INTERVIEWS
Regional Justice Center Break Down New Album Crime and Punishment Track by Track: Stream
In our Track by Track feature, artists guide listeners through each track on their latest release. Here, Regional Justice Center singer Ian Shelton pulls back the curtain on the band’s new album Crime and Punishment. Hardcore act Regional Justice Center have unleashed their new album, Crime and Punishment, out now via Closed Casket Activities. The LP clocks in at a blistering 13 minutes but leaves an impression that lasts far longer. The album shares its name with the legendary novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky and tackles similarly weighty themes of postmodern existence. As RJC vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Ian Shelton explains in the remarks below, many real-life events inspired the passionate outbursts of anger and disillusionment heard throughout Crime and Punishment. Shelton previously ...
Kadebostany on Hit Single “Take Me To The Moon,” the Future of His Brand, and More
Kadebostany is making a serious name for himself in the dance music industry, delivering genre-defining sonic journeys to the tenth degree. He’s garnered over one billion streams and has dominated the dance charts in 30 countries. Taking a modern approach to pop music, he has also developed an interesting concept under his “Republic of Kadebostany” brand. His latest single, “Take Me To The Moon” with mesmeric Valeria Stoica, has proven to be one of his best yet. It’s a haunting track that combines a cinematic production style with the stunning and delicate vocals of Stoica. The lush guitar work paired with an undeniably smooth beat will have you forgetting how melancholic the lyrics truly are. The accompanying video was shot by Turkish directo...
Gene Simmons on His New G² Gibson Collection, Restarting KISS’ Final Tour, and More
KISS singer-bassist Gene Simmons is not only a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame musician, but a merchandizing master. His band set the template for rock branding, and now he’s combining his knowledge of music and merch with a new line of Gibson guitars and basses, dubbed G² (pronounced “G-squared”). The G² collection sees Simmons partnering with Gibson on a new line of right-handed and left-handed guitars and basses, spanning across the company’s owned and operated brands Gibson, Epiphone, and Kramer. The partnership will launch with the G² Thunderbird bass, which Simmons debuted during KISS’ massive New Year’s Eve livestream show in Dubai. Also on tap are Flying V basses and guitars, among other instruments. We had the opportunity to speak with Simmons about the collection, the genesis of the...
The Spill Canvas Are Back With Their First Album in Nearly a Decade
When the Spill Canvas released Gestalt in 2012, it was the seventh full-length album for frontman Nick Thomas since he’d adopted the moniker a decade earlier. Nine years later, Thomas and the band — featuring two new members — are finally ready to release the follow-up with Conduit, an album title that had been rumored for their 2007 release before they settled on No Really, I’m Fine and rode the success of hits like “All Over You” on to the Billboard 200 for the first time. But the version of Thomas who wrote Conduit is a far cry from the angry kid who first appeared on the scene in 2001. Although it might be hard to keep that teenage angst at the age of 36, Thomas now has nearly a decade’s worth of new stories to tell and the maturity to process the emotions from the personal battles he’...
How to tackle students’ abduction – NUT, NAPTAN
Nigeria Union of Teachers The Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, and the National Parents Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, have proffered solutions to the incessant abduction of students by bandits in some parts of the country. Speaking in separate interviews with our correspodent, the two groups called on the federal and state governments to entrench the Safe Schools Initiative and deploy military personnel in schools across the country. National Secretary of the NUT, Dr. Mike Ene, said apart from the steps expected to be taken by the government to stem the ugly trend, every citizen should develop psychic eyes to help them be security-conscious at all times. He said: “These abductions here and there are deliberate steps to discourage education and encourage school drop out. It is unfo...
Pete Yorn on New Covers LP: ‘I Wanted to Do the Unexpected’
Pete Yorn had big plans this time last year — before the pandemic shut down life as we know it. Like many musicians, the singer-songwriter was ready to work on new material, his first batch of originals since 2019’s Caretakers. But he put those plans on hold, and they’ve been there ever since. But rather than sitting around bored in his Los Angeles-enclave, Yorn got to work in other ways. In addition to playing a series of livestreams, he dug into his lengthy archives from over the years. Once he mined through those, he unearthed several projects that have been sitting dormant, including some live albums, a concert film and his new covers album. Yorn fans know that he’s not afraid to bust out a Springsteen or Smiths tune at his live shows — those two happen to be his biggest...
