This week, Samia released her sophomore album, Honey. Title track “Honey’ is about always being drunk enough that you don’t have to look around,” she says. “To me it’s the saddest song I’ve ever written, because it’s mocking my attempt to convince people I was good. Caleb Wright turned it into a campfire song, though, and I love that it can be interpreted as fun too.” [via Stereogum]

Last October, Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer) returned to us with their first new single in five years. Co-produced by their brother Olof (of the Knife), ‘What They Call Us’ was the siblings’ first new studio recording since the Knife’s 2014 Europa Europa collab ‘För Alla Namn Vi Inte Får Använda.’ Happily, the Dreijers didn’t stop there. Now, they’re releasing ‘Kandy,’ which also has a video and is co-produced and performed by both Fever Ray and the Knife’s Olof Dreijer. Over looping vocal whoops, “Down Under”-sounding percussion, synths, and flute, Karin Dreijer sings in a deep register: “She laid me down and whispered/ All girls want kandy/ Can you bring me back/ Sll girls want kandy.” [via Stereogum]

Biig Piig has dropped a video for ‘In The Dark’. It’s a track from the star’s debut mixtape, Bubblegum, in addition to recent drops ‘Picking Up’ (with Deb Never), ‘This Is What They Meant’ and ‘Kerosene’. “Bubblegum is sweet and nice to look at, but it’s sticky,” she says of the release. “I like the innocence, but was drawn to the texture — balloony, elastic, stretchy. And it bursts, too. That’s what the tape felt like.” [via Dork]

Combining classic pop punk and modern chart sensibilities, FLØRE is sure to provide all the energy you need with this new cut ‘ZOMBIE’ out via Valeria Music. In a story many can relate to, it was written about those old flames that long died that keep resurfacing, bring back all the wrong energy that saw it all go wrong in the first place. Speaking about the song, FLØRE explained “The song is about the on-off relationships you have with past lovers. They keep crawling back to you like mindless Zombies, bringing back to life what was already dead. I think breaking free from those toxic on-and-off relationships is so hard, because somewhere there’s a part of you that still gets excited when someone’s name pops up on your screen months or even years later. Which makes you fall in these memory holes again and you catch yourself wishing one day it would be different and it would work out. But some relationships can’t be killed and instead remain undead forever.”

Tchotchke arrived on the scene last summer with a self-titled debut record collecting upbeat pop-rock anthems packaged with a vintage ’70s sheen. Considering the album’s sound ranging from twee to jangle-pop—all while maintaining its period-piece aesthetic—it’s no surprise that The Lemon Twigs were behind the boards producing the project, as both groups scratch a unique itch the indie rock scene’s ignored since bands like Foxygen and Girls were on the come-up. Tchotchke have released their first single since that album with ‘Come on, Sean,’ a campy story about a rendezvous between a gardener and a housewife littered with double entendres and soundtracked by the band’s unique sonic palette, this time embellished with chintzy orchestration to match the vocals’ Joanna Newson–esque acrobatics. Additionally, the track’s Ambar Navarro–directed visual helps to flesh out the narrative, confirming its setting in 1970s suburban America. [via Flood]

From quantum physics to the worlds of high fashion and fine art, Brooklyn-based Sandflower is an artist with interests as varied as her sound. Drawing on the contrast of the buttoned-up academia of her private school upbringing against New York’s vibrant music scene, the artist cites everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Cindy Sherman, Salvador Dalí to Allen Ginsberg as inspirations for her own blend of rap-infused pop. Sandflower returns with a rowdy dancefloor-ready self-empowerment anthem, ‘Shake That Boom (Cargo Room).’ Giving off a Paula Abdul-meets-Lizzo type of vibe, the catchy single features an interesting blend of retro and newer sounds that includes “an Atlanta snare drum line, Caribbean dancing 808’s, sound design from a vintage Buchla modular synthesizer and stadium-pulsing organs,” according to producer David Sisko. The single arrives alongside an equally if not more energetic music video that sees Sandflower taking us to the streets of Tokyo. Serving up tightly choreographed numbers and bright comic interjections, the visual is just as youthful and bright as the single, with Sandflower fully feeling herself every step of the way. “’Shake That Boom (Cargo Room)’ is the energy of undeniable self-love — no — obsessive self-confidence,” Sandflower says of the track. “This song is a sonic Ted Talk about revering the wonder that is you — and the wonder that is your body. This is the song that plays in my head when I look at myself first thing in the morning. This song is the aura that wraps around me when I saunter down Lafayette Street in SoHo and when I literally ran through the streets of Tokyo while filming the video. This song should come with a warning: If you listen to this while walking down the street, this song will induce massive amounts of compliments, new friends and possible new opportunities.” [via Paper]

