t before, and turn it into something special. Everyone that wrote this song with me knew that the goal was to help others, and I think we did an excellent job of that.” **“HAPPY ENDING”** “I fell into a hopeless depression that had me asking myself if I will ever find a happy ending before I die. The most honest lyric I’ve ever written is actually in this song: ‘I got high/You name it, have tried it/Sure, I’m sober now and everybody’s proud, but I miss my vices.’ My hope for this song is that people will listen to it and realize that they are not alone. Writing this song was obviously very emotional, but it was very freeing because I was able to express these dark times and concerns I’ve had—and coming out of it in the end in a new light.” **“HEAVEN”** “There’s actually a Bible verse, Matthew 5:30, that says, ‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, because it’s better to lose one part of your body than your entire body to hell.’ It’s actually about masturbation, and people may not know that I have my own sex toy. I’m very open about my sexuality, and growing up I was shamed by my church in Texas for exploring that. I was in a place where I was angry, and I had just learned a lot about myself. I learned about what caused that anger and I learned to honor my anger in treatment. I wanted to write a song that takes back my power and my sexuality from the way religion was used against me. I love the pre-chorus where it repeats, ‘Cut it off!’ because unless you know the Bible verse behind the song, you’re like, ‘What?’ And then, of course, the chorus—‘Going to hell because it feels like heaven.’ An Easter egg you can look out for on the vinyl packaging is I have ‘Matthew 5:30’ printed on the side, which is a nod to this song.” **“CITY OF ANGELS”** “The first line of this song says it all. I’ve lived in \[Los Angeles\] for 15 years and it seems as though everything is old and boring. I wrote this song about wanting to experience new things in the city of LA, as if it was brand new. This is definitely a sexual song, but it’s written through using a ton of puns. A great example of this is ‘Splash Mountain from your hands at Disneyland.’ I’d love to christen this city as if it was brand new.” **“BONES”** “I had such a good time writing this song because I was at my house, with my friends, just having a good time. This song is about being so attracted to someone the first time you see them that you physically want to jump on them. My favorite line from this song is ‘Blood racing, heart pounding, like there’s a fucking earthquake’ because it really depicts the feeling of craving someone so badly, but you have to resist.” **“WASTED”** “It’s not a secret that I’ve struggled with addiction and drugs, so I wanted to write a song that’s about how there’s no high greater than the high of falling in love. The best high of your life is the high you get from someone else. Specific lyrics that are so real to me are ‘Will my heart stop, will I withdraw?/Can I detox if the shoe drops?/I’m wiser, I’m older, I’m clean and I’m sober, so I can’t figure out how I’m wasted.’ I remember the first time I tried certain drugs, and I was like, ‘Whoa, what is this going to be like?’ That’s kind of like falling in love with someone you know will change your life. You’re totally wasted on love—you feel totally euphoric and so happy.” **“COME TOGETHER”** “If you listen closely to the lyrics of this song, you will realize this is actually not a song just about unifying and joining together as one. Much like many other songs on this album, this is a very sexually focused track. My favorite line has to be ‘Got me closer to the edge than ever/We both want it, but we don’t surrender/And we can make this last forever/But paradise is even better when we come…together.’ The hook of this song flows very well together, and I think it is open-ended in the way that you can perceive it however you want to.” **“DEAD FRIENDS”** “This song is a way for me to reminisce on the hard times that I’ve been through in my life and how I’ve lost friends along the way. The beginning of the song is very calm and slow, but as the song progresses you will notice that it picks up the tempo and the mood. I think this is a way to represent how although it’s a sad message, I am actually honoring my friends and the times we had together. I lost a friend that went through similar struggles that I’ve had on the same day that I wrote this song, which gives it even more of a special meaning to me.” **“HELP ME”** “This was a song I wrote with Dead Sara on the very first day we worked together. I wanted to write a song that was a clapback to people on the internet who think they know what’s best for me, and make an empowering anthem out of that. I think my favorite lines are ‘Hey, thank you for your useless information/Hey, never satisfied with my explanation/Hey, what’s with your desperate fascination?/Hey, thank you for your useless information.’ I was so excited to write this with Dead Sara because they were such a huge influence for the sound of this album. I fell in love with the album they released last year, and I saw them live. They’ve become great friends of mine, especially Emily \[Armstrong\], the lead singer. Getting to see them work their magic at the show was the catalyst for me getting back to my rock roots.” **“FEED”** “The message of this song is that there are two sides inside of you, which represent the good and the bad, the positive and the negative. This song is a reminder that you are in control of your life and each side will make you feel a different way, so it’s up to you to choose which direction you want to go.” **“4 EVER 4 ME”** “The songs at the beginning of the album show how angry and sad I once was, but as you get towards the end, you realize that I’ve been through a rollercoaster of a life and there is joy at the end. I got to write this song with one of my best friends, which makes it even more special. One of my favorite lines of this song is ‘I can’t wait to hug and thank your mother,’ because I think it’s important to acknowledge those who raised and taught the person you love how to be an amazing person. I don’t write a ton of love songs, but I think that this song really encompasses the hopefulness of love and how sappy I can actually be.”
