INTERVIEWS
Mastodon Are Inspired by Themselves on Hushed and Grim
Trying to be all things to everyone is a fruitless pursuit. It’s impossible on a logistical scale, much less an imaginative one, and no one ends up being satisfied. That being said, Mastodon’s latest album Hushed and Grim (out Friday through Reprise) is, in a way, a Mastodon record for all Mastodon fans. Whatever era you came on to the Atlanta metal quartet over the past two decades, they’ve got your number. “Teardrinker” and “More Than I Can Chew” recall their pivotal turn in Crack the Skye, when drummer Brann Dailor became a co-lead vocalist and ascended to heady prog-metal righteousness. For the heads from the beginning, “Pushing the Tides” and “Savage Lands” will take you back to when Remission was fresh and a roof and beer money was all you needed to be set. [embedded content][embedde...
SEVENTEEN Breaks Down Their New Album Attacca Track by Track: Exclusive
For our Track by Track feature, artists open up about the stories behind each song on their latest album. Today, SEVENTEEN take us track by track through their ninth mini-album, Attacca. Welcome to Attacca: aptly named after an antiquated word describing moving forward without pause, the EP is SEVENTEEN‘s ninth mini-album, the fourth during the pandemic era alone. The group has been going nonstop. As is par for the course for SEVENTEEN, the album features writing, composing, and arranging credits for all the group members, along with trusted collaborator Bumzu. It’s not all too common for K-pop artists to have such a heavy hand in the process, but the members of SEVENTEEN (along with many other artists under the HYBE umbrella) are enthusiastic exceptions. Advertisement Related Video This a...
Enjambre Looks to the Future With Their First English EP
Twelve years ago, Enjambre was on the brink of breaking up before taking off due to another pandemic, 2009’s swine flu pandemic. Fortunately, the band hung in there and have released seven albums that blended the romanticism of Mexican folk music with rock and roll that’s rooted in the U.S. Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the guys decided to translate the allure of their Spanish alternative rock into English on their EP Ambrosia. “Because of the pandemic, we finished the record [Próximos Prójimos] and we couldn’t go out and tour with it, so we were like, ‘Why don’t we just do that English thing?’” Luis Humberto Navejas tells SPIN over Zoom. With last year’s plans to tour the Próximos Prójimos album in Mexico and the U.S. sidelined, Luis Humberto started work on Ambrosia while i...
The Story of Rinzen, Electronic Music Journalist Turned Cinematic Techno World-Builder
The story of Rinzen begins with a peculiar art installation. Rinzen, whose real name is Michael Sundius, was visiting Barcelona’s Modern Art Museum when he stumbled upon Antoni Tàpies’ Rinzen, a striking piece that combines humble objects with pictorial and sculptural elements. “Rinzen means ‘a moment of sudden awakening’ in Japanese,” Sundius tells EDM.com. “I’m half Japanese so the name and meaning really spoke to me.” Manifesting the artwork’s intention to spark meditation and inner vision, Sundius adopted Rinzen as the moniker for his musical alias, aiming to create “cinematic, cerebral, melodic house and techno.” Rinzen’s prologue Music production wasn’t Sundius’ first foray into the world of electronic music though. He spent over five years at Danci...
Jim James: How Jamming, Dreams, Stranger Things Sparked New My Morning Jacket LP
“Balance and Surrender” is apparently the name of a yoga studio in Tamworth, England. It also could have easily been the title of My Morning Jacket’s ninth LP. First, the balance: It’s the only reason we even have this self-titled project, their first new album since 2015’s The Waterfall (and its temporarily shelved sequel from the same sessions, 2020’s The Waterfall II). After the gently twangy psych-rock band finished the grueling tour cycle behind that record, frontman/bandleader Jim James decided they needed to wind down for a bit — pausing, if not outright ending, the live/studio onslaught they’ve maintained since forming in 1998. “When the band was coming up, we were fortunate to get so many offers — go open for this band or that band, go do that show,” James tells SPI...
“People Can Reinvent Themselves”: VNCCII On How Dance Music Artists Can Embrace Futurism
Whether we like it or not, the advent of A.I. has turned the electronic music scene into a technological tinderbox in 2021. And before it really takes off in a scary and exciting direction, VNCCII is here to educate. The rising producer, rapper, and singer-songwriter is fresh off the release of her latest single “i-LIBERATE,” a velvet-smooth house track that furthers the through line of her unique story, which is centered on her eponymous “superheroine” avatar. VNCCII penned a sprawling op-ed on EDM.com in 2020 wherein she waxes poetic about the complicated relationship between AI and electronic music. “We need builders, dreamers, fixers, and doers,” she wrote at the time. “Whether we like it or not, AI is here and it’s here to ...
