Last month, Indigo De Souza announced her new album All of This Will End, out April 28 via Saddle Creek. Now, she shares the album’s single, ‘Smog’ along with a music video directed by De Souza herself. Indigo De Souza on ‘Smog’: “I remember writing this song during the peak of the pandemic. I was living alone on a dead end street surrounded by neighbors who were seemingly always mowing their lawns. I remember having a lot of anxiety during the day, navigating the newly awkward and uncertain experience of doing anything mid world freak-out. I was in an emotional state that felt like a cross between delirious joy and a real tired hopelessness. Everything felt unknown and distant. ‘Smog’ is mostly about that strange time and how it felt in my house, alone. When the neighborhood was asleep, and all the lawn mowers stopped, I felt free to make anything and sing anything I wanted. It was my first time ever living alone. It brought me a lot closer to myself.” Indigo De Souza on the ‘Smog’ video: “I wanted to make something that felt like one of those dreams where you’re going through mundane life motions, and then you realize that you’re dreaming because something completely out of the ordinary breaks your reality. That’s kind of what the pandemic felt like for me. Like my whole life I’d been moving through this rigid societal system that felt really unfair and unnatural, and when the whole thing suddenly fell apart, I realized that all of the structures I’d been placed in were just made up. They weren’t as powerful as I’d thought. But what does feel powerful to me is the opportunity to fill life with intention, to foster community, to grow and learn from nature, and from each other.”
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!]
