New Music
X Release Two B-Sides From Last Year’s Alphabetland
In a year of chaos, one of the best things that happened was when L.A. punk veterans X surprise-released a new album with their original members. Alphabetland was the ripping album we needed in the early pandemic days and thankfully, a few new tunes from those sessions have emerged. On Tuesday morning, X revealed B-sides “True Love, Pt. 3” and “Strange Life,” with the latter song featuring none other than the Doors’ Robby Krieger on slide guitar. “Robby came down on our last day in the studio and played on ‘Strange Life’. How fitting and how wondrous! And can there ever be enough ‘True Love’?” Exene Cervenka said in a statement. “Writing this reminds me of how much fun it was being in the studio with Rob Schnapf. He is a great producer and really helped make Alphabetland&nbs...
Thurston Moore Releases Surprise New Instrumental Album, Screen Time
A day after his daughter Coco Gordon-Moore debuted in his ex-wife Kim Gordon’s video for “Hungry Baby” video, Sonic Youth singer-guitarist Thurston Moore dropped a surprise new 10-track instrumental album titled Screen Time. The Sonic Youth guitarist/singer shared the new music on Bandcamp in time for Bandcamp Fridays. He hasn’t been slacking during the pandemic. SPIN did a wide-ranging interview with Moore last year surrounding the release of his By The Fire album. Ahead of that album, Moore put out a 12-minute track called “Siren,” with an accompanying video-film that portrays a mermaid fantasy. Also last year, Moore appeared on a cover of The Stooges song “Fun House,” which had been recorded in 1997 with members of Mudhoney. It was originally slated to appear in...
Serj Tankian Shares Title Track From Upcoming Elasticity EP
System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian told us last May that he was prepping a new solo project. Nearly a year later, that collection is finally on its way. Titled Elasticity, the EP arrives on March 19 via Alchemy Recordings/BMG. Tankian shared a video for the title track, which you can see below. [embedded content] “When I conceived possibly doing another record with the guys from System of a Down a few years back, I started working on a set of songs that I arranged in rock format for that purpose,” Tankian said in a statement. “As we weren’t able to see eye to eye on the vision going forward with an SOAD album, I decided to release these songs under my moniker.” Late last year, System of a Down released their first new music in nearly 15 years. Tankian has stayed in the news with u...
Unborn Baby Records Debut Album
For decades, musicians have recorded music with the specific intent of helping foster child development in utero and teach soon-to-be kids iconic rap hooks. Now the tables have turned: an unborn baby has recorded her debut album, presumably for the enjoyment of full-grown humans. The baby, named Luca Yupanqui, is the soon-to-be child of Psychic Ills bassist Elizabeth Hart and Lee “Scratch” Perry collaborator Iván Diaz Mathé. Yupanqui created the songs on her album using biosonic MIDI technology that translated her in-utero movements into sound. The MIDI device was hooked to Hart’s stomach, recorded the vibrations created by Yupanqui, and transcribed them into Mathé’s synthesizers, a meditative process that took place over five hour-long sessions. Hart and Mathé then edited and mixed the re...
Rostam Shares New Solo Song “These Kids We Knew”: Stream
Last month, Rostam set Amanda Gorman’s now-famous Inauguration poem to music using piano arrangements. The former Vampire Weekend member is back today, this time with a dazzling original song of his own dubbed “These Kids We Knew”. Stream it below. This new offering revolves around a musical pulse meant to reflect the innocence of youth and the impermanence of stability. According to a press release, Rostam wrote “These Kids We Knew” in a “fever-dream state” in March of last year — during which he was recovering from COVID-19 — while reflecting on the push and pull of societal responsibility. “I was thinking of three generations while I was writing this song,” he explained. “There’s a generation of adults who don’t see global warming as their problem because they think they won’t...
Meskerem Mees Unveils New Song “Seasons Shift”: Stream
21-year-old songwriter Meskerem Mees drew international attention with her first single “Joe”, and now she’s proving she’s a talent to watch with her new song “Seasons Shift”. Mees enchants from the moment she opens her mouth, with an ethereal voice and cosmopolitan accent (she’s Belgian with Ethiopian roots). Alongside her friend the cellist Febe Lazou, she crafts gentle music out of turbulent emotions. “Seasons Shift” is more about a variable person than the changing weather, with lyrics that track differences over time. She sings of someone who “got serious in December/ Lonely in July, though you wouldn’t tell me why/ It might have been easier just to call me but you preferred to cry.” At first she seems to be sketching out a failed relationship, but as the song progresses, her co...
