New Music
John Coltrane’s Giant Steps Receives 60th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition: Stream
John Coltrane’s classic 1960 album Giant Steps has been reissued in a new super deluxe edition. Stream it below via Apple Music and Spotify. Before his untimely death at the age of 40, Coltrane established a reputation as, if not the very best saxophone player in the world, then certainly the flashiest. His virtuosic collaborations with Miles Davis produced some of the most beloved jazz music of any era, including Cookin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, Steamin’. and a strong contender for the most perfect piece of art ever created, Kind of Blue. Giant Steps came one year after Blue, and it established Trane as a ferocious solo artist in his own right. Giant Steps: 60th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is available as either a double-CD or double-vinyl package, a...
Van Morrison Announces Anti-Lockdown Song Series
The coronavirus death toll is currently 947,000, and Europe is in the midst of its second wave of the pandemic. And yet somehow there are still people like Van Morrison who believe it’s all a hoax and insist on putting more people’s lives in danger. In a statement last month, the Northern Irish songwriter dismissed socially distanced concerts as “pseudo-science”, and called on fellow musicians to join him in demanding a return to “full capacity audiences.” Now, to further drive his ill-informed point home, Van Morrison has announced a series of anti-lockdown protest songs. As the BBC reports, the “Brown Eyed Girl” musician plans to release three different singles in the near future. All of them bear cringe-worthy titles — the kind that Trump or one of those embarrassing Target Flash Mob an...
Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak Uncork New Song “YUUUU”: Stream
Busta Rhymes and Anderson .Paak will turn this car around on their banging new driving song “YUUUU”. It’s the latest single from Busta’s forthcoming album Extinction Level Event 2: The Wrath of God. As an ode to U-Turns, “YUUUU” is much more metaphorical than literal, though the sparkling production would certainly lend flair to any high-speed swerving in your future. But in a broader sense, “YUUUU” is a stunt track framed as a willingness to change course, retrace, and take care of unfinished business. “Bitch I had to bust a Uuuu!” .Paak sings, his voice high but falling. He adds, “Know I had to finish what I started/ No, it ain’t too late to turn around, is it?” Busta Rhymes takes his high-octane verse in sixth gear, but he also slows down for a memorable bridge: “Now I’m gettin’ back li...
Lykke Li Covers Gloria Gaynor Classic “I Will Survive”: Stream
It’s been well over a year since we’ve heard anything new from Lykke Li. That changes today, however, with the release of a fresh cover song. Fitting considering these unprecedented times, she has tackled the Gloria Gaynor anthem “I Will Survive”. In 2018, the Swedish songwriter effortlessly turned mournful brooding into something hot and heavy on her bluntly titled but very good so sad so sexy. It should come as no surprise, then, that her rendition of a disco classic sounds far and away from Gaynor’s original 1979 vision. That’s not to say the cover isn’t worth a spin or two, especially if you’re a fan of the way Li can evoke a very specific fragile ambiance. Hear it for yourself below, and then revisit Gaynor’s recent interview on This Must Be the Gig. Lately, Li has been surviving...
Tyler Childers Drops Surprise New Album Long Violent History: Stream
Country artist Tyler Childers has dropped a surprise new album titled Long Violent History. Stream it below through Apple Music and Spotify. Childers announced the follow-up to 2019’s Country Squire in a six-minute video essay on YouTube. The first eight tracks are traditional fiddle instrumentals “intended to create a sonic soundscape for the listener, to set the tone to reflect on the last track, which is my own observational piece on the times we are in.” That final statement, “Long Violent History”, is an explicit appeal to rural white voters on behalf of the Black Lives Matter movement. Childers asks his listeners how they would behave if their friends and families were treated the way that Black Americans have been treated. He sings, “How many boys could they haul off this mount...
Jamila Woods Shares New Version of “SULA (Hardcover)”: Stream
Last month saw Jamila Woods return with “SULA (Paperback)”, her first new music since releasing one of 2019’s best albums, LEGACY! LEGACY!. Now, she’s shared a different version of the track, appropriately called “SULA (Hardcover)”. Inspired by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison’s 1973 novel of the same name, “SULA” finds Woods rejecting conventional ideas of identity in order to “embrace my tenderness, my sensitivities, my ways of being in my body.” Whereas the “Paperback” version did this as a peaceful mantra, the “Hardcover” take features a more sensual grove. With a silky beat from Slot-A, “SULA (Hardcover)” fully embodies the sexuality at the song’s core. As does the accompanying music video. The clip would be labeled slightly NSFW in normal days, but let’s be real, this is a pa...
