The phantom zone, the parallax, the upside down_there is a rich cultural history of exploring in-between places. Through her latest, Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood, a.k.a. Natalie Mering, has designed her own universe to soulfully navigate life's mysteries. Maneuvering through a space-time continuum, she plays the role of melodic, sometimes melancholic, anthropologist. Tellingly, Mering classifies Titanic Rising - which was written and recorded during the first half of 2018, after three albums and years of touring - as the Kinks meet WWII or Bob Seger meets Enya. The latter captures the album's willful expansiveness ("You can tell there's not a guy pulling the strings in Enya's studio," she notes, admiringly). The former relays her imperative to connect with listeners. "The clarity of Bob Seger is unmistakable. I'm a big fan of conversational songwriting," she adds. "I just try to do that in a way that uses abstract imagery as well." The Weyes Blood frontwoman grew up singing in gospel and madrigal choirs. (Listen closely to Titanic Rising, and you'll also hear the jazz of Hoagy Carmichael mingle with the artful mysticism of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the monomyth of scholar Joseph Campbell.) "Something to Believe," a confessional that makes judicious use of the slide guitar, touches on that cosmological upbringing. "Belief is something all humans need. Shared myths are part of our psychology and survival," she says. "Now we have a weird mishmash of capitalism and movies and science. There have been moments where I felt very existential and lost." As a kid, she filled that void with Titanic. (Yes, the movie.) "It was engineered for little girls and had its own mythology," she explains. Mering also noticed that the blockbuster romance actually offered a story about loss born of man's hubris. "It's so symbolic that The Titanic would crash into an iceberg, and now that iceberg is melting, sinking civilization." Today, this hubris also extends to the relentless adoption of technology, at the expense of both happiness and attention spans. But Weyes Blood isn't one to stew. Her observations play out in an ethereal saunter: far more meditative than cynical. To Mering, listening and thinking are concurrent experiences. "There are complicated influences mixed in with more relatable nostalgic melodies," she says. "In my mind my music feels so big, a true production. I'm not a huge, popular artist, but I feel like one when I'm in the studio. But it's never taking away from the music. I'm just making a bigger space for myself."

Norman Fucking Rockwell is the sixth studio album and fifth major-label record by American singer Lana Del Rey, set to be released in early 2019.[1][2] The lead single, titled "Mariners Apartment Complex", was released worldwide on September 12, 2018, and the album title was announced on September 18, 2018.

Simbi Ajikawo, crowned Little Simz, let's her work do the talking - and her prolific releases and boundary-breaking achievements clearly tell a story of a pioneering Hip Hop artist who leads the way on her own terms. Giving lauded, energetic performances, critically acclaimed albums, sold-out headline shows around the world, and international tours with the likes of Gorillaz, Anderson.Paak and Ab-Soul, this visionary 24 year old woman from North London is living out her childhood dreams to heights of excellence - and inspiring her generation to do the same.

Jimmy Lee is the new album from Raphael Saadiq, the Grammy Award- winning musician, songwriter and go-to collaborator/producer Raphael Saadiq. This collection is Raphael's first new album in eight years, and is the follow-up to 2011's Stone Rollin.' The album was announced in June, 2019 with the release of the single Something Keeps Calling Me." Jimmy Lee is a deeply personal, musically ambitious work inspired by his brother's struggles with addiction that explores the razor s edge people walk as they pursue pleasure that leads to pain a brilliantly incisive and empathetic work from a master at the peak of his art. The album takes the listener from Saadiq's native Oakland to Rikers Island as he traces the everyday struggles of addiction and incarceration, taking in both the thrills and pitfalls he witnessed throughout his brother's life. Comprising narcotic funk, steely gospel affirmations, and quaking protest soul, Jimmy Lee is a resonant examination of modern life, in all its exuberance, destruction and consequence. Jimmy Lee was self-produced by Raphael Saadiq and recorded at Blakeslee Recording Co. in North Hollywood. The album features contributions from Brook D Leau, Kendrick Lamar, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Raphael Saadiq came up in the 80s and 90s with the multi-platinum R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! before embarking on a critically acclaimed solo career. He also has been active as a producer, co-writing career-defining hits for D'Angelo ("Untitled (How Does It Feel) ) and Solange ("Cranes in the Sky") and working with artists like John Legend, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Erykah Badu, Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder.