“I was able to make the album in peace and quiet, really,” Sigrid tells Apple Music of crafting *How to Let Go*. That was thanks, in part, to the pandemic, during which the Norwegian pop queen could “sort of disappear,” writing the majority of her second album’s songs in Copenhagen with Norwegian songwriter Caroline Ailin (Dua Lipa, Charli XCX). “We were swimming in between sessions, talking a lot, and Caroline was making amazing cinnamon buns,” remembers Sigrid (born Sigrid Raabe). It was an approach she valued, having “definitely felt the pressure” to ensure *How to Let Go* lived up to her 2019 debut, *Sucker Punch*, home to hit singles such as “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” “Strangers,” and “Don’t Feel Like Crying.” That debut showcased Sigrid’s ability to craft shimmering electro-pop songs that sound both anthemic and intimate. These elements are all present on *How to Let Go*, but this time around, it feels even more cathartic. “There are songs about breakups and breaking someone’s heart,” she says. “Songs about letting go of your childhood, and songs about letting go of fears and doubts because sometimes you just have to go for it.” Musically, the album sees Sigrid embrace a more organic sound featuring plenty of live drums, soaring strings, and vocal harmonies; she says everyone from The Beatles to The Killers influenced guitar-centric tracks destined for festival season. Read on for Sigrid’s track-by-track guide to *How to Let Go*. **“It Gets Dark”** “Whenever I’ve been unsure of my musical direction, I’ve always come back to this song. It shaped the whole sound of the album with the strings coming in and the chorus being pretty simple in terms of production: literally just bass, vocals, and drums. It’s a song about letting go and opening your mind. For about four or five years before the pandemic, I was traveling so much with work and always came back to Norway when I had time off. And then, suddenly, I started to feel more comfortable outside of Norway. I started to feel like I also had a home in London, New York, and Los Angeles. That was exciting but also scary for me because I’m such a homebody.” **“Burning Bridges”** “It’s not necessarily about a romantic breakup because, sometimes, breakups that aren’t romantic can be even harder. Musically, it’s very inspired by Muse. I listened to them a lot when I was growing up, and I love it when rock bands go electronic the way Muse did. But at the same time, ‘Burning Bridges’ is still a pop song because you have the big, soaring strings on there. The overall vibe is cinematic but at a British music festival. It’s my proper angry, stomping-across-the-stage anthem.” **“Risk of Getting Hurt”** “When I sing, ‘I’ve crashed with no warning because I’m brave when I’m falling/But so far, I always land on my feet,’ it’s really about my outlook on life. I do get really tired and burned out because work can be really overwhelming; it takes a lot out of me. I’m a person who likes just being by myself in my apartment, cooking, but in 2019 I think I had 290 travel days or something. That’s a lot for me, but the reward of going on tour and traveling is just too good to turn down. I feel like I always land on my feet and that gives me the confidence to keep going.” **“Thank Me Later”** “Musically, it’s inspired by The Killers, who were a very important band for me growing up. Lyrically, I guess it’s really a very straight-up song about breaking someone’s heart. It sucks and it’s really difficult, but sometimes it’s for the best. I had a lot of heartbreak songs on *Sucker Punch*, but they were about me getting my heart broken. So, I thought it was time to talk about the other side of heartbreak too.” **“Mirror”** “I’m always scared of saying the wrong thing, and I’m very self-critical. I’ve been doing this job since I was 16, and when I look back at old interviews, sometimes I’m like, ‘Why did I say that?’ Often, when I write songs, I feel a bit like my older sister writing songs to me. I definitely tried to channel her in these lyrics, which are basically saying, ‘It’s OK to fuck up and move on.’ I’ve loved seeing the reaction to this song from my fans because it seems like they were thinking the same thing as me.” **“Last to Know”** “Every time we tried to put more production on it, it just didn’t work. One of my favorite songs ever is ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ by Bonnie Raitt. This song doesn’t sound remotely like it, but I’m sure I was thinking a little bit of that song when I wrote these lyrics. It’s about when you’ve been through a breakup and you’ve moved on, but there’s a bittersweet element because it’s hard for your ex to see you with someone new.” **“Dancer”** “This is one of my favorites on the album. It’s a full-on lovey-dovey song about falling the hardest in love I’ve ever been. I love the instrumentation on this song with the piano and then the drums and bass coming in. We listened to The Beatles a bit in the studio, and I think you can hear their influence here. It’s just a warm hug of a song that reminds me of summer nights and road trips and getting drunk.” **“A Driver Saved My Night”** “This is a fun song. It’s about being stuck in traffic somewhere, usually in London on the M25 \[highway\], and feeling a bit tired and homesick and ‘ugh’ about things. But then, a song you really like comes on the radio and you ask the driver to turn it up, please. And even though you don’t know each other, you’re both listening and nodding along and thinking, ‘Great song!’ I just love how music can instantly lift your spirits, so this song is really an homage to those moments.” **“Mistake Like You”** “Another ballad, but you’ve got to have a few ballads in there. It’s a sad song but also a positive one. It’s about unrequited love: having really strong feelings for someone who doesn’t feel the same way but coming through that situation and knowing you learned from it. That’s what I was thinking about when I wrote the chorus: ‘I decided I think that anyone would be lucky to make just one mistake like you.’” **“Bad Life” (feat. Bring Me the Horizon)** “I’m a big Bring Me the Horizon fan. When I was at Reading Festival in 2021, \[the band’s keyboardist\] Jordan Fish came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I love your music.’ And I was freaking out—like, how do they know my music? We chatted a bit, and he said we should go into the studio some time. Then I got in my tour bus to go to Leeds Festival, and he sent me the demo of ‘Bad Life.’ I played it to my band, and we were all like, ‘This is really good.’ So, I went into the studio with Jordan and Ollie \[Sykes, the band’s singer\] a few weeks later, and we changed some bits and bobs, and I wrote some new lyrics for my verse. But the first time I realized Bring Me the Horizon was an unlikely match \[for me\] was when I walked into that studio and the technician said, ‘Whoa, you were the last person I was expecting to see in this session!’” **“Grow”** “Nick Drake was an inspiration for me when I was writing this one, especially his songs ‘Pink Moon’ and ‘Place to Be.’ There are references to my childhood in the lyrics and also to my first apartment in Oslo. It was a big achievement for me to buy my own place at 22, and I remember trying to hang pictures on the bare white walls to make it feel like a proper home. But somehow, I never really settled there; it always felt like just another hotel room. I was living my dream out on the road, but it felt bittersweet because I had lost a part of myself at the same time. I think that’s just growing up, though.” **“High Note”** “I want to look back on my life and know I’ve not taken things for granted. But I have a bad habit of letting stress get to me, and then amazing things pass me by. I remember when I won the BBC’s Sound of 2018 poll, which is one of my biggest achievements, I actually cried because I was scared of what life was going to be like after that. It was almost like my innocence was going in a way: ‘I’m a serious artist now, fuck!’ It was only months afterwards that I looked back and thought, ‘Oh, that was actually amazing.’ So, this is a song about enjoying those highs when they happen. It’s partly inspired by the Corpus Clock at Cambridge University, which was built to remind the students to live their lives to the fullest.”