Refusing to stagnate in the electronic scene, Alexis positions herself as enigmatic and ever-resilient. It’s a difficult task having grown up in Texas and moved to London, yet, the now UK-based producer, vocalist and DJ has come to the forefront of her genre – an already exciting addition to the genre via her sets at Boiler Room and podcast on Resident Audio. Now, this attention is taking her forward as she becomes the second artist launched on the newly launched London label Remedy!, and kicks her musical aspirations off with the release of ‘angelcore’. Carried by a bedding of hypnotic industrial rhythms, Alexis delivers a bewitching whispering of vocal lines. A gradual build of anticipation is felt throughout the track by a slow knotting of pulsing beats and low-end noise. You are constantly in the balance between paranoia and jubilation. With an almost unsettling other-worldly quality, you get the feeling that Alexis has built a world of her own that is channelled through her music. As she walks you through the song you feel simultaneously laid back and at knife-edge. In an air of confusion, you can’t help but fall deep into the sound. Alexis’ true talent shines in crafting a song which has an elegantly simple feel but is no doubt complicated and intricate in composition. It is often underestimated how much care and attention to detail must go into making a sound that you can call your own, but it’s in moments like this where it should be commended. [via Line Of Best Fit]

Taylor Swift has shared the music video for ‘Lavender Haze,’ a cut from her latest album Midnights. Taking its title from a Mad Men episode, ‘Lavender Haze’ sees Swift singing about antiquated gender roles. It was also partially inspired by Swift having to dodge “weird rumors” and “tabloid stuff” over the course of her career. Laith Ashley De La Cruz, a transgender actor and activist, plays Swift’s love interest in the video. “There is lots of lavender. There is lots of haze. There is my incredible costar @laith_ashley who I absolutely adored working with,” Swift wrote in a tweet upon the video’s release. “This was the first video I wrote out of the 3 that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70’s fever dream. Hope you like it.” Swift has been a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. During a 2020 speech commemorating the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Swift called out the erasure of transgender and nonbinary people from the US census. “When you don’t collect information on a group of people, that means you have every excuse in the world not to support them. When you don’t collect data on a community, that’s a really, really brutal way of dismissing them,” she said at the time. [via Consequence]

LVRA has shared new single ‘anxiety’. The Chinese-Scottish multi-hyphenate has a true gift for sound design, interpolating electronic tropes into her singular realm. A flurry of singles have seen LVRA sketch out a unique identity, with seven-track project Soft Like Steel landing on March 22. News of the announce coincides with something fresh from LVRA, who has just shared the startling, multi-faceted digi-jewel ‘anxiety’. A real message from the heart, the lyrics deal with mental health issues, while the electronic production hurls her vocal far off into the future. A song that truly stands apart from its peers, ‘anxiety’ pivots between over-thinking and the urge for self-acceptance. She comments… “I’ve lived my life as an overthinker, my mental balance completely tipped over by even the most minuscule of events. Music allows my brain to focus on something else, and creating gives me something to channel the energy into. Often I’m trying to turn negative emotions into a source of strength and I feel like Anxiety was borne out of my desire to live and accept this part of me. It’s kind of ambiguous whether or not it’s the voice inside my head that’s taunting me or some kind of f u to the voice inside my head.” [via Clash]

Cementing herself in the upper echelons of Australian singer-songwriters, Gena Rose Bruce navigates emotional turmoil, fragility, death and honesty on Deep Is The Way, her second record, out now via Dot Dash / Remote Control Records. To coincide with the release, Gena Rose Bruce shared a video for the doom-laden ‘Destroy Myself’, directed by Ryan Downey. With its buzzing synths and chugging guitars, the track sees Bruce reflects on her own dark compulsions.

