Emerging, independent rock artist Cutt has released the official music video for her latest single ‘No Crown In This Dead Town’. The video, directed by Ethan Maniquis (“Machete,” Five Finger Death Punch, Daughtry), highlights her Los Angeles roots and the famed Sunset Strip, where the rocker frequently performs. ‘No Crown In This Dead Town’ – produced by Sean Hurwitz (Smash Mouth) and Gregg Cash (Josh Todd & the Conflict), who also co-wrote the song with Cutt – is Cutt’s fight song, serving as motivation to keep working on her music and pushing forward with her career, even when it feels like you can be stuck. “‘No Crown In This Dead Town’ is about me wanting to give up on music,” shares Cutt. “Entourage is one of my favorite TV shows and the intro to the show inspired the opening shots of the video! It’s me in a red mustang looking up at all the billboards on Sunset Blvd. wishing it was me up there! The rest of the video is me and my band performing on a rooftop in downtown LA.”

fantasy of a broken heart are announcing their debut album, Feats of Engineering (out September 27 on Dots Per Inch). To mark the announce the band are sharing a new single entitled ‘UR HEART STOPS,’ with an accompanying video directed by Rachel Brown of Water From Your Eyes & thanks for coming. Though shaped by the surrealist endeavours of 70s prog-rock and late-90s dream pop, and the logic-eschewing rules of animated worlds, the album is ultimately tethered to reality, to music as sculpted by years of live performance. Featuring contributions from other members of the NYC scene the band travels in, including Nate Amos (This Is Lorelei, Water From Your Eyes) and Jordana, the album is a maximalist diatribe anchored by the emotional core of its central relationship. Lyrics careen between the silly and the sincere, while Bailey’s husky baritone whispers, shouts, and croons, Al’s airy vocals twang and soar transcendent, their voices drifting in and out of conversation with each other. ‘UR HEART STOPS’ perfectly walks the line between the poles of the band’s sound, managing to be effective as pop music and avant garde in its construction, funny and genuinely beautiful. It’s a remarkably imaginative piece of music, that manages to be clever and surprising without taking itself too seriously, and it wonderfully captures the unique cocktail fantasy of a broken heart have been brewing for their debut LP. Wollowitz says of the song: “‘Ur Heart Stops’ was conceived in the midst of the pandemic after we moved from New York to Los Angeles looking for a breath of fresh air. With no shows in sight, we made the decision to finish writing the song without ever playing it live, a rarity for us that led to a very honest arrangement unbothered by the potential reaction of an audience. We finally got to play it live a year later at a cathartic house show at Brooklyn’s now closed Bohemian Grove. It felt like people caught onto the song right away despite it being the odd duck in an otherwise familiar set. The basement flooded overnight after the show and everything was caked in mud when I returned in the morning to pick up some gear. Heart is a reflection on the never-ending engine of day and night, separation and reconciliation, and the collective depression felt while marching to the coffee pot. While it started as a more personal dialogue between Al and I, I think the song ultimately became an anthem of perseverance for anyone who struggles to get out of bed every morning. We still do.”

Finom – the Chicago-based band co-fronted by Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, formerly known as Ohmme – will release their new record, Not God, on May 24 via Joyful Noise Recordings. Now, they present a new single, ‘Cyclops,’ alongside a video directed by Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa “Missy” Dabice. ‘Cyclops’ pulses with a fuzzy bass line and Finom’s signature harmonies. There’s a boisterous tension in its instrumentation, which is captured in the accompanying video. It features Cunningham and Stewart as eccentrically-dressed boxers, joining together to take on an evil force in the ring. “Your band is your own personal Odyssey,” explains the band. “You have to want to go on it, you have to fight for it, you have to live for it. I think this song is reacting to some of the subtle undercurrents and mental demons we’ve had to fight off when it comes to persisting as a band. But also, really thinking about battling a cyclops and all of the injury you endure to make it through to the other side.”

