The longlist for the Scottish Album Of The Year (SAY) Award has been revealed for 2022 – see the 20 nominees below.
READ MORE: Mogwai – ‘As The Love Continues’ review: cinematic post-rock that loses steam
The annual award pays tribute to the best in Scottish music, and this year’s award will be handed out at a live ceremony at Stirling’s Albert Halls on October 20.
The longlist was whittled down from 369 eligible record submissions by 100 impartial music industry nominators. Among the nominees for this year’s award are C Duncan with ‘Alluvium’, Kathryn Joseph for her third album ‘For You Who Are The Wronged’, Walt Disco‘s ‘Unlearning’ and Fergus McCreadie for his Mercury Prize-nominated ‘Forest Floor’.
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See the full SAY Award 2021 longlist below:
AiiTee – ‘Better Days’ Andrew Wasylyk – ‘Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia’ Annie Booth – ‘Lazybody’ Bemz – ‘M4’ C Duncan – ‘Alluvium’ Callum Easter – ‘System’ Constant Follower – ‘Neither Is, Nor Ever Was’ Declan Welsh and the Decadent West – ‘It’s Been A Year’ Duncan Lyall – ‘Milestone’ Fergus McCreadie – ‘Forest Floor’ Hamish Hawk – ‘Heavy Elevator’ Hen Hoose – ‘Equaliser’ Kathryn Joseph – ‘For You Who Are The Wronged’ Kobi Onyame – ‘Don’t Drink The Poison’
The Ninth Wave – ‘Heavy Like a Headache’ Niteworks – ‘A’Ghrian’ Proc Fiskal – ‘Siren Spine Sysex’ Rebecca Vasmant – ‘With Love, From Glasgow’ Seonaid Aitken Ensemble – ‘Chasing Sakura’ Walt Disco – ‘Unlearning
? THREAD ?
This is The #SAYaward Longlist 2022 ? pic.twitter.com/o6nrJj5F6f
— The SAY Award (@SAYaward) September 16, 2022
Robert Kilpatrick, Creative Director of the Scottish Music Industry Association, said: “As Scotland’s national music prize, The SAY Award exists to celebrate the cultural impact and contribution of our nation’s recorded output. 2022’s Longlist presents a dynamic and diverse collection of albums which spans multiple genres and showcases both established and rising talent from across the country.
“Despite the turbulence of recent times, the enduring impact and resonance of the album format remains. As vehicles of both self-discovery and connection with others, their power to ground, inspire and unite us is perhaps more important than ever.”
The longlist will be further whittled down by a specially selected judging panel to create the shortlist of 10 albums for this year’s SAY Award. In addition, the public will be able to vote for their favourite album on the longlist from October 3-5 to ensure it makes the shortlist.
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Mogwai were announced as the winners of the 2021 SAY Award for their 10th studio LP ‘As The Love Continues’. Elsewhere during the ceremony, rising Edinburgh star Lvra was honoured with a new Sound of Young Scotland Award and Frightened Rabbit were crowned the inaugural winner of a new award to recognise a ‘Modern Scottish Classic’ album.
The 2022 SAY Award winner will take away a £20,000 prize, with the nine runners-up receiving £1,000. Alongside the main award, the Sound of Young Scotland Award and the Modern Scottish Classic Award will also make a return this year.
The release date for the new Katy Perry-narrated podcast series about Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth The First, has been announced, revealed alongside a teaser for its first episode.
With Taylor billed as “the original influencer”, the ten-part series will feature stories from those closest to Taylor (who died in 2011), as well as audio from the archives of the House of Taylor.
Perry will reportedly cover topics such as Taylor’s time working in (and fight against) a male-dominated film studio industry, her activism promoting awareness of issues like HIV and AIDS, and alcohol and drug abuse.
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The series will also look at Taylor’s rise to being the world’s highest paid actress in the 1960s, when she successfully negotiated the first $1million to star in 1963s Cleopatra.
Produced by Imperative Entertainment, Elizabeth The First is set to arrive on Monday October 3, available on all major podcast platforms.
Coinciding with the news of the release date, a teaser for the first episode of Elizabeth The First was released on September 15.
Coming in at just under three and a half minutes, the teaser hears Perry call Taylor the “first true influencer… living a remarkable life”.
“She had power, real power, influencing generations,” Perry says.
Listen below:
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Upon the series’ announcement back in March, Perry said in a statement to Variety: “Like most people, I was attracted to her glamour, and in my own life, I continue to find myself referencing her through some of my visuals.
“I’m inspired by her bold activism, her constant boss moves in business, and through it all, an unapologetic way of loving — all things I try to live in my own life.
“It’s an honour to be able to share her story in this way.”
Lorde teased her next album during her Los Angeles gig last night.
READ MORE: ‘Melodrama’ at five: how Lorde’s cinematic pop opus inspired a new generation of artists
The singer is currently wrapping up the second North American leg of her 2022 world tour behind third album ‘Solar Power’, stopping for sets this weekend at Primavera Sound Los Angeles and Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful.
During a break in the LA gig, the singer was running through the themes of each of her studio albums (2013 debut ‘Pure Heroine’, 2017 follow-up ‘Melodrama’ and 2021’s ‘Solar Power’).
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“Who knows what will come next…” she told the crowd, before adding: “Well, I know. And you’ll know sometime soon.”
See the speech below.
??? Lorde teasing new music (album ??) during her set at Primavera Sound LA.
For context, she was talking about the themes of her previous records.
“I know [what comes next]. And you’ll know sometime soon”
?: @gorlgenius pic.twitter.com/ySmQEsaRtC
— Lorde Updates ☀️ (@LordeUpdatesBR) September 17, 2022
Lorde recently shared an update on upcoming new music, saying that she had been “spending long days in a dark room” working on it.
The comments came after the New Zealand artist said back in June that she was “getting nearer” to writing nothing but “bangers” again. Her third and most recent album, last year’s ‘Solar Power’, saw Lorde move away from the euphoric sounds of ‘Melodrama’ (2017) in favour of a more introspective and delicate musical style.
“It’s so interesting to me how writing a big, bright pop song has been the thing that’s defined my life,” she explained. “This thing I started trying to do when I was 14-years-old because I would turn on the radio and love that feeling, what it did to me. It became like an addiction, I just wanted to keep trying to construct the perfect thing that would hit you in the heart emotionally, over three-and-a-half minutes.”
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NME gave Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’ five stars in a review upon its release last year, calling it “a dazzling hat-trick from a master of her craft.”
“This is an album that grows in quiet stature with every listen, new nuggets of wisdom making their way to the surface, peeking through its beautiful instrumentation that weaves a stunning, leafy tapestry,” the review said.
A guitar solo by the late Dimebag Darrell was incorporated into the 2005 Nickelback track ‘Side Of A Bullet’.
READ MORE: Nickelback: all the times they’ve been banned, hounded and weaponised
As reported by Guitar World, Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger once played the track, which appears on the band’s fifth studio album ‘For All The Right Reasons’, to Dimebag’s brother, Vinnie Paul, asking if the Pantera drummer would redo the drum parts. While he declined, he suggested the Canadian band use some of Dimebag’s unused material instead.
The two groups had a close friendship and ‘Side Of A Bullet’ was written from the lyrical perspective of a Pantera fan seeking revenge for Dimebag’s death.