Kimbra releases her single and accompanying music video for ‘Foolish Thinking,’ the third single off of her upcoming album A Reckoning. Directed by Alex Cook, the music video is an intimate vignette into the experience of being a mother. The subject of the song is Kimbra’s future daughter, who is shown confronting the struggles of growing up and eventually has to face young motherhood herself. Kimbra has to accept that she cannot always protect her child, reflecting, “It’s not my place and no matter what I say, you’re gonna do what you want anyway.” Of the release, Kimbra says, “I wrote this song at the piano in a matter of hours. It started as a letter to my future daughter but quickly partnered with melody. It felt as though I were channeling my future self; a Mother trying to protect her child from pain while understanding that they must experience adversity to grow. I was imagining the loss of control when you realize the most loving thing is to let go. Having Ryan sing the second verse added a beautiful dimension because he has the actual lived experience of being a father so could perform my words from a very personal place. I feel there’s a lot of expectation on mothers to have it all figured out before they pass on their blueprint to the next generation. I wanted to make a song that would ease that external pressure a little, because we will always be learning right alongside them.” Director Alex Cook adds, “Hearing the track for the first time, there was such a rare sincerity and emotional depth in the song and lyrics. There is often an almost inseparable sense of wonder and pain in the experience of growing up. Sometimes it isn’t until years later that we begin to understand the full emotional complexity of a life event. We hoped to carry those feelings into the video as we follow a mother watching her young girl grow up through life stages until she has a child of her own. The mother’s light, her warmth, follows her daughter through scenes of her life, until she enters into her own phase of motherhood.” [via Broadway World]

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Remaining prolific this year, multi-platinum singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs unveils an empowering and engaging new single and music video entitled ‘superhuman’ via Arista Records. Regarding the single, Bishop commented, “I wrote ‘superhuman’ when I was 8 months pregnant. I really felt like I was in a space where I was seeking positivity and light for my little one who was about to arrive. This song quickly became a poem about encouragement and knowing you have the strength to continue on no matter what comes your way.” Once again, Bishop delivers an uplifting anthem highlighted by her dynamic vocals and a powerful affirmation on the hook where she assures, “You’re superhuman. Bulletproof as can be. I know the truth is you can do anything.” She encodes a thoughtful message within the music and lyrics. Fittingly, the song soundtracks the ‘Rise To’ campaign by Rise – an initiative of Schmidt Futures and The Rhodes Trust that finds brilliant young people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others. The integrated campaign invites global talent to apply to Rise as they continue to turn opportunities into action and ‘Rise To’ solve the world’s most pressing issues. Meanwhile, the track’s accompanying visual illuminates true superheroes in everyday life on-screen. Bishop adds, “Hearing each others stories is the human experience that I have valued so much in my hardest days. I wanted people to leave the music video knowing they are not alone and that they are capable beyond belief. I’m really grateful for Hunter Moreno (and Jake McKenna) who created something I will be proud to share so many years from now.”

Meghan Trainor has released her anxiously awaited fourth full-length album, Takin’ It Back. This time around, she made a conscious decision to hark back to the signature sound she introduced on her 2015 full-length debut, TITLE, and bring it forward to today. About the album, Meghan said, “I tried to do the doo-wop feel I had at the beginning of my career, but the 2022 version of it. This is from the new Meghan who is a wife and mom with a baby. This is from me right now. I decided to give the people what they want, but with my spices added to it. I wanted to make my Title 2.0.” Accompanying the album’s release is a video for Meghan’s new single, ‘Made You Look.’ The spunky track has horns that pipe up as her doo-wop harmonies double up the attitude on the chorus, “I could have my Gucci on. I could wear my Louis Vuitton, but even with nothing on, bet I made you look.” The vibrant and stylized music video sees Meghan moving between different colorful worlds – from Hollywood set ups to a big finale dance performance. By Meghan’s side are TikTok personalities Chris Olsen, Remi Bader, Becca Means, Drew Afualo, along with JoJo Siwa, Scott Hoying, and husband Daryl Sabara. Regarding ‘Made You Look,’ Meghan said, ““After having a baby, I struggled really hard to feel sexy. I actually wrote this song when I was ass-naked singing the chorus in the shower,” she admits. “I can wear all of these gorgeous things, but I look better without all of that shit on. I wrote a self-love anthem for myself. Even though you had a baby, went through it, and your body shows it, you’re still sexy.”

Returning with two new tracks and a stunning short film, PVRIS has shared ‘Anywhere But Here’ and ‘Animal’. “At its core, ‘ANYWHERE BUT HERE’ is about wanting to escape your surroundings,” Lyndsey Gunnulfsen explains. “My whole life I’ve always found myself restless and eager to be somewhere else. I always imagine existing in different times and different places; everywhere and anywhere but where I am in the moment, even the good moments. I think a lot of us experience that to some degree, a longing to be somewhere or with someone you can’t necessarily identify.” “‘Animal’ is all about defiance, breaking free of control whether it’s from other people, or from ourselves,” she adds. “It can even be looked at through a wider lens and interpreted as defiance towards ‘the man’, government, or the algorithms that run our lives, that ‘know us’. It’s about challenging the identity the outside world chooses to give you. It’s also a comment on fame and spectacle. I feel like we as a society are quick to dehumanize each other and hold people in fixed forms denying one another the opportunities to grow and evolve. I think this holds true especially those in any scale of a spotlight; artists, actors, influencers, models, athletes, politicians, etc… this can be true for personal relationships as well. We do each other a disservice by restricting one another to these metaphorical cages. ‘ANIMAL’ is about challenging that.” [via DIY]