Rising pop artist Brooke Alexx has unveiled her self-directed music video for her recently released single, ‘Hot Like You.’ The video finds Alexx transforming from an office chic to Hollywood glam, with the swipe of some lip gloss, a show-stopping red dress, and her favorite pair of shoes from Pashion Footwear. “The music video represents when I was working a day job and pursing music at nights and on weekends. I felt like a double agent,” Alexx says on the new video. To bring her vision for the music video to life, Alexx teamed up with the aforementioned shoe company Pashion Footwear. The brand makes the world’s first fully convertible and customizable heels (a.k.a. shoes that can turn from heels to flats, as well as be endlessly customized with interchangeable Heel Kits + accessories). [via Substream]

Madrid-based indie rockers Hinds have unveiled plans for their new album, Viva Hinds. The record is set to be the band’s first since 2020’s The Prettiest Curse, and will feature two A-list guest stars. Spearheaded by the incredible duo that is Carlotta Cosials and Ana García Perrote, Hinds have been among the most notable indie bands of recent time, both in mainland Europe and further afield. Hence, there is already a lot of excitement surrounding the announcement of Viva Hinds. The first hints at a new album came back in February, when the duo released ‘Coffee’, their first single in years. However, it is only now that a new album has been confirmed, and details have been revealed. Alongside the announcement, the band released the album’s lead single ‘Boom Boom Back’, giving a sneak preview into this new era for Hinds. The song is a perfect summer anthem, featuring the kind of euphoric indie guitar sound that the band have become synonymous with, backed up by Cosials’ effortlessly cool vocals. ‘Boom Boom Back’ also gives some idea of the calibre of guest stars that will feature on the new record, with Beck arriving to deliver a verse. He met with Hinds by chance during a film screening in Los Angeles, and quickly set about organising a collaboration. The slacker king is not the only guest to feature on the tracklisting for Viva Hinds, as the as-yet-unreleased song ‘Stranger’ is due to feature Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten. The album’s lead single arrived in conjunction with a music video, awash with friendship and euphoria to match the mood of the song. Directed by Cosaials and Perrote themselves, the video sees Hinds take on the streets of Hollywood in the blistering sunshine.

Future soul voyager Raveena touches down once more on new single ‘Pluto’. ‘Pluto’ is a wonderful piece of zero gravity alt-soul, with her jazz leanings providing a real sense of flexibility to that dulcet vocal. In a note, she reveals that this beautiful new single actually relates to loss, while also re-learning the acceptance of joy. She comments… “This record is so inner child for me. It’s a song about loss, but woven into the most joyful soundbed. When making it, I was remembering the feeling of having my little walkman and listening to the most euphoric pop songs, dancing around the yard or looking out the window on a long drive at ten years old. I want to bring back the sweetness that feels like it’s suspended in that time of the early 2000s and 90s. I love the amalgamation of sounds we landed on in this song- it’s such a classic R&B record in so many ways, with all these hidden gems of unique instruments like swarmandal and electric sitar.” The surrealist video was pieced together with VFX imagery by Danish artist Ida Lissner, and acts as a homage to some 80s and 90s greats – think Prince’s ‘I Wish U Heaven’ and Faye Wong’s ‘Sing and Play’. [via Clash]

MOTHICA has released her new single ‘Red’, taken from her forthcoming visual album KISSING DEATH, which tells an immersive story across the tracks and their accompanying music videos. “After releasing Nocturnal, which had more of a heavier influence, I knew I wanted to include a rock song. In the narrative of the album, I wanted younger me to go to a rock show of future me, which is obviously impossible in reality, but it represents all the music I grew up listening to and what I’d later be inspired by,” says MOTHICA. “My buddy Nick Sadler and I wrote this together to be this rock-inspired anthem that teenage me would’ve loved, despite the lyrics being so self-destructive.” [via Bring the Noise]

Slovakian alt-pop artist Karin Ann has launched her debut album, Through the Telescope, showcasing her eclectic musical range and depth in storytelling. Released under 3am Records / PIAS, the album features the compelling new video for her track ‘I Don’t Believe in God’, starring Imogen Heap. Through the Telescope is a fusion of folk, rock, and gothic disco, drawing influences from artists like Mazzy Star and Hozier. Produced with Benjamin Lazar Davis and Will Graefe of Okkervil River, the album captures Karin Ann’s journey through love, identity, and mental health challenges. Karin expressed her personal connection to the album, stating, “Before I even considered making this album, I was at a breaking point where I seriously thought about giving up music due to my declining health. Benjamin, my collaborator on the album, unexpectedly entered the scene, and later came Will. The two of them sparked this whole new wave of creativity, and the album turned out even better than I imagined. This project was a labor of love, free from external pressures, allowing us to craft a narrative that reflects our shared artistic integrity. I’m so full of pride as I prepare to share this deeply personal piece of work with the world, and I’m hopeful that it resonates with listeners on a profound level.” The new video for ‘I Don’t Believe in God’ is a visually striking exploration of spiritual and societal challenges. Karin notes, “It’s a vulnerable reflection of spiritual dilemmas, influenced by my experience navigating as a queer woman in a conservative, Christian environment.” The video incorporates themes of religious persecution, drawing parallels with historical events like the witch trials.

