Speaking to NME earlier this year (after winning the Best Festival Headliner Prize at the VO5/NME awards, no less), Muse frontman Matt Bellamy let it on the band’s plans for the new tour. “We’re going to do the biggest tour and just blow people’s minds with stuff they’ve never seen before. We’re going to come up with something that no one’s ever seen before”, he said.

“We’re always interested in the latest technology and what’s cutting edge, so we’re always thinking of the new thing that nobody’s ever used before in a concert. And we found something and we’re going to use that.”

In other news, the Devon band just yesterday released the music video for ‘Pressure’, the third track off their upcoming studio album, Simulation Theory. A tongue-in-cheek parody of Back To The Future, the Lance Drake-directed short features an appearance from Terry Crews, who’s best-known for his role in the comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Out on November 9th, Simulation Theory will be Muse’s first full-length release since 2015’s Drones, a 1984-style concept album about social indoctrination and the societal implications of emerging technology. With production from LA-based Rich Costey (known for his work with Sigur Rós and Foster The People), Mike Elizondo (Nelly Furtado and Pink), Swedish-born Shellback (Pink, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears) and hip-hop luminary Timbaland (Jay-Z, Ludacris, Madonna), the eleven-track release will see the band continuing their experimentation with ’80s sounds. The ’80s vibe has spread to the visuals, too: the album’s striking artwork features a Tron/Star Wars-style design from Kyle Lambert, who did the posters for Stranger Things and Jurassic Park.

Simulation Theory – out November 9th

Their first studio collaboration, ‘Tried’ is the product of longstanding mutual admiration between the two, with Little Dragon singling out the jazzers’ “raw sweaty energy” for special praise. In a statement, BADBADNOTGOOD discussed the new track. “We’ve all been big fans of Little Dragon for years, and had a chance to play some shows and hang out with them recently, which eventually led to this collaboration. They’re a truly captivating and unique group of musicians, and we’re really excited to share this song with them and hope to work together again in the future!”

BADBADNOTGOOD are one of the most technically proficient groups around today. All highly trained jazz musicians, the founding members met at a college music programme in Canada back in 2010 – Matthew A. Tavares on rapid-fire keyboards, Alex Sowinski on drums, Chester Hansen on bass and new addition Leland Whitty on saxophone, flute and guitar.

BADBADNOTGOOD – IV

Unafraid of experimenting and crossing musical boundaries, BADBADNOTGOOD are renowned for their futuristic fusion approach, which mixes the classic stylings of Miles Davis with funk, hip-hop and electronica. Their last studio album, IV, came out in 2016 and featured appearances from rappers Mick Jenkins and Sam Herring, as well as the Haitian-born DJ Kaytrananda. Listen to the title track below:

Meanwhile, Little Dragon’s last LP, Season High, was released last year, and saw the group increasing their experimentation with soul. Hear the lead single, ‘High’, below.

Taking its name from the Floyd’s 1968 second album, the supergroup features Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp on guitar and lead vocals, ex-Floyd touring member Guy Pratt on bass and and producer-songwriter Dom Beken on keys. See the itinerary below and purchase tickets here from 10am this Friday.

04/29/2019 –  St David’s Hall – Cardiff
04/30 – Friars Aylesbury  – Aylesbury
05/01 – Cambridge Corn Exchange
05/03 – Roundhouse Theatre – London
05/04 – Roundhouse Theatre – London

Unlike most Floyd tribute bands (and, indeed, the performances of his ex-colleagues David Gilmour and Roger Waters), Mason’s group focusses on Pink Floyd’s more neglected early career, including songs from albums like The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Saucerful Of Secrets, More and Obscured By Clouds.

Speaking to Billboard earlier this year, Mason described the unexpected difficulties of re-learning their early material. “Being an eternal optimist, I thought it would just come straight back to me. Sadly, I was wrong. Once you start examining Syd’s [Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd’s first frontman] work carefully it’s quite often more complex than you expect”, he said.

