Classic Scottish alt-rockers Teenage Fanclub announced the release of Endless Arcade, their first LP since 2016’s Here, with the premiere single, “Home.” Endless Arcade will drop on March 5, 2021. “I think of an endless arcade as a city that you can wander through, with a sense of mystery, an imaginary one that goes on forever,” says Raymond McGinley, one-half of the band’s songwriters for this album, in a statement. “When it came to choosing an album title, it seemed to have something for this collection of songs.” The group’s other songwriter, Norman Blake, added, “We’re all getting older, and you can’t help but think about mortality, especially when you’re being creative and reflecting on your life.” A press statement further clarifies that the album “walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community, and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts of insecurity, anxiety, and loss.”
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Singer-songwriter dodie has announced her debut full-length album. It’s called Build A Problem and it comes out March 5. She’s also shared the lead single, ‘Cool Girl’, alongside an accompanying lyric video. Check it out below, and scroll down for the album’s cover artwork and tracklist.
“I think I was going through a crisis actually,” she said of writing the album. “I was very unsure of who I was and I was trying to figure it out in music. So I think it’s quite unstable of an album – but it’s definitely honest.”
On the inspiration behind ‘Cool Girl’, she commented: “‘Cool Girl’ is a song about misplaced anger. Stemming from the suppression of communicating your needs in a relationship in order to attempt to be the most chill, cool, and loveable. It’s bitter, desperate, frustrated, proud, determined, and unhealthy.”
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With performances racked up beside Grimes, The xx and Battles, GIUNGLA’s (aka Ema Drei) propulsive modus operandi sports an all-encompassing gloss. It’s bolstered on her recent singles by the production acumen of Luke Smith, known for his work with Foals and Depeche Mode, amongst others.
Pairing with My Bloody Valentine collaborator Andrew Savours for “Walk On The Ceiling”, Drei negotiates a fine line between bolshy, eruptive euphoria and disconcerting dissonance. She straddles lacerating strings and quaking electronic rumbles with a blurring of paths that lends a trepidatious tint to her songcraft.
Embracing a febrile yet aloof atmosphere, the Italian artist oscillates between adrenaline-led pomp and sneaking jeopardy; tension spurred by late-night introspection, confronted with the solitude of inner thoughts and the glare of a smartphone screen.
Drei traces the track’s origins, offering further insight into its context: “I like to think of the phone light as a candle to be protected and given to someone special,” she explains. “The perspective is upside down, as if those who stay awake at night to write were in another reality; it is about the beauty of looking for a bit of mystery and magic even in a protected and domestic environment, trying to be braver than you are during the day.”
GIUNGLA’s latest single presents a glimpse into a multifarious artistic scope, delivering diverging electro rock rhythms: a surging precedent in advance of a forthcoming EP next year.
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Announcing that his brand new album ‘Boys Cry’ will be out on 15th January, Oscar Scheller is giving us a little taste of what to expect with brand new track ‘Half Eaten’.
“This song is a diary entry of the 14 year old me living in a new area, going to a new school and generally really struggling,” he explains. “‘Half Eaten’ because I felt like there was half of me left, as I was being consumed by anxiety which took away my appetite for life. Shout out to Ms. Atkins, my music teacher, for the keys to the music room. That shit saved me for real!”
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Gorillaz have released the latest installment of their Song Machine series: a music video for the Beck-featuring track “The Valley of the Pagans”.
The visuals see the virtual band transplanted into the video game world of Grand Theft Auto – specifically the game’s take on Hollywood, or “Vinewood” – to cruise around the city and watch their wanted level rise. Beck, meanwhile, makes an appearance via the in-game phone, popping up onscreen to deliver his verses.
The new video for “The Valley of the Pagans” isn’t the first time Gorillaz have appeared inside a video game to promote the track, though. Last month, they performed the collaboration during an appearance on an Animal Crossing talk show, which also saw creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett discuss the project as a whole.
Besides Beck, Song Machine Season One: Strange Timez has seen the band link up with artists including slowthai, Skepta, JPEGMAFIA, St Vincent, Elton John, and the late Tony Allen. Season two is also apparently in the works, alongside a long-awaited animated film, which Albarn has described as “kind of abstract”.
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