Indie pop
Song of the Week: Phoenix and Ezra Koenig Hearken Back to the Golden Age of Indie-Pop with “Tonight”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Phoenix and Ezra Koenig unleash a delightful collab. Phoenix hearken back to the golden age of indie pop — an era they helped define in 2009 with their groundbreaking fourth album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix — on their new song, “Tonight,” the second single from their upcoming album Alpha Zulu (out November 4th). “Tonight” not only features fellow indie icon Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, but some signature Phoenix moves; the rousing hi-hat and tom drum line from “Lasso” returns, the escalating synths of “1901” ...
Adam Melchor Shares the Origins of New Single “I’m Ready”: Exclusive
Origins is our recurring feature series that provides artists a platform to dive into everything that inspired their latest release. Today, Adam Melchor takes us through “I’m Ready.” Adam Melchor has returned with “I’m Ready,” the latest single from his upcoming debut album Here Goes Nothing!, on Friday, September 9th. The dreamy indie-folk tune doubles down on Melchor’s knack for warm harmonies and frames him as wholeheartedly in love. As soon as the inviting, ocean-like ambiance introduces the tune, the tone of the song is immediately obvious. Before Melchor even utters the first line, you know it’s a love song. The instrumentation, with its finger-picked acoustic guitar and chime embellishments, simply feels like love incarnate. So, it comes as no surprise when Melchor proceed...
Natural Brown Prom Queen Is Sudan Archives’ Brilliant Homecoming
Brittney Parks might be the only artist who can use the phrases “step inside my cottage” and “only bad bitches” in the same verse. The multi-hyphenate alt-R&B musician — better known as Sudan Archives, our September Artist of the Month — uses both of them effortlessly in “Home Maker,” the opening track to her multifarious new album Natural Brown Prom Queen. At once, she paints herself as both the modern hot girl and a timeless Aphrodite. “Home Maker” is a fitting mission statement to Natural Brown Prom Queen, a record that luxuriates in introversion, creature comforts, and the freedom allotted by the places you feel most safe. “Don’t you feel at home when you’re with me?” she repeats in the bridge. There’s a bit of a come-hither wink to it, but also an edge. Rather than playing into th...
Cheekface Surprise Release New Album Too Much to Ask: Stream
Los Angeles rock trio Cheekface have surprise released a new album called Too Much to Ask. Check it out below. Singer-guitarist Greg Katz, bassist Amanda Tannen, and drummer Mark “Echo” Edwards wanted to capture the contradictions in being human. “I think the last year or so has drawn a big circle around a lot of things we all already knew, but maybe didn’t know we knew,” Katz said in a statement. “The shock of isolation and the shock of togetherness, the call to activism and the pull of resignation, wanting the best for your friends but expecting the worst of yourself. The sneaking feeling that your life is mostly funny but a little sad a lot of the time – except for the times when it’s mostly sad but still kinda funny.” Too Much to Ask spans 11 tracks and features the previously rel...
Frankie Cosmos Announce New Album Inner World Peace, Share “One Year Stand”: Stream
Frankie Cosmos have graced us with news of their new album, Inner World Peace, arriving on October 21st via Sub Pop Records. The announcement comes along with the set’s first single, “One Year Stand.” The album’s development followed a “pandemic hiatus” that lasted nearly 500 days for the quartet. In the interim, bandleader Greta Kline wrote 100 songs, which upon reuniting, the group retooled and infused with their own influences that ranged from “70s folk and pop” to “ambient” and “psych.” Inner World Peace was co-produced by Frankie Cosmos with Nate Mendelsohn and Katie Von Schleicher, who also handled mixing. Check out the tracklist and album artwork, featuring illustrations from the band’s keyboardist Lauren Martin, below. “To me, the album is about perception,” Kline shared in a ...
Lollapalooza 2022 Day Two Recap and Photos: Dua Lipa, Wet Leg, MUNA & More
Lollapalooza 2022 day two went down on Friday, July 29th, and we’ve got the photos to prove it. The Chicago festival brought a ton of top tier talent to Grant Park, from headliner Dua Lipa to rising stars like Genesis Owusu and The Regrettes. The day also brought strong sets from indie pop favorites like King Princess and MUNA, hip-hop both classic (Don Toliver) and alternative (Genesis Owusu), and even former Artists of the Month like Wet Leg. Advertisement It was another glorious day fill with live music, and you can check out our complete photo gallery from Lollapalooza day two below. Revisit our day one recap, and stay tuned for our full coverage of the remainder of the festival. <img data-lazy-fallback="1" data-attachment-id="1229690" data-orig-file="https:...
