Author: bella.king

The National have begun work on a seventh studio album

With the announcement of Matt Berninger’s new collaboration, EL VY, as well as the multiple producing projects from the Dessner brothers have constantly been working on, it might feel like a new National album is in the far distance. However, this is not true according to Berninger.
In a recent interview with NME, the National frontman has revealed that the band has already begun writing their seventh studio album. Berninger said on the progress so far: “We did a camp out retreat in New York a couple of months ago, and we’re having another one in LA in a few weeks. We have 30 sketches of songs so far.”
He also added that the band is using names of different towns in upstate New York as working titles for the songs. 

The National’s previous album was Trouble Will Find Me in 2013. 

The Melodic Tree’s Weekly Playlist

1. First – Cold War Kids

2. Ceilings – Local Natives

3. I’m A Pilot – Fanfarlo

4.Multi-Love – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

5. Midnight Surprise – Lightspeed Champion

6. The Summer – Coconut Records

7. You! Me! Dancing! – Los Campesinos!

8. Black Wax – Dananananaykroyd

9. Sister of Pearl – Baio

10. Wizard Staff – Wampire

11. Radley – French Cassettes

12. The Less I Know The Better – Tame Impala

13. Wait & See – Holy Ghost!

14. Real Slow – Miami Horror

15. Shades of Black – Breakbot

16. 58th St – Gap Dream

17. Mr Understanding – Pete And the Pirates

18. Let’s Go Surfing – The Drums

19. Goran Ivanisenic – We Are the Physics

20. Pulling Push Ups – Copy Haho

Foo Fighters rickroll the Westboro Baptist Church

The United State’s main source of hatred, the Westboro Baptist Church, decided to protest last night’s Foo Fighters show in Kansas City, Missouri, for unknown reasons, even though there is never much of a reason for them to ever protest anything. The protesters assembled in front of the Sprint Center before the show when the band went riding in on a pickup truck blasting “Never Gonna Give You Up” and dancing while holding up signs saying “You got Rick Roll’d (again)” and “Keep It Clean.” This is the second time that Dave Grohl did a counter-protest against the WBC from a pickup truck. Watch here.

Stream The Weeknd’s 18 minute sampler of Beauty Behind the Madness

On the same day his Lana Del Rey collaboration came out, the Weeknd has released an 18-minute preview of his upcoming album, Beauty Behind The Madness, which is set to be released next Friday. After Foals released a album sampler earlier this week, this might be a new trend. Listen here.

Beauty Behind the Madness is due out on August 28th through XO/Republic. 

Kamasi Washington announces The Epic vinyl release

Jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington has announced the vinyl release of The Epic, his 2015 LP. The triple LP will be out on October 2nd through Brainfeeder. It will feature poster inserts, custom artwork; and a story adaptation by Kenturah Davis. Check out what it will look like here. Listen to “Re Run Home” here. 

Bill Hader and Fred Armisen to “reunite” as Blue Jean Committee and release an EP

Fred Armisen and Bill Hader have been long been walking the line with comedy and music, with Armisen even releasing a few parody tracks they had wrote on SNL over the years. There’s plenty of more to come now. 


Documentary Now! is the new IFC series from Armisen, Hader, and Seth Meyers that parodies documentary styles and the upcoming final part of the season will have a Behind The Music-esque style. It will follow the Blue Jean Committee a band that originally came from SNL and is named Gentle & Soft: The Story Of The Blue Jean Committee. In a tie-in, Drag City will be releasing the band’s “best” material on a Catalina Breeze EP.

Pre-order the Catalina Breeze EP here. It will be out on November 11th. 

Beirut explore island of trash in new video for “Gibraltar”

In June, Beirut released the video for “No No No,” a clip that had the band using baguettes and skunks as instruments. In the latest video from the band, “Gibraltar, directed by Brother Willis again, the group wandered across an island that looked nothing like the track’s namesake, the Mediterranean destination. It is completely overrun by trash which Beirut go through and try to salvage. Watch here.

 As the follow-up to The Rip Tide, No No No is set to be released on September 11th through 4AD. 

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz cancel North American tour

Julian Casablancas + The Voidz played a successful set while in Brooklyn earlier this month but it appears that now they will not be taking the show on the road like they wanted. Exclaim reports that the band’s recently-announced Immaculate Powerlords tour in North America has been cancelled. The blame is to the ambitious stage set-up. Here’s the statement via press release:

With great regret, we need to cancel our upcoming shows in North America.
We had set out to do something a bit different with these shows and create more of an experience that would be inspiring to our fans as well as to the band. In order to make this work we needed many pieces to fall into place that just didn’t.
Everyone will of course be given a full refund.
We are going to regroup and re-approach this in the way it was intended, and soon.
-humbleLords

Here are all the dates that were cancelled:

09/08 Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriets

09/11 San Francisco, CA @ Independent

09/12 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall

09/16 Seattle, WA @ Showbox

09/19 Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre

10/07 Chicago, IL @ Metro

10/09 Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix

10/13 Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street

10/14 New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place

10/21 Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer

10/22 Washington DC @ 9:30 Club

The Melodic Tree’s Weekly Playlist

1. Slipping Away – Tanlines

2. Five Seconds – Twin Shadow

3. This Disorder- The Features

4. Buttons – The Weeks

5. Up, On & Over – Bronze Radio Return

6. S.O.B. – Nathaniel Ratecliff & The Night Sweats

7. Morocco – Moon Taxi

8. Coming Home – Leon Bridges

9. Easier All The Time – Barbarisms

10. Shuggie – Foxygen

11. Simple As This – Jake Bugg

12. Summer Girl – Family of the Year

13. OutRight – Wild Party

14. Horizon Approaching – Two Cartoons

15. White Lie – Jhameel

16. Dark Again – Gold Fields

17. Annie – Neon Indian

18. While I’m Alive – STRFKR

19. Shame – All The Colours

20. Shoulders – Art of Sleeping

Foals cover Mark Ronson and Tame Impala’s “Daffodils”

Funk and R&B are not typically the first things to come to mind when thinking of Foals. This could change after the band performed a cover of “Daffodils” by Mark Ronson and Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker.

The UK rock band performed the cover at Australia’s triple j radio station, passing it as if it was one of their own songs. Frontman of Foals, Yannis Philippakis stood in place of Kevin Parmer and added his own spin to the vocal arrangements. Watch here.

Foals’ new album, What Went Down, is set to be released on August 28th.