Breaking News
TORRES CONFIRMS NEW ALBUM THREE FUTURES OUT SEPT 29 VIA 4AD
On September 29, 4AD will release Three Futures, the third full-length album by TORRES. Today, TORRES unveils the title track and accompanying video, which ties visually into the album’s artwork and the previously released “Skim” video, all shot and directed by Ashley Connor.
TORRES is the creative alter-ego of Brooklyn-based Mackenzie Scott. In describing the album, Scott says it “is entirely about using the body that each of us has been given as a mechanism of joy.” The 10 original tracks on Three Futures embrace ecstasy, desire and indulgence rather than self-denial, and exude this idea via immersive music. Mechanised grooves are placed at the forefront, providing a framework for perforated electro-pop static, harsh gothic / industrial textures, and insistent Krautrock motifs.
For Three Futures, Scott reconnected with producer Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey), who worked on TORRES’ last album Sprinter, to record in Stockport and Dorset, England. David Tolomei (Beach House, Future Islands) mixed the album.
Following Sprinter’s release in 2015, TORRES gained critical acclaim from numerous influential publications, including Pitchfork, which named her single “Cowboy Guilt” Best New Track, and the New York Times who wrote, “Her music can smolder while she considers exactly where she stands, and it can roar into feedback-edged howls when her rage or despair boil over.”
Three Futures Tracklist:
1. Tongue Slap Your Brains Out
2. Skim
3. Three Futures
4. Righteous Woman
5. Greener Stretch
6. Helen in the Woods
7. Bad Baby Pie
8. Marble Focus
9. Concrete Ganesha
10. To Be Given a Body
SMERZ ‘OH MY MY’
Norwegian duo Smerz are back with new track ‘Oh my my’, their first new music since releasing the critically-acclaimed debut EP Okey that Gorilla vs. Bear called “one of the best debuts of last year.”
Produced, programmed and sung entirely by the duo, ‘Oh my my’, their debut release on XL Recordings, is a minimal track that’s pinned together by speaker sucking bass and soulful vocal melodies, crafting a modern techno sound that’s uniquely Smerz.
Henriette and Catharina, who comprise Smerz, were raised in Norway but it wasn’t until they relocated to Denmark that they started collaborating on the music that garnered the early attention of underground radio troupes NTS and Benji B. Smerz, who consistently blend sounds from various influences, are a finely crafted collision of different musical genres that FADER notes, “was incubated over years of late-night clubbing.”
Princess Nokia releases NEW TRACK “G.O.A.T
Rough Trade Records are pleased to announce the signing of Princess Nokia who releases brand new track “G.O.A.T”
Princess Nokia is the best-known project of New Yorker Destiny Frasqueri’s. She’s been rapping and releasing tracks on You Tube and Sound Cloud since high school, originally under the name of Wavy Spice, adopting the “Princess Nokia” moniker in 2013, and releasing albums “Metallic Butterfly”, “Honey Suckle” and “1992” in the following years.
She has built up a massive fan base over the last few years, with her videos and albums getting millions of streams and views.
Princess Nokia’s never ending tour continues for the rest of the year, and includes stops in Toronto and Montreal
Her global fan base won’t surprise anyone who’s been to one of her live shows. From her beginning cries of “Girls to the front”, a Princess Nokia show is an unparalleled experience.
“My Live Show is a lotta fun, I mean it’s a real vibe – something out of this world…. I have been playing sold out tours since I released the album on my website, I’ve gotta to say, I’m blessed. Every city has …. a crowd of young kids that love my music…. I have girls that cry and throw roses in the front. Straight men who come with their friends and scream every lyric from every song …I show up for them and rip that mic so they leave feeling inspired and happy, It’s a great time”
THE NATIONAL RELEASE ‘GUILTY PARTY’ OFF THE FORTHCOMING SLEEP WELL BEAST
The National have released the single ‘Guilty Party’ off their forthcoming album Sleep Well Beast out on September 8th on 4AD.
Sleep Well Beast was produced by member Aaron Dessner with co-production by Bryce Dessner and Matt Berninger and recorded at Aaron’s Hudson Valley, NY studio, Long Pond.
