All posts by msmith

Welcome Strawberry – “Desperate Flower”

Welcome Strawberry will release their new album Desperate Flower at the end of the month, and I already have a feeling it’s gonna be soundtracking a lot of my beach days this summer. So far the Oakland dream pop/shoegaze band have shared “Violets & Honey” and the lead single “Memory Cube,” the latter of which we named one of the Best Songs Of The Week. Today Welcome Strawberry are sharing Desperate Flower‘s final single, which just so happens to be its title track and is also quite good. It has a nice melodic jangle inspired by bands like Apples In Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel, but with a whole lot of guitar feedback and reverb. And at nearly five minutes long, it can easily put you in a very pleasant trance if you let it. Check out “Desperate Flower” below.

Spokesman For Fake Band The Velvet Sundown Admits He Is A Fake Spokesman

The plot has thickened tremendously. Yesterday Rolling Stone ran an interview with Andrew Frelon, a guy who claimed to be a spokesperson and “adjunct” member of the Velvet Sundown, a “band” made with AI whose songs have now garnered over a million streams total on Spotify. In that phone interview, Frelon admitted to orchestrating an “art hoax” with the Velvet Sundown, explaining: “It’s trolling. People before, they didn’t care about what we did, and now suddenly, we’re talking to Rolling Stone, so it’s like, ‘Is that wrong?’” What is wrong, at least in my humble opinion, is tricking Rolling Stone into interviewing you; turns out that’s what Frelon did. According to his blog and the Velvet Sundown’s Spotify bio, he’s not actually affiliated with the project after all.

Watch Lana Del Rey & Addison Rae Sing Together At Wembley Stadium

Fresh off a debut album that’s better than you might expect, rising pop phenom Addison Rae opened for Lana Del Rey, one of her clear influences, at London’s Wembley Stadium tonight. She kicked off her seven-song set with the live debut of Addison highlight “Money Is Everything” — the one on which Rae sings, “Wanna roll one with Lana/ Get high with Gaga.” A couple songs later, “Summer Forever” also got its live debut. During the headline set, Del Rey brought out Rae and together they did “Diet Pepsi” again, and “57.5,” the still-unreleased Spotify-referencing song debuted at Stagecoach. Lana also did “Venice bitch” for the first time in a couple of years. This was the first stadium performance of Addison Rae’s career. Check out footage below.

Liam Gallagher Apologizes For Posting Racial Slur

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Liam Gallagher, ever the internet poster, came under fire July 1 after tweeting a slur mocking East Asian people. When some fans pointed out that the slur was racist and that he shouldn’t use it, the frontman of Oasis — who are finally beginning that big reunion tour this Friday — initially pushed back. “Liam [you’re] gonna get cancelled today,” one user wrote about the slur, to which he responded: “Whatever.” When someone asked him what the word meant, he said: “It’s an ancient thought process get on it.”

Stream Empty Country’s Surprise New Live Album Live In NYC

Y’all need some good heartland-indie rock for your July 4 weekend? Of course you do. Empty Country, the newer project of former Cymbals Eat Guitars leader Joseph D’Agostino, opened for fellow Stereogum-beloved rockers Los Campesinos! back in May at the Brooklyn Monarch. It was an excellent show. Turns out D’Agostino had the whole Empty Country set taped, and now he’s releasing it as a surprise album called — you’re never gonna believe this — Live In NYC. It doesn’t officially drop until midnight tonight, but we have an exclusive stream of it for you lucky readers below.

Disiniblud – “Disiniblud”

Allegra Messina

In March, composers and multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith announced their joint project called Disiniblud. They shared two tracks from the upcoming eponymous album, and now they’re back with a self-titled song.