Purple Disco Machine on His Upcoming Album and the Resurgence of Disco: “It’s an Evolution”
The color purple is said to represent meanings of creativity, grandeur, ambition, wisdom, and magic. German dance music production mastermind Purple Disco Machine embodies all of these qualities and more. For over a decade, he has consistently provided feel-good disco house music for fans across the globe. With his effortlessly cool mustache, tropical shirts, and convivial demeanor, he’s exactly the kind of artist you’d expect behind the lively, breezy songs. The house music aficionado has been instrumental in disco’s reintroduction into the mainstream in recent years, with a succession of momentous remixes for Lady GaGa, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson, Calvin Harris, Gorillaz, and Fatboy Slim, among others. On a mission to spread the joys of house music, the barnsto...
Nifty Gateway Founders on Why Musicians Should Embrace Digital Art: “EDM Artists Are Just the Perfect Fit for NFTs”
As the latest Bitcoin and cryptocurrency hype cycle has gripped investors and driven a whole new wave of adoption to the space, Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster find themselves at the epicenter. The twin brothers and entrepreneurs have helped spearhead a meteoric trend in the digital asset space with their company Nifty Gateway, a marketplace for digital art and collectibles called NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which are collectible assets authenticated and secured by blockchain technology. A few years ago, the idea of collectors purchasing digitally minted art pieces to the tune of thousands and sometimes even millions of dollars would have seemed ludicrous. However, as public comfort and interest in blockchain technology has only continued to rise, cultural influencers—especially musicians...
How an EDM Sea Shanty Got Signed to a Major Record Label
In some sort of dystopian social media twilight zone, sea shanties exploded in popularity in early 2021. Toe-tapping hymns in the style of 19th century drunken sailors and rum-swilling pirates found new life in—you guessed it—TikTok, a platform ironically dominated by prepubescent teens. After a Scottish musician named Nathan Evans shared his renditions of “The Scotsman” and “The Wellerman” on TikTok, the sea shanties went viral. Why? Who knows. This is TikTok, a Wild West of beautiful stupidity where people challenge each other to remove moles and insert pennies into live electrical sockets. When Evans’ sea shanties erupted on the platform, they inspired a new trend, which eventually mutated into its own native culture called ShantyTok. EDM ultimate...
‘El Madrileño’ Meets World: C. Tangana on His Globally Minded Album
Spanish rapper C. Tangana is expanding on his trap foundation with his new album El Madrileño, incorporating elements of Mexican folk, Brazilian bossa nova, Spanish flamenco and other global influences. Guiding the Madrid native along the way are Latin music titans like Puerto Rican singer José Feliciano, Uruguayan rocker Jorge Drexler and Cuban Buena Vista Social Club member Eliades Ochoa. “The most happiness I got from this project was to be in the studio with these artists who I admire that are authentic legends,” C. Tangana tells SPIN over Zoom. “That they worked with me and respected what I was doing is what I valued the most.” Before he was C. Tangana, Ánton Álvarez was a kid who grew up on classic New York hip-hop artists like Mobb Deep, Big L, Lord Finesse and Big Pun. As a teen in...
Brijean’s Love Supreme
Oakland-based duo Brijean has been introducing a special guest in their recent Zoom calls. In fact, you could call him the unofficial third member of the band. “He’s the life of the party,” says keyboardist/bassist Doug Stuart. “I think he’s gonna be a roadie for us.” Stuart and bandmate Brijean Murphy are co-parents of Shuggie, a White Shepherd-Blue Heeler mix they named after the psych-soul legend Shuggie Otis. Like a lot of households over the past year, the couple adopted a “COVID puppy” to help fill all of the downtime they were facing. Brijean hangin’ with Shuggie CREDIT: Benjamin Brown “We came to Santa Fe to just lower our overhead and have a furnished sublet,” Murphy says. “Our landlord told us about this litter of puppies. We didn’t really want one, but we had a look at the...
The World According to SG Lewis: Disco, Dance and Ecstasy
When planning their album release parties, musicians tend to look for several key components: a killer guest list, a jaw dropping venue and, naturally, a massive stage. But in the COVID-19 epoch, reality couldn’t be more offbeat. For the long-awaited drop of SG Lewis’ debut LP, times, this adjustment meant reimagining the February 19th celebration from a raucous champagne shower to a gentle pour, sipped from modestly sized glasses in the comfort of his parents’ home. Composed of 10 nostalgia-fueled tracks dedicated to the club, the irony couldn’t be more real. “A lot of these songs were written without knowing this pandemic was going to happen,” Lewis told EDM.com of times, which was released via Republic Records. “But then they had this message in them, a reminder that the things I always...
