Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz project has sold tens of millions of albums, spawned No 1 singles, broken America in a way no Britpop band (including Blur) ever managed, won awards, headlined festivals, spawned its own festival – Demon Dayz – and staged vast transcontinental arena tours. All this without it ever becoming clear what Gorillaz is supposed to be. An alt-rock star’s extended sneery joke at the expense of manufactured pop? A catch-all repository for a musical polymath’s teeming multiplicity of ideas? An act of self-indulgence, or a brave, boundary-pushing experiment that sometimes works to startling effect and sometimes very publicly fails?
At various points since their 2000 debut, Gorillaz have encompassed all of those things: they have lurched from feeling like a stoned folly to a brilliantly inventive reimagining of what a pop band can be; from a postmodern gag to the source of evidently heartfelt concept albums about environmentalism and the apocalyptic tone of life in the 21st century; from being the object of Noel Gallagher’s derision to featuring Noel Gallagher as a special guest.
Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz project has sold tens of millions of albums, spawned No 1 singles, broken America in a way no Britpop band (including Blur) ever managed, won awards, headlined festivals, spawned its own festival – Demon Dayz – and staged vast transcontinental arena tours. All this without it ever becoming clear what Gorillaz is supposed to be. An alt-rock star’s extended sneery joke at the expense of manufactured pop? A catch-all repository for a musical polymath’s teeming multiplicity of ideas? An act of self-indulgence, or a brave, boundary-pushing experiment that sometimes works to startling effect and sometimes very publicly fails?
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Jim E-Stack has been putting in the work over the last decade, bouncing around between different cities — he’s called San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, and now Los Angeles home — and building up a résumé that includes credits with HAIM, Bon Iver, Charli XCX, Rostam, and more. He put out two one-off tracks last year, “Good Enough” and “A Man Can’t Know What It’s Like To Be A Mother,” and today he’s back with a new song called “Note To Self,” a collaboration with Empress Of’s Lorely Rodriguez.
The two of them previously worked together on “U Give It Up,” a track from this year’s I’m Your Empress Of, and he also had a hand in the Perfume Genius rework of “When I’m With You.” “Note To Self” is dark and shuffling, with light peeking in at the corners.
“It’s like this voice in your head, like some Goddess from above, that’s giving you self-encouragement,” Jim-E Stack said in a statement. “It’s okay to feel down, but embrace it because ultimately that gives way to moving forward and progress… There is hope in the sense that we can change things in the world.”
Read the rest of this article at Stereogum
When she’s not busy writing songs for the biggest stars in pop, Julia Michaels sometimes releases music of her own. Her work has been impressing us for a while now, and today’s new single “Lie Like This” is especially appealing. Speaking to Apple Music, Michaels says the breathy and effervescent club-pop track — produced by her fellow industry mainstays the Monsters & Strangerz — is our first taste of her first full-length album: “I really want to make a simple, beautiful 10 song album, and I’m pretty close to that.” This is definitely a good start!
Read the rest of this article at Stereogum
According to the announcement, the album, which also features from Caroline Polachek, Arca, Nate Boyce and Nolanberollin, “loosely summons the broadcasting logic of radio dayparts, switching on in the morning and closing very late at night, while seamlessly latticed together with kaleidoscopic, twitchy transformations of sound between the dials to form a darkly humorous reflection on American music culture.” There are multiple references to terrestrial radio throughout the album, including on “Cross Talk II.
The suite is a fitting preview of the album, which swings between experimental sounds, soaring, pop-inflected songs and discordant textures, like the “Cross Talk II” that opens the suite. Although Lopatin’s vocals are usually heavily treated and the lyrics are often unintelligible, his production and arrangements are among the most innovative in the past decade of electronic music.
As part of a five-song preview of his forthcoming album “Magic,” Oneohtrix Point Never has dropped a collaboration with The Weeknd titled “No Nightmares.” It’s a slow and yearning ballad that recalls “Scared to Love” from The Weeknd’s smash album released in March, “After Hours.”The Weeknd-featured track appears at the end of a five-song release titled “Midday Suite” (which followed a “Drive Time Suite” from last month). Listen to the song below.
Oneohtrix Point Never, a veteran electronic artist whose real name is Daniel Lopatin, has been collaborating extensively with The Weeknd in recent months and even accompanied him on “Saturday Night Live” back in March. The Weeknd is an executive producer of “Magic.”
Read the rest of this article at Vanity Fair
Mogwai have announced a new album: As the Love Continues is out February 19, 2021, via Temporary Residence Ltd./Rock Action. Today, the group has shared lead single “Dry Fantasy.” Hear it below and scroll down for the LP art and tracklist.
As the Love Continues is the follow up to Mogwai’s 2017 full-length Every Country’s Sun. The new album was recorded earlier this year in Worcestershire, England, with producer Dave Fridmann. It also features contributions from Atticus Ross (“Midnight Flit”) and Colin Stetson (“Pat Stains”). As the Love Continues will arrive exactly 25 years after the release of the band’s debut single, “Tuner”/“Lower.”
According to press materials, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite hopes that the new album will be transportive for listeners, “unless you are somewhere really amazing and then why are you listening to some weird music like this?”
As the Love Continues will be released on vinyl, digital, and CD formats, as well a special edition box set that includes the CD, colored double-vinyl, a single LP featuring live album demo tracks, and a photo book.
Read the rest of this article at Pitchfork