Lowertown have just dropped their debut album, I Love To Lie. Their new single, ‘My Friends’, has also been shared with a music video accompaniment. The new arrival follows the release of recent singles ‘Bucktooth’, ‘Antibiotics’, and ‘No Way’. Lowertown’s Olivia Osby says: “I wrote ‘My Friends’ when I was 19 in the summer of 2021 about the first group of people I fell into when I first moved to New York. Their way of life was incredibly fast-paced, volatile, and dramatic. It felt so enticing because I had never experienced anything like it before. They were all larger than life people, always so spontaneous and ‘cool’. There was always a plan, always a story, always something to do or talk about.” “They felt like caricatures of the ‘cool’ people I’d seen in movies,” she continues. “We’d drive around the city and bar hop, and walk around until the sun came up. It felt great. I felt like I was finally living the adult life that was taken from me with the pandemic, but slowly I began to realise it was all wearing on me, on all of us. The fantasy I had built in my head was not the reality I was living. I was sick all the time and kept losing my voice. I was always in pain and my stomach was always upset. I started losing sight of anything that seemed important to me before I’d moved to New York. I saw my friends dissolve; their behaviour was erratic, spiteful, and illogical. They wouldn’t sleep or eat for days then they’d have outbursts of anger and paranoia towards me and each other.” “This kind of life had consequences, and I realised everyone around me was just as lost as I was,” Osby admits. “We were swimming in quicksand, trying to get out and trying to make ourselves feel better, but just getting sucked further in.” [via Dork]

Just before the release of her new album Midnights, Taylor Swift promised “a special very chaotic surprise” at 3AM. True to her word, three hours after the album itself was out in the world, Swift released Midnights (3am Edition), a version of the album with seven extra tracks. On Instagram, Swift writes, “Lately I’ve been loving the feeling of sharing more of our creative process with you, like we do with From The Vault tracks. So it’s 3am and I’m giving them to you now.” This morning, Swift also released her video for ‘Anti-Hero,’ which is apparently serving as the single from Midnights. (That’s the “everyone’s a sexy baby” song. Bold choice!) Swift wrote and directed the video, which is a lot of fun. Much of the clip is Swift hanging out and getting drunk with her own wilder doppelgänger. The video also has some visual quotes from Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman and a mid-song comedy sketch where Swift imagines her own funeral. The great stand-up comic Mike Birbiglia and John Early from Search Party play her adult sons, while Mary Elizabeth Ellis from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia plays her daughter-in-law. [via Stereogum]

Japanese-Australian brother-sister electronic duo Lastlings has just unveiled its latest musical outing with the release of ‘Get What You Want’. Produced by Lastlings with help from UK dance heavyweight Alex Metric, ‘Get What You Want’ presents lush chords and ethereal, textured vocals over a solid low end as artists showcase their musical maturity and evolution. “We spent a week writing in 2021 and this was one of the first songs that came from the session. We had two rooms. One writing room for Amy with a piano and one for me where I made the instrumental.” says Josh. “It explores mental health and the relationship that I have with myself. It’s about putting myself out there and not letting doubt get in the way of what I truly want. ‘I’ve got a lot of enemies that live inside my head’. This song isn’t about love for another person, it’s about my relationship with myself. ‘You’ refers to a darker version of myself that I am trying to fight and overcome.” further explains Amy. In line with the drop, Lastlings also shared the official music video for ‘Get What You Want’, which “explores an abstract interpretation of spaces inside the mind”. [via Electronic Groove]

Before she releases her new album next month, Anna of the North shared another preview in the form of her song ‘I Do You.’ It’s the latest from the full album Crazy Life, which is out November 4. The new song finds the singer taking her power back from past experiences and past relationships, turning it into a delightfully reassuring new single. “Too many times have I been in the situation where I put other people before myself,” says Anna. “I imagine everyone around me being so happy and successful. Like other people are so in control of themselves and their feelings. It’s like I give other people superpowers. We say that we’re our own worst enemy. And I’m definitely mine. I wish sometimes that I could see myself from another perspective. I wish that I could look at myself, like I look at others…If I did me, like I do you.” [via Variance]