In the clip of an older Eartha Kitt that everyone kicks around the internet, her cheekbones are still as pronounced as many would remember them from her glory days on Broadway, and her eyes are still piercing and inviting. She sips from a metal cup. The wind blows the flowers behind her until those flowers crane their stems toward her face, and the petals tilt upward, forcing out a smile. A dog barks in the background. In the best part of the clip, Kitt throws her head back and feigns a large, sky-rattling laugh upon being asked by her interviewer whether or not she’d compromise parts of herself if a man came into her life. When the laugh dies down, Kitt insists on the same, rhetorical statement. “Compromise!?!?” she flings. “For what?” She repeats “For what?” until it grows more fierce, more unanswerable. Until it holds the very answer itself. On the hook to the song “Eartha,” Jamila Woods sings “I don’t want to compromise / can we make it through the night” and as an album, Legacy! Legacy! stakes itself on the uncompromising nature of its creator, and the histories honored within its many layers. There is a lot of talk about black people in America and lineage, and who will tell the stories of our ancestors and their ancestors and the ones before them. But there is significantly less talk about the actions taken to uphold that lineage in a country obsessed with forgetting. There are hands who built the corners of ourselves we love most, and it is good to shout something sweet at those hands from time to time. Woods, a Chicago-born poet, organizer, and consistent glory merchant, seeks to honor black people first, always. And so, Legacy! Legacy! A song for Zora! Zora, who gave so much to a culture before she died alone and longing. A song for Octavia and her huge and savage conscience! A song for Miles! One for Jean-Michel and one for my man Jimmy Baldwin! More than just giving the song titles the names of historical black and brown icons of literature, art, and music, Jamila Woods builds a sonic and lyrical monument to the various modes of how these icons tried to push beyond the margins a country had assigned to them. On “Sun Ra,” Woods sings “I just gotta get away from this earth, man / this marble was doomed from the start” and that type of dreaming and vision honors not only the legacy of Sun Ra, but the idea that there is a better future, and in it, there will still be black people. Jamila Woods has a voice and lyrical sensibility that transcends generations, and so it makes sense to have this lush and layered album that bounces seamlessly from one sonic aesthetic to another. This was the case on 2016’s HEAVN, which found Woods hopeful and exploratory, looking along the edges resilience and exhaustion for some measures of joy. Legacy! Legacy! is the logical conclusion to that looking. From the airy boom-bap of “Giovanni” to the psychedelic flourishes of “Sonia,” the instrument which ties the musical threads together is the ability of Woods to find her pockets in the waves of instrumentation, stretching syllables and vowels over the harmony of noise until each puzzle piece has a home. The whimsical and malleable nature of sonic delights also grants a path for collaborators to flourish: the sparkling flows of Nitty Scott on “Sonia” and Saba on “Basquiat,” or the bloom of Nico Segal’s horns on “Baldwin.” Soul music did not just appear in America, and soul does not just mean music. Rather, soul is what gold can be dug from the depths of ruin, and refashioned by those who have true vision. True soul lives in the pages of a worn novel that no one talks about anymore, or a painting that sits in a gallery for a while but then in an attic forever. Soul is all the things a country tries to force itself into forgetting. Soul is all of those things come back to claim what is theirs. Jamila Woods is a singular soul singer who, in voice, holds the rhetorical demand. The knowing that there is no compromise for someone with vision this endless. That the revolution must take many forms, and it sometimes starts with songs like these. Songs that feel like the sun on your face and the wind pushing flowers against your back while you kick your head to the heavens and laugh at how foolish the world seems.