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With permission from Dimebag’s girlfriend Rita Haney, Nickelback were sent a number of solo outtakes from Pantera’s albums ‘Vulgar Display Of Power’ and ‘Far Beyond Driven’.
“They were our brothers,” bassist Mike Kroeger said in a previous interview (via Guitar World). “And then when Dime was murdered, we wanted to pay tribute to him. We were able to get some of his unused solos and a few other bits of his playing that we would actually lay into the track… It was a really special thing for us.”
Nickelback and Pantera first met in 2002, when they were introduced by Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell.
“A lot of people didn’t like the fact that they were friends with us, or fans of our music,” Kroeger continued. “But the metal world can be a little intense to its own, y’know? So it was just really cool that they didn’t care about that, and they just wanted to be friends with us because they liked what we did.”
Dimebag also played with Nickelback on their cover of Elton John‘s ‘Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)’, which also featured Kid Rock and appeared on the Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle soundtrack.
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In other news, Nickelback recently announced their new album, ‘Get Rollin’’ and shared the first single ‘San Quentin’.
The four-piece confirmed back in August 2021 that they were working on a new record, which will be their first LP since 2017’s ‘Feed The Machine’.
“We’ve spent the last few years making a record at a pace that gave us the freedom to create and we can’t wait for everyone to hear the new music,” the band said in a statement. “We’ve missed the fans and look forward to bringing the new songs to life on stage, so let’s Get Rollin’!”
Taylor Swift has revealed that the back covers for different vinyl versions of her new album ‘Midnights’ come together to make a clockface.
The singer’s 10th studio album is set to land on October 21, and was announced during a surprise appearance from the singer at the MTV VMAs last month.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ short film highlights the emotional power of her storytelling
Since then, Swift has been detailing a host of different editions of the LP version of the album. First came the ‘Jade Green’, ‘Blood Moon’ and ‘Mahogany’ editions of ‘Midnights’, all of which sport exclusive colour schemes, artwork and imagery.
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Earlier this week, she then revealed a ‘Lavender’ version of the album as part of an ongoing collaboration with Target.
Taking to Instagram, Swift then revealed that all four collectible editions of the album come with specific back covers that, when placed together, make an entire clockface
She told fans: “Alright I’ve been wanting to show you this for a while. So we have four different covers for the midnights album. And if you turn them over you there is obviously a back cover to each one of them, they’re each different.
“What I wanted to show you is that if you put all the back covers together, she’s a clock. It’s a clock. It’s a clock, it makes a clock. It can help you tell time.”
See the post and configuration of the special LP editions of ‘Midnights’ below.
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A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)
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Swift detailed ‘Midnights’ in the early hours of August 29, after making a surprise announcement at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards less than an hour earlier. While accepting the second of three awards she bagged on the night – Video of the Year for ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)’ – Swift revealed: “My brand new album comes out October 21. I will tell you more at midnight.”
In a poetic message shared alongside the album’s formal unveiling, Swift described ‘Midnights’ as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”.
On what to expect from its themes, she wrote: “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”
‘Midnights’ will follow up on Swift’s two 2020 albums, ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’, as well as last year’s re-recorded versions of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’.
Throughout her storied life, Marianne Faithfull has been in a tussle with her reputation. Sometimes it looks like a dance. Often, it is more like a fight. Though she’s now revered as an elder stateswoman and a valued collaborator – Warren Ellis is her latest pet – this compilation explores the first two acts of Faithfull’s career.
ORDER NOW: Björk is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
In the clichéd telling of it, Faithfull was manipulated and underestimated, if not exploited, during her pop career, before clambering from the wreckage and finding her own voice. If Faithfull sounded damaged – vocally, she did – the point was underlined. She has dismissed her early recordings as “cheesecake”, though her habitual flintiness has prompted others to diminish her achievements too: in a famously combative interview with Lynn Barber, the journalist tried to extract some small revenge by suggesting that Faithfull was “a singer with one good album”. In which case, why does she continue to fascinate?
The good album in Barber’s reckoning is Broken English. While it’s true that the 1979 LP marked a clear kink in the road and is widely considered to be Faithfull’s masterpiece, it now sounds like a time-stamped product of the new wave era. Those squelching synthesisers go in and out of fashion, but they have a whiff of post-punk cosplay, just as Mark Miller Mundy’s production is identifiably from the Island Records colour chart with its understated insinuations of reggae and roots. What makes the record work is the surprising harshness of Faithfull’s voice colouring the proud alienation of the songs.
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The broken English thing is Faithfull, but the album’s title track – here in the 1980 single version – has a lyric which reportedly admonishes Ulrike Meinhof of the terrorist Red Army Faction, though the lyric evinces a more general mood of Cold War world-weariness. The guitar sounds like a bear taking a chainsaw to a barbed wire fence. The actual stand-out from Broken English is “Why’d Ya Do It?”, which is a bit reggae, somewhat rock, a lot Grace Jones (though Jones was still in the business of perfecting her brand of Island ice). “Why’d Ya Do It?” remains an extreme song, with a jealous Faithfull snarling through a litany of sexual grievances (cock-sucking, snatch-spitting, cobwebbed fannies). It’s interesting once, but you wouldn’t want to share a bathroom with it.
This two-disc set spans 1965–95. The title is a neat steal from a book of William Blake’s poems. So what of the cheesecake? What if we ignore the prejudices which came from Faithfull being a symbol of dumb beauty – the “angel with big tits” exploited by Andrew Loog Oldham, the girl in Mick Jagger’s rug – and listen to the songs? They are mannered, certainly. Even Faithfull’s innocence has its duality. The chamber pop songs are very 1960s, while the folk tunes are more knowing in their evocation of olden times.
Faithfull is said to prefer the folkier material, and as a performer she’s smart enough to know that heightened innocence can be chilling. “What Have They Done To The Rain?” adds percussive raindrops to Faithfull’s English rose, and – if you spritz on some sulking – contains the raw ingredients of The Jesus And Mary Chain’s entire career.
Faithfull is less convincing with more famous songs. A live version of “Yesterday” recorded for the BBC Saturday Club doesn’t quite catch the full power of the song’s yearning, and a faintly gothic folk arrangement of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is closer to Peggy Seeger than Roberta Flack, but remains underpowered.
She has better luck with Donovan and Bert Jansch. A pretty, chaste interpretation of “Sunny Goodge Street” (a previously unreleased take) clears some of the fog from Donovan’s song. “Green Are Your Eyes” (Jansch’s “Courting Blues”) has a chilly simplicity to it. “Love can be broken, though no words are spoken,” she sings, suddenly sounding more than girlish. Then there is “Hier Ou Demain”, a playful collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, written for the TV comedy musical Anna. It represents a path not taken.
The mood switches abruptly with “Sister Morphine”, which Faithfull mostly wrote (while having to fight for her credit). It’s an extraordinary lyric, sung from a hospital bed with the scream of an ambulance in the narrator’s ear. Just as it signalled a darkening of Faithfull’s perspective, it became a kind of Frankenstein, haunting her with its drug-soaked morbidity.
