The three people in the Swedish indie pop band, Miike Snow, have been on bus schedules since their 2013 album, Happy To You. Andrew Wyatt released a solo album Descender; Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (also known as the production duo Bloodshy & Avant) have worked together with major pop stars such as Katy Perry and Karlsson’s EDM project, Galantis, released an LP in June named Pharmacy.
“Heart Is Full” is off the band’s upcoming third album, III, which is expected to be out sometime in 2016. According to a press release, the trio worked on the record in New York, Los Angeles, and Stockholm, and is regarded as the “most innovative and creatively unified work thus far.” Says Winnberg about III, “It’s the original Miike Snow sound, but taken to the next level.”
Desparecidos has been on tour for the past few months in support of their new album, Payola, their first in 13 years, but have been forced to cancel the rest of their tour dates after Conor Oberst was hospitalized for a bad case of “laryngitis, anxiety, and exhaustion,” according to a press release. It started with the cancellation of a show in Jacksonville last night, but it is now all of their dates being cancelled, including sets at The Fest and Fun Fun Fun Fest. Here’s a statement from their label, Epitaph:
Desaparecidos has been forced to cancel the remainder of their US tour dates. Conor Oberst fell ill while on tour in Jacksonville, Florida and was briefly hospitalized due to laryngitis, anxiety, and exhaustion. In consultation with his doctors, the band has reluctantly agreed to cancel all scheduled live dates. Conor will be heading home to Omaha to recuperate. We wish him a speedy recovery.
Here’s all the cancelled dates:
10/28 Ybor City, FL @ The Orpheum
10/29 Orlando, FL @ The Social
10/30 Gainesville, FL @ The Fest
11/01 Pensacola, FL @ Vinyl Music Hall
11/02 Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry’s
11/03 New Orleans, LA @ The Republic
11/05 Houston, TX @ Numbers
11/06 Dallas, TX @ Trees
11/07 Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest
11/09 El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls
11/10 Phoenix, AZ @ The Pressroom
11/11 Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
11/12 Los Angeles, CA @ The Teragram Ballroom
11/13 Santa Ana, CA @ The Observatory
11/14 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
11/15 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
11/17 Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
11/18 Seattle, WA @ Showbox
11/20 Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
11/21 Boulder, CO @ Boulder Theater
11/22 Omaha, NE @ O’Leavers
12/02 New York, NY @ Webster Hall (Oberst solo show)
Dev Hynes has not released a new album from Blood Orange since Cupid Deluxe in 2013, but he still has been in the limelight. hasn’t released a new Blood Orange album since 2013’s Cupid Deluxe, but he’s hardly steered clear of the limelight. He has collaborated with Carly Rae Jepsen and Heems, as well as pieced together a 45-minute film score, and put out two songs under the Blood Orange moniker, “Delancey” and “Do You See My Skin Through the Flames?”.
Hynes has returned this week with another offering from Blood Orange called “Sandra’s Smile.” The melancholy song references Sandra Bland, a black woman whose controversial death during her Texas’ police custody in July added to the already growing racial tensions in the US. Hynes has written about issues like this before, including his previous song, “Do You See My Skin Through the Flames?” addressing racism and the Charleston massacre in June.
Watch “Sandra’s Smile” through its official music video, directed by Hynes, and by the song’s lyrics below.
Hynes is also set for his first US concert in 2o15. It is planned for December 12th at the Apollo Theater in New York City, and is a benefit show set to including Blood Orange “and Friends” performing old and new songs. Here is Hynes’s official statement on the gig:
“Playing music saved my life; if it wasn’t for the chance to play cello or piano when I was a kid growing up in Essex, I shudder to think where I’d be right now. At this point in my life, all that matters to me is giving back to communities and making people happy, so I have decided to put on a fun night of performances at the legendary Apollo Theatre in Harlem that is hopefully affordable to all, with all proceeds going to the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music. New York City, let’s have some fun!”
Justin Vernon, when he is not writing music for Bon Iver or working with Kanye West at Glastonbury or working on his other endeavors, writes songs for Los Angeles indie-choral ensemble, the Silver Lake Chorus. This summer, the group released their self-titled album, which features songs written by indie-rock pioneers such as Tegan And Sara, Ben Gibbard, Wayne Coyne, and Vernon, whose song now has a music video. “From The Snow Tipped Hills,” in a typical fashion for Bon Iver, is airy and floaty, with Vernon’s songwriting getting enhanced by the group’s vocals. The video is shot with drone technology overlooking a California sunset and the nature of the whole performance is enchanting. Watch here.
Stephen Colbert in 2011 worked with Jack White and The Black Belles for a two-song collaborative single that was released through White’s label, Third Man Records. It seems as though Colbert is finally willing for his follow-up, but this time with a vastly different act, Chance the Rapper.
