In March, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett confirmed that a new Gorillaz album was arriving this year. Since then, the band has announced a House Of Kong exhibition and some shows in London. In a new interview about the exhibition, which opened yesterday, the group hinted at new music again.
Secret Chiefs 3 were slated to open for the Budos Band on some North American tour dates, but that’s no longer happening. The experimental rock group has been inexplicably kicked off the bill, which has led to some confusion.
Bob Dylan is working on something. So far this year the legendary singer-songwriter contributed to Barbra Streisand’s duet album and announced the new Machine Gun Kelly LP, and now we’ve received news that earlier this week he spent some time in the studio.
The longstanding San Francisco music festival Outside Lands returns to Golden Gate Park this weekend, and the action will be beamed directly to your screen. Starting today, performers including Tyler, The Creator, Vampire Weekend, Doechii, Beck (with a symphony!), Doja Cat, Hozier, Anderson .Paak & the Free Nationals, Gracie Abrams, BigXthaPlug, Mannequin Pussy, Bleachers, Big Freedia, and many more will take the stage, broadcasted worldwide in a through Prime Video and Amazon Music’s Twitch channel.
Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week. The eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight. You can hear this week’s picks below and on Stereogum’s Favorite New Music Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly. (An expanded playlist of our new music picks is available to members on Spotify and Apple Music, updated throughout the week.)
“Start Up A Rumour,” the latest single from producer-songwriter Sam Gellaitry, sounds like boogying in a Lite-Brite. The synth-heavy track is an effervescent bop — an immediate add to your summer dance playlist. But “Start Up A Rumour,” isn’t as pleasant as the breezy claps and Daft Punkian-swing might lead you to assume. The single hinges on quintessential summer melancholy that bubbles under the surface, reckoning with necessary relationship obstacles.
Electronic duo Real Lies are back with “Let The Lips Fall Where They May,” their first new song since their third album We Will Annihilate Our Enemies that came out in April. “Let The Lips Fall Where They May” is a sleek ode to London summers. “Give my warm regards to spring/ It’s nothing personal, but this change is everything,” vocalist Kevin Lee Kharas admits, his city taking on a radiant aura in the warmer months.
Earlier this year, Lucy Dacus released Forever Is A Feeling, her first solo album since she broke through to true mainstream fame as a member of boygenius. Right now, Dacus is touring North America, and she’s got a lot going on. She’s officiating fans’ weddings onstage. She joined the Killers at Osheaga. She served as a surprise guest at the Las Culturistas Culture Awards, where she sang Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.” Now, she’s releasing a couple of new songs and changing the cover art of Forever Is A Feeling. In the streaming era, you can do that.
You have to live some life to write like Alexandra Levy. Some musicians come out with a new album because it’s been a few years since the last one, but the songs on when i paint my masterpiece — the multi-disciplinary artist’s new album as Ada Lea, out today — seem to have emerged out of necessity. The album strikes a difficult balance in that it feels like an outpouring of Levy’s heart and soul but is also carefully considered at every turn. Not that it’s a perfectionist project; the music is pleasingly loose and shaggy, and Levy sings like a real human being rather than a cursive-voiced machine. But you can tell how much thought went into the lyrics, the arrangements, the sequencing.
