Archives: October 2020

Aesop Rock, one of hip-hop’s most enduring and illuminating talents, has shared a second video/single leading into the release of his new album Spirit World Field Guide via Rhymesayers. His new video for single “Pizza Alley” picks up where “The Gates” video left off, pulling viewers deeper into a broadening narrative that is rife with unhinged and hallucinatory imagery and animations, an apt parallel to the song’s lyrically labyrinthian titular world. The visual was directed by Aesop’s longtime collaborator Rob Shaw, with illustrations by Justin “Coro” Kaufman, who also designed the album’s art and packaging.

Spirit World Field Guide, arguably the most expansive and ambitious work in the verbose MC/producer’s storied career, is a concept album of sorts; a guide to an upside-down world revealed across 21 insightful chapters of firsthand know-how of the terrain, wildlife, and social customs of our parallel universe. The world explored on the album bears a lot of similarities to our own, especially in its current state. The free-floating anxiety, the looming existential dread, the paranoia and suspicion that define our moment? It’s all familiar turf for Aesop. The path through the Spirit World is the path to freedom, and while Aesop will show you the way, he won’t hold your hand.

On the heels of their just-released and widely celebrated album Free Love (Loma Vista Recordings) Sylvan Esso has announced FROM THE SATELLITE, a fall virtual concert series that will take place on October 20, November 17 and December 1. Each full concert will feature a different theme – FROM US, TO YOU, and WITH LOVE respectively. Each night will be totally unique from the others, with a few surprises thrown in along the way. Tickets are available now including a three-show concert pass. https://noonchorus.com/sylvan-esso/ 

FROM THE SATELLITE is the latest illustration of how Sylvan Esso has met this moment; finding new and highly creative ways to bring the excitement of a new album to their fans. Beloved as a live band, just last fall Sylvan Esso sold out multiple nights at the Beacon Theater in NYC and Disney Hall in LA, and was slated to host Bonnaroo’s Super Jam this summer. Sylvan Esso will bring the same level of energy, care and collaboration online this Fall.

Sylvan Esso – From The Satellite Virtual Concert Series       

Each concert begins at 9PM Eastern Time 

October 20 – FROM US 

November 17 – TO YOU

December 1 – WITH LOVE

Tickets: https://noonchorus.com/sylvan-esso/ 

Today, Atlanta-based emcee Sa-Roc drops her long-awaited Rhymesayers Entertainment debut album, The Sharecropper’s Daughter. Produced by Sol Messiah, the fifteen track effort displays Sa-Roc’s crafty wordplay and razor-sharp delivery, as she brings poignant, socially conscious and uplifting messages to the forefront. The Sharecropper’s Daughter is peppered with a powerful cast of guest features, including Black Thought, Saul Williams, Styles P, Ledisi, and Chronixx, as well as one guest producer, Evidence, who made the beat for “Deliverance.”

“I’m super proud of this album,” revealed Sa-Roc in a September 28 interview with AllHipHop. “I’m excited about the content of it. It’s especially timely because it talks about the cycle of injustice we experience in this country. The cycle of emotional baggage in genetic transfer of that emotion… how it frames our perspective and what we can do to reshape a legacy and future for ourselves outside of that trauma and pain we inherit from history, our ancestors, our elders.”

Sa-Roc heralded the release of The Sharecropper’s Daughter with several stunning music videos, including “r(E)volution,” “Deliverance,” “Goddess Gang” and “Forever,”which has surpassed 4.3 million views on YouTube. She gave a resounding performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk (Home) series this June, stepping up to the moment with what NPR described as “[P]rotest music for the uprising of the American consciousness.” Tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, Sa-Roc will celebrate The Sharecropper’s Daughter with a live listening party, complete with live performances, special guest appearances, and real-time fan Q&A. See below for more information on this free streaming event.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” says Low Cut Connie frontman Adam Weiner. “I just wanna do it. First take, right outta the box, hit record, just GO. Everything with this record was a big mess, but that’s what I wanted it to be. I wanted this cinéma vérité approach with no filter, no script, just raw emotion in the voices of these characters. I wanted to capture real moments and make a kind of pure connection…straight to the heart.”

That “straight to the heart” approach has been Weiner’s battle cry throughout this year, and with both PRIVATE LIVES, Low Cut Connie’s wild new double-album, and the band’s ‘TOUGH COOKIES’ livestream series, Weiner lands a direct hit. Exploring the discord and alienation between our inward and outward-facing selves, the 17-track collection is as empathetic as it is ambitious, giving voice to the losers and loners and outcasts who live their lives beyond the spotlight, who stay isolated on the fringes of society without glory or credit.

In what plays out like a series of short films, Weiner’s characters speak directly to the audience, delivering a sequence of candid, revealing monologues. The narrators here are late shift workers, single parents and starving artists, sex workers, gutter punks, and forgotten senior citizens. They’re ordinary folks just looking for escape and connection in a society riddled with bad faith and broken promises. Rather than romanticize their struggles, though, ‘Private Lives’ dignifies them, painting rich, nuanced portraits of the kind of modern American lives that all too often are ignored or misunderstood.

Ultimately, liberation is what Low Cut Connie is all about: liberation from doubt, liberation from insecurity, liberation from loneliness. It’s easy for this world to leave you feeling like a freak or a weirdo or a misfit these days; ‘Private Lives’ is a reminder that we all belong.

Tel-Aviv based artist Noga Erez shares the next in a series of game-changing singles leading into her mysterious second album (details yet to be announced). “You So Done” and its striking accompanying video are out now via City Slang.

Following the sparkling sass of “VIEWS” and buy sporanox online upbeat lockdown anthem “NO news on TV”, Noga Erez and her collaborative partner Ori Rousso’s latest offering “You So Done” has been highly anticipated online since appearing on NBC’s Good Girls earlier this year. It sees Erez shift from outward looking political themes, opening up for a stirring track about rejection, toxic and emotionally violent relationships, and ones own inner violence.

Erez has created a reputation for the captivating videos that accompany her songs, and this latest video sees her step it up a level yet again. Her third collaboration with Tel Aviv-based director Indy Hait, the clip sees Erez as a puppet in a dystopian future, being violently flung to-and-fro by an unknown captor.

In the five years since Will Butler released his debut album, Policy, he’s toured the world both solo and as a member of Arcade Fire, released the Friday Night live album, recorded and released Arcade Fire’s international #1 album Everything Now, earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard, hosted a series of touring town halls on local issues (police contracts, prison reform, municipal paid sick leave, voting rights), and spent time raising his three children. He also found the time and inspiration to write and record a new album, Generations. Check out his new single “Bethelem” and watch it’s incredibly rocking video HERE!

“My first record, Policy, was a book of short stories,” Butler says. “Generations is more of a novel—despairing, funny, a little bit epic… A big chunk of this record is asking: What’s my place in American history? What’s my place in America’s present? Both in general—as a participant, as we all are, in the shit that’s going down—but, also extremely particularly: me as Will Butler, rich person, white person, Mormon, Yankee, parent, musician of some sort, I guess. What do I do? What can I do? The record asks that question over and over, even if it’s not much for answers.”