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And so we come to the songs of experience. Looking backwards, the shadowy corners of Faithfull’s songbook define her image. “Where did it go to, my youth?” she croaks on “Truth Bitter Truth”, while on Tom Waits’ “Strange Weather” producer Hal Willner repurposes her half-spoken narrative style into the manners of a Kurt Weill cabaret. We know about “The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan” (a slightly odd electro production) and the cabaret phrasing of “Strange Weather”. But listen to the way Faithfull repoints the Ruben Blades/Lou Reed song “Calm Before The Storm”, diffusing the epic pomposity of Blades’ recording, replacing it with a note of chilly resilience. It’s the Marianne Faithfull thing: stay calm, embrace the storm.
System Of A Down have condemned the “evil aggression” against their home country Armenia in the wake of a recent bombing that took place along the nation’s eastern border.
According to the Associate Press, the border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan have killed at least 155 troops on both sides (105 Armenian soldiers and 50 from Azerbaijan, it is reported).
READ MORE: Serj Tankian: “I think the whole world felt some relief that Trump was gone”
The two countries have been in conflict for decades, but the latest outbreak of fighting is said to be biggest in almost two years.
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SOAD – all of whom are of Armenian descent – were at the forefront of campaigning for recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1915, and have continued with their efforts speak up for the nation amid ongoing unrest.
Responding to the most recent round of aggression, System Of A Down issued a statement on social media yesterday evening (September 14).
“Around midnight on the 12th of September 2022, forces of Azerbaijan led by its corrupt petro-oligarchic leader Aliyev attacked Armenia’s whole eastern border bombing civilian infrastructure and homes,” the message began.
Please repost or retweet this message and use the hashtags #Armenia #StandWithArmenia pic.twitter.com/N94jL0vd6R
— System Of A Down (@systemofadown) September 14, 2022
“Their goal is to terrorise Armenians and gain more concessions from Armenia along with regime change in one of the few democracies in the whole region. This is 2 years after they attacked Nagorno-Karabagh in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the region of Armenians.
“They have been emboldened by the EU’s ill perceived dependency on their natural gas and a perceived weakened Russian hegemon in the region.”
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It continued: “As a band, we have always done our best to entertain and inform. We have friends and family in harms way in Armenia right now and are extremely worried and concerned for the safety of our people and country.
“Unlike the war in Ukraine, the enemy is not Russian so Western press has been slow to react and has even made the deadly mistake of both-sidisms, treating the attack as a border dispute when it is clearly a deadly attack on the sovereign state of Armenia.”
System concluded: “We are asking for your help in spreading the word about this evil aggression by Azerbaijan, bolstered by Turkey, the country the committed genocide against our people.”
The group are urging their followers to repost or retweet their statement with the hashtags #Armenia #StandWithArmenia.
Frontman Serj Tankian – who is American-Armenian – released the solo protest song ‘Amber’ back in June. It served as a resistance piece to the “slick theft” that he claimed to have seen in Armenia’s political elections.
Speaking previously, the singer said the track’s lyrics seem “poignant” due to Armenians being “divided politically and socially following the devastating attack on Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia by Azerbaijan and Turkey in 2020, and the continuous fallout over negotiations with those two dictatorial regimes.
“‘Amber”s message is that of unity and harmony. Those are the only truly powerful weapons of the Armenian nation.”
Back in 2020, System Of A Down released ‘Protect The Land’ and ‘Genocidal Humanoidz’ in a bid to raise awareness and funds amid “a dire and serious war being perpetrated upon [their] cultural homelands”.
The pair of singles marked SOAD’s first new material in 15 years. Bassist Shavo Odadjian later opened up about why the band felt it was important to put aside their differences to record the songs.
“We need to be a part of this. We need to help any way we can,” he said at the time. “This, this is bigger than us, bigger than our emotions, bigger than our feelings, bigger than our egos.”
Coldplay have announced they will be broadcasting their upcoming gig at Buenos Aires’ River Plate Stadium.
READ MORE: Coldplay live in London: a fantastical, feel-good bonanza that delivers on a bold promise
The show, part of Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres World Tour, will be shown in thousands of cinemas in over 70 countries.
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Taking place October 28 for fans in North America and Latin America, and shown elsewhere on October 29, the band will also be offering repeat screenings. The full list of participating cinemas can be found here, with tickets on sale now.
The show will be directed by Paul Dugdale and shared in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing.
Marc Allenby, CEO of Trafalgar Releasing, said: “We are delighted to be partnering again with the Coldplay team on this major live broadcast, having established a successful partnership with the 2018 documentary release A Head Full Of Dreams. [We are] giving fans the opportunity to experience the phenomenal Music Of The Spheres tour on the big screen across the globe in unison.”
? LIVE BROADCAST from BUENOS AIRES
Find your nearest screening and get tickets now, at https://t.co/ucbxKMoI0J
A global live broadcast of the Music Of The Spheres world tour from River Plate Stadium
In cinemas worldwide, October 28 / 29#ColdplayLiveBroadcast pic.twitter.com/rBRA51tawa
— Coldplay (@coldplay) September 15, 2022
Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres World Tour features a groundbreaking set of sustainability and eco-friendly initiatives, with almost all shows being powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. Bikes and kinetic dance floors also allow fans to help power the gig.
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According to a press release, it has sold over 5.4million tickets so far and was recently extended into 2023, with Coldplay announcing more shows across Europe and the UK. Check out dates here and buy tickets here.
However, Coldplay have said they were close to cancelling their plans for their tour after facing money issues.
Last month, Chris Martin revealed that Coldplay knew their classic track ‘The Scientist’ would be a song that they’d “play forever” at live shows after hearing it for the first time.
In a glowing five-star review of Coldplay’s Wembley concert on August 16, NME hailed the band for creating “a joyful spectacle; a masterclass in how a massive pop show can be done”.
“This show is a welcome dose of serotonin; a feel-good celebration. The best Tuesday of our lives? That’s high praise indeed – but given the reception from the audience, you’d argue that for thousands of punters, it’s certainly up there.”
Former Sugarcubes drummer Siggi Baldursson has spoken of his time working with Björk, including the time she tried out the song ‘Human Behaviour’ with the band.
Björk enjoyed international success with the Icelandic post-punk band before they disbanded in 1992 and she went on to release her first solo album ‘Debut’ in 1993. That album’s lead single ‘Human Behaviour’ started life when she wrote the melody in her younger years, and later brought it to sessions with The Sugarcubes.
Speaking to Uncut for a wider cover interview with Björk for their November issue, Baldursson recalled his years of working with the artist – having first witnessed her performing with punk band Tappi Tíkarrass in 1981.
pic.twitter.com/QQd7YcyEv4
— Uncut Magazine (@uncutmagazine) September 15, 2022
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“Björk was just 16, but even in soundcheck, it was pure performance,” he said. “Just so much raw power. Seeing her sing on stage for the first time, taking you by surprise – that’s something you don’t forget easily, even though you work with a person for years.”
Going on to explain how The Sugarcubes worked as a unit, he said: “You couldn’t really bring finished songs to rehearsal. You could bring ideas and then we would work from them, feed off each other’s ideas and jam it out and mould these things like clay. But it was becoming quite obvious to us all that she needed another outlet for her ideas and creativity.
“I remember she brought an early version of ‘Human Behaviour’ for us to work on, but it never quite worked with The Sugarcubes.”