Guatemalan cellist and composer, Mabe Fratti releases Se Ve Desde Aquí (It Is Seen From Here) on October 14 2022, on Unheard of Hope. Se Ve Desde Aquí (‘It Is Seen From Here’) marks another step in a remarkable run of releases from Guatemalan cellist and composer, Mabe Fratti. It is possibly her most revealing one to date; showcasing a sinuous and tensile sound coupled with a confident and clear-eyed worldview. Mabe Fratti is always on the lookout for new ways to express herself and to reflect her surroundings; she sees this as a process of continual “sonic transformation”. Not that she sees her method as unique: “I believe this happens to a lot of musicians, that in the interim when you finish a record and you release it you learn [new] things and change your philosophy towards what you want to sound like.” Se Ve Desde Aquí is a decisive shift away from Fratti’s most recent works, which were more enigmatic in tone. The rich, multi-layered arrangements heard on 2021’s acclaimed long player, Será que ahora podremos entendernos and egoless collaborations such as the fabulous Let's Talk About The Weather with Malaria legend and Monika supremo Gudrun Gut, created a mystery around Fratti which reveal only certain aspects of this affable musician’s character. Fratti sees her new music as “drier” in texture and more on the front foot in terms of setting out emotion: she describes the results as “less protected”. According to her, the sound is “informed through the aesthetics of rawness, and a ‘dirtiness’”: sampling expressions within improvisation, or extreme hi-fi dry sound. This noisy instrumentation is set against “the tools of melodic lines and harmony”, leading to a trademark richness, but one now more judiciously applied to set up a moment: “I did layering but it's more in specific moments. Basically my whole idea was to be as raw as possible and try to avoid overdubbing the same instrument as much as I could, of course always leaving space to break my own rules in the process.” This “frontal” approach carries over into the lyrical content. Many of the lyrics on tracks such as ‘Algo grandioso’ (‘Something great’), ‘Esta vez’ (‘This time’) and ‘Siempre tocas algo’ (‘You are always touching something’) refer to walls either falling or being circumnavigated. Questions around the use, or value, of time and other lyrical content invoking the senses and the body - as seen in ‘Deja de empujar’ (‘Stop pushing’) or ‘Cada músculo’ (‘Every muscle’) - also seem to suggest Fratti making pivotal individual decisions in her life, whether due to internal or external agencies. The tactile, mercurial and sometimes sparkling arrangements also suggest Fratti knowing where to place her work in the wider world. Mabe Fratti always enjoys working with others and Se Ve Desde Aquí is a record wholly informed by the collaborative process, whether holed up in WORM Sound Studios in Rotterdam, or at her home and in the Progreso Nacional studios, both in Mexico City. One key help has been Hugo Quezada, of Exploded View and late of synth act, Robota. Other recording allies are co-producer, guitarist and synth player Héctor Tosta, drummer and personal mentor Gibrán Andrade, saxophonist Jarrett Gilgore, violinist Alina Maldonado (heard on tracks ‘Cada Músculo’ and ‘Cuestión de Tiempo’), as well as Carla Boregas from Brazilian punk band Rakta who added tape loops and synthesizers to track ‘Siempre tocas algo’. Gearheards will be interested to know how such a transcendent sound came about. One key element is a focus on microphones, specifically Earthworks microphones, which Fratti “fell in love with” and saw as an inspiration for the wider creative process. She also fulfilled a lifelong wish and “played a little saxophone on the track ‘Desde el cielo’.” Whilst at WORM Sound Studios, Fratti lost herself with the vintage synths such as “the amazing” KORG PS 3200 and a much prized CS 60. In Progreso Nacional she recorded Mellotron, CS 50, a Jupiter, Solina, Korg M500 and more. “It was too much fun.” The Solina has an interesting backstory: Hugo Quezada found it “dropped in the garbage” whilst out walking with a friend. Quezada has a history of finding instruments in strange places; having found a vintage MS20 once that was being used as a table in a food stand… Regardless: all these provenances, places and people joined to create a truly remarkable work.
Since releasing his debut LP, *21st Century Liability*, in 2018, and 2020’s celebrated *weird!*, British artist YUNGBLUD (Dominic Harrison) has become a voice for a misunderstood generation, turning external environmental pressures into rallying cries for outsiders. Pop-punk rock was his weapon for most of his career; now, on his self-titled third record, there’s ’70s punk (“The Funeral”), New Wave (“Tissues”), energetic emo (“Memories”), Britpop (“Sweet Heroine”), and so much more. “YUNGBLUD is a community; YUNGBLUD is a movement,” Harrison tells Apple Music. “It\'s a community where you can be truly yourself. And by finding that community on the first two albums, I felt like I was allowed to write a record about me because I feel protected.” And on *YUNGBLUD*, he’s never sounded so vulnerable. “I recorded the whole album in a bedroom in Glendale,” he tells Apple Music. “It felt like I was making my first album again. It was so raw.” Below, YUNGBLUD walks us through his third studio album, track by track. **“The Funeral”** “I had a fire in my belly. Everyone had an opinion on me. The world had an opinion on me—the internet, my mom, my dad, my label, my fans, my management. Every fucking person had an opinion on where I should go. And I got fucking exhausted. I felt like I was 15 years old again in fucking high school, getting shoved into a locker. I always work best when I\'ve got to kick back against the bear who\'s biting me, and I\'ve got to bite it back.” **“Tissues”** “It samples ‘Close to Me’ by The Cure. I fucking get the song. I get Robert Smith\'s email, I email him ’cause I\'ve met him at the NME Awards a couple years before. And then he loved the song and let me use the sample. Cleared it. Crazy. What the fuck?” **“Memories”** “I\'ve never put a feature on one of my albums. I\'ve always been separate, but I love this song. I think it was brilliant. WILLOW is the truth for me. She\'s fucking nuts in the best way possible. You\'ll catch her on a good day, you\'ll catch her on a bad day, but she\'s fucking real. She reminds me a little bit of Amy Winehouse. A lot of people might crucify me for that, but I don\'t give a fuck ’cause it\'s true.” **“Cruel Kids”** “Me and \[Bastille’s\] Dan \[Smith\]. I always respected Dan. Great fucking writer. He came by the studio one day, and I played him this idea. When you meet artists, they can send you in a different direction. A lot of people don\'t know I really love Radiohead. And I really love *Kid A*. I really love the reverse snares and the madness of it all. We went down in that direction.” **“Mad”** “I just wanted to be like, \'I feel like I\'m going fucking insane right now. And I don\'t know how to express it. I don\'t know what to say. I don\'t know how to. I\'m just going fucking crazy and that\'s it.\'” **“I Cry 2”** “‘Everyone online keeps saying I’m not really gay/I’ll start dating men when they go to therapy’—I love that line. It\'s so playful. It\'s probably going to get me in trouble, but I\'m down. This song started because one of my mates was getting really upset and really emotional, but he found it really hard to express himself emotionally. There’s such a big stigma against males expressing their emotions. If you\'re hurting, it means you\'re alive. And, \'Mandy\'s on the counter kissing Charlie\'s neck/And your best mate\'s girl to your best made bed\' is a drug reference; it\'s about MDMA and cocaine, but also a party where you\'ve lost control. You don\'t know who the fuck\'s in your house because you\'re blocking out real feelings so much.” **“Sweet Heroine”** “I wrote this song in London, and I was completely nocturnal for weeks. We came from LA, and we stayed in LA time. It was a beautiful way of writing. I was in London, in the cold with my friends from LA, showing them my stomping grounds, taking Americans to fish and chips for the first time, feeling fucking Britpop, was wearing exclusively Fred Perry. And that song is about someone who really pulled me out of a really dark place in my life.” **“Sex Not Violence”** “I loved Green Day, *American Idiot*: one acoustic guitar down the middle, electrics panned left and right. One acoustic loud as fuck, straight down the middle. And I was like, ‘I\'m stealing that. No one\'s done that for ages.’ It gives it such an urgency and a movement. And there’s such a simple power in singing and describing sex. The connection, the trust, the feeling of euphoria, the metaphor that love will always win over hate, because I love sex. I love having sex. I love talking about sex. I love exploring sex in all its forms.” **“Don’t Go”** “So funny: This song almost didn\'t make it onto the record. I wrote it in an hour in London. Start to finish, production as well, and that frightened me. ’Cause normally so much thought goes into the music. And this song didn\'t mean fucking nothing to me until three weeks later, when I\'d written it off as a whatever tune.” **“Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today”** “I wrote it when I didn\'t want to get out of bed. I was so fucking exhausted about not wanting to get out of bed. I turned to the side of my bed where I\'ve got a notepad in case any ideas come in my sleep. And I wrote, \'I don\'t feel like feeling sad today.\' But fuck that. I don\'t want to feel sad right now. And then it just fucking felt like a T-shirt. I was listening to a lot of Ramones, and went for a one-minute, two-minute punk hit, \'Bonzo Goes to Bitburg\' vibe. I had the lyric, I had the fucking title, and it just fucking happened. Like when you listen to The Libertines or the Arctic Monkeys or Oasis and it\'s all feeling first.” **“Die for a Night”** “I brought in a really good friend of mine, a kid called Jordan Brasko Gable. I met this fucking little twat in a Thai restaurant, and he\'s got a Karl Marx book in his back pocket. I rolled my eyes but he was so intellectual. We spoke about Kurt Vonnegut and Oscar Wilde, and now he\'s a songwriter. He pushed me on my lyricism. He sat opposite me and was like, \'No, you can say that better. Morrissey would say that better. John Lydon would say that better. Fucking Alex Turner could say that better.\' He challenged me. It\'s when I came up with \'Pain is language I can read/So I\'d rather remain illiterate tonight so I can sleep\'—his eyes lit up and I was like, \'I know I\'ve got something.\'” **“The Boy in the Black Dress”** “I basically wrote a poem about every significant moment that had made me grow up a year in a second about my life. The first time I got punched, the first time a teacher ridiculed me for wearing makeup, the first time the internet came after me and where I\'m at right now. It was the first time I felt pain, and it was really cool to write that song. And the instrumentation: That’s a toy keyboard from Walmart; all those sounds were made on guitars and a toy keyboard.”
Faye Webster announces Car Therapy Sessions, an EP of new and re-imagined songs by Webster recorded at Spacebomb Studios with a 24 piece orchestra. The orchestra was headed by Trey Pollard who was responsible for both conducting and arranging, and Drew Vandenburg produced and mixed the EP. Car Therapy Sessions will be available digitally on 29th April and on vinyl in the fall. “I have a vivid memory of walking around London in 2018 listening to a mix of Jonny, which I had just written. I remember thinking “I want to perform this song with an orchestra”. I truly have had my heart set on it since then, always talking about it and figuring out how or when to make it happen,” says Webster. On the EP, Webster reimagines three songs from her critically acclaimed 2021 release I Know I’m Funny haha and 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club. The songs “Kind Of”, “Sometimes” and “Cheers” take on a cinematic and glimmering new sheen. In addition to the title track -“Car Therapy” - she also shares a sprawling and emotional work - “Suite: Jonny” - which combines fan-favorites “Jonny” and “Jonny (Reprise).” The two songs originally appeared on the Atlanta Millionaire’s Club tracklist, two different views on the same narrative. Here they’re presented together. It’s remarkable how beautifully Webster’s work can take on this orchestral treatment. Like Cole Porter, or Judy Garland - her delicate and emotional delivery packs a gut punch when dramatized by the EP’s robust arrangements.
Trap and classical touches ignite the group’s K-pop fireworks.
Sound of the Morning is released on Heavenly Recordings on Friday 8th July 2022. Written and recorded in late 2021, Katy’s latest effort is co-produced by Ali Chant (Yard Act and the helm of Katy’s debut Return) and Speedy Wunderground head-honcho Dan Carey (Fontaines DC). Katy’s debut album, Return, released in November 2020, saw her go from Bristolian newcomer to a critically-acclaimed breakthrough star, selling out shows up and down the UK. Praised for “the arresting quality of [her] Kate Bush-meets-Dolly Parton vocal delivery” by The Times, labelled as “finding humanity in every moment” by DIY and with lead single ‘Take Back The Radio’ described as “a whoop of pure joy” in the Guardian, amidst the bleak toll of lockdown, something about this curiously optimistic album began to really resonate. It feels fitting then that, having provided an aural balm at just the right moment with her first album, its follow-up should reflect a world brimming with curiosity, back in action and wanting to expand its horizons. If Pearson’s extracurricular activities in recent months have shown that she can dip a toe into a multitude of genres - providing guest vocals on Orlando Weeks’ recent album ‘Hop Up’; popping up with Yard Act for a collaboration at End of the Road festival; singing on trad-folk collective Broadside Hacks’ 2021 project ‘Songs Without Authors’ - then forthcoming second album Sound of the Morning takes that spirit and runs with it. It’s still Katy J Pearson (read: effortlessly charming, full of heart and helmed by that inimitable vocal), but it’s Katy J Pearson pushing herself musically and lyrically into new waters. It’s an album that’s as comfortable revelling in the more laid-back, Real Estate-esque melodies of lead single ‘Talk Over Town’ - a track that attempts to make sense of her recent experiences, of “being Katy from Gloucester, but then being Katy J Pearson who’s this buzzy new artist” - as it is basking in the American indie pop of ‘Float’, penned with longtime pal Oliver Wilde of Pet Shimmers, or experimenting with the buoyant brass of ‘Howl’, in which Orlando repays the favour with a vocal guest spot. It all makes for a record that’s increasingly unafraid to explore life’s darker parts, but that does so with an openness that’s full of light. As an artist who professes to “always strive for the bittersweetness of things”, Sound of the Morning does just that, taking the listener’s hand and guiding them through the good and the bad, like the musical equivalent of an arm around the shoulder. “I want people to feel things with my music, but I don’t want to cause my listener too much trauma,” she notes with a cheeky glint. “Counselling is expensive, so you’ve got to pick your battles…”
Has there been a busier musician over the last two years? A more prolific artist? More creative? More heroic? Tim Burgess – as self-effacing a band leader, solo star, label runner, repeat memoirist and all-round caffeinated can-do kid as you’ll find – would certainly shrink from the latter accolade. “A hero??” he’d likely mutter with a shake of his boyish mop. “For playing some records?” Yes, Tim, we would say that. And not just because with the May 2020, mid-lockdown appearance of I Love The New Sky, his fifth solo album, he undauntedly pushed on with releasing an album that brought much-needed sunshine to a world enveloped in gloom. Over the course of the first year of the pandemic, Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties were a lifeline to many. At a time when the world shut down, we all retreated indoors, alone, and cancelled gigs were the least of our worries, the North Country Boy’s idea of utilising social media to unite us round a digital turntable was inspired. Meanwhile, Burgess was writing. And writing. And writing. From September 2020 to summer 2021, ideas poured out of Burgess. He’d been encouraged by Simon Raymonde, boss of his record label Bella Union ¬– and, of course, a former Cocteau Twin. He applied a musician’s logic: if you can’t tour your last album, write a new one. Then, when you can tour again, you’ll have two albums’ worth of songs to play. Well, now, arguably, Burgess has three albums’ worth of songs to perform live. Typical Music is a 22-track double, a blockbuster set of songs that are as expansive and diverse as they are rich. As fun as they are funky. That embrace heartache and love. That run the gamut, from ABBA (in the shape of guest vocalist Pearl Charles, whose own brilliant Magic Mirror album is the sound of the magic Swedes doin' disco) to Zappa (free-form studio experimentation is go!).