Chris Cornell’s Estate Shares Previously Unreleased Version of “Only These Words”: Stream
Chris Cornell’s daughter, Toni, is celebrating her 16th birthday today. To mark the occasion, the rock legend’s estate has revealed a very special gift: a previously unreleased version of “Only These Words”. “Only These Words” officially appeared as part of Cornell’s 2015 solo album Higher Truth. A sweet, lullaby-like ode to his daughters, it saw the Soundgarden frontman repeatedly croon the words, “I love you.” According to an Instagram post from his family, today’s unearthed version is the true “original” one, even more tender and sparse than what was later included on Higher Truth. “Your dad would be so proud of the smart, strong, beautiful, and confident woman you are growing up to be,” reads the Instagram caption dedicated to Toni. Editors’ Picks “You are so very loved, and you ...
Baby Keem Drops New Songs “hooligan” and “sons & critics freestyle”: Stream
19-year-old rapper/producer Baby Keem has dropped a pair of songs, “hooligan” and “sons & critics freestyle”. Both are expected to appear on an upcoming album, which will be released by pgLang, the new media company created this year by Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free. Born Hykeem Carter, this California wunderkind had an almost inexplicably quick rise. The official story, as he explained to Complex in 2018, is that he “sent a pack of beats to the TDE email,” and one of them unexpectedly ended up on Black Panther: The Album. He followed that up with a Beyoncé credit, writing and producing “Nile” with Kendrick Lamar on The Lion King: The Gift. For many people, his mysterious ascension was explained when Lamar’s sister tweeted — and almost immediately deleted — a message to Keem c...
Pallbearer Share New Song “The Quicksand of Existing”: Stream
With Pallbearer gearing up to release their fourth album, Forgotten Days, the band has today offered up the LP’s third single, “The Quicksand of Existing”. The track continues a string of strong singles for the album, including “Rite of Passage” and the title track. Again, it’s Pallbearer in full doom mode. Chugging riffs make way for Brett Campbell’s vocals, delivered in a theatrical style that invokes the genre’s great singers like Ozzy Osbourne and Scott Weinrich. Director Ben Meredith’s narrative video for the song parallels the band’s own concept — the song being a “reflection on family and loss,” according to the band. “As we strive to be, the forces of entropy perpetually pull us down into a state of being unmade,” bassist/songwriter Joseph D. Rowland said in a press release. “The b...
Oh Sees (as Osees) Announce New Album Metamorphosed, Share “Electric War”: Stream
There’s prolific, and then there’s John Dwyer‘s perpetual motion machine OCS Thee Oh Sees Oh Sees Osees. Having just today released the new album Protean Threat, the rockers are back to announce an even newer album, Metamorphosed. It arrives October 16th via Rock Is Hell, and the band is offering a preview with the lead single “Electric War”. Metamorphosed comes out of the sessions that produced 2019’s Face Stabber. It may only be five tracks long, but it achieves a full album’s length with the help of the more than 23-minute epic “I Got a Lot”. In an interview with Henry Rollins, Dwyer explained that this kind of song, “Usually… takes place at the end of the planned recording. We have extra time and tape to lay down some deep cuts and long jams, etc., the fun part...
Kamaiyah Drops New Collaborative Mixtape Oakland Nights: Stream
Kamaiyah kicked off 2020 with Got It Made, her first project in over three years. Fans thankfully won’t have to nearly wait as long for a follow-up, as the rapper has just dropped off a new mixtape. Titled Oakland Nights, it’s a collaborative effort with fellow Bay Area local Capolow. Spanning 10 tracks, today’s collection finds the two artists proudly repping their favorite coast. Not unlike Kamaiyah’s past releases, Oakland Nights is peppered with bits of West Coast funk flavor, such as on opener “Finer Things” and closing track “So Much Money”. Other songs, meanwhile, are more geared toward the R&B/rap-singer in Kamaiyah and Capolow, including the suave “Digits” and “Undercover”. As Stereogum points out, the release might just be a reference to Kamaiyah’s debut mixtape, A Good ...
Cardi B Joins Brazilian Artist Anitta on New Single “Me Gusta”: Stream
It’s been less than a month since Cardi B successfully sent politicians, conservatives, and sexists into a tizzy with her massive Megan Thee Stallion collaboration “WAP”. But already the New York rapper is back with another joint single sure to get people talking again: “Me Gusta” with Brazilian pop singer Anitta and Puerto Rican rapper Myke Towers. “I really love this song,” Cardi B gushed on Twitter earlier this week. “I don’t get on a song the same day I hear it. Like, I gotta listen to it a couple of times. But as soon as I heard the song, at the end of the night, while I was going to sleep, I kept repeating the hook in my head,” she said, adding, “You guys know how I love Spanish music, you guys know how I love Brazilian funk, and I’m just really excited.” Check out “Me Gusta” below v...