In an interview with Hot 97 recently (via Pitchfork), Chance announced the exciting news. “Me and Stephen Colbert have been working on a song together, and it’s gonna be released very soon,” he said. “He’s amazing. I can’t get that deep into it, but he’s amazing.”
Listen to Colbert and The Black Belles’ track “Charlene II (I’m Over You).”
It has been nearly five years since the release of Adele’s 21 and now, the pop sensation is finally making her comeback with her latest album. 25 will officially be here on November 20th, but she has released the LP’s lead single, “Hello” today along with the video for it, directed by Xavier Dolan.
Adele has described 25 as a make-up album, which is especially prevalent in “Hello.” The song is allegedly about rekindling with her estranged father. The lyrics are especially emotional, crooning “Hello, it’s me/ I was wondering if after all these years/ You’d like to meet, to go over everything/ They say that time’s supposed to heal ya/ But I ain’t done much healing.”
New York indie pop band, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, have announced their new EP. Named Hell, it will be out on November 13th through their own label, Painbow. They have also released the first track off the EP, a cover of “Laid” by James. Listen to it below and check out the track listing below and cover art above, which was made by Manuel Bujados.
They are also playing dates in London and Asia. Check those out below.
The band’s Kip Berman wrote in a press release:
A couple months ago I posted a demo for the song “Hell” and some people said, “why don’t you record that for real?” So we went over to my friend Danny’s studio (House Under Magic) and recorded the track along with two cover songs – “Ballad of the Band” by Felt and “Laid” by James as a way to mark our forthcoming tour of Japan. The latter has lead vocals by Jen Goma, who sang on our last album and also performs with the excellent pop contortionists, A Sunny Day in Glasgow. The Felt song is really the UR-Felt song, the wry articulation of what Felt is most famous for – not being an eighth as famous as they ought to be.
The song “Hell” is about how insufferable performances of sensitivity are when there’s a good song playing and someone you want to dance with.
Hell:
01 Hell
02 Ballad of The Band (Felt Cover)
03 Laid (James Cover)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart:
11/06 London, England – The Oval *
11/10 Tokyo, Japan – Club Quattro
11/11 Osaka, Japan – Club Quattro
11/28 Hong Kong – Cockenflap Festival
11/29 Singapore – Neon Lights Festival
The day has finally arrived! Today is the day! October 21st, 2015 is the precise day that Marty McFly arrives in Back to the Future II. In a fictionally literal way, the future is now! It is a moment that istodaythedaymartymcflyarriveswhenhetravelstothefuture.com has been waiting for for years, and one that is being celebrated in a huge way.
For the first time ever, the website reads “Yes!,” and it comes with a message from the Doc Brown, Christopher Lloyd. Lloyd and Michael J. Fox have already talked about what the film had right about the future, but now Doc has words for those who might be a bit sad about the lack of some of the technology. The future is yours to write!
Check out the once-in-a-lifetime video below.
The countdown website’s creator, Richard Haderer, is celebrating the day by donation to charity. Haderer’s mother, like Fox, suffers from Parkinson’s disease, so every cent earned by visits to his website today will be donated to The Parkinson’s Foundation Austria. You can donate directly on the site as well.
Lloyd, Fox, and Lea Thompson also went to Today to talk about the legacy of the film. They discussed reading the script for the first time, the onset chemistry, and the predictions of course. Watch the interviews here.
BTTFD is huge news everywhere, and that is including USA Today. As AdWeek pointed out, the newspaper will end the Thursday edition of its print newspaper in a cover directly from the 1989 film. The cover shows the inciting incident that sends Marty and Doc to 2015, as it shows Martin McFly Jr. getting arrested.
As the top half will be recreated directly from the film with headlines such as headlines like “Jaws Without Bite is the review of Jaws 19″ and “Woman Asphyxiates in Self Adjusting Jacket,” with the logo matching the film, and the bottom half never seen on screen. Thus, Universal and writer/director Bob Gale worked with the publication to create new articles, including one that announces the remake of George McFly’s novel A Match Made in Space, and a headline that states “Public more gullible than ever.”
Crystal Castles, Micachu and the Shapes, Alex G, Mr Muthafuckin eXquire, Yuck, Beverly, Downtown Boys, Har Mar Superstar, Guerilla Toss, Hinds, Joan of Arc, Into It. Over It., Jahkoy Prince Rama, and Pure Bathing Culture are among the artists that have been announced. It has also been announced that Talib Kweli will participate on a panel named “What It Means to Start a Label in the Digital Age.” Find the current lineup here.
The Melodic Tree 