The mythology surrounding 23-year-old King Princess precedes them. Mikaela Mullaney Straus exploded on the indie-pop scene with their 2018 single “1950,” leading to a debut LP in 2019, *Cheap Queen*, a thoughtful, vintage-sounding modern-pop record centered on young, queer relationships. On their second full-length, they’ve matured into the raspy, raucous rock star of their dreams, unafraid to place gorgeous hooks atop asymmetrical production (“I Hate Myself, I Want to Party,” and the closer, “Let Us Die,” which features the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins). “I’m in the same situation as when I was writing *Cheap Queen*,” they tell Apple Music. “I’m in a relationship, I want to write music, but I’m not writing about heartbreak, really. I’m writing about my heart being broken because I’m sad every day.” Before it was worked on by star producers like Aaron Dessner and Mark Ronson, *Hold On Baby* began when King Princess linked up with Phoebe Bridgers’ producer Ethan Gruska. “He would do an impression of his grandpa that was really loving and sweet and funny. He’d say, ‘Hold on, baby,’” they say. “I wrote this record as a reminder that it’s OK to be messy, that we’re living through hellish, hellish times, and especially when you’re a young person, it’s so easy to get lost in the sauce. I’ve used art and songwriting to heal myself so many times, to put myself back together, and to appreciate how messy, ridiculous, and foolish I am—and it’s OK to be all those things. We’re all in it together, boo.’” Below, King Princess walks Apple Music through their sophomore LP, *Hold On Baby*, track by track. **“I Hate Myself, I Want to Party”** “Parts of this record were written with Ethan and then another big chunk of it was with \[The National’s\] Aaron Dessner. I rolled up to Aaron’s studio compound \[in Upstate New York\], and I was like, ‘I don’t know this man. I’ve been doing writing sessions since I was 14 years old. I am really uninterested in meeting new people.’ I wrote with him—this was during lockdown. I was in New York, staying at my childhood home with my girlfriend and my best friend, literally playing PS5 every day in my underwear. Looking back, I was like, ‘Oh, I had depression.’ I was addressing these feelings of being a musician. You go out and people do treat you differently. You get this gratification. It feeds the ego, to go out and to party, to be adored onstage. I do think that, partially, that’s healthy and, partially, that’s ridiculous. Because I want to be a star.” **“Cursed”** “‘Cursed’ was written with my friend Dave Hamelin. I was being made to meet all these men. I got to this nasty-ass studio with no windows and a fucking keyboard. There were no \[other\] instruments. We just started talking, and I played him some of the music from the record—later on, we couldn’t write there. I went to his house, and we immediately started writing ‘Cursed.’ He managed the production, and I was writing. I played some drums. I love this song.” **“Winter Is Hopeful”** “I wanted it to be a song about what it feels like to be in a relationship and to stumble—like, constantly stumbling over words. We like the feeling that you’re battling the weather. It’s fucking cold, and you want to bundle up and go outside and feel like you’ve done something. It takes effort to go outside. In the summer, it feels like it’s this weird daze. I don’t really like sunlight. I like when it rains.” **“Little Bother”** “‘Little Bother’ started off because Fousheé and I were DMing. I heard her song that Lil Wayne was on, and I was like, ‘This is incredible.’ I just DM’d her, and I was like, ‘I want to be friends.’ We went in and, all day, we were trying out different stuff. At the very end, \[songwriter\] Zach \[Fogarty\] played this guitar loop he had recorded already, and I was like, ‘This is the vibe.’ We started writing this beautiful verse melody. I wrote the chorus, and we ended up with this song. I’d love to write with other artists.” **“For My Friends”** “I wrote this song with Ethan and Amy Allen. I had just gotten home from the New York trip where I was depressed and playing PS5 every day. My best friend from high school had moved around the corner and my other best friend was in the city. Those are my two girls. When I wasn’t sitting around depressed, the thing that was getting me out was hanging out with them. I wrote this song as a love letter to them, saying, like, ‘I’m always leaving, but I’m always coming back.’” **“Crowbar”** “Aaron wrote that piano line and played it for me. What’s funny is that he had sent that piano line to Ethan, like, months and months ago, unrelated to me, and Ethan had done something with it. So, that piano line was actually part of our little family. It is a love letter to the pillars of strength in your life. It’s reflecting on doing a lot of drugs, being really fucked up all the time, and not prioritizing what I find to be important, which is comfort, safety, art, rock, and roll. I was not prioritizing the things that were important.” **“Hold On Baby Interlude”** “I like for all of my interludes to feel like they’re going to be full songs and then they’re not. I thought it should kind of surmise what the album is about, with the interlude, and bring that melody as a motif back. I’m a woman of the theater, so I love a reprise.” **“Too Bad”** “I wrote ‘Too Bad’ sobbing. People are not going to like you in this life and that is just facts. You are not going to be a fucking patron saint. Anybody who tries to be a patron saint gets fucking slammed for being an asshole. All of the people who come forth and say, ‘I’m nice’—that is the death sentence of public figures.” **“Change the Locks”** “I wrote this song with Aaron, and it was kind of going to be canned, but then my queen warrior angel Jen Knoepfle called me and was like, ‘You need to finish this song.’ I finished it with Dave Hamelin, a hilarious French Canadian ex-indie musician/now-producer. He was like, ‘OK, we’re getting into the Lilith Fair section of the album.’ It just became a joke from there, like, ‘Fine. I need the people to feel like they’re menstruating at Lilith Fair \[when they listen to it\].’” **“Dotted Lines”** “I wrote this with Amy Allen, Nick Long, Tobias \[Jesso Jr.\], and Shawn Everett. Then Dave worked on it because it was going to get scrapped from the album, and then Dave was like, ‘Let me make it the Kate Bush fantasy that it deserves.’ All I was listening to when this album was being written was Kate Bush.” **“Sex Shop”** “I wrote this as a piano ballad, and then I asked my dad to record the vocals. He recorded a vocal on the piano and then I sent it to Ethan, and I said, ‘What can we do with this? This is bigger than a stripped-down ballad.’ He worked on it, and he turned it into this winding scene, like a crazy thing. Then I did the drum programming and played guitar, and it just went from there.” **“Let Us Die”** “Mark really loved this one. I wrote the chorus alone, and then I went in with Ethan and we wrote the verses together and the bridge. This is the type of song that I grew up listening to, the type of song I’ve always wanted to write: concise and emotionally relevant but also rocking. Then Mark enlisted the help of Taylor Hawkins to play drums on it, which was incredible. Taylor was so wonderful and was really excited to play on it. We FaceTimed and did a remote session, and I was sitting in my dad’s studio, and he was playing on it. I was fucking enamored. It was the thing I always wanted—real musicians that I look up to, playing on my music. It probably is my favorite song on the record. \[Also, when we were mixing it and\] we were trying to get the chorus to slap, my dad walked in and he’s like, ‘Just make the verses mono and then make the chorus stereo.’ We both looked at each other and we were like, ‘Oh.’ We took my dad’s note and then it completely changed the whole song. Dad did that.”