Purity Ring Release shrines X for 10th Anniversary: Stream
Purity Ring are celebrating 10 years of their debut album with a new reissue dubbed, shrines X. In addition to the full 2012 LP, the expanded edition features three previously unreleased tracks. shrines X adds on new songs “iovein” and “firmament,” as well as a demo version of album opener “crawlersout” called “crawlersout (prototype).” Of the three additions, “iovein” is a particularly transfixing standout, as Megan James sings, “Build your little fort out in the garden/ Kill your little men and bake their bones/ Build our little guns out of their counterparts/ Peel their skin for paper on the walls,” over bandmate Corin Roddick’s glitchy electronic production. Advertisement Related Video Earlier this month, the Edmonton, Alberta natives sat down with Consequence to look back on their deb...
Taylor Swift Joins HAIM to Perform “Love Story” / “Gasoline” Mashup in London: Watch
HAIM fans at the band’s Thursday gig at London’s O2 Arena were treated to a special appearance from Taylor Swift, who joined the sisters in performing a mashup of “Gasoline” and Swift’s classic “Love Story.” Watch fan-captured footage below. “I heard that my girls were playing in London at the O2 and I thought, ‘I’m gonna have to see that.’ And it looks like there’s about 20,000 other people that also thought that, too,” Swift said, as HAIM laid down the groove to their Women in Music Pt. III cut. “We had a thought, that if we were to do some sort of mashup, we could possibly maybe get you to sing the loudest that you have sung all night.” Cut to “Love Story”‘s famous “Romeo take me” chorus, which Swift layered over “Gasoline”‘s “Strike a match, watch it burn” bridge. HAIM and Swift f...
Song of the Week: Tegan and Sara Heal Wounds of the Past with “Yellow”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Tegan and Sara are back with an ode to the music of Coldplay on “Yellow.” It’s been six (!) years since a full-length Tegan and Sara album. As the beloved sister duo gears up for the October 21st release of their tenth LP, Crybaby (via Mom + Pop Music), they’ve started rolling out previews of the new era, including their latest, “Yellow.” It’s no mistake that it bears the same name as one of the most famous love songs in recent decades — Coldplay’s “Yellow” — and is rather directly referencing it in the accompa...
Superorganism Unveil New Single “Into the Sun” with Stephen Malkmus and More: Stream
Superorganism have gathered an eclectic guest roster for their latest single “Into the Sun,” off their upcoming second album, World Wide Pop. Their biggest single from this album cycle yet — at least based on its headcount — features Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, Japanese actor and musician Gen Hoshino, French artist and former tourmate Pi Ja Ma, and producer Axel Concato. “Into the Sun” is paired with an animation-based music video that puts visuals to the song’s bugged-out musings and “world spinnin’ round and round” refrain. Directed by AEVA, and a mix of 2D and 3D animation by Neirin Best and Nicholas Barnes, the visual follows a concept developed by the band that guitarist Harry said “stemmed from the lyric about being a fruit fly, watching the world go by, whilst nature and time...
Half Waif Surprise-Releases New Piano EP Portraits: Stream
Half Waif goes back to the basics today with a surprise-released EP called Portraits. The four-track project sees the band’s Nandi Rose take two tracks each from her two previous full-length albums — 2020’s The Caretaker and last year’s Mythopoetics — and rework them into starkly stunning piano pieces. Throughout her discography under her Half Waif moniker, Rose has mixed her classical training with elements of pop and indie rock. Portraits is, in a sense, a return to form for her, allowing her to revisit her songs “Swimmer,” “My Best Self,” “Fortress,” and “Ordinary Talk” through a new lens. “I came to music and to songwriting when I was a kid, singing at a piano,” Rose explains in a press release. ”Over the years, I learned to build layered arrangements around the son...
Regina Spektor Is On Her Own Hero’s Journey
Regina Spektor still waits for inspiration to strike. The singer-songwriter, who is about to release her first album in more than half a decade, explains that she isn’t the sort of person who sits herself down at the piano when she doesn’t feel like she has something to say. She’s often struck by peers and friends who have developed different types of discipline, people who craft songs with the skill of someone assembling furniture, but her process has always been much more organic. “It’s like somebody screaming at a fish pond for 10 minutes and then like putting in their their fishing rod,” she tells Consequence of trying to force herself to write. “Where are all the fish? Well, maybe you shouldn’t have brought a megaphone to this.” Home, before and after, the name of Spektor’s eight...