The UK singer Mabel has a brash new single out. For ‘Look At My Body Pt. II,’ she teams with Shygirl for a hard, trap-infused pop song about “questioning the male gaze and the power of the divine feminine.” Mabel’s statement on the song: “This record is about questioning the male gaze and the power of the divine feminine. I’ve often felt judged by my appearance, and I’ve let comments get the better of me. Now, I’m at a stage in my life though where I’m celebrating my body without letting it define me. I wanted to let anyone who’s ever underestimated me or judged the book by its cover know that I’m ok with them doing that now because I know who I am. Collaborating with Shygirl is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time as I’m a big fan of her music and everything fell into place with this record. She totally understood everything I wanted it to be and she’s made the song so special. She’s a superstar.” Watch director David Wilson’s video for the song below. [via Stereogum]

Fashion muse, actress, and writer Julia Fox continues to defy expectations, this time venturing into the world of music. Following the release of her debut single ‘Down The Drain,’ Fox unveils a powerful music video directed by Ben Draghi, known for his work with Zendaya and Dove Cameron. The ‘Down The Drain’ music video delves into Julia Fox’s past experiences as a dominatrix. It weaves a captivating narrative where Julia Fox takes on various roles as she embarks on a mission to rescue her friend Richie Shazam from peril. Shot in a location deeply significant to Fox’s personal history, the video adds a layer of authenticity to her performance, showcasing her unwavering commitment to her artistic endeavours no matter how memeable. Fox took a personal approach, involving her close circle in the creative process. This choice gives the video a distinct, intimate feel. It transforms what might seem like an unexpected move into music into a captivating display of Fox’s unique ability to bridge different creative fields. [via FAULT]

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It’s been a fascinating run for Alaska Reid and now comes news that she co-produced her debut album with A.G. Cook, the PC Music ringleader and hyperpop pioneer. That album, Disenchanter, is coming in July via Gorilla vs. Bear’s Luminelle label, a subsidiary of Fat Possum. It’s said to draw from country, grunge, and easygoing California rock as filtered through Cook’s signature electronic eccentricity. Lead single ‘Back To This,’ which arrives with a video by Santiago Cendejas, is a misty, prismatic pop-rock song that contains glimmers of all that but mostly goes down smooth. “Running through these dreams,” Reid sings on the chorus. “I wanna go back to this.” According to Reid, it’s inspired by a time when she encountered a group of service workers on a break while hiking in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness: “It was late summer and they looked happy and dusty. It was like a painted reverie from a classical painting. I fantasize about other people’s lives, other people’s professions, and writing is a way I can approximate what it must be like to be someone else. So this song is about stumbling upon a scene in someone else’s life and wanting to be a part of it, but it’s also about wondering if I ever seemed as cool or as worthy as those smokejumpers did. I also had this idea of looking back at a photo and wondering why, at the time, I did not feel like the version of myself looking back in the photo.” [via Stereogum]

HotWax have dropped their new single ‘Treasure’. Their first since signing to Marathon Artists, the track arrives ahead of the band’s upcoming UK mini tour, which kicks off on March 11 at Folkestone’s Quarterhouse. The Hastings trio are also soon to join Pearl Hearts on tour, and have a string of summer festivals coming up, including Mad Cool and All Points East. [via Dork]

PVRIS has released a video for ‘Goddess’. The track was released earlier this year to coincide with a bunch of UK and European dates, with Lynn Gunn commenting: “It’s a celebration of femininity, all shapes and forms, and a cathartic, guttural scream at the same time.” [via Dork]

‘May’ is JGrrey‘s first release as the lead artist since ‘Theirs13’ arrived in January, although she did contribute to Baxter Dury’s ‘Aylesbury Boy’ single recently. JGrrey says of the single, which is teamed with a Pip + Lib-directed video, “I’ve known Kojey for about 10 years and the timing aligned for us to work together. I knew that whatever I sent to Kojey, he would listen. I hadn’t created something that I felt made sense to send him, until writing ‘May’.” She adds, “Forgetting the sound of someone’s laugh isn’t something I thought I’d lose so much sleep over…James died and had his funeral on my birthday (classic James) – he left suddenly, dramatically magically..like? I still don’t really believe he’s gone.. like he’s giggling somewhere, laughing at us all for missing him so much. This video and this song are for him.” [via Line Of Best Fit]