A huge return in these parts from one of our most favourite voices. The descent into darkness is a trope we find time again across history, literature and film. But there’s also an abyss above. There’s a winding white staircase that goes ever upward into the great unknown — each step, each turn, requiring a greater boldness and confidence than the one before. This is the journey on which we find Angel Olsen. + Available whilst stocks last on a limited crystal clear vinyl edition. Olsen’s artistic beginnings as a collaborator shifted seamlessly to her magnificent, cryptic-to-cosmic solo work, and then she formed bands to play her songs, and her stages and audiences grew exponentially. But all along, Olsen was more concerned with a different kind of path, and on her vulnerable, Big Mood new album, All Mirrors, we can see her taking an introspective deep dive towards internal destinations and revelations. In the process of making this album, she found a new sound and voice, a blast of fury mixed with hard won self-acceptance. “In every way —from the making of it, to the words, to how I feel moving forward— this record is about owning up to your darkest side,” Olsen said. “Finding the capacity for new love and trusting change, even when you feel like a stranger. This is a record about facing yourself and learning to forgive what you see. It is about losing empathy, trust, love for destructive people. It is about walking away from the noise and realizing that you can have solitude and peace in your own thoughts, that your thoughts alone can be just as valid, if not more.”

“CALIGULA”, the new album from LINGUA IGNOTA set for release on July 19th on CD/2xLP/Digital through Profound Lore Records, takes the vision of Kristin Hayter’s vessel to a new level of grandeur, her purging and vengeful audial vision going beyond anything preceding it and reaching a new unparalleled sonic plane within her oeuvre. Succeeding her self-released 2017 “All Bitches Die” opus (re-released by Profound Lore Records in 2018), “CALIGULA” sees Hayter design her most ambitious work to date, displaying the full force of her talent as a vocalist, composer, and storyteller. Vast in scope and multivalent in its influences, with delivery nothing short of demonic, “CALIGULA” is an outsider’s opera; magnificent, hideous, and raw. Eschewing and disavowing genre altogether, Hayter builds her own world. Here she fully embodies the moniker Lingua Ignota, from the German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, meaning “unknown language” — this music has no home, any precedent or comparison could only be uneasily given, and there is nothing else like it in our contemporary realm. LINGUA IGNOTA has always taken a radical, unflinching approach to themes of violence and vengeance, and “CALIGULA” builds on the transformation of the survivor at the core of this narrative. “CALIGULA” embraces the darkness that closes in, sharpens itself with the cruelty it has been subjected to, betrays as it has been betrayed. It is wrath unleashed, scathing, a caustic blood-letting: “Let them hate me so long as they fear me,” Hayter snarls in a voice that ricochets from chilling raw power to agonizing vulnerability. Whilst “CALIGULA” is unapologetically personal and critically self-aware, there are broader themes explored; the decadence, corruption, depravity and senseless violence of emperor Caligula is well documented and yet still permeates today. Brimming with references and sly jabs, Hayter’s sardonic commentary on abuse of power and invalidation is deftly woven. Working closely with Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Hayter strips away much of the industrial and electronic elements of her previous work, approaching instead the corporeal intensity and intimate menace of her notorious live performances, achieved with unconventional recording techniques and sound sources, as well as a full arsenal of live instrumentation and collaborators including harsh noise master Sam McKinlay (THE RITA), visceral drummer Lee Buford (The Body) and frenetic percussionist Ted Byrnes (Cackle Car, Wood & Metal), with guest vocals from Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), Mike Berdan (Uniform), and Noraa Kaplan (Visibilities). “CALIGULA” is a massive work, a multi-layered epic that gives voice and space to that which has been silenced and cut out.

