Hallo everybodee!! We are Scorpions band!! And we are back!! Yes!! it’s true!!
We have a new album called Rock Believer!! It comes out Friday!! Thank you!! It is our second studio album since we promised to retire a decade ago!! Because that was all a big fat lie!! Yes!! We will never stop as long as there is another dollar to be milked from the bloated, smelly corpse of our once-proud career!! You know it!! Rock on!! And yes, I know that last statement was a mixed metaphor!! But you get the idea!! Of course you do!! Thank you!! But back to Rock Believer!! It will have two kinds of songs: The fast ones that try to rock you like a hurrah-cay-eene!! And the slow power ballads for making the smoochee!! Because those are the only kinds of songs we can write!! This is also true!! Along with being liars, we have been creatively bankrupt for many years now!! Yes!! Thank you!!
But perhaps you do not want to do the rocking or make the smoochy!! In that case, here are some other albums coming out next week!! But don’t buy them!! Just buy our album!! Because this time, we really are going to retire!! No, seriously!! I swear!! Oh, I know you don’t believe me!! And I do not blame you!! No!! But please, just buy our album anyways!! Hair plugs and striped spandex pants don’t pay for themselves, you know!! And remember, you can make the smoochy with our album!! Think of the smoochy!! Thank you and goodnight from Scorpions band!!
Robert Glasper
Black Radio III
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Robert Glasper is a premiere example of musical aptitude and a proven champion of Black music — boasting nine Grammy nominations and four wins, plus an Emmy Award. In 2012, Glasper delivered his album Black Radio that hit the scene as the first album in history to debut in the top 10 of four different genre charts simultaneously: Hip Hop R&B, Urban Contemporary, Jazz and Contemporary Jazz. The feat was repeated by Black Radio 2. For Black Radio III, Glasper cements his legacy as producer, curator and cultural icon. These collaborations range from the most powerful voices in contemporary black music (Killer Mike, Ty Dolla $ign, D Smoke, PJ Morton) to the most important lyricists and performers of the past 30 years (Jennifer Hudson, Ledisi, Common, Gregory Porter, Musiq Soulchild, India.Arie). Black Radio III is also a statement for these times. It is Glasper’s most direct statement of the frustration and opportunity of a world disrupted by social change. It is at once beautiful, powerful and innovative.”
Johnny Marr
Fever Dreams Pts 1-4
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Johnny Marr started his career with The Smiths, beginning an amazing history as one of the most influential songwriters and guitarists in British independent music. His subsequent solo career has given rise to three hit albums — The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and 2018’s Call The Comet — and his most expansive work to date, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. It was created during the long, uncertain period that followed the arrival of the U.K.’s first lockdown, when his focus was pushed into both his interior life, and evoking the emotional states of others. “It’s an inspired record, and I couldn’t wait to get in and record every day,” he says. “But I had to go inwards.” The upcoming album reflects his multi-faceted past, but takes his music somewhere startlingly new. “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing – really since getting out of The Smiths,” he says. “And I hear it in this record. There are so many strands of music in it. I think it’s the most ambitious solo record I’ve done.”
Eamon McGrath
Bells Of Hope
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “In these trying times, we could all use a little hope. Continuing on a path first forged by 2018’s critically acclaimed Tantramar album and the lauded followup Guts in 2019, Eamon McGrath unveils Bells of Hope, the third in a trilogy of releases defined by an ever-evolving and maturing sound by the road-hardened, working class Canadian musician. For Bells of Hope, McGrath moves in an ambient direction, incorporating sonic influences as diverse as Talk Talk, Brian Eno and Alice Coltrane into his familiar palette of rock and country-laden Canadiana. While not only shedding the guitar-forward technique which characterized the McGrath of the late 2000s and 2010s, but also the doom and gloom of his last two albums, this new decade brings to light an artist who leaves no sound unexplored and no idea off-limits. McGrath also shines a light on some of his most treasured relationships built from a decade spent on the road. Some of Canada’s most glowing talents collaborated with McGrath on Bells of Hope, including Julie Doiron, Miesha Louie and Joyful Joyful’s Cormac Culkeen. In this digital world, Eamon McGrath represents the most analog form of artistry.”
Nobro
Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Montreal outfit Nobro’s new EP Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar offers seven new searing examples of scorched-earth rock ’n’ roll. Working once again with producer Thomas D’Arcy (July Talk, The Sheepdogs, Yukon Blonde), the main job of Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar, mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Dave Schiffman (Vampire Weekend, Adele), is to harness Nobro’s raw power with heavy doses of fun and flair. That’s brilliantly displayed on standout tracks such as first single Better Each Day, Eat Slay Chardonnay and Not Myself, the last created with Juno nominee Terra Lightfoot. Call them punk rock if you like, but its long-held perceptions are just some of the things Nobro are here to challenge — in the loudest and most exciting way possible.”
Spiritualized
Everything Was Beautiful
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “During lockdown last year, J Spaceman would walk through an empty “Roman London” where the world was “full of birdsong and strangeness,” trying to make sense of all the music playing in his head at the time. The mixers and mixes of his new record weren’t working out yet. Spaceman plays 16 different instruments on Everything Was Beautiful which was put down at 11 different studios, as well as at his home. He also employed more than 30 musicians and singers including his daughter Poppy, long-time collaborator and friend John Coxon, string and brass sections, choirs and finger bells and chimes from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Eventually the mixes got there and Everything Was Beautiful was achieved. The result is some of the most live-sounding recordings that Spiritualized have released since the Live At The Albert Hall record of 1998, around the time of Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space.”
Superchunk
Wild Loneliness
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Like every record Superchunk has made over the last 30-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows. On Wild Loneliness you hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What A Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. Because of Covid, Mac, Laura, Jim and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others.”
Swamp Dogg
I Need A Job...So I Can Buy More Auto-Tune
THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Fifty years after the album Total Destruction To Your Mind introduced Swamp Dogg to an unprepared world, Jerry Williams brings us I Need A Job… So I Can Buy More Autotune. A spiritual successor to 2018’s Love, Loss and Autotune, this album continues to push Swamp’s sonic exploration of the effect as one of his many creative weapons. In the extended tradition of Total Destruction, Swamp Dogg’s LP neatly balances sleek modern production techniques with that classic Dogg sound that has anchored Williams’ music since the ’70s. Subtle yet soulful drumming, skin-tight horn grooves and meandering funk guitar leads create a sonic landscape fitting Swamp Dogg’s iconic croon, occasionally drenched in the titular Autotune. At 78, Swamp Dogg is as sharp of a singer and songwriter as ever. His raunchy yet charismatic sense of humor takes a more forward role on I Need a Job…, with earnestly delivered lyrics about all day sex and an entire song dedicated to the perils of cheating in the daylight. I Need a Job… does more than prove that Swamp’s still got it; it proves he’s still getting better.”
