The 10-track album, or 11 if you fancy forking out a little extra cash for the deluxe edition, will actually feature exclusively unheard music. Now that may sound like a given, but the band’s touring schedule over the last year or so has led to a lot of shows with only a tiny amount of material. So, the fact that none of these new tracks have even been performed to the public yet is quite a nice surprise. That being until they embark on their pretty extensive EU and UK tour next February. The insanely dense tour will see the group play 22 dates across 5 countries all in February. You can find full ticket information for the shows here.

Pre-order Hands Across The Creek right here: https://t.co/mdiXu0IWPp

To celebrate, we embark on a UK and EU tour in February 2023. Pre-order the album for access to pre-sale. See you out there! pic.twitter.com/2aLj6rJz3M

— Hotel Lux (@hotelluxband) September 21, 2022

In a statement released by the band, they explain that lead single, “Common Sense is about how the media are aware that apathy is the greatest enemy of social shift, how we are being taken for fools and we’ve become numb to it.”. This nicely ties into their songwriting philosophy for their last EP. When confronted about their previous single, “Tabloid Newspaper”, this is what they had to say, “That old saying of the journo’s cut, paste and twist is the same in songwriting. Just no-one admits it. These three verses and a silly chorus are a confession” – we see there’s a self-deprecating protagonist. One who questions their integrity as a songwriter. One who pokes fun at the rhetoric appropriated to sell music. ‘Be cathartic, deep’. In other words, the song begs the question. Are singers structuring their take on the lyrics to fit the mould they’re taught makes a song good? Possibly.”

While this new album may be taking the same lyrical approach to slandering society by way of excessive Britishisms, not everything has remained so consistent. During lockdown, the group had to part ways with their original guitarist, Jake Sewell, before being replaced with Max Oliver. The new addition of producer, Bill Ryder-Jones, has also allowed the band to push their music in a different sonic direction to what we may have heard before.

Hotel Lux’s UK Tour dates:

17/2/23 – Brighton – Green Door Store
18/2 – Birmingham – Dead Wax
19/2 – Manchester – Deaf Institute
20/2 – Glasgow – Audio
21/2 – Leeds – Key Club
22/2 – Milton Keynes – Craufurd Arms
23/2 – Bristol – Exchange
24/2 – London – The Dome
25/2 – Portsmouth – Staggeringly Good

Given Black Francis’ prolific songwriting, Joey’s contributions would usually be to build his distinctive style into his bandmate’s songs. But this time around it was the reverse approach, with Joey’s instrumental – a mix of explosive power chords that recall Pete Townshend and a pummelling punk attack – completed by Black’s decadent, surrealist lyrics, which reference Van Halen and Black Foxx while drinking under the iconic Hollywood sign.

In a press release, Black explained the song is about, “Living in Los Angeles in the ‘90s with my then-wife, hanging out with Joey and his ex-wife, lots of trips to Las Vegas, a lot of drinking, little bit drug taking, some genuine good times.” 

Flashforward to the present day. Joey was jamming at home on his guitar and the initial idea behind the song may well have been lost to the moment. He recalls, “I guess I was in kind of a zombie state, just playing. After I stopped playing I put it down and went, ‘Well, that was a fucking waste of time, what a piece of shit I am.’ I beat myself up a lot, but my girlfriend, unbeknownst to me, was recording me. She played it back to me and I go, ‘Fuck! Hold on a second here! This stuff is good!’” 

‘Dregs of the Wine’ emerges after Pixies have spent the summer headlining large outdoor shows in the UK and Europe, hitting Hyde Park as special guests to Pearl Jam, and playing a tiny Manchester show at Band On the Wall. Their legendary status has been heightened by the recent Doggerel singles ‘There’s A Moon On’ and ‘Vault of Heaven’, leading to an A-list and a Steve Lamacq premiere at 6 Music, as well as coverage stretching from NME to The Guardian to Spin.

Having just headlined the End of the Road Festival, Pixies’ remaining 2022 live shows include shows in North America, South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Please see their website for a full list of all international dates.

The new single comes with the arguably more interesting prospect of a full new Gorillaz album. The band’s 10^th LP Cracker Island is set for release on February 24^th and will feature the likes of Thundercat, Stevie Nicks, Adeleye Omotayo, Bad Bunny, and Beck. You can look into full pre-order information, as well as the tracklist here. The album will feature the recently released Thundercat featured track ‘Cracker Island’ after it debuted earlier in the year.