Before achieiving their commerical breakthrough with 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd’s music was more rooted in psychedelic rock – especially under their erstwhile leader, Syd Barrett, who wrote every song bar one on their debut album.

By the start of the Summer of Love, though, Barrett began to distintegrate. Reportedly dosed daily with LSD, his behaviour became too bizarre – and occasionally violent – for his bandmates to handle. Following the release of their second album in 1968, Barrett was forced to leave the group. In an interesting turn, Nick Mason and co will appear at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, where Barrett gave his last ever public performance in 1972.

“[Syd’s work] is not necessarily written like so many pop songs with an eight-bar section and the middle eights and whateverIt’s quite often a completely different set of bar counts to what you’re expecting. And that in a way was fun and challenging to get at the feel of the song, but not necessarily feel that we had to sound exactly like Syd or like David or whatever.”

Absent of the stadium polish of his contemporaries, Mason’s group embraces the loose, improvisatory feel of the Floyd’s ’60s outings. “I think we found a niche for ourselves, which is to do something that is not being done by everyone else, by the tribute bands or by Roger or David. It’s a real return to some of the improvised sections and the atmosphere of the songs. The tendency in this day and age is to try and recreate things perfectly. We bring imperfection.”

As with the 50th anniversary release of Sgt. Pepper last year, all the double LP’s thirty tracks have been remixed into 5.1 surround sound by Giles Martin (the son of The Beatles’ producer George Martin) and engineer Sam Okell using the original master tapes, stored in the vault of EMI’s Abbey Road since 1968.

Committed Beatlemaniacs can get the ‘Super Deluxe Edition’, which will contain all 27 of the ‘Esher demos’, fifty alternate takes (some of which were never released) and a 164-page book of rare photos, handwritten lyrics and essays. See the trailer for the re-release below:

Ahead of the big day in November, The Fabs yesterday released three versions of ‘Back In The USSR’, a classic Paul song written as a parody of The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry: the 2018 remix, the Esher demo and the previously-unreleased Take 5. You can stream and download the tracks here.

Hailed by some as The Beatles’ masterwork, The White Album marked a total 180 for the group after the psychedelic excesses of Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Most of the album’s tracks were written on acoustic guitars in India, where the group were on an extended meditation course with their one-time guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the founder of Transcendental Meditation).

Whilst the group’s 1967 releases were driven by Paul and George Martin, The White Album was more the brainchild of John Lennon, who envisioned the work as ‘anti-Pepper’. Many of the songs have a stripped back, almost lo-fi feel, with the band dropping exotic instrumentation, orchestras and choirs in favour of simple arrangements and direct lyricism. Particular highlights of the album include ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’.

Crucially, though, the album was an omen to The Beatles’ eventual breakup the following year. Yoko Ono was now almost a half-member (with or without the approval of Paul, George and Ringo), John was getting hooked on heroin, and George was increasingly reluctant to accept his subordinate position to John and Paul. Worn out by the tense atmosphere and inter-Fab sniping, Ringo even walked out of the sessions for two weeks to go on holiday to Sardinia.

In a colourfully immersive press release, the Lennon estate asks us to imagine (no pun intended) ourselves present at the sessions. ‘It’s night. It’s the last week in May in 1971 and you are their special guest, sat in a chair in the very center of the their recording studio, Ascot Sound Studios. John Lennon is sat in front of you, teaching the musicians one of his latest compositions. He is talking and singing and playing the same wood-finish Epiphone Casino electric guitar he played on ‘Revolution’.’

‘A bearded George Harrison is in front of you, to the right, playing electric slide on John’s pale blue Fender Strat… Directly behind you to the right, John and George’s old friend Klaus Voormann is playing his deep hand-painted Fender Precision bass. Behind you to the left, Alan White (who would later join Yes) is playing his Ludwig silver sparkle drumkit, and in front of you to the left, John Tout from Renaissance is playing chords on the Steinway upright piano, and to his right, Nicky Hopkins is improvising on the red-top Wurlitzer Electric Piano, literally days before he leaves for Nellcôte to play on Exile on Main Street with The Rolling Stones. You are listening to the band playing ‘How Do You Sleep’ and all the hairs are standing up on your arms.’

