Indie Rock
Ezra Koenig Performs Vampire Weekend Medley on Fallon from Quarantine: Watch
This past weekend marked the one-year anniversary of Father of the Bride, the stellar fourth album from Vampire Weekend. In celebration, frontman Ezra Koenig delivered a quarantine-style medley of the album’s songs on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday. Shot from his own spacious home studio, Koenig performed solo piano renditions of standout tracks “Flower Moon”, “Stranger”, and “Big Blue”. The album versions of these three songs benefited from robust instrumentation, but Koenig proved they sound just as lovely and clever when stripped bare. Watch video of the Fallon medley below. Editors’ Picks Prior to lockdown, Vampire Weekend shared three FOTB bonus tracks, as well as campaigned hard for former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Earlie...
Dirty Projectors Announce EP Series, Share New Song “Lose Your Love”: Stream
Felicia Douglass and Dave Longstreth of Dirty Projectors, photo by Jason Frank Rothenberg Dirty Projectors have announced a new EP called Flight Tower that’s due out June 26th via Domino. As it turns out, it’s the second installment in a five-EP series that the band will roll out over the course of 2020. To celebrate the reveal, they’ve released a new single called “Lose Your Love” and an accompanying music video. For the series, each EP will feature a different band member on lead vocals. Windows Open, which came out in March, saw Maia Friedman leading the way. The upcoming Flight Tower follows keyboardist-percussionist Felicia Douglass through four new songs. The next two installments will see Kristin Slipp and frontman Dave Longstreth each taking the reigns individually, with the fifth ...
July Talk Share the Origins of New Song “Identical Love”: Stream
In our new music feature Origins, musicians give fans an inside look at the some of the inspirations behind their latest song. Today, July Talk tell us how they found their “Identical Love”. “I want to be changed/ I want to be rearranged,” go the first lines on July Talk’s new album, Pray for It. The words set the tone for the whole effort, as the Toronto rock outfit set out to find renewal in rebirth — both for themselves personally and their band’s sound. Both types of restoration are denoted in the LP’s latest single and opening track, “Identical Love”. Though known for their snarling indie rock, “Identical Love” shows July Talk operating with a gentler touch. Synths beat like a pulse in the chest of someone slowly reaching out to their lover in a profound moment of truth. A glorious sa...
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Share New Song “Falling Thunder” and Video: Stream
Next month, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are set to drop their sophomore album, Sideways to New Italy. In the video for the album’s latest single, “Falling Thunder”, the Melbourne outfit return to old Italy, the place of singer/guitarist Tom Russo and bassist Joe Russo’s ancestral heritage. Th intention of the video was to juxtapose shots of Italy with an Italian-founded venue in Melbourne. However, as Tom Russo explained in a press release, things didn’t exactly go as planned: “Our friend Jamieson Moore shot the footage of Sicily, Sardinia, and the Aeolian Islands on her phone while on vacation last year. The Aeolian Islands is also where my and Joe Russo’s ancestors are from. We were also planning to shoot the band playing in Eolian Hall in Melbourne (it’s a community hall founde...
Kurt Vile Covers John Prine’s “Sam Stone” During Love From Philly Livestream: Watch
Virtual music festival and fundraiser Love From Philly took place this past weekend and boasted headlining performances from local heroes Kurt Vile and former bandmates The War on Drugs. Broadcast from his own basement, Vile’s set featured his 2010 song “I Know I Got Religion” and 2015’s “I’m an Outlaw”. The main highlight, though, came towards the end when the guitar maestro paid tribute to the late John Prine by covering his classic “Sam Stone”. Vile and Prine actually performed the track together before during a concert in Philadelphia two years ago. Vile has also repeatedly praised the folk legend in interviews. Speaking to The Guardian in 2018, he described Prine as “one of the greatest living American songwriters: he’s a killer performer and storyteller, with all these lamenting...