On watching Björk’s solo career develop from there, Baldursson explained: “I love hearing how she constantly tries to break new ground and she’s always doing experiments. That’s to a large extent what it’s all about for her: music as a way to explore things.
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Baldursson also discussed how the global success of the band’s 1987 single ‘Birthday’ was totally unexpected. “I was surprised when ‘Birthday’ was a hit, for sure,” he admitted. “The song just sprang out of the woodwork, fully formed. We were working on this strange loopy groove, and Björk started singing the melody and it just took off.
“It felt like it jumped out of the aether – it was magic, absolutely. But I’m not sure we thought it would be a hit. We were still punks – we didn’t have that mindset.
Order the November issue of Uncut here.
Having shared the singles ‘Ovule’ and ‘‘Atopos’ and their accompanying cinematic videos, Björk will release new album ‘Fossora’ on September 30.
She also recently launched the podcast series Sonic Symbolism – detailing the journey behind each of her albums as a solo artist.
Show Me The Body have shared a new single ‘We Came To Play’, alongside announcing new album ‘Trouble The Water’.
The second offering from the upcoming album, ‘We Came To Play’ follows on from previously released single ‘Loose Talk’ and the new single has arrived with visuals directed by Zev Deans.
“Although the title invokes the ancient alchemy Moses wielded to free and unite Israelite peoples, ‘Trouble The Water’ refuses nostalgia or mimicry,” said the band in a statement.
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“Instead, it considers the sublime power of the unifying physical practices that can be enacted daily, to invoke immeasurable spiritual and collective reactions. Buoyed by moments of stinging stillness and compulsive, almost optimistic, malfunctioning rhythms, the work is literally a conjuration to dance, and move. If we are really living through the end of the world, maybe every movement we make, no matter how slight, is actually boundless and radical.”
Recorded entirely in CORPUS Studios in Long Island City, Show Me Body’s upcoming third album ‘Trouble The Water’, set for release on October 28 via Loma Vista Recordings was produced by Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Turnstile, Municiple Waste). You can see the full track list below and pre-order the album here.
‘Loose Talk’ ‘Food From Poison’ ‘Radiator’ ’We Came To Play’ ‘War Not Beef’ ’Out of Place’ ’Boils Up’ ‘Buck 50’ ‘Demeanour’ ’Using It’ ‘WW4’ ‘Trouble The Water’
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The 12 tracks that make up ‘Trouble The Water’ reference and pay homage to the sound and sights of New York City, including the people and the subcultures that capture the foundations of the city, a theme that the band explored on their 2019 record ‘Dog Whistle’ – an album that NME gave four starts to in its review.
Meanwhile, Show Me The Body are set to tour the world starting next month, beginning in California on October 1 and ending in Perth in December 9. Find a full list of dates below and get tickets here.
OCTOBER
1 – Perris, CA – Desert Daze 16 – Garden Grove, CA – Nothing 22 – Kusel, Germany – Schalander 24 – Hamburg, Germany – Hafenklang 25 – Poznań, Poland – Klub Muzyczny 26 – Dresden, Germany – Chemiefabrik 28 – Dortmund, Germany – Red Forest Festival 29 – Berlin, Germany – Red Forest Festival 30 – Drachten, Netherlands – Iduna 31 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Merleyn
NOVEMBER
1 – Zürich, Switzerland – Dynamo 2 – Fribourg, Switzerland – Café XXème 3 – Bologna, Italy – Freakout Club 4 – Verona, Italy – Colorificio Kroen 5 – Mezzago, Italy – Bloom 7 – London, UK – The Underworld
DECEMBER
6 – Sydney, AU – Oxford Art Factory 7 – Brisbane, AU – The Brightside 8 – Melbourne, AU – Stay Gold 9 – Perth, AU – Bad Lands
Just last month, Show Me The Body vocalist Julian Cashwan Pratt pushed a fan offstage during the bands North American tour when an audience member gate crashed their set to jump onstage to film themselves with the band – to which Pratt proceeded to moving the fan out of the way to finish their performance.
Overflo Festival festival has been “forcibly postponed” due to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
The event had been scheduled to take place at Burgess Park in Camberwell, south London this Sunday (September 18), the day before the late Queen’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey.
READ MORE: Entertainment world reacts to the death of Queen Elizabeth II
In a statement, however, organisers have confirmed that Southwark Council has withdrawn the permission for Overflo to go ahead as planned. They are currently working with the council to secure an alternative date, details of which will be announced “in the coming weeks”.
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“We are absolutely gutted to announce that due to the Queen’s passing a number of large scale outdoor events have been forcibly postponed,” a message on the official Overflo Festival website reads.
“We tried to fight it as much as possible but the powers that be have had the last word,” the statement adds, referring to Southwark Council’s decision to pull the event.
Southwark Council is the landowner of Burgess Park and therefore has the ability to cancel the event for reasons of reputation and also for public safety, Overflo notes. The festival also states that the emergency services will no longer have the sufficient resources to support Overflo going ahead.
Damn Lizzy you could’ve of held out a little longer? Visit our website with more info about postponement pic.twitter.com/FqmnTk3Aug
— Overflo Festival (@overflofestival) September 13, 2022
Organisers added: “In the meantime, for those of you who have already purchased tickets , your ticket will remain valid for the festival’s rescheduled date. We really appreciate your support and patience with this.”
Overflo Festival is a cross-genre music, arts and culture event from the co-founders of Pxssy Palace. It celebrates global and homegrown queer, trans, non-binary, Black, Indigenous and POC talent.
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Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, died last Thursday (September 8) aged 96. A national Bank Holiday has been announced to coincide with the day of her funeral.
Various events have been postponed or cancelled following the news, including BBC Radio 2’s Live In Leeds concert.
Meanwhile, UK cinemas are set to either close or offer free screenings of the Queen’s funeral on Monday.
Lorde‘s younger sister Indy Yelich has announced that she will release her debut single, ‘Threads’, this week.
READ MORE: ‘Melodrama’ at five: how Lorde’s cinematic pop opus inspired a new generation of artists
The first music from 23-year-old Yelich – who has released a number of poetry books in recent years – will arrive tomorrow (September 15), and was recently previewed by the singer on social media.
“My debut song ‘Threads’ is out Thursday, can’t wait for you to hear,” she wrote on Instagram, where she also shared the single’s artwork.
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“O’ve lived with this song on the subway, driving around blasting it in friends cars for a second now,” she added.
See the artwork for ‘Threads’ below, and listen to a piano-based teaser of the track that Yelich shared a few weeks ago.
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A post shared by indy ? (@indyyelich1)
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by indy ? (@indyyelich1)
Lorde, meanwhile, is currently wrapping up the second North American leg of her 2022 world tour behind third album ‘Solar Power’, and will stop for sets at Primavera Sound Los Angeles, Las Vegas’ Life Is Beautiful and more.
Lorde recently shared an update on upcoming new music, saying that she had been “spending long days in a dark room” working on it.
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The comments came after the New Zealand artist said back in June that she was “getting nearer” to writing nothing but “bangers” again. Her third and most recent album, last year’s ‘Solar Power’, saw Lorde move away from the euphoric sounds of ‘Melodrama’ (2017) in favour of a more introspective and delicate musical style.
