After taking the drug the teenager fell ill and was taken to hospital where he unfortunately died. The teenager’s parents called for a ban on under 18s attending future festivals. As part of an ongoing inquest into festival safety Festival republic managing director Melvin Benn said that it would be “very unlikely“ that an under 18 ban would be implemented, instead he proposed that “the festival will operate a drugs operation aimed at weeding out dealers and having them removed from site“.

New additional measures of high security have also been implemented in response to the teenagers death, these new measures include on site support hubs, beefed up security staff, sniffer search dogs on every entrance, all of which of course aim to reduce the risk of death to attendees who intend to imbibe illicit substances. Benn elaborated further explaining that “the intention is that no camper is 200m from a support hub“.

In recent years, despite its illegality, the reality of recreational drug uses relationship with music festivals has been reluctantly acknowledged but ultimately accepted by festival organisers, the official Reading and Leeds website even states that: “We do not recommend you take drugs, but if you do please bear the following in mind” on its drug policy page.

Practical precautions started to appear in the mid 2010s with the introduction of drug check kits distributed by British non-profit organisation The Loop in an attempt to reduce harm to drug takers. However despite the existence of progressive benevolent precaution providers like The Loop, according to The Guardian at least 14 younger people aged 18 or under have died as result of taking illicit drugs at a music festival, a statistic that points further towards the need for honest and open drug education and awareness instead of inspiring endless debates that subject those that willingly choose to use drugs to supplementary stigmatisation.

On a lighter note last month Reading and Leeds festival confirmed that The 1975 would be the events final headliners after Lewis Capaldi dropped out. This years other headliners include Billie Eilish, The Killers, Foals, Imagine Dragons and Sam Fender. Other acts also included in this years line up are Wet Leg, Steve Lacy, Bicep, Becky Hill, Central Cee and many many more. Reading and Leeds Festival takes place on 25th-27th of August 2023.

On a somewhat sombre note Styles, sat alone at his piano, peacefully plinked away as though he were at in a world one his own. Addressing the audience in English Styles spoke with immense gratitude,“I’d like to say thank you to a couple of people, and then we’re gonna give you some more music”, thanking members of the road crew as well as his band before continuing in Italian saying that “Tonight we will give you 100%. Then it will be time to rest. For me. I am tired, but happy. Very tired, but very very happy. I want to to have as much fun as possible” A visibly emotional Styles also thanked his family “for the way you’ve supported me over the last thirty years”.

In a video of the final performance audible sobbing can be heard coming from the swathes of smitten fans, weeping along to the glitter coated singers piano plucked swan song, the mood is melancholic and the tune is mediative giving off a ‘don’t be sad that its over be happy that it happened’ kind of vibe.

Having persevered through pandemic pauses, perhaps it comes as no surprise that Styles chose to conclude the two year long world tour in Italy, in an interview with Apple Music’s hipster in chief Zane Lowe. Styles spoke an emotional experience of self discovery, finding peace and relaxation away from the prying eyes of the public on a solo road trip to Italy during the brief break between the lifting of lockdowns. Reflecting upon his road trip of self imposed solitude; “I relaxed a lot and felt like no one knew where I was and felt like a human being and felt very small in a good way”, Styles drawls softly, his voice vibrating with hints of a pseudo-transatlantic accent.

The Love On Tour also saw Styles invite opening band Wet Leg on stage to perform a Harry Stylish rendition of the band’s omnipresent ear-worm “Wet Dream” off of their eponymous debut LP.“It has been the most wonderful, wonderful tour, getting watch them play every night” he gushed before introducing the band in Portugal. This wasn’t the first time Styles and his band had performed their rendition of Wet Leg’s song, having already performed it as part of their set for Radio One’s Live Lounge.

Meanwhile Madame Tussauds have hatched a fresh batch of seven wax mannequins in honour of Harry’s…style? So it would seem, each wax figure depicts the singer donning one of his iconic outfits. The seven Styles have been shipped out across the globe, doomed to an eternity of exhibition halls, destined to be gawked at by gangs of giddy girls (and guys) for the remainder of their wretched wax lives.

Amidst the wheeze of idiosyncratic synth leads, gooey bass parps and skittish yet hyper-danceable polyrhythmic drum programming, AFX manages to conjure one of his most delicate melodies to date, at times it even sounds as if RDJ’s synthesised and re-pitched his own voice, embedding himself within the tracks groove as though he were an audible apparition haunting ear drums from beyond the rave. The singles cover artwork (as well as the EP) was created in tandem with frequent AFX collaborator Weirdcore. The digital sleeve depicts what appears to be a mosaic of Menger Sponges festooned with Aphex Twin’s legendary logo.

The release of “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f” came after a slew of opaque online occurrences that were ostensibly orchestrated by the Cornish musician. Earlier this year what began as message board murmurings and group chat rumours of a headline appearance at Field Day Festival 2023 were confirmed when a new website entitled 190823.co.uk popped up online.

Curious Aphex acolytes who clicked the web link were rewarded with a wash of undulating pixels dribbling down their screens before morphing into a digital poster adorning the illustrious Irish ‘IDM’ composers iconic ideogram (7\) confirming him as one of Field Day Festival’s co-headliners alongside fellow British beat-mangler Bonobo. Warp Records divulged further, posting a nine date UK/EU Summer tour poster across their socials.

After a five year musical hiatus spent pursuing a plethora of other projects, including programming a sound design app, teaming up with tech companies to create experimental micro-tonal software synth plugins and even releasing his very own AFX NFT (complete with secret audio info encrypted within) the proceeds of which went towards “planting trees and donating to permaculture projects“, RDJ has been busy boy indeed.