Art-pop greats Christine And The Queens took a detour out of their main discography with last year’s Redcar les adorables étoiles, released under the name Redcar or Christine And The Queens Presents Redcar. This summer Chris will return to the Christine And The Queens moniker with an ambitious new album called PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE. The 20-track collection was co-produced by hip-hop legend Mike Dean, who is linked with Lana Del Rey and Beyoncé in the album’s press materials but not longtime collaborator Kanye West for obvious reasons. It contains three Madonna collabs and two by 070 Shake. Chris shared this statement: “This new record is the second part of an operatic gesture that also encompassed 2022’s Redcar les adorables étoiles. Taking inspiration from the glorious dramaturgy of Tony Kushner’s iconic play, Angels in America, Redcar felt colourful and absurd like Prior sent to his insane dream-space. The follow-up PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE is a key towards heart-opening transformation, a prayer towards the self – the one that breathes through all the loves it is made of. Prior’s real agony in Angels in America is a deep, painful becoming, a shedding of all waters and memories, that then allows angels to immerse deep too, and offer back profound, narrative-altering love – a rest in true love.” Lead single ‘To be honest’ is an immaculate synth-pop power ballad, like an old Celine Dion smash hit reimagined for the Drive soundtrack. It rules. Watch the Chris-directed video below. [via Stereogum]

Mae Muller is going to represent the UK at Eurovision this year. Set to be held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine, she’s taking her new single ‘I Wrote A Song’, co-written with Karen Poole (Kylie Minogue, David Guetta, Galantis) and Lewis Thompson (Anne-Marie, Little Mix, Steve Aoki). Mae says: “’I Wrote A Song’ is a track I wrote after the fallout from a relationship. I was hurt and also a little angry, so I thought, where can I put this negative energy and make something positive out of it? The song is less about revenge and more about empowering yourself. While I was recording the song, I envisioned me and my girls dancing to it on a Saturday night, and that’s exactly what I want people to do! To dance, sing, let go, and feel empowered after listening.” [via Dork]

flowerovlove returns with a new music video for her recent single ‘Love You’ that sees her shining brighter than ever. In the track, which was dropped to coincide with Valentine’s Day, flowerovlove explores a more universal type of love rather than focusing on simple romance — a refreshing change of pace, celebrating a sense of overall camaraderie and earnest affection amid a lush guitar-driven soundscape. Keeping in line with the theme of self-love, the visual sees the artist fully feeling herself, starring front and center, singing joyfully to various versions of herself. The visual also folds in the artist’s love of nature, as her name would suggest, expanding the idea of love to encompass taking care of the planet with a simple scrawled-out “Smoking Kills” in chalk. “’Love You’ is an incredibly magical song I wrote with my brother,” flowerovlove says of the track. “The song is about universal love, all-inclusive love. This is a love song that can be sung about anyone — your mum, your dog, your best friend or even your grandmother. I want everyone to feel nostalgia from ‘Love You’ and to be able to connect it to a loved one.” [via Paper]

Fever Ray’s new album Radical Romantics is out now, and along with the record, The Knife singer has shared the music video for single ‘Even It Out,’ featuring Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Reznor and Ross both co-produced and performed on ‘Even It Out,’ an anti-bullying track aimed at the former nemesis of Karin Dreijer’s son. “This is for Zacharias/ Who bullied my kid in high school/ There’s no room for you/ And we know where you live,” the artist trills, over ominous synths and machine-like percussion. Meanwhile, the track’s music video takes a campier approach, as Dreijer dons a thick slab of drag makeup in a nod to John Waters’ Female Trouble. Reznor and Ross also make cameos in the video. [via Consquence]

VOLK is Nashville indie-rock duo Eleot Reich (drums, vocals) and Christopher Lowe (guitar, vocals). Their new EP, Stand the Test (out Apr. 28), delves into bluesy retro-futuristic dance punk, synthwave, new wave, and nostalgia-filled roller rink bangers. Their masterfully designed video for ‘I Fed Animals’ is a cyberpunk spectacle of stylized street fights and music performance, shot partially on location in Tokyo. The visceral and animalistic core of this song beckons you to tear the clothes off of your lover. “I wrote this after going through one of my first breakups,” says Reich. “I was angry and just wanted revenge. I was out there doing my thing, and I wanted it to get back to him. I thought of the line “I Fed Animals” and loved the metaphor of it all. I love the history of blues and using these types of sexual metaphors.” The Blade Runner meets Ghost in the Shell meets Tekken music video for ‘I Fed Animals’ is a retro-future, VFX-heavy labor of love that took months of production. Director Patrick Pierson even flew to Tokyo to shoot the streets and neon of Shinjuku to capture the authentic feeling of his cyberpunk vision. The video is a feast for the eyes as the band performs against neon geometry and banks of neo-futuristic screens while a cyber girl and street demon face off in beautifully choreographed fights through rain and city streets. Each meticulously crafted frame is a work of art in its own right. The cinematic majesty of the video pulls no punches and lands in the echelon of masterpieces like director Seth Ickerman’s video for ‘Turbo Killer’ by Carpenter Brut. “I saw VOLK live at a mid-sized club,” says Pierson, “but they’re sound is so big, like AC/DC or Queen. I knew I wanted to work with them, and I knew I wanted to work within a cyberpunk aesthetic. I took a page from anime, grindhouse, 70s sci-fi b-movies and old kung fu films. We shot VOLK in a studio, and I flew to Japan to shoot the background plates to honor the anime roots of the idea. For the fight scene, we brought on O’Calla Joslyn to do the choreography and professional dancers Doug Hooker & Gretchen Marie Olson. I wanted the fight to mimic a murmuration of birds, the way they dance and fly together in a rhythmic pattern.”

