Speaking with NME regarding their new more dance-driven, synth-heavy new single; Tempest tells us, “More Pressure’ is the penultimate song on the album, It’s the song that the whole album is building towards in some ways because what it’s saying is that we can reframe some of the stresses that we find ourselves under as possibilities for new growth, new resilience, new acceptance – a new level of energy can come from huge amounts of pressure.” They add, “For me, it’s a song of upliftment, and it’s a switching of focus from some of the more-heavy themes that come up in the record. So, I thought it was a great song to lead with. Also, it’s just got good vibes.”

You can pre-order the new album here. But other than this, no other announcements have been made regarding 2022 for Tempest. There are, however, rumours spreading of a tour announcement to be made on Friday (December 14^th). After the resounding success that took Tempest to All Points East, Edinburgh International Festival and Glastonbury in 2019 during the tour for The Book of Traps and Lessons, one can safely assume the announcement will probably end up coming soon.

As well as Abstract’s feature on the lead single, The Line is a Curve also has a number of other guest appearances confirmed; Fontaines D.C. singer Grian Chatten, singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas, ½ of Italian production duo Ássia, South-London rapper Confucius MC, and long-term collaborator Dan Carey who is once again taking on the mantle of producer. These collaborations cement Tempest’s idea for the album, “I feel like I learned what this album was about as I started to make it. For me, the album is about increasing resilience and raising your threshold for tolerance and acceptance. And it’s a very beautiful album, because so many people involved in making it are people that I’ve known and loved for a very long time.”

The group took to their Instagram to announce the album’s release date.

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A post shared by Imagine Dragons (@imaginedragons)

The American rockers have promised to come back with a galactic bang with their long-awaited new album. The band’s next studio album is set to be released on 3rd September 2021 and will be released through Kidinakorner and Interscope, run by Alex da Kid. The major label picked up the group after a string of independent releases and was responsible for handling their biggest release to date, 2012 single ‘Radioactive’.

The group worked with celebrated producer Rick Rubin on their fifth studio album, with such experience and talent behind the project, fans can expect a resounding success from the new album. Rubin was president of Columbia Records and also co-founded famed label Def Jam Recordings, which he started during his senior year of high school. He is a figurehead within the music industry, cited with the rise of Hip Hop with acts such as Public Enemy, Run-DMC and The Beastie Boys. Rubin’s name is renowned for hits within the music business, the producer has worked on such albums as LL Cool J’s debut album ‘Radio’ in 1985, which was also Def Jam’s first full-length release and The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s eighth studio album ‘By the Way’, released 2002.

Much like the quartet’s new single, ‘Mercury – Act 1’ promises to abolish pre-conceived notions about the lyrical techniques used in their previous work. Keeping within the theme of rapid change, the album takes inspiration from the term ‘mercurial’. A term also used within astrological fields, depicting a person born under Mercury, the planet. The album’s press release describes the new release as “a candid album that abandons metaphorically charged lyrics and instead embraces emotional extremities, holding nothing back.”

The group consists of four members, lead vocalist Dan Reynolds, lead guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and drummer Daniel Platzman. Originally founded by Reynolds and schoolmate Andrew Tolman, the foursome has had a few line-up changes during their career. During the early days of their formation, they released the EP entitled ‘Speak To Me’ in 2008. Afterwards, past members Aurora Florence and Andrew Beck left the group, Wayne Sermon, Berklee School of Music alumni, was then recruited in 2009 to take up the guitar. Soon after Tolman’s wife Britney Tolman was added as a keyboardist and backup singer, the band then lost another member. Dave Lemke, who was part of the original lineup, left the group and was replaced by another Berklee College of Music student Ben McKee, who remains as the band’s bassist today. Husband and wife, the Tolmans would later leave the group and Daniel Platzman would then join as the drummer, forming into the present line up in which we hear today.

The band’s big break came in 2009 at the Bite of Las Vegas festival, due to the sickness of Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train, Imagine Dragons would take the stage in Train’s place. Excellent Press and good reviews from local publications and associations in Las Vegas would further boost their flourishing career. Eventually, the band were signed to the major record label Interscope in 2011 and got the chance to work with Grammy award-winning Alex da Kid, who is presently their label and management.

The album is to be released in various formats including CD, a deluxe CD book, various box sets and vinyl box sets, cassettes, exclusive CD and types of vinyl which come with exclusive covers and posters. The US store Target will sell the exclusive covers and posters as well as merch akin with the exclusive artwork along with special album packages.

Click here to pre-order the new album.

Craig Erwich, president, Hulu Originals and ABC Entertainment said in a statement: ‘Never before have fans had the opportunity to hear Paul McCartney share, in such expansive, celebratory detail, the experience of creating his life’s work – more than 50 years of culture-defining music. To be an observer as Paul and Rick Rubin deconstruct how some of the biggest hits in music history came to be is truly enlightening. It is an honour that Paul chose to return to Hulu to share this one-of-a-kind series.’

Indeed, Sir Paul sits down for a rare and in-depth interview with Rubin. They touch upon his revolutionary Beatles years, the 1970s and his American rock band Paul McCartney and Wings, and his over fifty-year solo career. The six episodes will cover songwriting, influences, and personal relationship that formed and inspired the international rockstar and his songs. In fact, the ex-Beatle started writing songs when he was 14, and from there on he has received 18 Grammys and his most recent album, ‘McCartney III’, hit number 1 in the UK Charts and on the US Billboard Album Sales charts in December 2020, the month of its release. Moreover, in 1997, he has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his service to music.

