Archives: August 2020

Braids’ new album Shadow Offering is officially OUT NOW via Secret City Records. They’ve already premiered a bunch of amazing tracks from the album — “Eclipse (Ashley),” “Young Buck,” and “Snow Angel” — but now the band have given us the vide of “Here 4 U” (watch that below).

This is the opening track of their new album, and the band have shared the inspiration behind the song : “’Here 4 U’ is an oldie in our books. The original demo dates back four or five years, written while Austin and I spent a few months snowbirding in Los Angeles. It was one of the first songs we wrote for “Shadow Offering”, but the last we finished. We nearly lost this one on the cutting room floor, but in finding the album’s identity in the final weeks of mixing, so too did this song. In a way, it encapsulates the process of making this record – bursts of excitement and exploration, stretches of self-doubt, long days, long months, and the blissful self-discovery of finding our voice for this album. 

OUT NOW – Big Wild just released his Touch (Reworks), a new EP reimagining the multi-millions-streamed single “Touch” that UPROXX called “a perfect summer soundtrack.”  In addition to the original arrangement of “Touch,” the five-track collection features remixes by disco outfit Poolside and Australian duo Hermitude, a killer remix of the track in Spanish featuring Sotomayor.

The EP also features a stripped-back Analog Session of the track performed live by singer-songwriter-producer Jackson Stell and two of his Big Wild bandmates, Haley Johnsen (vocals, bass) and Maddie Rice (vocals, guitar).  Inspired by months that Stell spent separated from his wife during long stretches on tour, “Touch” captures feelings of loneliness, longing, and the euphoric rush of finally returning to the arms of a loved one. 

After releasing two stellar singles “Body Pump” and “Warrior” Aluna delivers the goods yet again. This time with the help from her friends Princess Nokia and Jada Kingdom on her new single “Get Paid” – a feel-good dancehall summer jam with an important message about striving for equality.  She also confirmed the release of her debut solo album Renaissance out on August 28th viaMad Decent also featuringcontributions from SG Lewis, KAYTRANADA, Rema, and more.

One half and front-woman of the internationally renowned duo AlunaGeorge, the critically acclaimed singer, songwriter and performer has stepped out on her own for this album with Mad Decent. Also, last month, she penned a powerful open letter to the global dance community – READ IT HERE.

Get Paid’ “is an aspirational celebration about black women and women of color getting paid, in opposition of the reality that we are consistently undervalued for our work. …this is a song about believing we deserve to get paid because as society keeps telling us we are worthless, we internalize that notion, which is almost more damaging because it stops us from advocating for ourselves.”  – Aluna

ICYMI – Eyedress has released his new album, Let’s Skip To The Wedding, alongside a bunch of great videos this month. Check out the track “Jealous” below, and a recent live version of “Can I See You Tonight?” that was featured on a Brain Dead x NTS live stream here.

Eyedress is the alias of Filipino artist Idris Vicuña, formerly lead guitarist of psychedelic indie/noise-pop band Bee Eyes. Born in 1990 in the city of Makati, Philippines. Vicuña relocated to the US with his family at the age of 6. He was raised in Phoenix, Arizona before moving to San Clemente, California at the age of 13, where he started playing bass in a Crass-influenced crust-punk band.

This is the follow up to 2018’s Sensitive G, where he relocated from Manila to Los Angeles, and shortly after was sharing stages with acts like Homeshake, Omar Apollo, Enjoy, Jasper Bones, N8NOFACE, and B Cool Aid. During his time in America, Eyedress has become a frequent collaborator with streetwear brands such as Brain Dead, X-Girl, HUF, Born x Raised, and more.

This is first album he’s created since moving to the United States. A passionate exploration of the themes of love, settling down, adjusting to life in a new city, and preparing to welcome a child into this ever changing world. Let’s Skip To The Wedding channels the uncertainty of 2020 into an eclectic collection of songs and loved up remedy for the times.

Andrea Silva used to sing at funerals. Something about that bittersweet spectacle—as both a celebration of life and a gathering of grief—has never quite left her music. But that was years ago, when Silva was still a child growing up in Bogotá, Colombia, long before she moved to Los Angeles to escape the slut-shaming she endured in high school. Now, she makes music under the alias Loyal Lobos. She’s traded funeral hymns for synth-pop arrangements. And she’s found a way to marry the tough blow of a life left behind with the freedom that starting over allows.

On Everlasting, this freedom isn’t wasted. Silva refuses to fit into the sometimes narrow mold of singer-songwriters in the U.S., where a handful of women dominate a scene Silva once called, aptly, “very American and very white.” She tinkered with their sparse folk-rock on her 2018 EP The Fall before abandoning the limits of that genre for something else entirely: an ambitious, bilingual record that hops between influences, echoing the liminal state that comes with being a 26-year-old immigrant in America. Everlasting slips into this uncertain space and manages to thrive not in spite of it, but because of it.

Doing so meant letting go of some of Americana’s starry-eyed trappings. Some can still be heard on the album’s first single, “Criminals,” which balances the sad nostalgia of a time before meeting your platonic half with the addictive promise of their newfound love. When Silva’s voice swarms to the heavens, singing, “I’d kill for you,” it invokes a teenaged lust to evade the world’s rules together, her fingerpicked riff scoring the getaway. But on the rest of Everlasting, it sounds like Silva’s done running away from reality. Nearly a year after the longing “Criminals” was released, she’s leaning into herself more and opting for fun as an antidote to trauma. It’s a new kind of safeguard, heard in the whimsy of the album’s percussive pop elements—a surprise that only begins to make sense upon hearing that Silva landed Shawn Mendes’ hitmaker, Teddy Geiger, as her executive producer. – Pitchfork

Sampa The Great just dropped her striking new video for “Time’s Up” and announced a partnership with the Narrm (Melbourne, Australia) based therapy practice Pola Psychology designed to shed light on the struggles experienced by African youth in accessing culturally safe, appropriate, and responsive mental health care.

“The labour put on marginalised people to have to address systemic racism every day means more trauma and pressure on our mental health and emotional state. I’m partnering with Pola Psychology a Naarm (Melbourne) based therapy practice to make sure African youth/musicians can access culturally appropriate mental health care in their own community, by their own community. At a time like this, it’s important to let my friends and the wider African community know that this support exists and our health matters.”