Yumi Zouma’s Josh Burgess likens the band’s songwriting process to gardening, “Someone brings in a seed and through collaboration, it grows into a song that is vastly different from its original form.” Like any garden, this one requires dedicated tending, a practice that seems rather inconvenient if not straight-up difficult, considering the fact that the four members live in disparate parts of the world – calling New York, London, and New Zealand home – but long-distance has always been a feature of their songwriting process, not a bug. Their new album, Present Tense, is the product of those efforts, a work Christie Simpson describes as “a gallery wall displaying these different moments in each of our lives. A process of curation, revisiting the past and making it relevant to the present.” You might assume that while some artists have struggled to rethink their processes during a pandemic, Yumi Zouma would be perfectly suited to lockdown, but the opposite proved to be true. Without looming tour dates driving them to release new music, the prolific band found themselves at a standstill. On the day that the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the band released their third LP, Truth or Consequences, via Polyvinyl, and had sold out their first American tour. After Yumi Zouma’s first show in Washington DC, the tour was canceled and the four members went their separate ways, an experience memorialized on Present Tense opener “Give It Hell.” “It was disorientating,” Charlie Ryder admits. “We generally work at a quick clip and average about a record a year, but with no foreseeable plans, we lost our momentum.” So they set a date. By September 1st, 2021, the album needed to be finished, regardless of whether they’d be able to tour it or even meet to record together. Before the September deadline goaded the band into action, they had what felt like endless amounts of time to record the album. What began in fits and starts became a committed practice again as Yumi Zouma dug through demos from as early as 2018 to collaborate on and make relevant to the peculiar moment in time the band, and world, was experiencing. “The lyrics on these songs feel like premonitions, in some regards,” Simpson reflects. “So much has changed for us, both personally and as a band, that things I wrote because the words sounded good together now speak to me in ways I didn’t anticipate.” Remote and in-person sessions in studios in Wellington, Florence, New York, Los Angeles, and London all played a role, and Yumi Zouma brought in new collaborators from different disciplines to broaden their sound. Studio recordings of drummer Olivia Campion were incorporated into every song, while pedal steel, pianos, saxophones, woodwinds, and strings were played by friends around the globe who were able to lend their talents and support. The band enlisted multiple mixers in Ash Workman (Christine & The Queens, Metronomy), Kenny Gilmore (Weyes Blood, Julia Holter), and Jake Aron (Grizzly Bear, Chairlift), and recruited the mastering expertise of Antoine Chabert (Daft Punk, Charlotte Gainsbourg) for the first time. “This is our fourth album, so we wanted to pivot slightly, create more extreme versions of songs,” Ryder says. “Working with other artists helped with that, and took us far outside of our normal comfort zone.” You can hear the impulse on “In The Eyes Of Our Love,” a song that’s seemingly twice as fast as any prior release, and closer to the classic rock of Dire Straits than the dream pop aesthetics that the band has built their career on so far. Campion’s drums crash in hard from the outset, sending the accompanying band into a revelry that only breaks upon arriving at the first bridge, when Simpson sings: “But we won’t lose sight of what we said/ I'll sing from the dirt instead.” There’s a defiance heard throughout Present Tense, a refusal to bend to what might seem fated, communicated not only through lyrics but in the boldness of these arrangements, metamorphosing between tracks without ever losing momentum. The triumphant chorus of “Where The Light Used To Lay” belies any of the pain beneath its surface, a technique Simpson likens to the work of folk-adjacent rock acts like Bruce Springsteen and Phoebe Bridgers. “We wanted quiet moments to give into a big, brash chorus, something that approaches cliché,” Simpson says. “The chorus feels like a dramatic encapsulation of who we want to be as a band,” Ryder adds. Two years away from the road gave Yumi Zouma a new appreciation for the friendship they’ve sustained and the opportunity an abundance of time off-cycle offered. “We used to run on adrenaline, and if a song wasn’t working we’d just nip it in the bud and move on. This process gave us the opportunity to really sit with songs and rethink them until they felt like they belonged in the collection,” Burgess says. Album closer “Astral Projection” is one such song, originally conceived by Burgess, who felt as if he’d been handed a sliver of brilliance after the song had been rewritten and abandoned by Ryder and Simpson. “It was as if I’d been given this rescue cat who had the potential to be great,” he says, laughing. Between them, the song developed into a bass-driven slowburner, moody and oddly prescient,“A hint of panic can do wonders for distance,” Simpson sings, her voice mirrored by Burgess’s. The outro twinkles like a summer skyline at dusk, violets and grays intermingling with the bright glow of a thousand open windows. “I daydream about playing that one live,” Burgess says. “In bed, I’ll close my eyes before sleep and imagine the drumbeat kicking in.” It’s a craving the members of Yumi Zouma all share, one they hope will be satiated someday soon. Dedicated to an embattled past, Present Tense is the band’s offering to a tenuous future.“To 2020, and the memory of all that was lost,” they write in the album’s liner notes. “Kia Kaha.”
In the near-decade since LA-based best-friend duo Girlpool, Avery Tucker and Harmony Tividad, infiltrated the indie pop-rock scene with their gorgeous harmonies and punky melodies as teenagers, a lot has changed: They instituted additional instrumentalists, they started veering away from their charmingly minimal and diaristic songwriting, and Avery began transitioning before their third LP, *What Chaos Is Imaginary*. *Forgiveness*, the pair’s fourth full-length, is the product of that growth. Their ear for sparse composition has evolved; instead of speaking world-weary truths in the space between spiky guitar riffs, they’ve grounded their sincerity in ethereal production, spacey synth, and songs that interrogate gender, relationships, and everything in between. Once celebrated for their youthful exuberance, Girlpool has never lost their heart, they’ve simply gained wisdom.
