A quarter century ago, an up-and-coming rap duo called OutKast were on the brink of stardom. The album that would make André 3000 and Big Boi household names, ATLiens, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer, and Legacy Recordings is honoring the occasion with a special deluxe edition of the hip-hop classic. ATLiens (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) is out August 27th. ATLiens (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) comes with a remastered version of the album’s original track list, including the iconic singles “Elevators (Me & You),” “ATLiens” and “Jazzy Belle.” It’s also bundled with 14 previously-unreleased instrumental tracks. Besides that, a limited-edition anniversary bundle includes four 12″ vinyl discs and a special glow in the dark 45. Pre-orders are available now via OutKas...
Pile are going back to the beginning. The indie rock band founded by Rick Maguire has announced their eighth studio album today, Songs Known Together, Alone, out August 10th via Exploding In Sound. Rather than a typical album rollout, this collection will feature Maguire’s solo recordings of previous Pile songs, paying homage to the group’s origin as a one-man project. As a preview, Maguire has shared his new imaginations of old Pile tracks “I Don’t Want to Do This Anymore” and “Build a Fire.” Maguire recorded Songs Known Together, Alone live in three days in upstate New York. He pored over Pile’s 15-year career, tweaking songs to find new meanings and purposes. While Pile fans will recognize the bones of each track, they feel pleasantly different in this context. “‘I Don’t Want to Do This...
Courtney Barnett is back with the announcement of her next album, Things Take Time, Take Time. The follow-up to 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel is due out November 12th via Mom+Pop. Along with the news, the Aussie singer-songwriter has shared the music video for her twangy new single “Rae Street.” Things Take Time, Take Time is Barnett’s third proper full-length. Written over the course of two years, she then recorded the album in late 2020 and early 2021 with producer Stella Mozgawa, known for work with Warpaint, Cate le Bon, and Kurt Vile. If “Rae Street” is any indication, the album will see Barnett lean into her more relaxed, country-fied mode, though with the same sense of acerbic wit that’s made her an indie rock star: “Time is money, and money is no man’s friend,” she croons on t...
Sufjan Stevens has announced a new collaborative album with Asthmatic Kitty label mate Angelo De Augustine. Entitled A Beginner’s Mind, it’s due for release on August 24th. As a preview, the duo has shared two songs: “Reach Out” and “Olympus”. A Beginner’s Mind came about after Stevens and De Augustine decamped to a friend’s cabin in upstate New York for a monthlong songwriting sabbatical. “Watching a movie to unwind after each day’s work, they soon found their songs reflecting the films and began investigating this connection in earnest.” A press release goes on to explain: “The resulting album is 14 songs (loosely) based on (mostly) popular films—highbrow, lowbrow and everything in between. They wrote in tandem—one person writing a verse, the other a chorus, churning out c...
Slap that bass and pop those lips, because the iconic Seinfeld soundtrack is finally getting released. As Variety reports, 33 tracks of Jonathan Wolff’s most beloved Seinfeld compositions will be collected on a new album available on all digital platforms Friday, July 2nd. Some 23 years after Seinfeld aired its final episode, the vast majority of the music remains unattainable. The full OST tracklist has yet to be released, but in addition to the main theme, it will include songs such as “Kramer’s Pimpwalk,” “Jerry the Mailman,” “Jerry vs. Newman Chase,” “Cable Guy vs. Kramer Chase,” “Kramer’s Boombox,” “Peterman in Burmese Jungle,” and the bluesy series finale cut “Waiting for the Verdict.” The collection is said to show off the incredibl...
Lil Nas X has finally announced his debut album, Montero. The rapper and singer shared the news on Tuesday via Twitter, simply stating that the project is “coming soon!” As usual, the meme king made the reveal in a unique way. Spoofing the opening to Marvel movies, Lil Nas X introduced Montero with a cinematic album trailer containing clips from his videos for “Old Town Road”, “Panini”, “Holiday”, and “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)”. It also includes a snippet of an unreleased song, in which Lil Nas raps, “Couple Grammys on him/ Couple plaques, eh, that’s a fact.” Check out the Montero album trailer below. Following the record-breaking success of “Old Town Road”, Lil Nas dropped his debut EP, 7, in June 2019. Since returning in November 2020 with “Holiday”, Nas has bee...