Matana Roberts returns with the fourth chapter of her extraordinary Coin Coin series - a project that has deservedly garnered the highest praise and widespread critical acclaim for it's fierce aesthetic originality and unflinching narrative power. The first three Coin Coin albums, issued from 2011-2015, charted diverse pathways of modern/avant composition - Roberts calls it "panoramic sound quilting" - and ranged sequentially from large band to sextet to solo, unified by Roberts' archival and often deeply personal research into legacies of the American slave trade and ancestries of American identity/experience. Roberts also emphasizes non-male subjects and thematises these other-gendered stories with a range of vocal and verbal techniques: singspeak, submerged glossolalic recitation, guttural cathartic howl, operatic voice, gentle lullaby, group chant, and the recuperation of various American folk traditionals and spirituals, whether surfacing in fragmentary fashion or as unabridged set-pieces. The root of this vocality comes from her dedication to the legacy of her main chosen instrument, the alto saxophone. On Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, Roberts convened a new band, with New Yorkers Hannah Marcus (guitars, fiddle, accordion) and percussionist Ryan Sawyer (Thurston Moore, Nate Wooley, Cass McCombs) joined by Montréal bassist Nicolas Caloia (Ratchet Orchestra) and Montréal-Cairo composer/improviser Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush, Dwarfs Of East Agouza) on guitar and oud, along with prolific trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White as special guests. Memphis unspools as a continuous work of 21st century liberation music, oscillating between meditative incantatory explorations, raucous melodic themes, and unbridled free-improv suites, quoting archly and ecstatically from various folk traditions along the way. Led by Roberts' conduction and unique graphic score practice, her consummate saxophone and clarinet playing, and punctuated by her singing and speaking various texts generated from her own historical research and diaristic writings, Coin Coin Chapter Four is a glorious and spellbinding new installment in this projected twelve-part Gesamtkunstwerk. Says Roberts: "As an arts adventurer dealing w/ the medium of sound and it's many contradictions I am most interested in endurance, perseverance, migration, liberation, libation, improvisation and the many layers of cognitive dissonance therein as it relates to my birth country's history. I speak memory, I sing an American survival through horn, song, sadness, a sometimes gladness. I stand on the backs of many people, from so many different walks of life and difference, that never had a chance to express themselves as expressively as I have been given the privilege. In these sonic renderings, I celebrate the me, I celebrate the we, in all that it is now, and all that is yet to come or will be... Thanks for listening."

Over the last year Fontaines D.C.have released four hotly received double A-side singles, all of which were named as singles of the week by Rough Trade, and garnered early support from the likes of Steve Lamacq and others on BBC 6 Music, as well as earning feature space from every major Irish and UK publication. They have toured sold-out shows across Ireland, the UK and Europe, and will embark on a full world tour throughout 2019.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds return with the new double album Ghosteen. The album was recorded in 2018 and early 2019 at Woodshed in Malibu, Nightbird in Los Angeles, Retreat in Brighton and Candybomber in Berlin. It was mixed by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lance Powell and Andrew Dominik at Conway in Los Angeles. Ghosteen is the seventeenth studio album from Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, following 2016’s Skeleton Tree, and will be released via Ghosteen Ltd. Nick Cave - vocals, piano, synthesizer, backing vocal Warren Ellis - synthesizer, loops, flute, violin, piano, backing vocals Thomas Wydler - drums Martyn Casey - bass Jim Sclavunos - vibraphone, percussion George Vjestica - guitar Speaking on the red hand files website, Nick answered a request from a fan with the surprise announcement; Dear Joe, You can expect a new album next week. It is called Ghosteen. It is a double album. Part 1 comprises of eight songs. The Spinning Song Bright Horses Waiting For You Night Raid Sun Forest Galleon Ship Ghosteen Speaks Leviathan Part 2 consists of two long songs, linked by a spoken word piece. Ghosteen Fireflies Hollywood The songs on the first album are the children. The songs on the second album are their parents. Ghosteen is a migrating spirit. Love, Nick

