Common has released a new song from his upcoming album Black America Again. The track is called “Home” and it features Bilal. Listen to it below. It comes after the already released “Love Star,” that features Marsha Ambrosius and PJ, and the title track, which includes Stevie Wonder. Black America Again is set to be out November 4th via Artium/Def Jam.
Tinariwen have announced their new album Elwan, which is set to be out on February 10th through Anti-. The album is the follow-up t0 Emmaar, and features appearances by Kurt Vile, Matt Sweeney, Mark Lanegan, and more. They recorded it in the desert of Joshua Tree National Park and in M’Hamid El Ghizlane, an oasis in southern Morocco. Check out the animated video for “Ténéré Tàqqàl,” directed by Axel Digoix, who has worked on films such as The Little Prince. Below as well are the Elwan tracklist, the album artwork and Tinariwen’s upcoming tour dates.
Grizzly Bear have been working in the studio on their follow-up to 2o12’s album Shields. In a tweet, the band announced the new LP is “90% done” but it was the “last update until you hear it.” See it below. In May, the band revealed they would go to the studio over the summer to begin to work on their new album.
Watch the video for “gun-shy” below.
Franz Ferdinand have released a new song called “Demagogue,” listen to it above. It is an anti-Trump track, and the latest track from the 30 Days, 30 Songs program created by writer Dave Eggers. It began earlier this week with Death Cab for Cuties’ “Million Dollar Loan.”
The program will release a new song everyday until Election Day. Aimee Man, Bhi Bhiman, and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James have also released music as a part of the program. Listen to their contributions here. All of the proceeds from 30 Days will go to the Center for Popular Democracy and their efforts toward Universal Voter Registration for all Americans.
Bob Dylan has won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. He joins the list of previous winners which includes Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, Samuel Beckett, and more. Dylan was awarded the prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Watch the video of the announcement below, as well as an interview with Sara Danius, the Swedish Academy’s Permanent Secretary, who called Dylan “a great poet in the English tradition.” You can find more information on past Nobel laureates here.
Cloud Nothings have announced the follow-up to their album Here and Nowhere Else and No Life for Me, their Wavves collaboration. Life Without Sound is set to be out January 27th via Carpark/Wichita. The announcement came with a new song called “Modern Act.” Listen to it below, with the tracklist, and the band’s upcoming tour dates. The album art is above.
The album was recorded with producer John Goodmanson in El Paso earlier this year. Dylan Baldi said in a statement:
Generally, it seems like my work has been about finding my place in the world. But there was a point in which I realized that you can be missing something important in your life, a part you didn’t realize you were missing until it’s there—hence the title. This record is like my version of new age music. It’s supposed to be inspiring.
Life Without Sound:
01 Up To The Surface
02 Things Are Right With You
03 Internal World
04 Darkened Rings
05 Enter Entirely
06 Modern Act
07 Sight Unseen
08 Strange Year
09 Realize My Fate
Cloud Nothings:
10-14 Greenville, SC – Fall for Greenville Fest
11-12 Santa Ana, CA – Outpost Festival
11-14 Oakland, CA – Starlite Social Club
11-16 Los Angeles, CA – Hi Hat
01-26 Cleveland, OH – Beachland ballroom
01-27 Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Palace
01-28 Montreal, Quebec – Fairmount Theatre
01-30 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
01-31 Boston, MA – Paradise
02-01 New York, NY – Webster Hall
02-03 Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
02-10 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
03-01 Copenhagen, Denmark – Loppen
03-02 Malmo, Sweden – Babel
03-03 Stockholm, Sweden – Debaser Strand
03-05 Oslo, Norway – Parkteatret
03-06 Hamburg, Germany – Knust
03-07 Berlin, Germany – Bi Nuu
03-08 Munich, Germany – Kranhalle
03-09 Cologne, Germany – Luxor
03-11 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
03-12 Brussels, Belgium – Botanique
03-14 Paris, France – Petit Bain
03-16 Bristol, England – Thekla
03-17 Glasgow, Scotland – Stereo
03-18 Manchester, England – Deaf Institute
03-19 Leeds, England – Brudenell Social Club
03-21 London, England – Koko
03-22 Birmingham, England – The Hare & Hounds
03-23 Brighton, England – The Haunt
Mitski has released the music video for her song “A Burning Hill,” the final track off her album Puberty 2. It was directed by Bradley Gray and the video was shot during “a weekend just driving around New York and Pennsylvania.” Mitski said in a press release: “It felt like a vacation, but it was also quite emotional, as I was thinking about the song and what it means to me now while jumping in rivers and driving down dirt lanes.” Watch it below.
Skylar Spence released his last album, Prom King over a year ago, and there has not been much from him besides remixes of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Your Type,” and A Sunny Day In Glasgow teasers across his twitter. Today, however, he put out “Faithfully,” a track that samples Aretha Franklin’s “Wonderful,” the same song he used to sample for “Mr. Wonderful” when he released it in 2014. Spence told The FADER that “Faithfully” is an older track that he wanted to release but is working on the follow-up to Prom King. Listen out “Faithfully” below.
Solange released her brilliant new album A Seat at the Table last week. In a documentary called A Seat at the Table, Beginning Stages, she shares footage of the creation of the album. Watch it below. Solange says the film is “a look at the early days of jam sessions, experimentation, and the exploring of sounds and ideas for the album.” It shows Solange working on early versions of “Don’t Touch My Hair,” “Mad,” “Don’t You Wait,” “Where Do We Go,” and more. Sampha, Kwes, Kindness, Sean Nicholas Savage, Patrick Wimberly, Solange’s son Julez, and more make appearances. Find a statement from Solange about the film.
“A Seat At The Table, Beginning Stages” is a look at the early days of jam sessions, experimentation, and the exploring of sounds and ideas for the album.
While some of the jam sessions featured did not make the album, they helped to create and identify the sonic tone, and the early lyrics and concepts I wrote for the project.
This video is broken up into 3 different parts. The first and second parts happened in Long Island and New Orleans where I first started to jam and collaborate on ideas with the incredible artists and musicians featured (as well as some other incredible artist and musicians who are not shown here). A lot of these days would just start with me singing a melody or someone playing a synth part or bass line, and would transition into an hour long jam.
The third part is me taking all of these jams to New Iberia, LA with just my engineers and creating the actual song structures, building the sounds, and writing the lyrics and melodies.
I later took these songs to Los Angeles to work with Raphael Saadiq to help amplify the production, as well as record the vocals alongside Troy Johnson. When I look back at the beginning stages, I remember the powerful energy that set the tone, and that I’m so grateful followed us everywhere during the creation of this record.
The Melodic Tree 