On Friday, Meghan Trainor released the music video for her new single ‘Mother,’ and the visual features none other than Kris Jenner as the video’s main star. Dressed in a white dress and a pixie cut, Jenner takes Trainor’s place as the Charm La’Donna-directed video’s lead pop star as she lip-syncs the track’s lyrics. “I am your mother, you listen to me. Stop all that mansplainin’, no one’s listening,” Trainor sings in the chorus. “Tell me who gave you permission to speak? I am your mother, you listen to me.” The doo-wop-infused track samples The Chordettes’s ‘Mr. Sandman’ in the post-chorus as Trainor repeats, “You just a bum bum bum.” Some scenes capture Jenner and Trainor dancing alongside each other before Trainor shows off her ultrasound photos as she sings the lyric, “You with your God complex/But you can’t even make life, bitch.” [via Rolling Stone]

Garage rocker Olivia Jean has shared the psychedelic official music video for ‘Trouble.’ The track comes from her just-announced third solo album, Raving Ghost, arriving via Third Man Records on Friday, May 5.

Chappell Roan is a Missouri-born 24-year-old singer-songwriter who began uploading songs online as a teenager, was discovered and released an album on Atlantic when she was just 18. Now an independent artist, she’s been releasing a string of strong singles in collaboration with Olivia Rodrigo’s chief collaborator, Daniel Nigro, and the latest one is the most irresistible to date: ‘Casual,’ a graphic paen to, as the press release calls it, “modern dating and young lust” that pairs explicit lyrics with a stately, Lana Del Rey-esque delivery towering chorus that dares radio not to play it. “I’ve heard so many rumors/ That I’m just a girl that you bang on your couch/ I thought you thought of me better… “Knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out/ Is it casual now?,” the chorus goes. “Baby, get me off again/ If it’s casual, it’s casual now.” [via Variety]

Ashnikko has released a new video for ‘Worms’. It’s a cut from upcoming debut album WEEDKILLER, which follows 2021 mixtape Demidevil and will be released on June 2 via Parlophone Records. Speaking about the video, director Raman Djafari says: “I wanted to create a vast world that stretches way beyond the bounds of this one music video, like there’s an abundance of stories waiting to be told. I indulged my love for creature design and developed dozens of individual characters, monsters, robots and a huge monster truck. It was important to me to bring the world around this album to life, with a richness that reflects the depth of the music and lyrics. Working with Ash and Vasso was a truly precious collaboration between artists, they supported and trusted my personal interpretation of the universe they created together. Looking back, I wish I could have spent more time in this world. I feel like this video barely scratches the surface of what I would love to create together with Ashnikko. Fingers crossed we’ll get another chance to collaborate in the future.” [via Dork]

Sir Chloe—the project of vocalist, songwriter and guitarist Dana Foote—unveils the video for, ‘Hooves,’ directed by Molly Hawkins and Grant Spanier. The song is the lead single from Sir Chloe’s debut album, I Am the Dog, slated for release May 19 via Atlantic Records.

Following on from her 2022 collab with Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes, Alice Longyu Gao has just unveiled the full EP from which it’s taken. Alice’s second EP – entitled Let’s Hope Heteros Fail, Learn And Retire – arrived along with a new video for the song ‘Come 2 Brazil’. And, as we’ve come to expect from the one-of-a-kind artist, it’s an incredibly fun and entertaining watch. The musician says of her EP that, “You’re listening to the future of music,” with Let’s Hope Heteros Fail, Learn And Retire. [via Kerrang!]

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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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