Autogramm can’t play by your rules, Suck rediscover their metallic roots, Show Me The Body work it out, Lick Drop feel faint, Ludovico Technique would like a hug — and the fun is just beginning in a decidedly bizarre Midweek Roundup. Don’t say I didn’t warn you:
1 | Autogramm | No Rules
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Autogramm, the synth-driven power-pop trio from Vancouver, premiere the video to the title track single from their upcoming sophomore album No Rules, due out April 16. The video is a shot-by-shot recreation of Billy Joel’s ’80s MTV masterpiece Sometimes A Fantasy. It features lead vocals from drummer The Silo (Destroyer, Spun Out, Black Mountain, Lightning Dust), who notes: “I’m an enthusiastic dancer. Skilled? No. But I love to dance, and this song is an ode to my relationship with dancing: Flex abandon, enter the void! It’s one of my favourite things to do. I don’t believe there are any rules in dance, apart from not hurting anyone else or infringing upon their personal space. It might seem weird to begin a song called No Rules with two rules, but it’s kind of like a snake eating its tail, no? No rules for no rules, including the absence of rules.”
2 | Suck | Hell and Heaven
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This single was written and recorded last year at the beginning of the Corona crisis. The band were shocked to realize that all plans about playing live and touring were put on hold. Also, writing new songs for the upcoming album was difficult due to that weird and uninspiring situation. Hell and Heaven was a musical outbreak and an escape. Mostly written and recorded in one hell of a night. It’s a homage to ’80s thrash metal and the big four. Metal music was part of every member’s past, so Hell and Heaven also felt like coming home.”
3 | Show Me The Body | Survive
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “New York City’s Show Me The Body are back to announce their forthcoming EP Survive. The three-track project, self-produced alongside Gabriel Millman and Patrik Berger (who has worked with a wide range of artists from Robyn to Refused) and mixed and mastered by extreme music mainstay Arthur Rizk, is set to arrive on March 19. To coincide with the announcement the band is also sharing the lead single and video from the project: Survive.”
4 | Lick Drop | Faint
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “London duo Lick Drop reveal their explosive new track Faint, taken from the upcoming EP Harmonic Transmission, due later this year. In Faint, Lick Drop bring you into their hyper world of trippy madness. The band say: “Taking you on a journey through the hyper realms of our minds, Faint is a personal story of losing ourselves to the void of monotony in the modern world. We need to be aware of our emotions and our perception of time deteriorating, especially during this pandemic.”
https://youtu.be/oliHhM4ud3k
5 | Ludovico Technique | Embrace
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Ludovico Technique have just released the single Embrace, accompanied by a video. This is the third single from their forthcoming full-length album Haunted People. Bringing his dark mystique to goth industrial metal, Ben V-, along with his band Ludovico Technique, showcase a thoughtful depth and complexity unmatched by many bands. Ludovico Technique are the very embodiment of the Gothic aesthetic in its purest form and their new single reflects that. Originally, the band drew inspiration from goth industrial bands such as Skinny Puppy. Now they have added glimpses of Type O Negative and Rob Zombie to their unique take on goth-industrial metal.”
6 | Eyes | Live At The Royal Danish Academy Of Music
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Twisted Copenhagen hardcore mongers Eyes present a live session video, filmed from a performance at the Royal Danish Academy Of Music. Lead singer Victor Kaas states: “Frederik Brandt Jakobsen approached us and asked if we wanted to do a live session and told us that he’d gotten access to the legendary Studio 3 at The Royal Danish Academy Of Music, an old former DR Radio studio used by the likes of Miles Davis. We had just done another session at Angry Music Studios, but we really couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. We decided on a more subdued form of performance.”
7 | Spirit Of The Beehive | The Server Is Immersed
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Spirit Of The Beehive’s new album Entertainment, Death is out April 9, and here’s the next single from it. Accompanied by a video cut up and edited by the band’s Zachary Schwartz, The Server Is Immersed is the Philadelphia shape-shifters at their most accessible and relatable via a track that digs into the monotony of the day-to-day inspired by Schwartz’s food-industry day job.”
