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Israeli court limits use of spy agency to track coronavirus cases
Israel’s top court ruled Tuesday the government must curb its use of the domestic spy agency to track coronavirus infections, saying “draconian” surveillance constituted a blow to democracy. The government began using the Shin Bet’s surveillance technologies in March 2020, when Covid-19 infections began to spike. But the supreme court quickly blocked such practice, saying legislation was needed to authorise the programme. Tracking was discontinued in June but the following month, amid another infection surge, parliament passed a law allowing the surveillance when “an epidemiological investigation cannot be completed otherwise”. Initially approved for three weeks, that has measure has been repeatedly extended since while details of how information was obtained were kept secret. Critics crie...
St. Vincent Details “Sleazy, Grimy” New Album Daddy’s Home
One of our most anticipated albums of 2021 is the impending new record from St. Vincent. Last year, Annie Clark confirmed that the LP would arrive by this summer, and earlier this week some eagle-eyed Reddit users spotted posters that indicated it’s titled Daddy’s Home and would be released on May 14th. In a new interview with The New Cue, Clark didn’t confirm either of those facts, but she did share some key details about the album’s theme, sound, and recording process. While speaking with the new weekly music newsletter, the Grammy-winning rocker revealed that it was co-produced by Jack Antonoff (who she worked with on 2017’s MASSEDUCTION ) and that it was heavily inspired by early ’70s New York City. “I would say it’s the sound of being down and out Downtown in New Y...
Björk Shares Sonos Radio Mix: Stream
Björk is the latest artist to curate a Sonos Radio station, plumbing her formidable WAV archives for a playlist that touches every corner of the globe. Her channel is called “21 years worth of wave files liquidated into a stream”. As she explained in an interview at the top of the mix, Björk has owned the same laptop for 21 years. It’s become a repository for all her favorite tracks discovered on CDs, cassettes, vinyl, and more — every song that she says “saved my life” she converted into a high-quality WAV format. Now, these sonic chronicles have been distilled down to an eclectic hour’s worth of music, featuring performances by Alim qasimov, Jeremiah, Oui, LFO, Aby Ngana Diop, ML Buch, and more. In a statement, Björk delved into her curation process, writing, “i am quite t...
Weezer’s Brian Bell on What Albums to Expect Next
Kyle Meredith With… Weezer Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Weezer multi-instrumentalist Brian Bell joins Kyle Meredith to talk about OK Human, the band’s latest LP that finds them working with an orchestra on a seamless thematic piece. The guitarist discusses playing the acoustic guitar and organ since the record has no electric instruments, the importance of human voices, and using the Fibonacci sequence in one of their songs. Bell also dives into how the band continues to work on multiple records at once, gives an update on the delayed Van Weezer LP, drops the news on a classic-Weezer-inspired Weezer album that’ll be included in a four-part album series, and the possibility of a...
Kings of Leon Share New Song “Echoing”: Stream
Kings of Leon are in the process of rolling out their first album in five years, When You See Yourself. The full record arrives next month, but today they’re giving fans another taste of what’s to come with a new song called “Echoing”. Last month, the Nashville-bred band announced their first full-length since 2016’s WALLS by sharing two promising singles, “The Bandit” and “100,000 People”. The former was a brisk and rattling rocker in the vein of their 2008 mega-hit “Sex On Fire”, while “100,000 People” was took more of a slow-burning ballad route that still featured a satisfying build. “Echoing”, which is the second-to-last song on the tracklist, falls somewhere in the middle between those two sounds. It begins with a tense and lively drum beat that revs in the background the whole time ...
In Defense of Phoebe Bridgers Smashing Her Guitar on Saturday Night Live
This past weekend, Phoebe Bridgers made her eagerly anticipated debut as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. During the final moments of her performance of “I Know the End”, a track from her buzzy sophomore album, Punisher, Bridgers went out with a bang — literally — when she repeatedly smashed her guitar into a monitor onstage. Unfortunately, the Internet being what it is, Bridgers’ epic moment of punk euphoria was clouded by curmudgeonly chatter. A simple search of “Phoebe Bridgers guitar” on Twitter brings up a litany of comments wondering why “that woman” had the nerve to “damage expensive property.” Others called the act pointless and even poked fun at Bridgers for apparently not being strong enough to have done more physical damage to the instrument. No matter how much doom scr...
Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood Calls for UK Government to Renegotiate Brexit Touring Provisions
On February 1st, the long-running Brexit saga finally came to an end, and British citizens woke up on an island both figuratively and literally. But the ramifications of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union are still being parsed. On February 8th, Radiohead bassist Colin Greenwood wrote an op-ed in The Guardian that looked at the new requirements for British bands on the Continent and called for the government to “renegotiate on the provision for touring in Europe.” Greenwood opens the op-ed by recalling Radiohead’s first European excursions, the “small clubs and early festival slots across Sweden, The Netherlands and France in a crappy old bus that smelled of diesel and had sad grey curtains.” He adds, “There were so many different kinds of milk.” Beyond the fond memories, G...
Phoebe Bridgers Guitar Smashes Her Way Into SNL Lore With Epic Two Song Performance: Watch
Phoebe Bridgers proved to be one of the few bright spots of 2020, as the talented Los Angeles-based songwriter managed to become a full-blown superstar while hunkered down in quarantine. She released one of the year’s best albums with Punisher. She then proceeded to deliver memorable covers of Radiohead, John Prine, and Goo Goo Dolls; launched her very own record label; made a music video with Phoebe Waller-Bridge; and recorded and released another collection of music with Copycat Killer EP. All the while, she masterfully navigated the limitations of performing remotely, setting a standard that few have been able to match (see: her bathtub performance on Kimmel, her karaoke rendition of “Kyoto” on Colbert, and her NPR Tiny Desk set, to name just a few). For her efforts, Bridgers was honore...
Foo Fighters and Billie Eilish Perform at ALTer EGO Fest: Watch
iHeartRadio’s annual ALTer EGO festival went down in livestream form on Thursday night with headlining performances fro Foo Fighters and Billie Eilish. Foo Fighters kicked off the evening with a four-song set. “Shame Shame” and “Waiting On A War”, from the band’s forthcoming album Medicine at Midnight, were bookended by classics “Everlong” and “The Pretender”. Eilish closed the night with performances of her latest singles “therefore I am” and “my future”, along with “everything I wanted”. Though Foo Fighters and Eilish did not perform together, Dave Grohl was no doubt pumped to be sharing a bill with the young superstar. Last year, he likened Eilish’s rapid rise to Nirvana’s in 1991: “People say, ‘Is rock dead?’ When I look at someone like Billie Eilish, rock and roll is no...
Martin Gore on Making Soundwave Art from Depeche Mode Songs
Kyle Meredith With… Martin Gore Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Depeche Mode songwriter Martin Gore hops on the line with Kyle Meredith to discuss The Third Chimpanzee. The new instrumental solo album finds him thematically bridging primates to humans in both the sounds he’s making and the inspiration he draws from. Gore dives into the ways he makes instrumentals speak to something, and the state of panic and anxiety he felt over the past four years. The electronic innovator also talks about being on the forefront of computerized music, his thoughts on AI songwriters, making soundwave art out of Depeche Mode songs, and the upcoming remixes for The Third Chimpanzee. Kyle Meredith W...
New Radicals to Reunite for Joe Biden’s Inaugural Parade
New Radicals will reunite after 22 years to perform at Joe Biden’s inaugural parade. Rolling Stone reports the band will perform their signature hit “You Get What You Give” to close the virtual “Parade Across America” on Wednesday, January 20th. During the presidential campaign, “You Get What You Give” was used as the walk-out song for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff. The song was also beloved by President-elect Biden’s late son, Beau, and became something of a personal theme song for him as he battled cancer. “During breakfast, Beau would often make me listen to what I thought was his theme song, ‘You Get What You Give’ by the New Radicals,” Biden wrote in his 2017 memoir Promise, Me Dad. “Even though Beau never stopped fighting and his will to live was stronger th...
Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, Gary Oldman & Others Sing Bowie Songs for 74th Birthday Livestream: Watch
On Saturday night, David Bowie’s friends, collaborators, and some of the many musicians he inspired came together to celebrate his 74th birthday. (The event had originally been scheduled for Friday night, but was postponed due to technical difficulties.) Among the many highlights: Trent Reznor, along with his Nine Inch Nails bandmate Atticus Ross, Reznor’s wife Mariqueen Maandig, and Bowie collaborator Mike Garson, performed covers of “Fantastic Voyage” and “Fashion”. Billy Corgan played “Space Oddity”, Duran Duran covered “Five Years”, and The Cult’s Ian Astbury tackled “Lazarus”. Bowie’s close friend Gary Oldman sang Tin Machine’s “I Can’t Read”, and Michael C. Hall, who starred in Bowie’s musical Lazarus, performed “Where Are We Now?”. Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawki...
