At the end of the month, British producer Bibio is reissuing his debut album, Fi, and his masterpiece, Ambivalence Avenue, but he’s also just announced a new LP coming in spring 2016 and shared a new track. The quintessentially Bibio titled “Petals” is a warm, aqueous drift that eschews a defined beat in favor of thrumming bass, letting his appealing vocal melodies meander over pastoral guitar noodling and some backwards effects.

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Jeff Buckley – Everyday People (audio)

1990s revivalism may be entering its dwarf-star phase without ever having shed proper light on itself. Last week, the 22-year-old rapper Vince Staples argued that for his generation, hip-hop’s official Golden Age matters less than the viral onset of 21st-century stars like Soulja Boy. A flash of outrage was followed by the acknowledgmentthat Staples had made a perfectly reasonable point. Meanwhile, the only arguments assessing why people are now bingeing on the Spice and Gilmore Girls are either blithe listicles (even the inevitable vaguely ironic New York Times think piece, by Kurt Andersen, said little more than, “Hey, the Clinton era was awesome”) or fretting aboutmillennials’ “early-onset nostalgia.” Deeper questions about what made the 1990s distinctive remain largely unaddressed.

Read the rest of this article at NPR

In the decade since Missy Elliott‘s most recent album, the topography of mainstream hip-hop has experienced some seismic shifts: AutoTune’s virus-like proliferation, trap’s arrival in the public conscience, and the rising vanguard of minimalist producers (DJ Mustard and Hit-Boy) and emotionally vulnerable MCs (Drake, Future), just to name a few. Sure, these developments have breathed new life into the genre. But with Missy’s relative silence, there’s nonetheless been a void: a longing for her inimitable, intimidating blend of humor, irony, allusion, and pure badassery.

With “Where They From (WTF)”, Missy’s come back to fill that space with some much-needed tough love. “The dance you doing is dumb/ How they do where you from,” she absconds, before turning a side-eye to a certain tongue-waggling reveler: “Stickin’ out your tongue girl/ But you know you’re too young/ A bunch of girls do it and the shit looks fun/ That’s how they do it where we from.” (Miley, what’s good?) But don’t let the shade throw you. Ultimately, the song’s less about shaming and more about addressing problematic cultural appropriation. Among these serious themes, Missy still compares herself to a Big Mac and bisque, flippantly waving off the competition (“Blah-blah-blah, you best to go rewrite your bars”). She even entertains an endearingly dopey guest verse from producer Pharrell, but Buffalo Hat Bill’s clattering beat is more than enough to herald Missy’s return. What a time.

Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork

DJ Snake may not have released a ton of music in 2015, but his presence was definitely felt. Credit that to his rigorous performance schedule, which featured standout sets at Ultra Music Festival, EDC Vegas, and TomorrowWorld, just to name a few. Oh yeah, and he contributed to one of the biggest records of the year. Still, a full-length project has been largely absent from his catalog, something dedicated fans have been fiending for.

That will change this winter as the renowned French producer/DJ is set to release his as-yet-titled debut album. We get an early taste of what’s to come tonight with his new single, “Middle,” which features UK artist Bipolar Sunshine. The collaboration is impressive to say the least with Bipolar’s smooth vocals blending nicely with Snake’s infectious backdrop that will have listeners grooving on the dance floor. Check out “Middle” below, and be on the lookout for DJ Snake’s upcoming album.

Read the rest of this article at Complex

Old man, look at your life: A 70th birthday appreciation of Neil Young

Before you place an emergency call with the hyperbole police, allow me to inject a bit of context. When I was younger I had no discernible interests. It was obligatory for any adolescent male in my native Finland to go through the devil’s horns-flashing ritual known as the Metal Years, so that’s what I did, albeit without any mad levels of allegiance to double bass drum pedals, spandex, demonic affiliations and supersonic guitar twiddling.