Above and beyond any of the merits of its music, ‘How Do You Sleep?’ is notorious in Beatle circles as a vicious personal attack on John’s ex-songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. The track was Lennon’s response to a series of digs left by Paul in his last two solo records, McCartney and Ram. Lennon took particular offense at the lyrics of Ram‘s opening track, ‘Too Many People’, in which Paul complained of John’s ‘preaching practices’ and ‘going underground’.

But while Paul’s attacks were more oblique, ‘How Do You Sleep?’ was obvious to anyone paying attention. ‘The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you’re gone you’re just another day’, John sings – ‘Those freaks was right when they said you was dead/The one mistake you made was in your head’.

The new footage comes ahead of the October 5th release of the Imagine boxset, a six-disc anthology that will take fans across the making of the album in a series of outtakes, interviews, writings and demos. You can pre-order the boxset here.

Delta – out November 16th via Gentlemen on the Road/Glassnote Records

Recorded at Church Studios in London with Paul Epworth, Delta is set to be “a moving collection of songs perhaps more intimate and expansive…than ever before” that “draws on the shared experience of being on and off the road”.

Coming ten years after their formation, the album will be the band’s first release since 2015’s  Wilder Mind, a pop-influenced record which saw the Mumfords dropping their classic folky-acoustic rhythms in favour of electric guitars and synthesisers.

In an interview with DJ Annie Mac, frontman Marcus spoke about the new release. “I think at the beginning [of recording] we kind of fell back in love with the old instruments we didn’t play on Wilder Mind like the acoustic stuff and the more folky instruments but [we were] conscious [of] how we can make these instruments sound not like these instruments, which opened up a whole new world for us.”

Paul confirmed that the film (which has been out of official circulation for over thirty years) will be re-released on DVD/Blu-Ray, but maybe with a new twist. “I tell you what I think it’s gonna happen. I think there may be a new version of it. That’s kind of the latest gossip. There’s a lot of footage, and the original movie came out, and it was really sort of about the break-up of The Beatles. And so for me, it was a little sad, the movie”, he said.

Originally filmed in early 1969 by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the documentary has become infamous for its often painful portrayal of The Beatles’ final release. The group had planned the Let It Be project to be a back-to-basics return to their fifties’ roots, doing away with the intricate production of George Martin and healing the wounds of the turbulent White Album sessions of the previous year.

But amidst John Lennon’s infatuation with Yoko Ono and his heroin-induced withdrawal from the group, relations reached a new low. One notorious scene in the film showed a tense argument between Paul and George, with the Quiet Beatle venting his ill-concealed frustration at Paul’s sometimes domineering approach. “Whatever it is that will please you, I’ll do it“, George says.

According to Paul, though, the original documentary was too much on the negative side. “I know people [who] have been looking at the [unreleased] footage; there’s about 56 hours of footage. And someone was talking to me the other day and said: ‘The overall feeling is very joyous and very uplifting. It’s like a bunch of guys making music and enjoying it’, you know. So I think there is some talk about making a new movie, re-editing it from the same period, from the same footage. We can make a new film out of it. So who knows, that may be happening in a year or two.”

Paul is in Quebec for the first stop of his ‘Freshen Up’ world tour, which kicked off last Monday. Unfortunately for British fans, though, all the UK dates have sold out.

Del Rey confirmed the plans in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show. Speaking about the new release, she said that the proceedings were more fun than usual. “Working with Jack [Antonoff, co-producer and ex-Bleachers member], I was in a little bit of a lighter mood because he was so funny. So the title track is called ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’ and it’s kind of about this guy who is such a genius artist but he thinks he’s the shit and he knows it and he like won’t shut up talking about it. So often I ended up with these creative types or whatever, and you know, they just go on and on about themselves, and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah.””