Steve Gunn has announced a new album. It’s called Other You and it’s due out August 27th via Matador. To break the news, he’s releasing the two-song single “Other You” / “Reflection” today and has unveiled a string of US tour dates as well. Gunn has released a lot of records over the years, but technically speaking Other You is his sixth studio album and the follow-up to 2019’s The Unseen in Between. It was created with veteran producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith) and Gunn’s longtime friend and collaborator Justin Tripp. It also features contributions from Julianna Barwick, Mary Lattimore, Jeff Parker, Bridget St. John, Bill MacKay, Ben Bertrand, and others. In a statement, Gunn explained that the idea for the title came about during a vocal recording session with Schnapf. “Rob was v...
On first glance, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last? may look like the hottest indie rock festival of 2010, but it’s actually the stacked new album from Big Red Machine. The supergroup from Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Aaron Dessner (The National) will drop their newest studio set on August 27th. It features Taylor Swift, Fleet Foxes, Sharon Van Etten, and more, and as a preview the band is offering the new song “Latter Days” with Anaïs Mitchell. This will be Big Red Machine’s second album following their eponymous debut in 2018. That project leaned heavily on the voice of Vernon, but this time around they’re mixing things up. Dessner handles lead vocals on three tracks, and as new single “Latter Days” demonstrates, they’re also making space for guest vocalists. Mitchell is th...
Wanda Jackson, who has been called the Queen of Rockabilly and the first sex symbol of country music, has announced her final album Encore. Produced by Joan Jett, this curtain call for an iconic career will bow on August 20th. Jackson announced her retirement from touring in 2019, a decision that was said to be based on “health and safety.” But she always left the door open for a recorded return, and as it turns out, she was already hard at work on Encore. The eight-track studio set includes covers and originals, all recorded around the time she was pulling out of the spotlight. She called it “one of the most personal pieces I have ever released.” Via Exclaim!, the album will offer “a picture of my early life and have a peak into the closeness that my late husband ...
RZA has shared a new single called “Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater”. It’s the first preview of the Wu-Tang Clan member’s forthcoming album, RZA vs. Bobby Digital, a dual-persona project due out August 6th. The track — as well as the entire album — was produced exclusively by DJ Scratch, allowing RZA’s instantly-recognizable MCing to take the forefront. “Lyrically the hip-hop part of me had a chance to re-emerge during quarantine,” RZA said in a statement. “Giving Scratch the reins as a producer and me taking the reins as an MC, that’s what frees me up creatively and lets me play more with lyrical gags and lyrical flows because I don’t have to be focused on everything. [Scratch] delivered tracks that resonated and brought me back to a sound that I felt was missing. For me it was really ...
The Vaccines have unveiled the title track and release date for their upcoming album Back in Love City. The British rock band’s fifth studio set is slated to hit shelves, streamers, and digital retailers on September 10th via Super Easy/AWAL Recordings. According to frontman Justin Hayward-Young, the 13-track studio set was inspired by all types of cityscapes — from the real to the fictional — and the idea took root when he traded homes (The Holiday-style) with a someone in L.A. “I literally swapped lives with a stranger. I lived in [his] house and drove his car while he lived in mine, but we’d never met and had no previous connections,” he said in a statement. “Back In Love City” finds the quintet delivering a chant-ready, guitar-driven chorus between Hayward-Young’s cheeky...
Rising indie pop artist Samia broke into the music scene this past August with her debut album, The Baby. Now, she’s announced The Baby Reimagined, a companion collection that sees other musicians cover and remix her original songs. Due out January 15th via Grand Jury, the upcoming effort includes reworks helmed by The Districts, Palehound, and Bartees Strange. There is also an update of “Waverly” from Anjimile, a former Consequence of Sound Artist of the Month. As a teaser of The Baby Reimagined, Samia is sharing a new version of “Is There Something in the Movies” from folk songwriter Briston Maroney. The Nashville-based Maroney here turns “Is There Something in the Movies?” into a whispery, emotional, acoustic anthem that gathers strength as it progresses. By the time he reaches the chor...