With Iron Maiden and Metallica as my points of reference, imagine my surprise – shock, more like – at encountering a cut off Young’s 1990 LPRagged Glory, recorded with Crazy Horse, still by some distance my favourite backing band; not just for Young, but anyone. This music was keen on flexing its muscles, too, but it was a very different kind of aggression from the death-obsessed grunting and eternally adolescent angst I’d grown accustomed to. These  guys played what can only be described as hard rock like they held a deep-seated resentment towards their instruments, but it somehow came across as a positive undertaking, due not least to the simple but strong melodies and the angels-with-stubbles harmonies their thudding, unhurriedly evolving minor-key jams were slathered with; later I found out this may have had something to do with Young & Crazy Horse’s enthusiastic participation in the original hippie era, the enduring whiff of which lingered on. There was an earthy groove to this stuff, too, a colossal yet slightly unsteady, hypnotic gallop that sounded like it could go on for hours – and frequently did.

Read the rest of the story at The Line Of Best Fit

Justin Bieber: The Full NME Cover Story

Here is an enjoyable selection of things Justin Bieber got up to between September 2012 and December 2014. He vomited onstage in Arizona; abandoned his pet monkey at German customs; went to dinner at Mr Chow in London wearing a gas mask; wrote “hopefully she would have been a Belieber” in the guestbook of the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam; was caught sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel; had a scuffle with Orlando Bloom in Ibiza; was arrested for assault and dangerous driving in Ontario, Canada; posted on Twitter that he had “officially retired”.

The 21-year old was, for a while, the biggest freak show around. Today, as he walks into the suite of a five-star hotel in London, introducing himself with a handshake, a smile and a “hey man”, he’s here to tell NME why un-Beliebers have got him all wrong.

It’s a week before ‘Sorry’ – the second single from Justin Bieber’s fourth album, ‘Purpose’ – is due to come out. Bieber recently posted the words “if you don’t like ‘Sorry’ I will punch myself in the face repeatedly” on Instagram. Sounds like he’s feeling pretty confident. “Yeah, I don’t know, I just really love the song,” he says, of the Skrillex and Blood Diamond-produced track. “It’s a simple melody, but I think music right now is missing those effective real songs.”

For someone who’s sold almost 50 million records, has the second-most-watched video on YouTube ever (‘Baby’, with over 1.2 billion views) and pulled in $77 million on his 2013 tour, Bieber is curiously unsure of himself when talking about music. But his mind’s been elsewhere since he last released an album, 2012’s ‘Believe’.

A few days ago, he completed the 40 hours of community service he was sentenced to in July 2014 for causing (allegedly) $80,000 of damage by throwing eggs at his Californian neighbours’ house. “I think I’m the first person with a felony egg charge,” he says, smiling, seeming to enjoy how silly it sounds. “Right now I’m on probation from an egg charge.”

Read the rest of the story at NME

Jeff Buckley’s life after death

When news hits that “lost” material by a deceased artist is going to be released by a record company, it’s natural to be a bit skeptical. Is it just crass profiteering? Would the musician want this work out there? Does this posthumous work tell us anything new about the artist? Will his or her reputation actually be threatened by third-rate material? These are all reasonably questions to ask.

But the news of never-heard, soon-to-be-released Buckley songs – recorded in 1993, a few months before he cut the “Grace” LP – is great news for the singer’s fans, and if done right, could help fill in his outline. The 10 songs are mostly covers, and come out from Legacy in March as “You and I.” (Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, is overseeing the release.)

So why is this different than, say, the whiff of exploitation that hovers over some lost recordings? How does it avoid the beating-a-dead-horse quality that accompanies some posthumous releases even from a musician as titanic as Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain?

Part of it is a sense that Buckley still had much more to give. He released only one full album in his lifetime – he drowned, somewhat mysteriously, in 1997 — and if you were open to its dark magic, “Grace” was absolutely devastating. Some of its appeal was simply the raw talent of Buckley’s singing – with an endlessly flexible voice that could evoke shards of Robert Plant, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday but still sound distinctively like Jeff Buckley. (He also led a very tight band and put on focused and powerful live shows.)

Read the rest of the story at Salon