Introducing Cracker Island
THE NEW ALBUM
Out February 2023
Pre-order now https://t.co/CkN1CrFP8k

@Thundercat @StevieNicks #AdeleyeOmotayo @tameimpala @bootiebrown @sanbenito @beck #crackerisland pic.twitter.com/f1UH8DG38B

— gorillaz (@gorillaz) August 31, 2022

The album comes ahead of the rumoured “Full-length Gorillaz film” we were promised by Albarn at the tail end of last year. In a conversation with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Albarn explained, “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for a very long time. It’s been through so many incarnations. Gorillaz doing a movie. Honestly. But Netflix, I don’t know. I mean, apart from the kind of running this city now, I mean – It’s just extraordinary to see how ubiquitous they are now. Yeah. They just seem like they’re a good creative team, you know? But I can’t say anything more about it, obviously, because… No, no, no.” So, with very little information revealed on the subject being revealed since… could this be the start? Or maybe just something else entirely.

Two weeks ago, saw Gorillaz play their only UK gig this year at London’s All Points East Festival. The group saw themselves topping a line-up consisting of Self Esteem, Pusha T, Idles, and Turnstile. During their set, the band performed their new single with Tame Impala as well as the usual suspects when it comes to a Gorillaz setlist – including a rare appearance from Shaun Ryder for their 2005 single ‘DARE’.

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Most of the teasing in the leadup for the album began over a month ago, In true 1975 spirit, June 1^st continues to be a bit of an in-joke amongst the fandom. After deriving their name from an inscription in a poetry book that read “1st June, The 1975″, June 1^st just seems to be the date where things happen. This time around, the posters started popping up and they also started sharing new images on their socials with the caption “Your new album. Your new era. Your old friends. The 1975”. A handful of other cryptic images and captions later, we come to the present, with the promise of a new album set for release in… October. That’s right, October 14^th. You can pre-order the record here. You’ll have forgotten you’d even ordered it by the time the release date actually comes around. Treat yourself. You can watch the video for single 1, “Part of the Band” below.

The 11-track album may come as a warm surprise to some fans as their previous 2 records – A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships and Notes On A Conditional Form – were well received by critics and fans, have been described as a little bloated, and a few too many unnecessary interludes and throw away tracks. Aside from the recurring “The 1975” intro, there’s hardly any space for filler. If the lead single is anything to go by, their now practically trademarked blend of slick and shiny pop-production meets Beach Boys-esque instrumentals has very much been adhered to. You can see the album’s tracklist, as shown on the band’s twitter, below.

Being funny in a foreign language track list #the1975 pic.twitter.com/XCVAx18yCk

— The 1975 (@The1975Updates) June 29, 2022

As of yet, the band are only scheduled to make 2 appearances in the foreseeable future. This August, both Tokyo and Osaka will be hosting Japan’s own Summer Sonic Festivals. But, that being said, traditional marketing would suggest that they’ll probably announce a few smaller dates, probably around the UK, quite soon. Before embarking on the usual world tour situation… you know the drill. Watch this space.

Photo Credit: Mara Palena

According to a press release, the central theme of the album is that of “a shell shocked soldier’s excess and military discharge,” then moving on to say, “if ‘Cavalcade’ was a drama, ‘Hellfire’ is like an epic action film [that] delves into overlapping themes of pain, loss and anguish.” The band are leaning quite heavily into the concept album approach this time round, each of the songs is written in the 3^rd person and “tell the tales of morally suspect characters. There are direct dramatic monologues, flamboyantly appealing to our degraded sense of right and wrong. You’re never quite sure whether to laugh at or be horrified.”

The band’s lead, Geordie Greep, went on to explain “Almost everyone depicted is a kind of scumbag,” Greep continues. “Almost everything I write is from a true thing, something I experienced and exaggerated and wrote down. I don’t believe in Hell, but all that old world folly is great for songs, I’ve always loved movies and anything else with a depiction of Hell. Dante’s Inferno. When Homer goes to Hell in The Simpsons. There’s a robot Hell in Futurama. Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Jewish writer who portrays a Satan interfering in people’s lives. There’s loads!”. With this statement and the hype behind the lead single, it’s clear to see that the band are sticking with their signature brand of post-punk maximalism. You can look into pre-order options here.

‘Hellfire’ our Third Album for @roughtraderecords is out July 15 – Produced by Marta Salogni, Co-Produced by Max ‘Sizzle’ Goulding and Engineered by Dani Bennett Spragg. Artwork by David Rudnick, Emiel Penninckx and Maharani Yasmine Putri.
Preorder here: https://t.co/Ny3e4EbNs2 pic.twitter.com/NOZmPcNoLK

— black midi (@bmblackmidi) May 9, 2022

The announcement also came with an update to the band’s world tour, but none of the dates actually landed in the UK. So for the time being you’ll have to make do with their only UK date at the moment. Featuring alongside John Legend, Squid, Arlo Parks and many others at Somerset House’s Summer Series in London. The 10-day festival will see each night headlined by some of the biggest names in music at the moment, all within the historic walls of Somerset House. Tickets can be found here.

