Experimental
Blanck Mass Announces New Album In Ferneaux, Shares “Starstuff”: Stream
Blanck Mass is the solo electronic music project of Benjamin John Power, co-founder of drone outfit Fuck Buttons. Today, the British artist has announced a new album dubbed In Ferneaux, due for release next month via Sacred Bones. The follow-up to 2019’s Animated Violence Mild was written and recorded during quarantine, and is very much a product of its time. Blanck Mass created the album using a decade’s worth of field recordings from his various travels — purposely bringing memories and relationships back to life during a period of great separation and isolation. These recordings inform both halves of In Ferneaux, with each section representing a so-called “long-form journey” in the UK musician’s life. “The journeys are haunted with the vestiges of voices, places, and sensations,” descri...
Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor Share New Collaborative Song: Stream
Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor have teamed up for a new song called “let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out”. It’s a murky experimental track that also features contributions from Kelly Moran and Moses Boyd. Lu’s 2019 album Blood and Tumor’s 2020 opus Heaven to a Tortured Mind are quite different in many ways, but they share a low-lit ambiance and a sense of cathedral-like beauty. On this collaborative single, both of their steamy falsettos sound part of the same whole, blending and swirling around one another over woozy piano lines. Eventually, some congas and electronic production enter the fray, and the track concludes with a tastefully busy arrangement. Take a listen to the full tune below. In a statement, Lu described the intense emotions the song is...
Top 50 Songs of 2020
The 2020 edition of our Annual Report continues today with our Top 50 Songs of 2020. If you haven’t already, check out our Top 50 Albums of 2020, which came out earlier in the week. Also, be sure to tune in next week as we begin handing out our annual accolades and continue looking back on the strange year that was 2020. Upon being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame some years ago, Tom Waits said, “We love music, but what we really want is for music to love us back.” Believe it or not, it felt like music did that in 2020. For me, anyway. I know that it’s easy to see the world through pandemic goggles right now or strictly through the lens of racial injustice or political turmoil. Tragedy and frustration that keeps piling on can definitely cloud our vision or color our window on t...
Björk Shares New Version of “Sonnets” Featuring Iceland’s Hamrahlid Choir: Stream
Like many Icelandic artists before her, Björk spent much of her teenage years singing as part of the renowned Hamrahlid Choir. Things have now come full circle, as the experimental artist has contributed to the choir’s upcoming album, Come and Be Joyful. The two acts have specifically collaborated on a new version of “Sonnets”, originally taken from Björk’s 2004 album Medúlla. This completely reworked a cappella rendition was actually first premiered live by the choir during Björk’s mesmerizing “Cornucopia Tour” in 2019, but hasn’t been released to the public until today. “[Hamrahlid Choir founder] þorgerður is a legend in iceland and has guarded optimism and the light in the tumultuous times that teenagedom is,” Björk praised the choir’s leader on social media. “she has also encoura...
Sex and Explosions Abound in Yves Tumor’s New NSFW Video for “Kerosene!”: Watch
Yves Tumor is here to give the people what they want: sex, explosions, violent car chases, and a new music video for the incandescent song “Kerosene!” “Kerosene!” comes from the April release Heaven to a Tortured Mind, one of our favorite albums from the first half of the year. It features… Please click the link below to read the full article. Sex and Explosions Abound in Yves Tumor’s New NSFW Video for “Kerosene!”: Watch Wren Graves You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of I...
Oneohtrix Point Never Shares New Video for “Lost But Never Alone”, Directed by the Safdie Brothers: Watch
Oneohtrix Point Never capped off the month of October with his impressive new album. In further support of Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, the musician and producer born Daniel Lopatin has let loose the video for “Lost But Never Alone”, and it sees him reuniting with acclaimed filmmakers Josh and Benny… Please click the link below to read the full article. Oneohtrix Point Never Shares New Video for “Lost But Never Alone”, Directed by the Safdie Brothers: Watch Lake Schatz You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back the...