《健忘的平原》是丢莱卡的第一张正式录音室作品，由乐队独立创作、制作和发行，收录了四首创作于2017年至2018年的歌曲。由于各种青少年的胡思乱想和举棋不定，我们放弃了录制全长专辑的想法，转而选取了四首在音乐和表达上更接近的歌做成EP。 在我个人看来《健忘的平原》的主题是普遍茫然和微型暴躁。虽然所有词曲都由我们自己创作，但其中的反复交缠出现的无奈与渴望更像是他人的恩赐，仿佛鸟群飞过，从天空落进我头发里的种子。囿于能力、财力和耐心，《健忘的平原》当然只是一张粗劣的习作，但它的粗劣已足够让我们自己满意和喜爱。丢莱卡衷心希望你也喜欢它，或快或慢那是你个人的事情。祝你收听愉快。 用所有的爱与友谊感谢我们的前贝斯手、飞去来的主唱阿勇，感谢他为这张EP了不起的付出。感谢缺省的主唱屹然和sync studio，感谢他在制作的最后关头鼎力支持。感谢小王乐队的月兔和早早在几首歌曲中贡献的美丽和声。感谢曹政的画。感谢赵凯、我们的家人和伸出援手的朋友、所有在暗处唱歌的伙伴。感谢葱。

虾米在线： 唱片购买： 海青是一位大器晚成的音乐人。内蒙古草原长大，多年来他在很多乐队里担纲乐手，直到2015年才开始属于自己的创作。2017年海青在大福唱片发行了他的第一张专辑《肉蛋蛋》，那些弥漫着蒙古 东方旋律的前卫摇滚作品让国内的资深乐迷眼前一亮。两年后他带来了续篇：《乌飞兔走昼还夜》。 延续此前的专辑合作模式，《乌飞兔走昼还夜》依然由海青与吉他手李星共同完成：海青创作了歌曲最初的雏形，彼时它们大多只是一人一琴的谣曲；而后李星将它们改编升级成全乐队的形式，延伸出繁芜的器乐演奏段落与不可思议的歌曲时间长度——整张专辑的8首歌曲全部都在6分钟以上，最长的一首更有12分钟。 相比起前作，海青与李星希望在新专辑中呈现一种更加严谨的创作。两把电吉他剑拔弩张的演奏被凸显到了极致，而《肉蛋蛋》中那些讨喜的元素，如蒙古韵律，传统民乐，甚至还有即兴，在这一局中都被尽力降到了最低。张梦是唯一一位参与了两张专辑录音的乐手，在录制笙的时候，他为这种古老的东方乐器串接了两台吉他音箱，进而呈现出一种近似于电风琴的激烈的声响。 歌词依然海青一贯的简洁与诗意，平静的表面之下暗藏着深邃的解读。《失忆症》用寥寥四句勾绘了一整个时代的遗忘病症；《流民》中描绘的是纪实摄影一般的街头日常，映衬的却是“天罩大地不罩人”的悲悯；《你让我魂飞魄散了》与《险些中计》似是情歌，就如同那些经典的中国摇滚乐作品那样，情歌总有着弦外之音；还有《谁来孵这个蛋》，一个关于公鸡和母鸡的荒唐寓言，背后却是“东边离西边到底有多远”这样延绵了上百年的话题。 不妨也来聊聊这个有些晦涩的专辑名，它像专辑的音乐与歌词一样散部着迷雾与陷阱。“乌兔”其实是乌托邦的谐音——转瞬之间昼夜颠倒，乌托邦成梦魇。 《乌飞兔走昼还夜》的实体唱片包括两张有着烟熏纹理质地的彩胶唱片，封面与内页采用了捷克艺术家 Petr Nikl 的六幅画作（他在绘画、音乐、剧场等不同领域均有涉猎），颇具收藏价值。《乌飞兔走昼还夜》由小心唱片发行，亦是小心唱片的第一个发行。小心唱片是美丽唱片致力于前卫/实验音乐的分支系列。 作词：海青 作曲：海青、李星 编曲、制作：李星 人声：海青 吉他：李星、海青 笙、长号、低音箫：张梦 贝斯：勤丰 鼓：卢刚 小号：付华 录音：丁海明（上海 2a3 Studio）、杨海崧（北京 Psychic Kong） 混音、母带：刘英 封面内页作品版权：Petr Nikl（捷克）