ALBUM TRAILER BRIEF pic.twitter.com/EiC8jCjBWu

— Jamie T (@jamietmusic) April 27, 2022

Taking the meta-approach to an album trailer, Treays muses, “Right album trailer brief, we’re looking to create an album trailer to seize the up and coming release. The trailer should be simple but yet impactful. This trailer should be true to Jamie’s already established world aesthetic, music and personality.” Seems to be going well so far, “It will need to incorporate some snippets of new songs off the album e.g. ’90s Cars’, ‘Keying Lamborghinis’ and the lead single should be the hero moment of this. It should also include the album title or at least a reference to it at some point however subtle, we’d like the trailer to end with the album title revealed in some way.”

 After another short little ramble Treays finally confirms, “So on that note ladies and gentlemen, I give you my new album The Theory Of Whatever”, maybe this time he’s going to drop the indie persona and go for a more Liam Lynch approach to making noise. Then the clip ends with what I can only assume is a snippet of the album’s title track, and then the official release date; July 29^th. At the moment, we can’t actually pre-order the new album. But until the time comes, you can satisfy any Jamie T needs with a copy of the 15th-anniversary edition of his debut. To commemorate the occasion, the 2CD deluxe edition also comes with a disc comprising of an unreleased gig, Panic Prevention Disco: live at the Scala from 2006, you can pick up a copy of that here.

Al Doyle, one of the band’s many multi-instrumentalists, explained the album’s inspiration in a press release, “The idea of being out of control is always there in dance music, in a positive sense.” Frontman Alexis Taylor added, “By the time we were able to be back together, we were turning on a tap and having a lot of ideas being poured out quite quickly.” While everyone was commenting on the album, Joe Goddard, again a multi-instrumentalist, also decided to add, “We were living through a period where it was very easy to feel like people were losing control of their lives in different ways. There’s a darkness that runs through a lot of those tracks.”

In keeping with the band’s usual brand of partying, go big or go home, they have decided to commemorate the album’s release with a 4-night stint at London’s iconic Brixton Academy. Set for September 21^st, the band will play 4 shows on consecutive nights presumably with myriad musical guests. The new album sees contributions from Soulwax, Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon, and London’s own DJ and musician Lou Hayter, so maybe a few surprise guests along the way are a reasonable thing to expect. Tickets for these shows go on sale this Friday (April 22^nd) at 9am. You can find out more ticket information here. The shows come in the middle of a pre-existing tour that will take the band all across the states, and then around Europe’s festival scene. So even if you don’t manage to bag any tickets to the Brixton shows, you’re never a million miles away from one of their shows.

1/2 So here’s the news you’ve all been waiting for!!!

Our NEW ALBUM, How To Be A Person Like Other People will be released August 26, and we’ll be touring the UK in August/September. Tickets for the tour go on sale this Friday at 9am… pic.twitter.com/IWzolwg9ly

— Embrace (@embrace) April 18, 2022

The announcement also comes with the prospects of a 10 date UK tour that will kick off almost immediately after the album’s release. So those of you who are planning on bagging opening night tickets in Aberdeen; leave the few days before to really memorise the new tunes ASAP. Tickets go on general sale this Friday (April 22^nd) at 9am. You can look into ticket information here.

In a conversation with NME, the band’s singer/guitarist/producer, Richard McNamara explained this about the album, “Whenever we put out a new album it’s always a really big deal to us, we put everything we have into it. We know that there’s something about what we do that people love, that they just don’t get from others bands.” Adding, “It’s like a pact, they want us to be intimate and personal and autobiographical, but they also want us to be confident and rousing and anthemic. It sounds like a contradiction, but I think when we’re at our best we somehow pull it off. I think in that sense this album is the most Embrace album we’ve ever made.”

The same conversation then turned to the album’s title, of which McNamara explained, “I met my wife nearly 10 years ago now: we have an incredible daughter and another on the way, but the most loving thing she’s done for me over the years is to try to show me how to love, how to feel, how to be a person like other people.” Before concluding, “This album is about that journey, that story, and it’s the most joyous, most uplifting, most upbeat, most soulful thing we’ve ever done. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”

See below the full list for Embrace’s UK tour:

31/8/22 – Music Hall – Aberdeen
1/9 – O2 Academy – Edinburgh
2/9 – Northumbria University – Newcastle
3/9 – Rock City – Nottingham
4/9 – O2 Academy – Sheffield
6/9 – Tramshed – Cardiff
8/9 – O2 Institute – Birmingham
9/9 – O2 Brixton Academy – London
10/9 – O2 Apollo – Manchester
11/9 – University of East Anglia – Norwich