“But there’s a little bit of merit to it also. They are so good. I just like the title track so much that I was like, “OK, I definitely want the record to also be called that”, she added. Norman Rockwell was a renowned 20th-century American artist known for his realist illustrations of everyday life. They graced the front cover of The Saturday Evening Post for over fifty years.

Ahead of next year’s release, Del Rey released the track, ‘Venice Bitch’, as a teaser single. Nearly ten minutes long and packed with blissed-out sunny guitars, the psychedelic song was not initially popular with her more pop-minded bosses. “I played it for my managers and I was like, “Yeah, I think this is the single I want to put out.” And they were like, “It’s 10 minutes long. Are you kidding me? It’s called ‘Venice Bitch.’” Like, “Why do you do this to us? Can you make a three minute normal pop song?” I was like, “Well, end of summer, some people just wanna drive around for 10 minutes get lost in some electric guitar””, she said.

Father John Misty: Live At Third Man Records – out September 28th via Third Man Records

The album was recorded in September last year at Third Man Records’ Nashville HQ. ‘On an otherwise ordinary Tuesday afternoon’, Tillman/Misty swung by and ‘surprised [them] all with a lunchtime solo acoustic set before his sold-out Ryman Auditorium performance.’

As is typical of White’s love of vintage tech, the album was recorded direct-to-acetate (acetate being a type of record mainly used from the 1930s to the ’50s) with a ‘1955 Scully Lathe, warmed at the ready to capture the occasion’. Misty began his set with the ‘debut performance of his newly penned “Mr. Tillman”’, with Third Man’s engineers using ‘the second song as an opportunity to carve a 12” on-the-spot single of “Now I’m Learning to Love the War”’ – ‘which was promptly handed it to a lucky attendee for safe keeping.’

‘If you want to know more about that, you’ll have to scour the depths of FJM’s fan net.’ See the tracklist below:

Tillman also has three UK dates coming up next month. Purchase tickets here and see the itinerary below:

10/28 – Portsmouth Guildhall – Portsmouth
10/29 – De Montfort Hall – Leicester
10/30 – Bath Forum – Bath

Speaking to NME in February, frontman Ricky Wilson said that the band are taking a more open-ended approach to recording after the “pop-friendly” stylings of their last release, Stay Together. “The cards are looking up. We’re writing, we’re always writing. We’re touring, we’re always touring. We’re signing a new deal. We’re making another record. When it comes out, we’ll do the rounds saying that it’s the best one ever – like we always do.”

“We’ll see where the writing goes,” he added. “We don’t go in with an agenda, we don’t come out with one. They just keep letting us do it, so we do it.” Their sixth full-length release, Stay Together saw the Leeds quintet swapping the overdriven guitars for soothing synths and pop crooning to warm reviews from critics.

In support of the new release, the Chiefs have also announced a big run of UK dates. Starting in January of next year, they’ll be making their way through some of the country’s biggest venues. See their itinerary below and pre-order tickets here:

1/24/2019 – Barrowland – Glasgow
1/25 – O2 Academy Newcastle – Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1/26 –  Uni Mountford Hall – Liverpool
1/28 – Engine Sheds – Lincoln
1/29 – Sands Centre – Carlisle
1/31 – King George’s Hall – Blackburn
2/1 – O2 Apollo – Manchester
2/2 – O2 Academy Birmingham – Birmingham
2/4 – Venure Cymru – Llandudno
2/5 – Pavilion – Bath
2/6 – Hexagon – Reading
2/8 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
2/9 – Victoria Hall – Stoke
2/10 – UEA – Norwich
2/12 – Corn Exchange – Cambridge
2/13 – Rock City – Nottingham
2/15 – Uni Great Hall – Exeter
2/16 – Guildhall – Southampton
2/17 – Cliffs Pavilion – Southend
2/19 – Winter Gardens – Margate
2/20 – De La Warr Pavilion – Baxhill