On the other hand, producer Rick Rubin hold eight Grammys, including the category Album of the Year which he won with the Dixie Chicks in 2007 and Adele in 2012. He worked with numerous band and solo artists, from Slayer to James Blake, and is considered one of the most influential music producer of all times.  He produced the Grammy-winning record ‘The New Abnormal’ by The Strokes, and he is now co-producing and hosting the podcast series ‘Broken Record’ with Malcolm Gladwell.

The clip below shows both legends analyzing material from McCartney’s career.

Rumours of a reunion had been around for a while, since Corgan posted a photo of himself in a studio with both James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin on his Instagram page, hinting at the good times the former bandmates had shared in the past.

@smashingpumpkins: Not sure what cross-eyed spy took this photo, but we had a visitor to the studio the other day. So many memories when you put the three of us together. @jamesihaofficial @chamberdrums #WPC

A post shared by WilliamPatrickCorgan (@williampcorgan) on Jan 16, 2018 at 8:31am PST

 Now, Corgan has taken to Instagram once again, with a lengthy and emotional post, featuring an image of himself when he was a lot younger; the picture shows him with a full head of hair, so is likely to be from around the time of the release of the band’s seminal Siamese Dream. You can check out the full post below, but what’s notable is the photo’s caption, which reads:  

I’ve had a crazy life. Good crazy, but crazy nonetheless. For example. I saw this picture of myself the other day. Besides having a generally good idea of when it was taken (1993 or 1994) I don’t remember actually taking the photo, nor do I remember countless others like it between the years 1991-2004. Now, perhaps that says something about my inability or desire to remember, but I’d argue it’s an unfortunate result of the blur of those years. Which leads me to this time, or this moment, where like so many, I share a window (curated as it is) into my crazy life. As an example, we are currently in the studio with Rick Rubin. But unless I show you a picture of Rick sitting Buddha-like at a mixing desk, you probably wouldn’t know that. Or when I, in a very naive way, post a shot with a needle in my arm and ramble on about making peace with God and time left on dear ‘ol Earth, it sent some signal to friends and associates alike that I was sick or wanted other’s sympathy. (As fact, it was an IV full of vitamins and homeopathy to assist in getting over this vicious flu). So yes, was sick, and no, not serious in any way nor would I share such info here because this window I’d prefer to be one where you see the sunlight streaming through. The only addendum to that is when I saw how others were reacting to their perception of my misguided and poorly worded message, I chose not to react in kind; in essence I let the shadows cast be whatever you-they-them want to believe. Because we live now in a world where perception often outweighs reality, and that’s fine. So to that, here’s a new pic I just took of me with my sandy-brown, curly hair flowing in the studio breeze. Lots of love, WPC #wpc

A post shared by WilliamPatrickCorgan (@williampcorgan) on Jan 27, 2018 at 10:23am PST

“I’ve had a crazy life. Good crazy, but crazy nonetheless. For example. I saw this picture of myself the other day. Besides having a generally good idea of when it was taken (1993 or 1994) I don’t remember actually taking the photo, nor do I remember countless others like it between the years 1991-2004. Now, perhaps that says something about my inability or desire to remember, but I’d argue it’s an unfortunate result of the blur of those years.

“Which leads me to this time, or this moment, where like so many, I share a window (curated as it is) into my crazy life. As an example, we are currently in the studio with Rick Rubin. But unless I show you a picture of Rick sitting Buddha-like at a mixing desk, you probably wouldn’t know that. Or when I, in a very naive way, post a shot with a needle in my arm and ramble on about making peace with God and time left on dear ‘ol Earth, it sent some signal to friends and associates alike that I was sick or wanted other’s sympathy. (As fact, it was an IV full of vitamins and homeopathy to assist in getting over this vicious flu).

“So yes, was sick, and no, not serious in any way nor would I share such info here because this window I’d prefer to be one where you see the sunlight streaming through. The only addendum to that is when I saw how others were reacting to their perception of my misguided and poorly worded message, I chose not to react in kind; in essence I let the shadows cast be whatever you-they-them want to believe.

“Because we live now in a world where perception often outweighs reality, and that’s fine. So to that, here’s a new pic I just took of me with my sandy-brown, curly hair flowing in the studio breeze. Lots of love, WPC.”

Notable by her absence was original bassist D’Arcy Wretzky, who has revealed that she won’t partaking in this prospective reunion, apologising to fans when speaking to BlastEcho, saying “My apologies to all of the Smashing Pumpkins fans out there who are excited about this oncoming reunion tour of the original members of the band.

“I know this is a huge disappointment for me, as well, but it’s not going to happen [with me].” Wretzky added that she had “only just found [out] yesterday that the band has decided to go with a different bass player.”

However this month Rubin is set to release certainly what will be one of his strangest releases yet with ‘Star Wars Headspace’ an EDM Star Wars album which is set to have samples from numerous characters from the films, from the R2-D2 to C-3P0. It is rumoured that recent Star Wars director JJ Abrams is set to make an appearance in the album as well.

Rubin has produced this album with help from Flying Lotus, Röyksopp and Rustie a proper mix of musicians, with Röyksopp being a Norwegian electronic duo, Flying Lotus a American producer and rapper and Rustie being a Scottish EDM musician.

The album is set to be released digitally on the 19th February.

BBC DJ Zane Lowe yesterday called the album his world record in a tweet:

Today's #WorldRecord @flyinglotus #StarWarsHeadspace pic.twitter.com/CpGUj5cETd

— Zane Lowe (@zanelowe) February 8, 2016

It certainly promises to be an interesting album, a few singles have already been released from the album, listen to track number 7, NR-G7 below:

Within this track you can hear samples from both R2-D2 and Darth Vader! Mad stuff!