“It’s so interesting to me how writing a big, bright pop song has been the thing that’s defined my life,” she explained.
Public Enemy rapper Chuck D has sold a huge stake of his back catalogue to his longtime publisher.
READ MORE: The Roots Of… Public Enemy
Reach Music has acquired 100 percent of the rapper’s writer royalties along with half of his copyright interest as a publisher.
The sale doesn’t cover the entirety of Chuck D’s output, but it includes over 300 songs including Public Enemy’s most formative work released between 1987 and 2012.
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During that period, Chuck D and Public Enemy released several classic albums, including ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’, ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ and ‘Apocalypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Back’.
Chuck D co-wrote most of Public Enemy’s songs during this period, including the likes of ‘Bring The Noise’, ‘Fight The Power’, and ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’.
“[D]oing this deal was the right timing for a forward and logical evolution of our business together in an ever changing industry,” Chuck D said in a statement via Rolling Stone. “Reach has always been ahead of the curve on establishing respect for the HipHop genre songwriting and publishing-wise, and they will continue taking care of my works.”
Chuck D follows a number of artists who have sold their publishing rights in the last couple of years most notably Bruce Springsteen who sold his masters and publishing rights to Sony Music in a combined deal worth around $500million (£377m).
Iconic musicians such as Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and Neil Young also struck similar deals.
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Dylan sold his music to Universal Music Publishing Group for $300 million (£226 million) while Young made a deal with Hipgnosis Songs Fund, who bought 50 per cent of the rights to his back catalogue for an estimated $150 million (£113 million).
Meanwhile, Chuck D recently joined Anthrax onstage for a performance of ‘Bring The Noise’.
Bruce Springsteen has a new album in the pipeline, according to Jann Wenner.
READ MORE: Bruce Springsteen – ‘Letter To You’ review: a powerful synthesis of past and present
The former Rolling Stone founder let slip that The Boss is releasing a new record in an interview about his new memoir Like A Rolling Stone with Billboard.
When asked about current pop and hip-hop music, he said: “There’s a lot of good stuff, and there’s a lot of trash and trivial stuff. Honestly, I don’t think it’s as good as [rock ’n’ roll]. I don’t think the singing is good, and I don’t think the arranging is good. Historically, it’s another turn in the cycle. Whether rock ‘n’ roll is going to come back – possibly not, because the sound is so different, and the circumstances are different. But I’m kind of stuck with the music I liked when I was young. Give me the Stones.”
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Wenner then added: “There’s a new Bruce [Springsteen] record coming out this fall, which is stunning. I’m listening to that.”
Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner in 2017. CREDIT: Jim Spellman/WireImage for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Despite announcing a world tour with the E Street Band in 2023 back in July, Springsteen has yet to reveal details of a new album. His last record was 2020’s ‘Letter To You’.
NME has contacted a spokesperson for Springsteen for comment.
Meanwhile, Springsteen will team up with Wenner later tonight (September 13) for a Q&A on Like A Rolling Stone at 92nd Street Y in New York. Tickets to the event are available here.
Elsewhere, Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau recently released a statement following criticism about the musician’s ticket prices for his forthcoming tour.
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The gigs, which will be The Boss’ first with the full E Street Band since 2017, are part of an extensive world tour that kicks off in the US between February 1 and April 14 before heading to Europe.
Any remaining tickets for the 2023 US arena gigs are available here.
Björk, Steely Dan, Ashley Hutchings, Herbie Hancock, Aoife Nessa Frances, Cat Power, The Ruts, The Fall, Lamont Dozier, Brian Auger and Brian Eno all feature in the new Uncut, dated November 2022 and in UK shops from September 15 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free 15-track CD of the month’s best new music.
BJÖRK: Returning to Iceland, Björk found herself putting down roots, reconnecting with her ancestry, losing her mother and becoming a grandmother. The result is Fossora – the final part of her own post-divorce pagan comedy that’s taken her from America, via heaven and hell, back to Reykjavík again. Stand by for revelations involving mushrooms, Icelandic obituary songs, headbanging and “punching dinosaurs in the stomach!” “I just wanted to land on planet Earth and dig my toes into the soil,” she explains to Stephen Troussé.
OUR FREE CD! BIG TIME SOUNDS: 15 tracks of the month’s best new music
This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.
Inside the issue, you’ll find:
HERBIE HANCOCK: From child prodigy to jazz colossus, Herbie Hancock has repeatedly revolutionised music. In a rare audience with the rockit man, he tells Graeme Thomson about his remarkable career, alongside giants including Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, and as a formidable solo artist in his own right. But what keeps this tireless innovator going into his ninth decade? “I like to be ahead of the curve,” he says. “I’m trying to make a curve!”
AOIFE NESSA FRANCES: Depressed and anxious following the release of her remarkable debut album Land Of No Junction in 2020, Dubliner Aoife Nessa Frances headed west to spend lockdown with her father and sisters in County Clare. Reinvigorated by the experience, she’s returned with a dark, dreamy and defiant second album, Protector. “Music is magic,” she tells Stephen Troussé as she leads Uncutthrough the landscape the record grew out of…
STEELY DAN: Fifty years ago, Can’t Buy A Thrill introduced Steely Dan’s impeccable brand of hipster logic – and the whip-smart songwriting partnership of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. To celebrate, Uncut has assembled a cast of Dan aficionados – including David Crosby, St Vincent, Paddy McAloon, Aimee Mann, Bruce Hornsby, JoanWasser and Lloyd Cole – to explore the band’s original run of unimpeachable studio albums. “They’re the American Beatles,” learns Graeme Thomson
LAMONT DOZIER: When Lamont Dozier died on August 8, 2022, we lost one of the chief architects of the Motown sound: a master craftsman who helped define popular music during the 1960s. Here Eddie Holland pays a moving, in-depth tribute to his friend and former collaborator – taking us from the factory floor at Hitsville USA during Motown’s imperial phase to revelations about more recent plans to revive the Holland-Dozier-Holland partnership. “Lamont, Brian and I were together so long, the relationship we had was beautiful,” he tells Nick Hasted. “I still don’t really want to think about him being gone.” Plus The Four Tops, The Chairmen Of The Board, Mick Hucknall and more salute Dozier’s songwriting genius.
CAT POWER: The inimitable Chan Marshall on turning 50, dogs versus cats, the “atrocity” of modern-day America and an encounter with “God Dylan”
THE RUTS: The making of “Babylon’s Burning”.
ASHLEY HUTCHINGS: The guv’nor of three key folk-rock groups guides us through his highlights
JOE STRUMMER:Strummer’s last testament, still testifying.
CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR
In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Brian Eno, Courtney Marie Andrews, The Comet Is Coming, The Unthanks and more, and archival releases from Joe Strummer, Pink Floyd, The Cure, and others. We catch the Connect Festival live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Flux Gourmet, Hallelujah, Strawberry Mansion, The Lost King and Hatching; while in books there’s Stuart Cosgrove and Stuart Braithwaite.
Our front section, meanwhile, features Sun Ra, Kid Congo Powers, Can’s Malcolm Mooney, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 & Myriam Gendron, while, at the end of the magazine, Brian Auger shares his life in music.
You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.