Big Time is an album about the expansive power of new love, written during the time Olsen was coming out as queer, and having her first experience of queer love and heartbreak. But this brightness and optimism is tempered by a profound and layered sense of loss. During Olsen’s process of coming to terms with her queerness and confronting the traumas that had been keeping her from fully accepting herself, she felt it was time to come out to her parents, a hurdle she’d been avoiding for some time. “Some experiences just make you feel as though you’re five years old, no matter how wise or adult you think you are,” she writes of that time. After that tearful but relieving conversation, she celebrated with her partner, their friends, oysters, and wine. “Finally, at the ripe age of 34, I was free to be me.” Three days later, her father died; his funeral became the occasion for Olsen to introduce her partner to her family. Only two weeks later Olsen got the call that her mother was in the ER. Hospice came soon after, and a second funeral came quickly on the heels of the first. Another trip back to St. Louis, another grief to face, another deepening and intensification of this still-new love. Three weeks after her mother’s funeral she was in the studio, recording this incredibly wise and tender new album, Big Time.

“I can’t say that I’m sorry / when I don’t feel so wrong anymore,” the record begins, her voice softer and more open than ever, as if she’s singing through a hard-won smile. “All the Good Times,” a twangy banger with nods to JJ Cale, starts the album on a triumphant and bright note. The song’s video, starring Olsen and her partner, was directed by Kimberly Stuckwisch, who worked on last year’s “Like I Used To” video. Stuckwisch comments, “Angel’s story is a gift. It allowed me to visually explore the universal themes of love, loss, and most importantly what holds us back from realizing our true selves.”

Playful bits of Tammy Wynette and Kitty Wells appear on Big Time, as do the complex orchestrations of her genre-bending 2019 record, All Mirrors. While that record was full of dramatic shifts and twists, here the surprises come in their simplicity—a slow swell of strings, instrumentation that cycles like a storm, or sparkling horns in a light-flooded break-up ballad, and there’s hardly a synth in sight. Big Time was recorded and mixed with co-producer Jonathan Wilson at his Fivestar Studios in Topanga, California. Drew Erickson played piano, organ, and handled string arrangements, and Olsen’s longtime bandmate, Emily Elhaj, played bass throughout.

Instead of the usual pre-order fare, every CD and LP copy of Big Time ordered directly from the artist or label store will include an additional charge to offset the carbon emissions of each piece. Jagjaguwar, in partnership with Terra Lumina Consulting, calculated emissions and costs to achieve a carbon negative product for “cradle-to-grave” use of each physical piece: from the mining of materials, to pressing and shipping, to the electricity consumed by your stereo at home, to end of life disposal. Carbon offsets will be purchased through Native, supporting the Medford Spring Grassland project. Pre-order the album here.

Later this summer, Olsen will embark on The Wild Hearts tour alongside Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, and Spencer… Additionally, today, she announced a fall European tour, on sale this Friday. All shows are listed below, you can get tickets here:

18/10/22 – London – Brixton Academy
19/10 – Bath – The Forum
20/10 – Edinburgh – Usher Hall
21/10 – Manchester – Albert Hall
24/10 – Dublin – Vicar Street

After appearing on Greg James’ show on Radio 1 this morning (March 10^th) bandleader Florence Welch explained, “Sometimes the biggest dance songs, I think, have a really sad core to them.” She also went on to explain the myriad of influences on the project, stating the impact of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, as well as movies like The Wicker Man, The VVitch, and Midsommar. You can see certain influences in the music video above. Directed by Autumn de Wilde and choreographed by Ryan Heffington, the Great Gatsby influence is plain to see. A press release went on to say, “The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient.”

In an interview with NME around the release of the first single ‘King’, Welch opened up about her position as a female artist by saying, “I suddenly feel this tearing of my identity and my desires, to be a performer but also to want a family might not be as simple for me as it is for my male counterparts.” She continued, “I had modelled myself almost exclusively on male performers, and for the first time I felt a wall come down between me and my idols as I have to make decisions they did not.”

A fairytale in 14 songs
Available to pre order nowhttps://t.co/Sn0VQeMHo4 pic.twitter.com/5AkcMup5Bo

— florence welch (@florencemachine) March 10, 2022

As of yet, Florence + the Machine are yet to announce any tour dates in support of the new album, but if you’re a Florence superfan in need of a fix, you’re probably not a million miles away from one of the many festivals she is set to appear at over the summer. With appearances at Flow Festival, Øya Festival and Mad Cool Festival you certainly can get hold of the band if you need. You can find full tour information here.