The Melodic Tree’s Weekly Playlist

1. Gold Dust – Duster

2. Helicopter – Deerhunter

3. Sun Was High (So Was I) – Small Black

4. Summer of Our Discontent – Sugar Candy Mountain

5. Eliot St. – Quilt

6. Camberwell – #1 Dads

7. Burbank – Harriet

8. Hometown -Haley Bonar

9. Love Forever – The Babe Rainbow

10. Is This Sound Okay? – Coconut Records

11. Sleeves – Tough Boy

12. 2soft2chew – Ian Sweet

13. Glued to You – Tomorrows Tulips

14. Free From All Sense of Purpose – Blithe Field

15. Old Enough to Know – Tony Molina

16. Phone Sex – Cutouts

17. Ett Stilla Regn – Ashley Erikkson

18. Playing With Fire – Nick Leng

19. First Field – The Antlers

20. Now You See Everything – Stephen Steinbrink

Daniel Johnston dead at 58

Iconic lo-fi singer and visual artist, Daniel Johnston has passed away at the age of 58 after having suffered from a heart attack, his former manager manager Jeff Tartakov confirmed to The Austin Chronicle. Johnston’s sincere and simple music, which was primarily recorded on homemade cassettes, was beloved and influential.

Jeff Feuerzieg directed a documentary about Johnston’s life in 2005 called The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Around the same time, he created his own record label, Eternal Yip Eye Music where he released his last album through Space Ducks: Soundtrack, in 2012. In 2018, the city of Austin honored Johnston by naming January 22 “Hi, How Are You?” Day.

Beirut cancel tour after Zach Condon is diagnosed with acute laryngitis

The band Beirut have cancelled the rest of their tour for 2019 after announcing in a message on Facebook that singer Zach Condon had been diagnosed with “acute laryngitis” and was told not to sing or tour, requiring them to cancel shows through the end of the year. Read the full post below.

The band was set to play on September 30th in Stockholm, Sweden.

Beirut

09-30 Stockholm, Sweden – Munchenbryggeriet
10-02 Oslo, Norway – Sentrum Scene
10-04 Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega
10-05 Aarhus, Denmark – Train
10-06 Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg – Grote Zaal
10-08 Paris, France – Salle Pleyel
10-13 Zagreb, Hungary – Culture Factory
10-15 Linz, Austria – Brucknerhaus
10-16 Vienna, Austria – Arena Wien (Open Air)
10-17 Warsaw, Poland – Progresja Music Zone
11-11 Mexico City, Mexico – Plaza Condesa
11-12 Mexico City, Mexico – Plaza Condesa
11-18 Atlanta, GA – Buckhead Theatre
11-19 Nashville, TN – Marathon Music Works
11-21 Austin, TX – ACL Live
11-22 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
11-23 Dallas, TX – Granada Theater
11-25 Denver, CO – Ogden Theater
11-26 Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
11-27 Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
11-29 Cincinnati, OH – Bogarts
11-30 Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
12-01 New York, NY – Terminal 5

Spotify will no longer allow artists to directly upload music

Spotify announced today that it is ending its direct-upload program. The feature, which was still in its beta, allowed artists to upload their music directly to Spotify without needing to use a traditional distributor or third-party company to upload their music on the streaming service.

Spotify said today in its announcement, “The best way for us to serve artists and labels is to focus our resources on developing tools in areas where Spotify can uniquely benefit them—like Spotify for Artists… and our playlist submission tool.” In addition, the blog post stated, “We’re working with our distribution partners to help make this transition as simple as possible for the artists who uploaded music through the beta.”

The company will stop accepting new uploads at the end of this month.

Bon Iver shares new website, debuts new songs

Bon Iver played a show on Sunday night at London’s All Points East festival where Justin Vernon and the band closed out the set with recordings of new music, NME reports. Watch clips of the songs fans speculate are titled “Hey Ma” and “U” below. The band performed “Hey Ma” live at Bonnaroo.

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Here are two new Bon Iver songs

A post shared by Andrew Trendell (@andrewtrendell) on

Bon Iver also displayed a cryptic link to a new website called “icommai” on the screen. The site’s most recent post features a lengthy list of collaborators, including Moses Sumney, The National’s Bryce Dessner, Brad Cook, Psymun, Bruce Hornsby, and others. Check out the full list on icommai.com.

Watch Vampire Weekend perform “Sunflower” on “Kimmel”

Vampire Weekend performed on last night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” where they performed “Sunflower” from their new album Father of the Bride, which was released today. Watch it below.

Father OfThe Bride is Vampire Weekend’s first album in six years, and features contributions fromRostam, Danielle Haim, Steve Lacy, Ariel Rechtshaid, and more.

Listen to Ancient Pools’ new album, Cosine

Portland-based pop duo, Ancient Pools have released their debut album Cosine via Forged Artifact and Feeding Tube Records. Stream the album below from their Bandcamp.

The duo will start a US tour next week, starting April, 18 in Boise Idaho and finish in Seattle May, 8. Find their tour dates below.