8 | Francis Lung | Bad Hair Day
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “my new record miracle is coming out June 18. it was written during a period of my life where it felt like i needed a miracle just to function from day to day. of course these days many of us are praying for some kind of miracle to magically return us to normality, but this isn’t what my record is about. lyrically, miracle is a document of a time when i was asking myself a lot of questions: “when was the last time i felt happy? is it my fault that i feel this way? am i doing it to myself?” i don’t really have any answers to these questions, but it felt cathartic to acknowledge them in these songs, and i hope that listening to them will feel cathartic if you’ve been questioning yourself lately too.”
9 | Solstice Rey | Mountain
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Solstice Rey is a 24-year-old singer-songwriter in Philadelphia. Drawing influences from artists like Michael Jackson, Purity Ring, Rihanna and many more, Solstice aims to create a new sound of music, something that her fans can relate to. Her new track Mountains is debuting today.”
10 | Sam I | Shake (ft. Alex Greenwald)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Sam Spiegel just released Shake — a hypnotic new single and video featuring Phantom Planet’s Alex Greenwald. It follows his 2020 debut solo album Random Shit From the Internet Era (feat. Sia, Busta Rhymes, Anderson .Paak, Doja Cat & more). Sam previously collaborated with Wu-Tang Clan, Kanye West, M.I.A., Childish Gambino, David Byrne, George Clinton, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lykke Li and produced artists like Lizzo & Crystal Castles as well. Working with his brother, Oscar-nominated film director Spike Jonze, Sam scored Jonze’s Yeah Right!, Pretty Things and Drew Barrymore’s Whip It.”
11 | Caleborate | Contact (ft. Kota The Friend)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Caleborate just shared Contact, featuring Kota the Friend. The mellow, lyrically powered cut is off the upcoming album Light Hit My Skin, out March 26. Mixing ’90s alternative, classic 2000s rap, electro-pop and beyond, to Caleborate “this album is about feeling feelings that black men aren’t usually allowed to feel … it’s about pursuit, within the context of this sort of new American dream.”
12 | Moral Collapse | Denier Of Light
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Moral Collapse is the brainchild of Arun Natarajan (Eccentric Pendulum), Sudarshan Mankad (Infamy) and the inimitable Hannes Grossman (Obscura, Necrophagist, Blotted Science). The project came about during the early days of the pandemic-induced lock-down in the two countries with a dead-set intention of writing forward-thinking death metal music that perfectly blended the ferocity of the old-school sound with the eccentricity of modern jazz and free-wheeling, avant-garde music. Previously pegged for a late 2020 release, the group had to rework its release schedule given the unfortunate continuance of the pandemic.”
13 | Six Degrees | The Power of Love
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Italian groove metal band Six Degrees released their debut album No One Is Innocent in November. The album’s closing track is a cover of one of the band’s favorite movie themes: The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and The News. Luca Correnti (guitar and vocals) adds: “What more could we say about this song? Everyone knows it! There is no person on earth who has not seen Back to the Future! It has always been one of my favorite adventure movies. When Marty gets on stage for the audition with his band (Pinheads) and the talent scout says “I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud … next, please!”, I always get angry! I wish I was there to smash the guitar on his head!”
14 | Yaya Bey | Fxck It Then
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Things I Can’t Take With Me is the newest release from multidisciplinary artist and singer-songwriter Yaya Bey. The self-produced, six-track EP follows her last album, 2020’s intimate and political Madison Tapes, and searches the deeply personal and refreshingly honest truths of Black womanhood and love. The first single Fxck It Then radiates as an affirmative anthem for rediscovering your shine, reminding everyone that Yaya Bey “ain’t average.” It’s accompanied by a video directed by Morgan B. Powell. “The video was a true labor of love,” Bey said, describing the visuals as “an ode to hood joints.”
15 | K-Riz | What A Shame
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Edmonton hip-hop artist K-Riz is sharing the video for What a Shame, one of the many highlights from his EP The Room, due in late 2020. About his part in the dissolution of a past relationship, the track captures the artist’s power as an agile lyricist and swoon-inducing R&B crooner. Directed by JDats, The Room’s producer and a frequent K-Riz collaborator, the video wades through the stages of a breakup, while visualizing the heartfelt regret behind the track. K-Riz says: “It’s about wanting to take responsibility for relationships breaking down. Rather than making a song about being a victim, I wanted to own my wrongs.”
