INTERVIEWS
Hovvdy on ‘Good Vibes’ of New LP True Love: ‘We Threw Being Cryptic Out the Window’
“Lake June” is a precious little highlight on Hovvdy’s radiant fourth album, True Love — a lightfooted shuffle of barely more than a few strummed chords and brushed drums, before Will Taylor sings “I love you so much” in falsetto. It’s only fair to ask these guys where Young Thug fits into all of this. The duo of Taylor and Charlie Martin namedropped Thugger as a primary influence during the creative process of True Love, and they stayed true to their word. Sorta. Aside from the occasional smear of Autotune — and, befitting a band with two former drummers, the “slow bounce” — Hovvdy draws less from the unpredictable vocal modulations or linguistic invention of Young Thug than his uncanny creative energy. As Martin clarifies, “I feel compelled to turn up to ‘Lake June’ the sa...
The Regrettes: New Song Is ‘Great Representation of What’s to Come’
An hour before their set at Ohana Fest, The Regrettes are upbeat and ready to go on a dreary Friday afternoon. Meeting me in a nondescript area far from view, we exchange pleasantries and sit down at a somewhat quiet area on a park bench. “It kind of feels surreal that it’s actually happening now,” singer Lydia Night says. Little does she know that something surreal is about to happen literally 20 seconds later. I get a tap on the shoulder from the band’s tour manager that it’s time to wrap. Confused, we all look at each other before we hear a blaring announcement about thunder and lightning in the area. We shrug and go our separate ways. Once the fest was given the green light, we decide it would be best to wait until after Lydia Night and her bandmates perform. It’s a wise decision. In t...
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara
Beyond the Boys’ Club is a monthly column from journalist and radio host Anne Erickson, focusing on women in the heavy music genres, as they offer their perspectives on the music industry and discuss their personal experiences. Erickson is also a music artist herself, recently releasing the song “Eternal Way” with Upon Wings. This month’s piece features an interview with Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara. Los Angeles rockers Dead Sara spent much of the lockdown period working on their Warner Records debut (and third album overall), the just-released Ain’t It Tragic. With recording sessions set to take place smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, the new album brought some challenges for the band, but it was nothing they couldn’t face head-on, as demonstrated in their triumphant new single, “H...
“I Want It to Wipe The Slate Clean”: How Feed Me’s New Album Resets an Influential Career
Starting over isn’t easy, especially when you’ve cultivated a fiercely loyal fanbase over the course of a long and storied career. Feed Me, however, embraces challenges head-on. The renowned electronic music producer’s latest full-length album, which arrived by way of his own Sotto Voce imprint, is his most cohesive yet. From the funky, triumphant intro of “Big Kitten” to the electro-infused sound of “If It Bounces,” Feed Me is a complete change of pace from what fans have come to expect from the UK beatsmith. The record is bold and fluid, eschewing digitized production in favor of analog instruments and synths. The expanse of instruments utilized throughout the album speaks to the acute attention of detail Feed Me had while writing ...
The Unlikely Renewal of Billy Strings
Billy Strings is smoking a bowl in the back of his tour bus, parked in Spokane, Washington, where he’s performing the next night. “I don’t know how the fuck I ended up here,” Strings tells SPIN, with a humble intake of breath. We both know he’s not talking about Spokane. Strings is a 28-year-old Grammy-winning bluegrass virtuoso. Few people in music today can pluck strings like Strings; his fingers are like cheetahs sprinting up and down the neck of his guitar with the appetite of a forest fire. If you listen to any of Strings’ music, hints of his past are even more evident with understanding his demons. And for someone who once spent their days lonesomely walking the streets, his third record Home won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album last year. Renewal is Strings’ fourth record, and wa...
Nile Rodgers on His Enduring Production Philosophy: “You Want to Touch a Person’s Soul”
Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards released their first album as Chic, arguably disco’s greatest band, in 1977. In the decades since, Rodgers has charted a remarkable path as a producer and songwriter, with chart-topping songs by David Bowie, Madonna, and Diana Ross, among others. He also continued to lead Chic after Edwards’s death in 1996, releasing the band’s comeback album It’s About Time in 2018, and extending his run of hits with Daft Punk’s 2013 smash “Get Lucky.” Now, the busy superproducer has a hand in yet another new venture; on Monday (September 27th), Fender is launching a global campaign called Player Plus Studio Sessions, for which Rodgers will serve on a panel and judge submissions from aspiring musicians. Advertisement Related Video Winners will be awarded with Fender instru...