David Duchovny Finds Solid Ground With Gestureland
When actor, novelist and musician David Duchovny was 10 years old, he failed his Grace Church School choir audition in front of a bunch of his friends. Even worse, they’d assured him that nobody gets rejected. As Duchovny tells it, he misunderstood the instruction. When he was told to sing the note “after” the one the choirmaster played on the piano, Duchovny interpreted “after” to mean the next note in the scale and sang a higher note instead of matching what was played — a mistake he repeated several times in a row. Although he didn’t make it into the choir, his audition was impactful, nonetheless, as evidenced by the baffled looks on the faces of those who witnessed it. Even now, five decades later, Duchovny winces as he relays the anecdote. “I went home, and I was just mortified,” he s...
Dave Hause Puts Family — and an All-Star Band — First on Blood Harmony
Way back in the ancient days of October 2009, Dave Hause hit the road with Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Jim Ward (At the Drive-In and Sparta), a slew of other revolving artists, and their acoustic guitars. It was the second annual Revival Tour — an alcohol-fueled romp featuring punk rockers playing acoustic, folksy versions of their songs (and sometimes others’ songs). “The Revival Tour was like the inside of Chuck Ragan’s brain,” Hause laughs. “It’s kind of chaotic, really beautiful, and really musical. There’s the sacred and the profane going on at all times. Everybody’s pretty drunk, but everybody’s also tapped into the lifeforce of music — and I think that might be why you can’t repeat it unless he’s there.” While everyone who was a part of the Revival Tour’s five-year run will likel...
Issa Rae, BJ The Chicago Kid, Victoria Monét and More on How Insecure “Truly Represents the Creatives” Through Music
Over the past five years, we’ve seen Issa Rae’s iconic Insecure character Issa Dee through it all. Between the break-ups, stalking potential baes on Instagram, and having to furnish a new home with no money to her name, Issa has been a voice of her millennial generation. Amid the ups and downs of adult life, Rae has portrayed a millennial in an all-too-relatable manner, alongside a killer soundtrack. Since the inception of her YouTube series Awkward Black Girl, Rae has aimed to make music “a character” in all of her projects. On HBO’s Insecure, which premieres its fifth and final season this Sunday (October 24th), we see Issa experience wins and losses, with many scenes tied to a specific song. Over the years, Rae, composer Raphael Saadiq and music supervisor Kier Lehman have used the show...
Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills Wants Halloween to Reverberate Between Your Eardrums
Sitting in a car to obscure the noise from a shoot for an upcoming music video while donning shades, a white shirt, and a pair of flame-emblazoned black shorts, Ice Nine Kills frontman Spencer Charnas is eager to talk about the start of his love of slashers, the catalyst that would eventually become the band’s experiment in marrying horror and rock. In a gentle voice, he wistfully recalls trips to the video store with his mother. He was always attracted to the covers in the horror movie aisle, leading him to beg his parents to see classic horror films like Halloween. “I think they thought my obsession would eventually grow out, and here we are 25 years later,” Charnas tells SPIN over Zoom. “I guess I never grew out of it.” Charnas seems calm and cool with a hint of playfulness as he patien...
Maxo Kream Speaks His Truth
Interviews are a bit of a tricky proposition for Maxo Kream. Sure, like any rapper ascending the pantheon of the music industry he knows they’re advantageous if not entirely necessary to promote his music. But, as he contends when we speak via phone one October afternoon a few weeks before he’s set to release his third album, Weight of the World, why bother interviewing him when you can simply listen to his music? After all, Maxo says, “When people be asking me questions about certain shit, I just be like, ‘Go jam my album. Cause I’m definitely going to reveal it all there.’ And that’s not me being an asshole,” he adds. “Cause if you jam my album, then you really feel me.” Yes, Maxo Kream — the Houston rapper, all booming, gruff vocals and menacing flow — is a true storyteller. And one who...
“When Everything Falls Into Place”: Purple Disco Machine Breaks Down His Brilliant Sophomore Album
House music is in Purple Disco Machine‘s blood. One listen through his new EXOTICA LP, which dropped in full today, is all it takes to know that the German electronic music superstar is in a league of his own. And after recently eclipsing the billon-stream milestone, it’s scary to think of the heights he’ll ascend to on the wings of his scintillating new album. Anthems galore, EXOTICA is a disco lover’s dream and a nostalgic rush of foot-tapping gaiety. Inspired by the sultry sounds of Prince and the gritty funk of Jamiroquai, among other legendary artists, Purple Disco Machine flexes his encyclopedic knowledge of dance music throughout the record’s 14 tracks. In celebration of his sophomore album, the house music virtuoso has broken it down tra...