Taylor Swift has revealed a fifth edition of her forthcoming 10th studio album, ‘Midnights’, exclusive in the US to retail chain Target.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ short film highlights the emotional power of her storytelling
The album’s ‘Lavender’ edition is named for the pastel purple hue slicked over the title and tracklisting on its cover (as well as the left-side bar of the CD version’s jewel case). The CD will feature three as-yet-untitled bonus tracks, including one new song and two remixes. It’ll also come with a collectible lyric booklet that includes exclusive photos, and unique artwork on the disc itself.
The vinyl edition will also come with that booklet, as well as a full-size gatefold photo and an album sleeve with an additional two photos. The record itself will come pressed on a marble of pastel lavender purple and white, however the bonus tracks will not be included.
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The ‘Lavender’ edition of ‘Midnights’ comes as the latest effort in an ongoing partnership between Swift and Target – the retailer has released special editions of every album she’s released thus far, including the ‘Taylor’s Version’ remakes of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’.
3 bonus tracks on CD #OnlyAtTarget ? Preorder Taylor Swift's new album Midnights Target Exclusive Lavender Edition now: https://t.co/0taF5xTrOe #TSmidnighTS pic.twitter.com/LZg9t2Oyw2
— Target (@Target) September 13, 2022
Earlier this month, Swift announced the ‘Jade Green’, ‘Blood Moon’ and ‘Mahogany’ editions of ‘Midnights’, all of which sport exclusive colour schemes, artwork and imagery. While it’s not been said how many copies of each edition were made available, fans were only able to order them for a week after they were revealed.
Swift detailed ‘Midnights’ in the early hours of August 29, after making a surprise announcement at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards less than an hour earlier. While accepting the second of three awards she bagged on the night – Video of the Year for ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)’ – Swift revealed: “My brand new album comes out October 21. I will tell you more at midnight.”
In a poetic message shared alongside the album’s formal unveiling, Swift described ‘Midnights’ as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life”.
On what to expect from its themes, she wrote: “This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”
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‘Midnights’ will follow up on Swift’s two 2020 albums, ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore’, as well as last year’s re-recorded versions of ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’.
Meanwhile, Swift shared her ambition to direct films with “human stories about human emotion” during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). There, the star took part in an ‘In Conversation’ panel and screened her debut short film, All Too Well, on 35mm.
Asked if she wanted to direct feature-length films in the future, Swift said: “If it were the right thing, it would be such a privilege and honour. I will always want to tell human stories about human emotion.”
Yungblud has announced tour dates in North America for 2023 – find full details below and get your tickets here.
READ MORE: Yungblud: “This album is about reclaiming my name and humanising the caricature”
The musician released his third album, titled ‘Yungblud’ earlier this month (September 2), following his 2020 album ‘Weird!’.
His upcoming ‘Yungblud The World Tour’ is due to begin in Mexico City on October 10, before continuing next February in the UK.
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The UK leg of the tour will begin in Cardiff on February 16 at the Motorpoint Arena, with shows in Birmingham, Manchester and more to follow. On February 25, the tour will wrap up with Yungblud’s biggest headline show to date at the OVO Arena in Wembley, London.
The North American dates, meanwhile, start in Seattle on April 28, heading to cities including Austin, Miami, Toronto and Montreal, before finishing up in Kansas City on July 25. Tickets go on sale at 10am local time on September 16 and can be found here.
USA + CANADA UR UP! ?? ?? YUNGBLUD – The World Tour is coming. our biggest ever shows. i can’t wait to see you all. pre-sale starts Tuesday at 10am local time. onsale Friday 16th at 10am local time. what cities am i gonna see you in? ?https://t.co/P76S5qv0Kj pic.twitter.com/gh20mtB0cF
— YUNGBLUD (@yungblud) September 12, 2022
Earlier this week, it was announced that Yungblud had scored his second UK Number One album with his recently released self-titled LP.
After leading the charts in the midweeks, Yungblud secured the top spot on Friday (September 9), finishing above Harry Styles’ ‘Harry’s House’ (Number Two), Megadeth’s ‘The Sick, The Dying And The Dead’ (Number Three), Ed Sheeran’s ‘=‘ (Number Four), and The Weeknd’s ‘The Highlights’ (Number Five).
In a four-star review, NME described the new ‘Yungblud’ record as Harrison’s “most confident, cohesive album, which sees him fighting hate with understanding and love”, adding: “It’s a battle he knows he can win.”
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In other news, Yungblud recently performed a medley of songs on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. Alongside his band, he played an unexpected medley of three songs: Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’, Kanye West’s ‘POWER’ and The 1975’s comeback single ‘Part Of The Band’.
Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has told NME about how the creation of the band’s upcoming tenth album ‘Asphalt Meadows’ made them “feel like a new band”, while also revealing that one of the album’s tracks took 25 years to complete.
The band are releasing their follow-up to 2018’s ‘Thank You For Today’ this Friday (September 16) via Atlantic, and so far it has been previewed by the singles ‘Foxglove Through The Clearcut’, ‘Roman Candles’ and ‘Here To Forever’.
READ MORE: Ben Gibbard on his new Fender signature guitar – and how it’s influencing the new Death Cab For Cutie album
Work on what would become ‘Asphalt Meadows’ began prior to the pandemic, but Gibbard told NME that the opportunity that was given to the band to “get off the touring treadmill” during the COVID lockdowns changed the album they were making for the better.
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“I remember specifically saying to my wife, at some point in January 2020, ‘I just wish I had a year off’,” the singer recalled. “The band had intermittent things planned that year, but there were a couple of own goals I had [made] too. I booked a two-and-a-half week solo tour for virtually no reason other than just to do it, and social things started to really eat away at the year.
“So the very dim silver lining on such a terrible period is that it did give artists a lot of time to take a breath and get off the touring treadmill. That time definitely took me to some different places creatively that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise. I certainly don’t think we would have had the record that we have, I think for better, without this period.”
After living in what he called a “liminal” space between pre-pandemic life and the experience of lockdown, Gibbard told NME that “as [lockdown] extended longer my anxiety started to grow, and I didn’t really feel like writing”.
During that time Gibbard launched his ‘Live From Home’ livestream series, where he played songs from his own projects (as well as Beatles covers) in shows that were broadcast at the same time every day. Over the duration of the series, Gibbard raised over £200,000 for local COVID relief organisations in the Seattle area, as well as refreshing and revitalising his own creative process.
“I was just feeling so anxious and watching too much news,” Gibbard told NME of his headspace in the early pandemic before ‘Live From Home’ began. “I started doing these shows for altruistic reasons and because I thought people might enjoy them, but I had a selfish reason to doing them, too.
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“It gave me a sense of schedule and a sense of normalcy. During a time where nobody had to be anywhere, the fact that I had to be somewhere at 4pm every day – and that I gave myself the task of playing very different sets every day and making sure that I was touching a lot of material – gave me a real sense of purpose in that time when I felt like I was floating.”
Through playing old Death Cab material and covering artists who inspired him during the series, Gibbard gained a new perspective when looking to write what would become ‘Asphalt Meadows’. “For anybody who has been doing this as long as we have, there’s this delicate balance that you’re always trying to strike between the spirit and the sonics of some of the older material, while also trying to push in some new directions. But I also wanted the record to sound like Death Cab – I want us to sound like us.