16 | Real Estate | Half a Human
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The past year of lockdown and self-isolation might just be the longest time that the band Real Estate have ever spent off the road and away from each other, but today they announce a new EP of their most intuitive and interconnected music to date. Out March 26, Half a Human is a collection of six songs created between two different worlds. The song has long been a staple of Real Estate’s live set, a loose and epic jam they loved playing in front of a crowd, but Martin Courtney originally wrote the lyrics about the alienation of life on tour. No one could have expected that hanging in cheap hotels and parking lots, wandering overpasses and desolate roads would soon become such nostalgic pastimes, and as a sense of formless uncertainty continues to dominate our days, the disconnect that inspired the song now feels uniquely suited to the current moment.”
17 | Braids | Young Buck (DJ Python Remix)
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Braids start 2021 with a Young Buck remix from renowned New Yorker DJ Python. His take on the lead single from their most recent album Shadow Offering is hypnotic, throbbing and intoxicating. Amid this year-long pandemic struggle, it is time to reclaim dancing and expressing ourselves. “Upon receiving DJ Python’s remix of our track Young Buck, my pining for the dance floor kicked in. I pulled my car over to an empty parking lot and turned the volume up as far as it could go. Alone beside the concrete barriers of a now desolate shopping mall, I was reminded of bodies beside bodies, of a night that you never want to end, of sweat, of joy. For a moment I was transported from my new and uncomfortable reality: distanced, living through a pandemic, to memories streaming behind my closed eyes, of a life lived prior, and one that will be lived again.”
18 | Scream3Days | The First and the Last
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Melodic death metal outfit Scream3Days have released the lyric video for the track The First and the Last, taken from their critically acclaimed album Rhesus Negative.”
19 | Gilli Moon | Fire
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Award-winning Australian singer, songwriter, producer, and community builder Gilli Moon has finally revealed Beautiful Mess, Vol 2. The eighth studio release for the artist, it comes in the form of two double albums, for a total of 24 songs. The majority of songs are self-penned, but feature a few co-writers, and a couple of incredible covers done her way. Watch her new video for Fire.”
20 | Piers Faccini | Foghorn Calling
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “British-Italian artist Piers Faccini released his new single Foghorn Calling, the latest to arrive from his forthcoming album Shapes Of The Fall, due for release on April 2. Featuring collaborations with Ben Harper and Abdelkebir Merchane, Shapes Of The Fall is Faccini’s seventh album in a career spanning over 20 years and collaborations with the likes of Rokia Traoré, Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal. Watch the new animated video for Foghorn Calling, created by Piers using charcoal sketches.”
21 | Lea Porcelain | Ohio
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Berlin alt-rock duo Lea Porcelain announce their second studio album Choirs To Heaven, due May 21, and share new single Ohio. The song is soaked with the duo’s original post-punk grit, but with added lyrical and sonic maturity gained from the last two years of recording and personal introspection. Talking on the song, the band say: “Ohio is the story of two lovers who in a future scenario see the end coming and want to spend it together any way possible. The lyrics are inspired by Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem Ohio from her book A Hunger. The general feeling of the song is as longing as it arousing. There is a certain feeling of apocalypse in the air that gets disappointed by the silence of the now and eagerness of tomorrow.”
22 | Stéphane Blok | Feuilles
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Stéphane Blok’s new album Poèmes De La Veille comes out March 19. The video for the single Feuilles arrived today.”
23 | The Jonah Medal | Septembering
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “How far does someone need to travel, over how many years, to find what they’re looking for in the faces, names and sounds of the home they left so long ago? What answers are there to be found on the long road back to oneself? These are the questions Wicklow songwriter Bjorn Baillie asks with his debut single Septembering, released under the name The Jonah Medal. Baillie says “The song is about being in the middle of the mid-life storm. You’re pulled every which way by the younger who need and rely on you, and the older who need you for a whole other set of reasons. I like the word September as a metaphor for middle-age. You’re no longer in your Spring-youth :). So being in your 40s is Septembering.”