Russell Louder Shares Origins of New Track “Home”: Stream
In our new music feature Origins, artists are asked to give listeners unique insights into their latest track. Today, Russell Louder explains how they found “Home”. For Russell Louder, the most basic definition of ‘home’ would be Prince Edward Island. Though they were raised on the nautical Canadian province, they now split their time between PEI and Montreal. Factor in the journey the singer has gone on as a trans individual, and you can understand how the idea of ‘home’ is a bit fluid for them. But while discovering your place of supreme comfort is often seen as a daunting challenge, Louder finds excitement in the quest on her new single, “Home”. Over a beat buzzing and clanging with retro synth sounds, they sing not just of the terrible uncertainty of “finding home,” but the boundless p...
Gang of Four Box Set Gets New Release Date, Share Previously Unreleased Demo
Influential post-punk lineup Gang of Four will put out Gang of Four: 77-81, a limited-edition box set of early work. Ahead of the release, “Damaged Goods” and a demo of the unreleased song “Elevator” have been shared. Gang of Four: 77-81 includes Entertainment! and Solid Gold (both remastered from the original analog tapes), a singles LP, and a double-LP of the never-officially-released Live at American Indian Center 1980. The collection arrives on March 12 in LP and CD editions. The collection was originally supposed to arrive in 2020 but was delayed because of production issues. Additionally, the package includes two new badges, a C90 cassette tape compiling 26 never-before-issued outtakes, rarities and studio demos from Entertainment! and Solid Gold, and a 100-...
Cannibal Corpse Announce New Album Violence Unimagined
Death metal pioneers Cannibal Corpse have announced their 15th studio album, Violence Unimagined — one of our most anticipated heavy albums of 2021. They also premiered the lead single, “Inhuman Harvest”, on Monday (February 1st) via SiriusXM’s “Liquid Metal” program. Needless to say, Cannibal Corpse haven’t let up over their 30-plus year career, and “Inhuman Harvest” is as brutal as ever. George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher spews forth his vocals offer a bed of necrotic downtuned death metal. It’s classic Cannibal Corpse, and we wouldn’t want it any other way. That said, it’s uncertain whether troubled guitarist Pat O’Brien is on the recording. All signs indicate that O’Brien — who was involved a bizarre incident involving over 80 firearms and human skulls in 2018 — was not in the studio when C...
Neil Young Announces Unreleased 1982 Album Johnny’s Island and New Film Trans: The Animated Story
The holidays are over, but the Neil Young Archives is the gift that keeps on giving. Young has announced a pair of projects centered around his 1982 album Trans. The first is the unreleased LP Johnny’s Island, recorded with the Trans band in 1982, and the second is a new film entitled Trans: The Animated Story. Trans was a significant departure from Young’s folk-inflected rock, and its release became one of the more controversial moments in his career. With synthesizers and heavy doses of vocoder, it was inspired by the robopop of Kraftwerk as well as his own attempts to communicate with his nonverbal son, Ben. Many fans hated it, and Geffen Records sued Young for not sounding like himself. Almost 40 years later, time has dulled some of the sharper takes, and while few would...
LEGO Releases Soothing “White Noise” Playlist Made Up of The Sounds of LEGO Bricks: Stream
One of the most chaotic Januarys in American history may finally be over, but there’s still plenty to stress out about, especially as we enter our 12th month of the pandemic. To help ease some of these anxieties, a comforting new “White Noise” playlist has been released by… The LEGO Group. Yeah, the company with the colorful little blocks. Don’t worry; LEGO isn’t trying to become the next hottest music tastemaker. Instead, LEGO’s entire mix is made up of the sounds of LEGO bricks. “Each LEGO element makes a unique noise, which is why designers experimented with over 10,000 in their quest for the perfect soothing sounds,” explains a press statement. There are seven 30-minute tracks on the “White Noise” playlist, and each showcases a different sound made by the toys. Sifting through waves of...
Skullcrusher Conjures Vintage Folk on New Single “Song For Nick Drake”: Stream
Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Helen Ballentine records music under the moniker Skullcrusher, but it doesn’t sound like what you might expect it to. She writes dreamy folk songs fit for Secretly Canadian — who fittingly released her debut EP last year — and today she’s back with another slice of such: a standalone single called “Song for Nick Drake”. As the title implies, “Song for Nick Drake” is an ode to the late pastoral legend and the visceral memories his music conjures. “‘Song for Nick Drake’ is about my relationship to the music of Nick Drake,” explained Ballentine in a press release. “It recalls moments in my life that are viscerally intertwined with his music, specifically times spent walking and taking the train. The song is really my homage to music and the times I felt mos...