Pale Waves’ third album is the sound of a band unafraid—and more importantly, unapologetic—about who they are. *Who Am I?*, released in 2021, saw lead vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie open up a more personal side to her songwriting, but its follow-up *Unwanted* delves even deeper, exploring betrayal, jealousy, depression, rage, addiction, loss—and on the heartbreaking “The Hard Way,” the suicide of a schoolmate. “It’s from me maturing and becoming more comfortable within my own skin that I can be more confident and open,” Baron-Gracie tells Apple Music. “I feel like with the first album, and even slightly with the second album, I was still so timid. As I grow up, I become more sure of myself and that\'s displayed through how much I\'m able to put out there for everyone to see and hear.” Sonically, too, *Unwanted* is a far tougher proposition than its predecessors. Tracks such as the middle-finger-up pop-punk of the title track and the classic-rock crunch of “Jealousy” hold back some of the Manchester quartet’s more ethereal synth-pop trademarks to deliver a heavier kick. “That was 100% a conscious decision,” Baron-Gracie says. “When the pandemic happened, we were so upset that we couldn\'t play live, and that definitely influenced the direction we went in with this record, because we knew that when we stepped back onstage, we wanted to have the best time. We wanted to have that more heavy sound sonically; we didn\'t want to play these slow, sad songs.” That’s not to say *Unwanted* is short on poignant moments (you can practically taste the grief that powers the epic ballad “Without You,” for instance), yet the roar that breaks through the pain is one of defiance. Read on as Baron-Gracie walks us through her band’s album. **“Lies”** “We’re easing fans into the transition—we’re placing them in the swimming pool, and we were putting them in the shallow end. Even though there’s something quite dark about the subject matter, it puts people in a good mood because it’s got this drive running through it. It’s so fun to watch people dance to it when we play live.” **“Unwanted”** “‘Unwanted’ really summarizes the overall record, too—the dark, traumatic themes that run throughout. Feelings of neglect, anger, vanity, jealousy, sadness, depression…a lot of worlds that I think Pale Waves haven\'t tapped into before. It was really important that we made this record because I feel as a woman in today\'s society, when we project these feelings, we get labeled crazy. If a man\'s angry, they’re seen as more confident because they know their point, they know what they want. Whereas when a woman\'s angry, she\'s a crazy bitch. I wanted to show other women that it’s OK to feel these things.” **“The Hard Way”** “It\'s such a traumatic story about an amazing young girl at my school who had so much potential, but she was being bullied and took her own life because of it. She couldn\'t take any more of the abuse. I feel partly responsible that I didn\'t step up when I was a child and I saw that happening. It’s something that’s really affected me throughout my life. I hope that me telling her story in some form will influence other people and show them that everyone\'s fragile and to be careful with your words and be careful with your actions, because you never know when you\'re pushing someone too far.” **“Jealousy”** “I wrote ‘Jealousy’ with Whakaio Taahi from Tonight Alive. I’d written a few songs with him and a lot of them were very soft and mellow and they just weren\'t sitting right with me. I didn\'t feel like this was the next Pale Waves record. And then one day I came in and he played the ‘Jealousy’ riff and I was like, ‘Oh my god, you genius. That is amazing. That is exactly the direction that I want to go in! Forget all these soppy songs that we\'re writing. Let\'s write about jealousy and make it this sexy, aggressive song!’” **“Alone”** “’I don\'t think I\'ve ever been as brutal as I am on this track. It’s about when you say no to someone and they just don\'t leave you alone. So many times—in clubs, in bars, in goddamn Tesco—where someone comes up to you and they\'re like, ‘Can I buy you a drink? Can I get your number?’ And you say, ‘Sorry, I\'m not interested.’ And they still get all handsy and physical with you. Do you not get the message? Don\'t touch me. It\'s as simple as that. Leave me alone. I\'m absolutely fine by myself without you. It’s the ultimate rejection song. I just channeled all those nights where I\'ve said no but they\'ve continued to harass me.” **“Clean”** “Even though there\'s a lot of negative emotions on the record, I really wanted a moment or two where there was some kind of positivity or some kind of hopeful agenda. I wanted to write a cheesy love song. Like a song that they would play in a movie when the couple was falling in love and decide to run away together. I wanted to capture those moments that you feel when you\'re falling in love. There\'s nothing quite like that thrill of the very start of a relationship where those feelings are growing.” **“Without You”** “I knew that I wanted a huge ballad on the record. I feel like this record, because it\'s so loud and it\'s so in-your-face, that this ballad had to be on the same level as tracks like ‘You\'re So Vain.’ It couldn\'t just be a ballad where I\'m on my guitar or on the piano again. It had to be dynamic and flow through the emotions. ‘Without You’ is about me losing someone so close to my heart that I struggle to comprehend how I can live life without them. It\'s the sad realization of you have to find a way to get through it and cope with it and realize that they aren\'t coming back.” **“Only Problem”** “‘Only Problem’ is about me having this constant thing in my life that I was always battling with and was always pulling me down. It was always something that I relied on in my states of feeling fragile and it brought me back up, but then it would always drop me back down. I had to learn and come to terms of removing that from my life for good. Alcohol would give me that fake confidence that you need when you feel insecure. There can be such reliance on that, and people in this industry normalize it, and it shouldn\'t be normalized. It can be abused, and I wanted to learn to live a life without it. So I removed it completely, and now I\'m much happier.” **“You’re So Vain”** “There\'s a lot of pop-punk on the record, which I love, but then you get to ‘You\'re So Vain’ and it\'s almost more classic rock and roll in a way. I wanted to push it more in this direction. We came up with the riff first and I was like, ‘Yes! That’s it!’ And then I was like, ‘OK, we need a subject matter that is going to work with this. It needs to be badass. It needs to be confident. It needs to be unapologetic…’ I feel like there\'s a lot of egotistical people in the music industry, people that I may have looked up to that I\'ve met and I\'ve figured out that they’re an awful person. I channeled my anger towards people\'s egos with this song. I wanted to take them down a step.” **“Reasons to Live”** “This has the dark and it has the light. The chorus is the light and verses are the dark. It\'s about when I was really struggling with my mental health. I felt like it was deteriorating and I felt really fragile, and then I found love that enabled me to see the light. Love pulled me back and showed me a new perspective on things. It helped me get healthier and helped me to really fall in love with things. Even to really fall in love with music again.” **“Numb”** “I go through periods in life where I hit this wall of depression and it can last days. I don\'t want to move out of bed, I don\'t care about anything, I don\'t care about anyone. I know that a lot of people feel this way and go through the same thing, and I feel it\'s important when you get to that point to know that other people go through it too, and to be able to relate to something. So I wanted to write a song about the way I feel when I get like that. I wanted it to be really stripped back, just me, an electric guitar, and some harmonies. I didn\'t want any other distractions, I just wanted everyone to focus on what I was saying.” **“Act My Age”** “It is about growing older. It’s a battle between being like, ‘Shit, I need to grow up,’ but then also, ‘Oh, shit, I miss when I was a child and I didn\'t have to worry about anything.’ It’s that realization that everyone gets older and everyone needs to get their shit together. I was turning a page in my life where I was wanting to remove a lot of toxic things out of my life and I was reflecting on childhood and that innocence that we have and wanting to channel some of that into where I am right now.” **“So Sick (Of Missing You)”** “I wrote this because I was tired of writing about myself or other people that I knew in my life. I was watching *Sex Education* at the time, and I wrote this about the period where Maeve and Otis aren’t talking and they\'re missing one another and they’re both like, ‘How could you be so mean to me and just cut me off like that?’ I related to that so much, and I love their relationship. I think it\'s so interesting and *Sex Education* is such a good show. After listening through various track listings for the record, it felt like this could be the only closing act. No other track felt right. I didn\'t want to do the typical Pale Waves thing and finish on the classic ballad, because we\'ve already done that twice.”