The Blackbox Life Recorder 21f/In a Room7 F760 EP consists of four tracks and will be released on July 28th through Warp Records.

There tracks are listed as follows:

1. “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f”

2. “zin2 test5″

3. “In a room7 F760″

4. “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f [Parallax Mix]”

You can pre-order your copy here:

https://aphextwin.warp.net/release/399837-aphex-twin-blackbox-life-recorder-21f-in-a-room7-f760EP Pre-order info

With the EU tour leg well underway, Aphex Twin will return at the tail end of the summer for his first live performances on UK soil since 2019.

You can acquire tickets via this link: https://ra.co/dj/aphextwin/tour-dates

Heres the UK 2023 summer tour dates:

19/08/2023 – Field Day Festival – London

02/09/2023 – Forwards Festival – Bristol

Sonically ‘Obliteration‘ sounds reminiscent of the now iconic post-industrial anguish anthems Filter achieved infamy with in the mid 1990’s, ‘Hey Man Nice Shot‘ in particular. Released in 1995 ‘Hey Man Nice Shot‘ was penned in apparent admiration of disgraced American politician Budd Dwyer’s public suicide. The ominous ode became one of the bands signature drone/dirge rock dittys, peaking at number 76 on the US charts.

In addition to the new single the band also simultaneously released an animated audio visual accompaniment depicting a post-apocalyptic mall goth girl pottering about what appears to be the bombed out husk of Hollywood. Having been atomically annihilated (or should I say obliterated?) the pixie-esque girl emerges from the underground clutching a cardboard. Whats in the box I here you ask? Watch the video below and find out:

The Algorithm was originally conceived way back in 2018 as a sequel to the bands grind-guitar debut disc Short Bus, when unbeknownst to either of them singer, Richard Patrick and Filters ex-guitar player Brian Liesegang both attended the same Veruca Salt concert. After being called out mid-performance by front woman Louise Post the pair were inspired to bury the hatchet and get back into the studio for the first time since 1995.

However, the recording project, tentatively titled Rebus, soon changed course after the collapse of the online crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic through which the duo sought to fund the album via fan donations. Liesegang once again parted ways but undeterred by this series of unfortunate events the Patrick continued to work on the album, now known as They’ve Got Us Where They Want Us, Right at Each Others Throats before changing his mind and renaming the album Murica in 2020 upon releasing the single ‘Thoughts and Prayers‘ before U-turning and swapping the name back to the former.

On May 5th 2023, after a sporadic spree of single releases Patrick finally announced that the album would now be called The Algorithm and is scheduled for release on 25th of August 2023.

You can pre-order The Algorithm via this link: https://orcd.co/filter-the-algorithm

Filter are also currently in the midst of a world tour, set to embark on the UK leg in early 2024.

Heres the UK dates:

12/3/2024 – Gorilla – Manchester

13/3/2024 – Classic Grand – Glasgow

15/3/2024 – 02 Academy Birmingham – Birmingham

16/3/2024 – 02 Academy Islington – London

You can purchase tickets here: https://officialfilter.com/tour/

Currently perched upon a pile of desiccated dance tracks and bloodless bops in the number two spot, new blood ‘Vampire‘ looks set to sink its fangs into the BBC Radio One Official Chart top spot, biting at the heels of Dave/Central Cee’s brag-rap banger ‘Sprinter‘. Having sat atop the chart for five weeks in a row, Cench’s senile beat is ripe for ex-sanguination.

Having torn up the charts like a bat out of hell Rodrigo’s previous victims rest in pieces. Littered amongst a scattered trail of bejewelled teeth and fake nails lies the shrivelled remains of J Hus and Drakes ‘Who Told You’ as well the cold corpse of her childhood hero Taylor Swift’s  ‘Cruel Summer’.

Olivia’s piano driven self pity-ditty paints a portrait of an individual plagued by a parasitic personal relationship, lyrically the bemoaning ballad appears to have been penned about yet another boy who played her false and left her feeling lied to and leeched on, and surprise surprise she’s a little bit pissed off about it. So pissed off in fact that she exhales an ‘eff’ word during the chorus, branding the belligerent boy as a “Bloodsucker, fame fucker”. Fair enough Olivia.

The metaphorical allusions to vampirism are reflected not only in the songs lyrics but also in the singles cover artwork, a pseudo gothic side profile still soaked in a monochromatic filter perforated colourfully by a protrusive shade of purple plasters plugging Rodrigo’s presumably punctured jugular, in a nod to an old horror movie poster from the 1968 British Hammer Horror classic ‘Dracula Has Risen From The Grave‘.

The track serves as the singer’s flagship single taken from her upcoming sophomore album ‘Guts‘, slated for release on September 8th 2023. Produced and recorded by frequent collaborator Dan Nigro at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York (a recording studio commissioned by the one and only Jimi Hendrix way back in 1968 that has since been used by a plethora of musicians including the likes of David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, and more recently Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift to name but a few) Rodrigo describes the song as being about “feeling hurt and confused”.

Released June 30th via Geffen/Interscope Records, ‘Vampire‘ has amassed over 36 million streams on Spotify as well as drawing an international audience of 26 million through radio airplay. An accompanying music video directed by Petra Collins was also released simultaneously online during a live Youtube premiere. The video racked up 13 million views with 24 hours of being uploaded to the platform. So will Olivia Rodrigo clip Central Cee’s wings and claim her spot at the top of the UK chart or will Cench and Dave sprint to safety for another week at No.1?