北京二人乐队GONG GONG GONG 工工工首张新专辑《Phantom Rhythm 幽靈節奏》问世，主打曲目为《Inner Reaches慾望的暗角二》。依然用仅有的吉他和贝斯，工工工继续利用他们独有的幽灵节奏：吴卓厚重的吉他打击和失灵的过载器配合Josh连绵不绝的贝斯嗡鸣，通过乐器交替间幻化出来的拍子和诗句般的粤语歌词，将荒诞、怀疑、欲望和欲望的抽象故事拼凑在一起。之前发行的先导单曲在Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Loud & Quiet等音乐媒体上大获好评。

摩登天空簽約樂隊聲音碎片的第四張錄音室專輯。專輯於2018年10月完成錄音，2019年3月完成後期制作。這是上壹張專輯發表十年之後，聲音碎片的首度發聲，從三十而立到四十不惑，樂隊把對生活的體悟和心境的變化寫進作品裡，是小視角到大視角的轉變。專輯秉承了聲音碎片的旋律美學與抒情範式，也有著更新的突破，從結構到編曲，呈現出壹個煥然壹新的“後光芒時代”的聲音碎片。

《陽光普照》為鍾孟宏導演的第五部劇情長片，敘事的主題回到家庭，影像風格上將延續一貫的冷靜客觀的角度及美學，但在本片的設定上希望能有更多的陽光感，營造出世人曝露在陽光普照下無所遁形的無奈和焦躁，在冷靜、安靜的鏡頭和情緒中去表現出一種極大的溫暖和情感。電影中的角色是社會裡的中產階級，如同大多數平凡的家庭一般，他們的經濟狀況稍有餘裕，然而他們如何面對生活裡的那隱隱作痛的刺，如何好好地生活，並且不放棄保持前進的意志，透過對於角色的深刻描述，相信能引起廣大共鳴。 每個人的人生與家庭，總有遭遇低潮困境的時刻，我們期望能夠鼓舞困境中的人們，保持走下去的勇氣，不管明天如何，結果如何，唯一的方法只有往前走，因為只有走下去，才有可能走出去。相同的道理也在我們的家庭，甚至國家裡印證，不管現在這塊土地有多困難，有多少矛盾衝突，一個堅定的信念和走下去的勇氣，總能帶我們到一個脫離黑暗的去處。 對於製作人林生祥來說，配樂是電影中的隱形演員，替鏡頭下的演員們說出台詞以外的台詞，那些無法言說的情感糾結與矛盾，透過樂句為演員發聲。《陽光普照》描寫一個家庭的故事，透過一個家庭情感變化、破碎的過程，讓人找到如何保有堅定的信念與走下去的勇氣，而林生祥為這個家庭四位主要角色，根據他們的性格與命運，設定器樂與旋律基調，寫出他們人生的主題音樂，每一個角色的以同一首樂曲為基礎，再以不同的編曲方式，延伸、推進並帶出情節發展的高低起伏。 在這樣的操作設定之下，電影配樂已不再是影像的襯底音樂，與影像結合時，音樂與影像的敘事交錯進行，即使在抽離影像之後，音樂也能夠獨立敘事，四位主要角色的人生主題曲，引領著聽眾隨曲目的流轉，也能在心頭上演一個關於家庭與生命掙扎的故事。 製作團隊成員中，以製作人林生祥為核心，邀集台灣、日本兩地的樂手，以及台灣、德國兩位優秀的錄音師共同合作。多元的音樂與文化背景，也帶來了多種樂器的使用，如吉他、月琴等主要的彈撥樂器，以及小提琴、中提琴、低音提琴與法國號等較古典的管弦樂、室內樂樂器，也還有電子音樂中常使用的合成器等等，創造出不同的音樂風格。 此外，在「為主要角色創作主題音樂」的概念下，以林生祥譜的曲子為基礎，加上各個樂手的創意激盪，每個角色的主題音樂在不同劇情開展下，以不同的編曲方式，使用不同的主奏樂器，而營造出快慢、明暗、高低等各種情緒與氛圍，讓整張作品不僅具有連貫性，音樂的敘事性也更為清晰。