A fiery, confident kick-back against convention, Pale Waves’ third record Unwanted sees the group building on the promise of last year’s UK Top 3 album Who Am I?, and staking their claim as British rock’s most dynamic young group. “It’s bold and unapologetic, and that’s what the Pale Waves community is about,” says frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie herself. “We don’t need to fit a perfect mould, we don’t need to apologise for being ourselves, and we won’t change for anyone. That acceptance is what connects us.” Led by riotous lead single “Lies”, Unwanted is a record that reaches out to the passionate community of misfits and LGBTQI+ fans around the band, tapping into darker emotions than ever before while also striking a fresh tone of defiance.
Camila Cabello’s solo career continues to be one of modern pop’s most worthwhile musical journeys. Where 2019’s *Romance* stepped back from the Caribbean vibes of her smash hit “Havana,” *Familia* shifts decidedly closer to her Cuban American roots and culture. Indeed, the first time we hear her voice here is on the subversively playful “Celia,” sung entirely in Spanish. Far from some staid Latin crossover, the rest of the project jumps between languages and genres as she sees fit, earnest and revealing on “psychofreak” with WILLOW and just crazy in love on “Hasta Los Dientes” with Maria Becerra in her corner. She goes back and forth with Ed Sheeran over the salsa sway of “Bam Bam” and revels in the expansive rhythms of “Don’t Go Yet” on her own.
In early 2020, Turnover were touring Europe fresh off a US tour for their new album, Altogether. As the pandemic caused borders to begin closing in around them, the band cut the tour short and got one of the last flights home - not knowing stages around the world would be dark for almost two years. Since 2012, the band has been touring full time, averaging 200 shows each year. In their time away from the road, the band had the opportunity to explore and deepen aspects of their lives that they hadn’t been able to in the past. “I tried to be as positive as possible about the change in my life. Instead of thinking about the things covid was taking from me I wanted to focus on what it could give me,” says singer Austin Getz. The title track of the band’s new album, Myself in the Way, speaks to this mindset. “I can’t put myself in the way of love again,” sings Getz, “I promise I’m going to go all the way with you,” is specifically about Getz getting engaged to his longtime partner, but applies to the general outlook he had toward life in lockdown. “I was living in Sebastopol, California at the time and felt like I truly lived there for the first time since I wasn’t leaving for tour. I was able to go meditate at the Zen Buddhist dojo down the road, run and bike around the hills in Sonoma county, learn about plants and gardening, take some Spanish and arboriculture classes, and get involved with the volunteer fire department. Just do a bunch of new things to challenge and inspire me in a natural way.” Turnover’s other members also used the time to deepen interests they hadn’t been able to fully explore before covid. Bass player Dan Dempsey was in New York City and responded to lockdown by spending more time practicing his visual art in drawing and painting. He painted the album’s cover during this period and developed a style that has become a central theme for the band in its current iteration. Drummer Casey Getz found work at a Virginia Beach state park as touring continued to be postponed. He was in search of and inspired by having a work-life balance different than he’d experienced since he was younger. Through this, he was able to nurture current relationships more and find new ones, something touring made much more difficult. This led to Casey playing drums with a group of longtime friends in Virginia Beach and further developing his drumming style - adding a new prowess for fluidity and improvisation through lengthy jam sessions with the group. Guitarist Nick Rayfield was focused on sharpening his guitar and piano playing and was able to devote energy to skateboarding and his retail business more than he had been able to for the last few years. This was also the band’s first album with Rayfield making songwriting contributions after touring with them for years as a live member, adding a new creative element to the songs. Over 18 months Turnover weaved these individual experiences into a collective work, recording the LP over two sessions with longtime collaborator Will Yip at Studio 4. Austin is credited, for the first time, as co-producer. “I had specific ideas for sound design on this album. I knew a lot of sounds I wanted to hear and use. We wanted everything to be able to be heard and have its own place. I was inspired by the way Magical Mystery Tour and Dark Side of the Moon sounded. We decided to go a lot wider with it and utilize panning and stereo more than we had in the past, while also wanting it to sound tighter and smaller than some of our earlier records. We were inspired by drum and bass sounds from Chic and Quincy Jones records from the 70s, so we put the drums in the control room to get them to sound smaller. We used an active pickup bass and a jazz bass to get that percussive sound from the bass so the low end wasn’t as rumbling and subby. We let the synths share some of that low end that the drums and bass gave up. Quincy's approach to arrangements were a huge inspiration in this record as well. The horn and string lines I wanted to sound like classic era disco, mixed with modern synth and vocal sounds. I had been experimenting with my own vocal styles a lot and utilized autotune and vocoder on this album almost as instruments on certain songs as a stylistic choice.” The band has always been DIY, but post pandemic they have taken that to a different level. They appreciate more than ever how lucky they are to get to be together and have fun creating things with their friends. They have found that they are usually best suited for executing their own vision, not only musically, but with all its accompaniments as well. For this album they made all their own videos in collaboration with friends and using Dempsey's drawings and paintings. Change is authentic and true to Turnover as a band and as individuals. Chart a course through their discography and find a band continually reinventing themselves with a unique artistic ambition. Myself In The Way arrives finding Turnover doing the same within their own persons, pushing the band into new and exciting parallel depths of expression.
songs by katie dey cover art by iron t hawk
The electronic shapeshifters unspool an intimate art-pop vision.