To celebrate the forthcoming album the band will be throwing a Guilty Party at Basilica Hudson on July 14th and 15th. The collaborative concert will be performed in the round and will feature Buke & Gase, Nadia Sirota, Mouse On Mars, SO Percussion and more. The band has released 700 tickets for each night and they’re now available to purchase here with a portion of ticket sales benefiting Basilica Hudson. Each guest attending the show will receive a ‘Guilty Party’ 7-inch double A single split with ‘The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness’. Beer will be provided by Mikkeller.
Video artist Casey Reas will be contributing live projection mapping for the event. Reas also directed the video for single, ‘Guilty Party’. “The video is a dream about memory and the degradation of memory; it’s about distance in time and space,” says Reas. “Time moves forward, but then backward as memory. The image of the two-faced Roman god Janus, who can look into the past and future, is the core visual language.”
Last week in Paris and the UK, The National performed new material off the forthcoming album for audiences for the first time. Portions of their victorious main stage set at Glastonbury can be viewed via the BBC.NME said in reviewing the Glastonbury performance, “their set’s only flaw: it just all ended too soon. But the impact they made was immense. They’ve played the long game, and they’ve won. It’s time for the world’s biggest cult band to become a whole new beast.”
The National will tour across the world in support of the album, kicking off in Cork, Ireland on September 16th. Highlights include Forest Hills Stadium in New York on October 6th, The Hollywood Bowl on October 11th and multiple night residencies in more than 10 cities across Europe and North America. Every ticket in North America includes a digital copy of Sleep Well Beast delivered on September 8th.
For additional information and pre-sale registration visit
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE - VILLAINS - OUT AUGUST 25 ON MATADOR RECORDS
Hundreds of epic shows, memory lapses, unexplained injuries, one yearlong detour with Iggy Pop and multiple Grammy nominations later, Queens Of The Stone Age reemerge from the desert newly scarred and somehow strangely prettier with lucky seventh album, Villains, out August 25 on Matador Records.
First taste of Villains is the soon to be classic ‘The Way You Used To Do’
“The title Villains isn’t a political statement. It has nothing to do with Trump or any of that shit. It’s simply 1) a word that looks fantastic and 2) a comment on the three versions of every scenario: yours, mine and what actually happened… Everyone needs someone or something to rail against—their villain—same as it ever was. You can’t control that. The only thing you can really control is when you let go.“—Joshua Homme
Produced by Mark Ronson and co-produced by Mark Rankin and mixed by Alan Moulder, Villains is the first full album offering from Queens Of The Stone Age since 2013’s …Like Clockwork gave the band its first #1 album in the U.S. (and #1s in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, #2s in the UK, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Finland… but really, who’s counting?).
Like the stunning artwork of returning illustrator Boneface, the sonic signatures of the lineup that took …Like Clockwork around the world and back—Founder/guitarist/vocalist/lyricist Joshua Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar, keys), Michael Shuman (bass), Dean Fertita (keys, guitar), Jon Theodore (drums)—are as unmistakable as ever, though coexisting with sufficient new twists to induce recurring double takes. As Homme himself puts it, “The most important aspect of making this record was redefining our sound, asking and answering the question ‘what do we sound like now?’ If you can’t make a great first record, you should just stop—but if you can make a great record but you keep making records and your sound doesn’t evolve, you become a parody of that original sound.”
Of his role working within such a closed and confident ecosystem as Queens Of The Stone Age, Ronson says, “Queens are and have always been my favourite rock n roll band ever since I walked into Tower on Sunset and bought Rated R in the summer of 2000, so it was incredibly surreal to be welcomed into their secret, pirate clan—or the ‘jacuzzi’ as Josh likes to call it. I also knew that my super fandom alone would not keep me in the jacuzzi. There were moments during the making of the album in which i was aware i was watching my musical heroes craft something that was sure to become one of my favourite moments on any Queens album. And to have some part in that felt like being in a dream—a very heavy, dark, wonderful dream.”
Longtime Queens cohort co-producer Mark Rankin added, “After the baptism of fire that was …Like Clockwork, I was excited to get into the studio again with the challenge of pushing the sound for this record, especially with the the addition of Ronson into the creative mix. We wanted to evolve the production to be processed in a modern way yet be totally organic and still performed fully live, like lifting a veil and what you thought was electronic is actually live and things are not as they first appear… What we’ve made is forward looking yet unmistakably Queens.”
Queens Of The Stone Age have also confirmed a slew of North American dates filling in the space between and beyond their previously announced appearances at Outside Lands and Riot Fest. The new shows include a stop at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre (Budweiser Stage) on September 9th.