“In revisiting a lot of the older material for those shows,” he added, “it gave me some newfound perspective, or a perspective I hadn’t really had in a while. I would say, ‘I really like this tune, maybe we should start playing it again’. Or, ‘Oh, this song has a cool twist in it. Maybe I should try to do something similar to that on a new song’. It just allowed me to be a little more full-circle when thinking about our catalogue.”
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (Picture: Erika Goldring / Getty Images)
Death Cab worked on ‘Asphalt Meadows’ with producer John Congleton, who Gibbard said he “immediately fell in love with” having been introduced by the band’s keyboardist Zac Rae in summer 2021. “John was somebody we’d always been kicking around about doing a record with,” Gibbard told NME, saying that the band were “quite far down the road” with making ‘Asphalt Meadows’ with an unnamed British producer before “COVID and creative differences slowed down that idea”.
Meeting with Congleton while he was in Seattle working with Tegan and Sara, Gibbard said the pair struck up an immediate friendship: “One of those fast friendships where you’re just kind of finishing each other’s sentences. I was just immediately completely taken with John. Sometimes the path you start on doesn’t end up being the path you take, but the path that you do take ends up being a far better one than your original plan. And that was certainly the case when working with John.”
As well as changing producers, Gibbard also set himself and his bandmates a challenge when writing the album. “When I was writing early in lockdown, I felt like I was repeating myself a lot,” he explained. “My hands were going to similar places on instruments, and I just wanted to break out of the lyrical holes that I was falling into.”
To break out of this rut, Gibbard came up with an MO for the record, where at the start of every week the band would pick out each of the five members’ names in a random order. From there, the member assigned to Monday would create a piece of music, which they would then pass on to the next member for Tuesday, and so on.
“By Friday,” Gibbard explained, “we’ve all had 24 hours with the song to do our bit, and when you had the piece of music you had complete editorial control. If it got to Dave [Depper, guitarist] on Wednesday, and he didn’t like the tempo, or he didn’t like the drum bit, he could just take it away or make something new. The goal was that we wanted to try and write the best songs possible. It wasn’t a case of everybody individually saying, ‘I’m going to shine with my cool guitar part on this one day!’ Everything was very deliberate in a way that we’ve never done before.”
Through this new process of working, Gibbard told NME that he learned more about his bandmates and that Death Cab now “feels like a new band” to him: “It feels like we’re just starting to cap the potential of this particular line-up.”
The anchor of the record is their stunning recent single ‘Foxglove From The Clearcut’, a post-rock-influenced hammer blow that began life over 25 years ago. Gibbard explained that, before the pandemic, he found and uploaded to his computer a host of four-track master tapes that he had recorded between 1996 and 2002, stumbling upon an unfinished instrumental track from ‘98.
“I was like, ‘That’s kinda cool actually!’,” he recalled to NME. “I made a loop of the drum, bass and guitar parts that I had recorded for it. It had a very ‘90s indie rock vibe to it. I thought to myself, ‘I’m just gonna try talking over this. I’ve never done a song where there’s been a spoken-word narrative’. One of the reasons that this song feels like such a tentpole for the record is that it’s quite literally the synthesis of the origins of this band and where we are now. If you’re trying to kind of harness the sonics of where you started and where you are now, that was just a perfect happy accident where those things can exist together.”
Of the song’s impact on him and ‘Asphalt Meadows’ at large, Gibbard added: “There really is no more introspective way to create music than to finish a thought you’d had 25 years ago. It’s literally finishing a thought. I remember when I was having memories of writing this piece of music, and I’d just sit in my house in Bellingham with a four-track and some shitty mics. I remember being disappointed that I never did anything with that, because I really liked that.”
In the song, Gibbard’s spoken-word performance positions him as the narrator telling the story of a man “who used to live by the ocean but never set foot in the sea”. After completing the song, the frontman realised that, in fact, he was both narrator and protagonist.
“When I’m writing, the characters are usually pretty flushed out, and I can see their faces,” Gibbard told NME. “But with ‘Foxglove’, I literally saw myself as the narrator standing next to somebody, but that person’s face was blurred out. I know this is very esoteric, but in my mind’s eye writing that song I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a person I’m writing about, and they’re all backlit or blurry, I can’t see who they are’.
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie performs during the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Picture: Getty)
“Then,” he added, “I started to realise that it’s definitely me. Perhaps it’s because of the gap between the beginning of this composition and now, there was me at two different places in my life and I was speaking to myself after I’d had a long journey.”
Through unconscious revelations like these and deliberate attempts to shake up their creative writing process, mystical magic flowed through the creation of ‘Asphalt Meadows’ that can be keenly felt across the record.
“The longer you do this, you’re going to hit a point where you’re starting to either repeat yourself or write yourself into a corner,” Gibbard said. “You have some songs that you’re very proud of, but you think, ‘Jeez, I don’t know what else I have to say!’
“These moments of creative transcendence become fewer and far between, but when they do happen, it’s an incredibly powerful and life-affirming moment. You think, ‘I love that I do this for a living. I love that. This song took 25 years to get to me. That’s fucking beautiful, you know’.”
Death Cab For Cutie will tour the UK and Europe in spring 2023. See the full list of gigs below, and find tickets here.
JUNE 2023
1 – Fabrique, Milan 2 – X-Tra, Zurich 5 – Den Grå Hal, Copenhagen 6 – Filadelfia, Stockholm 7 – Sentrum Scene, Oslo 9 – Columbiahalle, Berlin 10 – 13, Tilburg 11 – Paridiso, Amsterdam 12 – E-Werk, Cologne 14 – De Roma, Antwerp 15 – Atelier, Luxembourg 16 – Salle Pleyel, Paris 18 – Rock City, Nottingham 19 – Bord Gais Theatre, Dublin 21 – O2 Institute, Birmingham 22 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh 23 – Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow 25 – Apollo, Manchester 27 – Dome, Brighton 29 – Royal Albert Hall, London
Taylor Swift has shared her ambition to direct films with “human stories about human emotion” during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The star took part in an In Conversation panel at the festival yesterday (September 9) and screened her debut short film, All Too Well, on 35mm.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ short film highlights the emotional power of her storytelling
Asked if she wanted to direct feature-length films in the future, Swift said: “If it were the right thing, it would be such a privilege and honour. I will always want to tell human stories about human emotion.”
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According to The Hollywood Reporter, the pop star went on to reference female directors including Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally), Chloé Zhao (The Eternals) and Greta Gerwig (Little Women) as influences on her behind the camera. “It’s really beautiful that we’re in a place where the idea of a female filmmaker doesn’t make you roll your eyes or think as sceptically as it once was,” she said.
?| @TaylorSwift13 about the red scarf
"is a metaphor… and… stop" pic.twitter.com/VbjiSVPT8Q
— The Swift Society (@TheSwiftSociety) September 10, 2022
Swift also spoke about where her desire to direct came from, saying: “It wasn’t like I woke up one day and I was like, ‘You know what, I want to direct’,” she said. “I didn’t go to film school. I’ve been on the set of around 60 music videos and I’ve learned a lot from that process.”
The musician added that working on her music video for ‘The Man’ by herself was when she “really began to learn everything because you have to”.