Björk Reveals New Version of “Cosmogony” Featuring Iceland’s Hamrahlid Choir: Stream
With coronavirus cases slowly rising in Iceland, Björk was recently forced to delay her highly anticipated live concert series. Thankfully, the pandemic hasn’t stopped her from releasing new music. Today, Björk is sharing a new version of “Cosmogony”, created in collaboration with the Icelandic Hamrahlid Choir. “Cosmogony” originally appeared on Björk’s Biophilia album from 2011. However, this alternate a cappella rendition was conceived more recently during Björk’s “Cornucopia Tour” with the Hamrahlid Choir last year. The two acts actually share a history that dates back decades; Björk was a member of the group as a teenager, long before she brought them onstage during her live performances and featured them on albums like 2017’s immersive Utopia. “i was myself in this choir when i w...
The Adventurous Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Illuminates a True Talent: Review
The Lowdown: The pseudonym of Brooklyn-based electronic musician Daniel Lopatin, Oneohtrix Point Never has made a name for himself not only with his own releases, but also through his collaborations with notable artists like Tim Hecker, FKA Twigs, and The Weeknd. He’s also found acclaim as the composer for both Safdie brothers films — 2017’s Good Time and 2019’s Uncut Gems — and he set a high bar with 2018’s Age Of. Thus, he had quite the task in front of him in making its follow-up, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, a worthwhile addition to his impressive and renowned catalog. Fortunately, Lopatin goes one step further by creating a fascinating and evocative, yet periodically frustrating, sequence. Recorded in lockdown between March and July of this year, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never sees him c...
Jónsi Soars and Crashes (in a Good Way) on Shiver: Review
The Lowdown: On Shiver, his first solo album in 10 years, Icelandic artist Jónsi presents atmospheric electronic art-pop, which balances uplift with glitchy dread. With band Sigur Rós on indefinite hiatus, and after separating from his longtime partner/collaborator, the singer-songwriter-composer now lives in LA and had his first visual-art exhibition last fall. Those themes of the uncomfortable freedom of dislocation and transition are reflected on the songs of Shiver, which soar, short-out, crash and re-boot. [embedded content] The Good: While Jónsi’s mystical countertenor voice has often been associated with glacial fjords and forests thick with elves, Shiver evokes dark landscapes that are more industrial and interior. The 45-year-old multi-instrumentalist teamed up with en vogue young...
Jónsi Premieres New Solo Album Shiver: Stream
Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi has unveiled his first solo album in 10 years, Shiver. Stream it in full down below via Apple Music and Spotify. Out through Krunk Records, Shiver is Jónsi’s second full-length to date following Go from 2010. It spans a total of 11 tracks and features vocal contributions from Robyn (“Salt Licorice”) and Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins (“Cannibal”). All of the album’s production was handled by A. G. Cook, the PC Music founder and pop futurist known for his collaborations with Charli XCX as well as 100 gecs. Per a statement, Shiver “plumbs the depths of the human experience and our connection to the natural world.” Nature seems to be a frequently explored theme for the Icelandic artist as of late; as Dark Morph, his p...
Micachu and the Shapes Change Name, Announce New Album: Stream
Micachu and the Shapes, the noisy indie-pop band led by Under the Skin composer Mica Levi, are back. They have renamed the group Good Sad Happy Bad — taken from their 2015 full-length of the same name — and have announced a new album called Shades. It’s due out October 16th via French label Textile Records. Shades is Good Sad Happy Bad’s fifth studio album to date and their first new music since releasing the Taz and May Vids EP in 2016. According to the record label, Good Sad Happy Bad have shuffled their musical duties on the 12-track full-length, with Raisa Khan taking on lead vocals, Levi playing playing guitar and electronics, Marc Pell on drums, and CJ Calderwood contributing vocals, saxophone, and recorder. To coincide with today’s announcement, Good Sad Happy Bad have also sha...
Arca Shares Ambient New Song “Mallorca”: Stream
Arca returned this past spring with her acclaimed new album called KiCk I, which touts high-profile collaborations with Björk, Rosalía, and SOPHIE. Now, to coincide with Bandcamp Friday, the electronic music producer has unveiled the latest installment in her Mutants Mixtape compilation series, and it features a new solo offering called “Mallorca”. Clocking in at two-and-a-half minutes, the track finds Alejandra Ghersi conjuring an ambient yet shapeshifting world — one that’s fluid and multi-faceted in nature, much like Arca herself. “I’m asking for recognition that we have multiple selves without denying that there’s a singular unit,” Arca told Paper earlier this year, in a discussion about her identity as a Latinx trans woman. “I want to be seen as an ecosystem of minor self-states ...