William Shatner Gets Personal on His Autobiographical New Album, Bill
Before we could get anywhere near talking about his new album, Bill, on our scheduled Zoom call, William Shatner was already marveling at my beard. Now, it’s not the first interview to be disrupted by my ample facial hair, but it’s not exactly how I was planning to start my chat with the man behind Captain James T. Kirk, dozens of other characters from my childhood, and some of the most memorable cover songs in history. Always the storyteller, Shatner gleefully launched into a memory of when he was once performing live and there was a man with a large beard in the audience. “He was standing up, and I turned to his wife sitting next to him, and I said, ‘Do you like that beard?’” Shatner recalls in his now-legendary almost-hushed voice. “She looked at her husband and said ‘No!’ Obviously, in...
Lakeyah Breaks Down New Gangsta Grillz Mixtape My Time Track by Track: Exclusive
Our Track by Track feature offers artists the chance to share the inspirations and stories behind each track on their new album. Today, Lakeyah offers insight into her mixtape, My Time. Quality Control rapper Lakeyah has dropped her new mixtape My Time, the latest installment in DJ Drama’s groundbreaking Gangsta Grillz series. Stream it below. Led off by the Milwaukee native’s hard-hitting Tee Grizzley collaboration “313-414,” the 11-track project brings Lakeyah to the next level, as she deftly balances boastful raps and effortless flows with R&B-influenced songs like “A Letter to You.” Other featured artists include Moneybagg Yo, Tyga, and fellow QC signee Bankroll Freddie. Advertisement Related Video Not even at drinking age, Lakeyah has come a long way since she caught the attention...
Boys Noize Breaks Down His New Album +|- (Polarity) Track by Track: Exclusive
Our Track by Track feature sees musicians revealing the stories and inspirations behind each song on their latest album. Today, Alex Ridha — a.k.a. Boys Noize — dissects his new album, +/- (Polarity). Berlin-based DJ Alex Ridha has released his fifth album as Boys Noize. +/-, pronounced “polarity,” today (September 24th). The record arrives via his own Boysnoize Recordings, and you can stream it below via Apple Music. For an artist like Ridha, who derives much of his influence from Berlin’s bustling club scene, the solitude of the pandemic offered an opportunity for him to fully embrace the different genres that inspire him. “The album dives into the polar tension between the musical styles and worlds I find myself in,” he tells Consequence in a statement. “When you combine opposites,...
Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine on Collaborating on A Beginner’s Mind: There Was “Mutual Trust and Respect”
For fans of both Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, it might come as a shock that it’s taken them until 2021 to put out a collaborative album together. The two prolific indie-folk titans have been associates of sorts since at least 2017, when Stevens proposed releasing De Augustine’s second LP, Swim Inside the Moon, on his own Asthmatic Kitty Records. De Augustine, whose featherlight vocals and gently-plucked acoustic guitars echo those found on Stevens’ beloved 2015 album Carrie & Lowell, is such an on-the-nose disciple of Stevens’ that it was only natural for the duo to pair up on their new album, A Beginner’s Mind (September 24th). With each track inspired by a film they watched while holed up at an upstate New York cabin together — ranging from Bring It On ...
Mac McCaughan Gets A Little Help From His Friends on The Sound of Yourself
Mac McCaughan has done it all. For three decades he’s toured the world as the singer-guitarist in revered indie rock band Superchunk. He’s made music in a host of other projects including Portastatic, Bricks, Seam, and Go Back Snowball (with Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard). And, he co-founded the venerable indie label Merge Records with Superchunk bandmate Laura Ballance. Together they helped redefine the American musical landscape by releasing hundreds of albums by legendary artists like Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields, Spoon, and Arcade Fire. But when the pandemic hit in early 2020, McCaughan was faced with an entirely new experience. “I couldn’t write a song for like eight months,” he told SPIN over the phone. “I had been working on songs before that and then once we went into...
Laura Jane Grace Surprise Released Her New EP Because Nothing Is Normal Anymore Anyway
Laura Jane Grace released a new EP today, but you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t paying attention. At a point in time where society, punk rock, and everything in between is more online than ever before, Grace stealth-dropped At War With The Silverfish (via Polyvinyl Records) like her fellow cultural icon, Beyoncé, did for her 2013 self-titled album. On one hand, it takes a certain amount of courage and understanding of your fan base to release a new project without any kind of prior promotion or announcement (beyond the occasional cryptic tweet). On the other, it’s not like anyone really has a “How to Release an Album During a Global Pandemic” playbook drafted up yet, so why not just go with it? “These are certainly unprecedented times that we’re living in, so the normal way of putting ou...