At another point during the In Conversation session, Swift was asked about the infamous scarf from the lyrics of All Too Well. “I walked through the door with you / The air was cold / But something ‘bout it felt like home somehow / And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house,” Swift sings in the song’s first verse.
The scarf has become something of a cultural artefact, but, as the star explained at TIFF, the version of it in the song “is a metaphor”. “We turned it red because red is a very important colour in this album, which is called ‘Red’,” she said.
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Meanwhile, last month (August 28) Swift announced details of her next original album, ‘Midnights’. After initially confirming the record was on the way while collecting the award for Video Of The Year at the MTV VMAs 2022, the musician unveiled the artwork, title and release date of October 21.
The 1975’s Matty Healy has denied that the band will feature on the record after an image purporting to contain the tracklist circulated online. “I would love that!” Healy responded to a fan. “But unfortunately FAKE NEWS :(.”
Madison Beer recently spoke to NME about the difficulties she’s faced as a young woman in the music industry, standing up for herself and her work, and why she’s inspired by Billie Eilish. Watch our full interview with Beer below.
READ MORE: Madison Beer on the cover: “I have a voice and it deserves to be heard”
The singer-songwriter had previously spoken out about speaking out after not receiving co-production credit for her work on the music video for her track ‘Baby’.
“Even if I still have to shout to be heard, I am heard and that’s enough,” she said. “I know what I deserve, I know what I worked for, what credit I should be given. I think that’s also another topic of misogyny in the industry.”
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Beer added: “I think that women get discredited a lot and undermined for their intelligence and their ability to do things the same way men can. I definitely always want to fight for the producing credit or the directing credit or whatever I did on tour because I think it’s important for people to see a woman’s name in those titles, so they can know you indeed can do the same thing.”
When asked who she felt in the industry was doing a great job of creating change for artists, Beer mentioned Eilish and her brother Finneas as examples.
“The first person who comes to mind is Billie Eilish, because I think the topics she touches on in her music are so prolific,” she said. “She speaks about things that a lot of other artists don’t and are maybe afraid to, which is valid because we’ve all been conditioned to be afraid of speaking about certain things.”
Beer added: “What her and Finneas have created is really incredible and I really look up to them. They are two people I am very glad to see at the top because there are some who aren’t the best and who don’t stand for the right things, and I think [they really do].”
Madison Beer, shot for NME by Jonathan Weiner.
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The singer also pointed to Eilish’s track ‘Your Power’ as an example of using your voice in the industry, pointing to the track’s subject matter of abuse of power and gaslighting.
“A song like, ‘Your Power’ that’s a difficult song to write and I think the fact that she did that and the fact that she fought for it to come out as one of her singles probably wasn’t an easy sell, especially to her label,” Beer told NME. “I’m sure she had to fight for that to come out, that’s awesome. She also directs her own videos, everytime I watch one of her videos and see ‘directed by Billie Eilish’ I’m like, ‘that’s my girl’.”
Last month, Beer played Reading & Leeds for her first time, and prior to the performance, she said she was “really excited about”.
“I’ve heard it’s awesome,” she said. “I hope I fit in, I hope everyone likes it. I’m a bit nervous [as] I feel like there’s a lot of way cooler people than me on the line-up, so I’m like ‘do I fit in here!’, but hopefully it’ll be fun.”
Kacey Musgraves has shared a new documentary on the making of her album ‘Star-Crossed’ to celebrate its first anniversary.
READ MORE: Kacey Musgraves – ‘Star-Crossed’ review: a powerfully honest depiction of heartbreak
The singer’s fifth studio album came out a year ago tomorrow (September 10, 2021) and the new 14-minute documentary follows the creation of the record.
Star-Crossed: Making The Album teams studio footage of Musgraves making the album with her collaborators and interview footage of her discussing specific songs and the themes behind the album.
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Check out the new documentary below.
Reviewing ‘Star-Crossed’ upon its release last year, NME said: “This record, with its varied sounds and brutally honest lyrics, never finds Musgraves shying away from the uncomfortable. It’s an intricate project – the record also comes with an accompanying 50-minute film – that could collapse under the weight of its concept. Bolstered by its author’s frank pen, though, and instilled with a sense of hope, it’s a powerful listen.”
After the album’s release, ‘Star-Crossed’ was embroiled in controversy after the record was deemed ineligible for the Best Country Album award at the 2022 Grammys.
Musgraves had submitted her recent album for Best Country Album category, but it was deemed to be ineligible because of how much it leaned towards pop. The singer seemingly responded to the news on Twitter after the nominations were announced, writing: “You can take the girl out of the country (genre) but you can’t take the country out of the girl,” alongside a picture of herself in a country outfit as a child.
Then, Recording Academy Chair Harvey Mason Jr. spoke to Billboard about this year’s categories and responded to a question which asked why they have “[removed] works, including those from Kacey Musgraves and Brandi Carlile, from the genres in which they were submitted and re-slotting them elsewhere.”
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When Mason Jr. was asked: “Why shouldn’t an entry stay where the label or the creator of the work thinks it belongs?”, he responded by saying genre categories are not straightforward.
“You’re seeing genre lines blurring,” he said. “You’re seeing people switching from song to song as to what [their music] sounds like.
Stewart Copeland has said that he “started crying” when he saw Taylor Hawkins’ son Shane drum ‘My Hero’.
READ MORE: Taylor Hawkins, 1972 – 2022: Foo Fighters drummer who always stole the show
The 16-year-old got behind the drums with the Foo Fighters to perform the 1997 hit, which he previously performed in tribute to his late father in July, at Wembley Stadium last weekend.
The former Police drummer, who performed a cover of ‘Next To You’ and ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ with Dave Grohl and co at the tribute concert, said he was overcome with emotion when he saw Shane get behind the drums before the concert.
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Copeland told CBS This Morning: “It is very emotional to be here and perhaps the most emotional moment of this whole thing, because we’re all staying in one big hotel together and laughing it up, talking about Taylor and enjoying the brief time he was with us, all too brief.
“But the most emotional moment for me was at sound check a couple of days ago here and to see young Shane Hawkins on the drums. I started crying. He’s got it. He’s got such power, enthusiasm. He’s got his father’s stance, musical language. That was really emotional to see young Shane up there.”
Shane later played the track at the tribute show after a photo of him and his dad was shown on the big screen as the young drummer kicked off the performance of the 1997 single. With Grohl cheering him on, Shane finished the song with a blistering solo.
The special concert also saw the likes of Liam Gallagher, Nile Rodgers, Kesha, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson and more honour the late Foo Fighters drummer.
Korean-American singer and rapper Jessi has announced shows for her upcoming tour in Europe.
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On September 6, Jessi took to Instagram to unveil details of her forthcoming European tour, which will take place in five cities next month. The tour is set to kick off on October 8 in Berlin, before heading to London, Paris, Oberhausen and wrapping up in Barcelona.
Ticketing information for each stop of the tour can be found on the Instagram accounts of each organisers, as detailed in Jessi’s post. See the full list of Jessi’s upcoming European tour dates:
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October 2022 08 – Berlin, Verti Music Hall 10 – London, Troxy 12 – Paris, Casino de Paris 16 – Oberhausen, Turbinenhalle 19 – Barcelona, Razzmatazz