Scottish singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod has dropped a new music video for ‘complex’ directed by Sam Bailey. Back in August, she released ‘complex (demo)’ along with the music video. Prior to the release of the song, a minute-long chorus of the track quickly became a viral TikTok phenomenon and racked up over 7.2 million views. Earlier this month, she released the new version of the song. This time, she crafted the video for the new version. The track was written by Katie and produced by Greg Kurstin. The video is inspired by American singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton’s 2002 debut song ‘A Thousand Miles’ video. Katie Gregson-MacLeod said of the video, “The video for ‘complex’ definitely shows a different side to the song and to me. I don’t think the song is entirely earnest, and I wanted the video to reflect that. We were discussing concepts for a wee while but when the idea came up of recreating an iconic music video in a totally different setting, the Vanessa Carlton video was a given. We were definitely keen to see how ridiculous we could get with the Scottish parallels but all the while not having it look like too much of a piss-take or too much like a Visit Scotland ad. After a short couple weeks of planning and the odd ‘I can’t believe we’re actually doing this’, we shot the video in and around Edinburgh. We started off in Holyrood, going around Arthur’s Seat. In fitting form, it was the rainiest and windiest it could have possibly been in the first few hours of the shoot. Nonetheless, strapped into the back of a van and sitting at a grand piano singing my piano ballad, we zoomed around.” She continued, “My favourite part was for sure getting my pals along as extras. We had some of my childhood best friends pull out their acting chops as ‘people on table at pub’ numbers 1-7 and got Hamish Hawk along to perform his supporting role as ‘beer-drinking man engrossed in conversation’. It was my first proper video shoot and although a really crazy day, it was a lot of fun. The team nailed it. I hope Vanessa Carlton enjoys our homage, that’s the main thing. It’s an iconic video and we wanted to honour that.” The song will appear on her upcoming EP, which is expected to be released in 2023. [via pmstudio]

Kimbra announces her upcoming studio album A Reckoning. To coincide with the announcement, she has debuted new single ‘Save Me’ alongside a music video directed by Yvan Fabing. Set for release in 2023, A Reckoning is primed to be a reflective record capturing the macro reckonings that impact our world around environment, race, feminism health and patriarchy through the eyes of the archteypal Mother. But at the heart of her record is the war with the micro reckonings that Kimbra faces internally. It’s the most sonically autonomous and confessionally raw she has ever been, finding influence in everything from modern movie soundtracks to electronic and industrial worlds. The album was first imagined in 2018, during Kimbra’s tour with co-producer Ryan Lott of the band Son Lux, who recently scored A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. On ‘Save Me,’ Kimbra shares a moment of deep yearning set on a bed of unsettling warped pianos. She explores how two internal realities can be present at once : chaos and contemplation, rage and still life-force. Inspired by a singular moment, she searches her insecurities with hopes that someone will save her from herself. The track is brought to new light in the music video that shows the pop singer in Iceland, traversing dangerous, surreal terrains as she seeks to heal her relationship to self, to other women, and finally to our Mother Earth. [via 360 Mag]

Elle King is offering fans a taste of her upcoming full-length country album, Come Get Your Wife, with the release of a new song, ‘Try Jesus.’ In the tune — which King co-wrote with Geoffrey Warburton, Casey Cathleen Smith, Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson — the singer decries a struggling love life full of less-than-worthy men. After listing some of the dead-end partners she has encountered, she concludes that it may be time to try a different route: one with a little more faith. “I should try Jesus / See what all the fuss is about / Thinkin’ I should try Jesus / ‘Cause every other man let me down / Got me singin’ ‘Hey Hallelujah, A-freakin’-men’ / Baby, I don’t need me anybody but him,” she sings in the chorus. The song is full of amusing lyrics as King makes her decision to ‘Try Jesus’ instead of the current dating scene, and the video offers more of King’s signature humor. Directed by Edi Patterson, the music video finds King entering a dollar store where the main characters of all her worst dating stories come to life, with King playing all the parts herself. After being handed a shopping cart by Jesus, himself, King comes face-to-face with her past. A supermarket dance party then breaks out, and King finds herself in an unfortunate predicament involving baked beans. Luckily, the store employee named Jesus is there to clean up her mess, and she finds happiness. In a social media post she shared prior to the release, King says she pulled from her background in religion to write the tune. “I grew up with a very religious grandmother,” she writes. “Pentecostal, speaking in tongues. I know a thing or two about the Bible. At least enough to know that I do lots of stuff my sweet Mawmaw is up there cringing in Heaven, I can hear her now ‘No no no no no!’ All she ever wanted for me, for anybody, was to have a little faith. I always say, I’ll try anything twice! And even though as a little kid I got poison ivy up my ass at church camp, I stay true to my word. So cheers to round two!” [via Taste of Country]

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