New Music
Gojira Share ‘Born for One Thing’ Single Ahead of Fortitude Album
French-born, New York City-dwelling metallers Gojira have shared the single “Born For One Thing” from their upcoming album, Fortitude. The LP, the band’s seventh and first in five years, arrives April 30th via Roadrunner Records. “We have to practice detaching ourselves from everything, beginning with actual things,” vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier said in a statement about the song’s anti-consumerist message. “Own less possessions, and give what you don’t need away, because one day we’ll have to let everything go, and if we don’t, we’ll just become ghosts stuck between dimensions.” Fortitude follows the quartet’s 2016 Magma album, which earned Grammy nods for Best Metal Performance and Best Rock Album. Produced by Duplantier at the band’s own Silver Cord Studio in Ridgewood, Q...
Kings of Leon Share ‘Echoing’ From Upcoming Album
Last month, Kings of Leon announced they’d be releasing their first album since 2016 with When You See Yourself. Previously, the group shared “The Bandit” and “100,000 People,” and today, Kings of Leon released “Echoing.” If the song sounds familiar, it’s because (like its predecessors) it sounds like vintage KoL. “It feels wonderful. It’s been a long wait sitting on this music, and it’s always difficult knowing that you have something that you’re really excited for everyone to get to hear, and then being told you have to sit on it for a minute was tough, but it also gave us a chance to live with it for a little while. And it’s still just as fresh today as it was on the first listen,” Kings of Leon’s Nathan Followill told Za...
Danny Elfman Releases New Song and Video, ‘Love in the Time of COVID’
If you’re at the stage in your life where you’re realizing that Danny Elfman has scored all of your favorite movies and you’re starting to discover his other music, then we have some great news for you. No, Oingo Boingo isn’t reuniting, but Elfman himself just released the follow-up to last year’s “Happy.” “Love in the Time of COVID” is Elfman’s take on the struggles and monotony of the current pandemic, and it comes with a surreal (but all too relatable) video that displays pretty much the exact level of weirdness one would expect from the famous composer. “There’s certainly nothing light-hearted or funny about COVID, but I can still poke a little fun at the crazy way social isolation has changed our lives in every way shape and form, and that’s what ‘Love in the Time of COVID’ is about,”...
Liz Phair Releases New Lou Reed Tribute Song and Puppet-Based Video for ‘Hey Lou’
Liz Phair is back with her first new song in two years, a tribute to Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson called “Hey Lou.” The track is pretty much exactly what you would expect from Phair at this point, featuring the intelligent lyrics, memorable chorus, and iconic guitar tones that have made her a legendary figure over the decades. It was produced by Brad Wood. “Have you ever wondered what love looks like for your favorite celebrity couple behind closed doors?” Phair said in a statement. “‘Hey Lou’ imagines a day in the life of two music legends, whose union was an inspiration for rock bands and a source of curiosity for die hard romantics.” The track also comes with a music video featuring strangely accurate puppet versions of Reed and Anderson, as one does when releasing music in the middle o...
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-...
