It took the Avalanches the better part of 16 years to create Wildflower, the follow-up to their genre-defining debut Since I Left You. That album refined the Australian plunderphonic group’s methodology, retaining their penchant for nostalgia-laden samples while bringing in featured vocalists for the first time. Now, four years after they broke the seal, the Avalanches are back again with “We Will Always Love You,” a new collaboration with Blood Orange that also incorporates vocals from Smokey Robinson and the Roches.
Much like Wildflower’s most memorable guests—Danny Brown, Toro y Moi, the late David Berman—Dev Hynes fits right in with the Avalanches, his dramatic spoken-word style lending gravitas to what might otherwise be a relaxed mood music exercise. His lyrics don’t always stick the landing (“By me, to you, take another hit, what else to do?”), but Hynes is in top form by the second half, where the Avalanches spin a passing phrase from the Roches’ iconic “Hammond Song” into its own veritable hook. “Night time, I’m fine, dreaming of another life,” Hynes intones amidst twinkling arpeggios echoing into a black sky. “We Will Always Love You” is another lovely, if modest attempt by The Avalanches to bridge the past and present of recorded music.
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French polymath Oklou has shared her new single ‘entertnmnt’.
The songwriter’s stunning work makes her a profound collaborator, eager to move her music in different directions.
mura masa joined her in the studio for ‘entertnmnt’, a bewitching single that glides across a strange, haunting aural landscape.
Zero-gravity synths interconnect with that supple vocal, with that central narrative thrust pushing ‘entertnmnt’ to the end.
“I’ve loved Lou’s work for a while so getting to work on this track with her felt very natural,” Mura Masa explains. “She’s an amazing songwriter and this song isn’t any exception to that.”
Alexandra Green directs the video, and it translates Oklou’s music into a lunar landscape.
“I wanted to visually create a space that captured that feeling,” says the director. “Oklou’s vocals are of central importance to the track, so it seemed fitting to keep her as the focal point of the video.”
Tune in now.
Read the rest of this article at Clash
Yves Tumor jumped into the big leagues with 2018’s Safe In The Hands Of Love, which we named one of the Best Electronic Albums of that year.
Today, the Tennessee-bred pop experimentalist has announced its follow-up, Heaven To A Tortured Mind, which he co-wrote and produced with Justin Raisen. We also get to hear its blown-out and funky lead single “Gospel For A New Century,” which has horn blasts and a catchy chorus: “This ain’t by design, girl/ Take it softer/ You know I’m out my mind, girl/ Don’t make this harder.”
It comes with an eye-catching music video directed by Isamaya Ffrench. “Nobody has ever inspired or moved me like Yves Tumor,” Ffrench said in a statement. “It’s hard to do justice and communicate the devotional feeling of adoration and love I feel for him and what he represents as an artist. In short, he’s the shit and i’m so honoured to have made my directorial debut with him as my muse.”
Read the rest of this article at Stereogum
Around the time of 2015’s Currents – the third Tame Impala album – mainman Kevin Parker described having an epiphany some time previously. Driving around Los Angeles on magic mushrooms and cocaine, he realised just how magnificent the Bee Gees sounded, emotionally and technically. Parker is an Australian man given to singing beatific, double-tracked harmonies in falsetto; he is also a studio nerd with a long and attentive study of psychedelia behind him. The sound of the Bee Gees on mushrooms insinuated itself into Parker’s work, culminating in a massive and deserved hit album.
Currents was an album all about transition, on which Parker disentangled himself, as gently as he could, from a relationship to begin anew. At the same time, this progenitor of the 00s revival in psychedelic rock was also outgrowing his early sound, a monomaniacal stoner guitar fuzz. Parker embraced the expansive possibilities of electronics, of the dancefloor, of popularity. The mainstream, it turned out, was in a similar headspace: riding an uptown funk renaissance, high on weird production and flirting shamelessly with soft rock.
If anything, The Slow Rush – a much-delayed sequel – only pushes up the faders on the funky disco and aerated male vocals. It leans further towards the brothers Gibb than the psilocybin stash. Parker actually told Billboard recently that he now has pop super-producer Max Martin in his sights.
Read the rest of this article at The Guardian
Nearly two years since the release of his debut album, A Louder Silence, and London-based singer and producer Leifur James is back to announce a brand new collection, Angel In Disguise, dropping April 24 via Night Time Stories. Deftly mixing the avant garde and experimental with deeply affecting songwriting and melodies, lead single “Wise Old Man” is both progressive yet devastatingly simple. Sitting somewhere between the warm, club-facing beats of Dan Snaith and the chilling soulfulness of James Blake, Leifur James is well-suited to soundtrack your heartbreak and euphoria with equal effectiveness.
Read the rest of this article at Complex