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The original track is a hyperpop delight and emotional highlight from the album with a pulsing beat under dreamy, siren vocals. ‘Everything Changes (But I Won’t)’ has quickly become a favourite on the record, reaching over 3 million Spotify streams.

As a well-loved track from the record, some fans are saying what draws them to it, is the song gives “intense nostalgia”.

Gray is known for her emotional perception of London’s clubbing scene. The artist spoke about her track ‘Party People’ from the ‘Louder, Please’ album with Paper, sharing: “It’s a sad club anthem that is my ode to the party people I have met since I started clubbing. I have been fascinated with those characters that rule the night, and they do it with such grace and balance. I am a party person, but I have friends and people that I know that are just born to be in the club and socialize, and I’m quite fascinated by them as characters.”

The reworked version is electronic, layered, and hypnotic with Shygirl’s iconic ethereal vocals and resonant production from Casey MQ. On the collaboration, Gray told Dork Magazine: “I’ve loved Shy’s music since her first EP dropped. There was no one else I wanted to reimagine this track with. Same goes for Casey MQ, an absolute genius. I flipped the lyrics slightly and focused on a moment where everything had changed ‘so fucking much’. It’s orchestral, it’s sexy. I’m so excited to share what I’ve been working on,”

This hasn’t been Gray’s only recent music partnership, working with Kesha and Slayyyter on their latest power pop anthem ‘ATTENTION!’

Shygirl has been spearheading some exciting collaborations along with Gray, including her latest EP ‘Room 2 RMX’  which features some huge new and established names, such as Florentino, BAMBII, Jorja Smith, Isabella Lovestory, and more. This follows her exciting feature on Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ track ‘365’. 

Meanwhile, Casey MQ released his orchestral pop single ‘Head Over Heels’ just three weeks ago following his hit album ‘Later That Day, The Day Before, Or The Day Before…’

Gray is currently performing as a support act for Kesha’s The Tits Out Tour. Find tickets on Kesha’s official website, and find out more about Gray’s headline shows this October here.

The annual Mercury Prize awards ceremony took place this week on Thursday 7th September at the Hammersmith Apollo London. The ceremony acknowledges the best of British music with their prestigious award for Album Of The Year, alongside a £25,000 prize.

Previous winners of the highly-respected award include Wolf Alice, Dave, Skepta, James Blake, and Little Simz, who took home last year’s prize with the album Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.

This year’s winners were Ezra Collective, with their 2022 album Where I’m Meant To Be, however they faced some stiff competition being shortlisted with other UK acts such as Arctic Monkeys, Loyle Carner, RAYE and Jessie Ware.

The full list of nominees for the 2023 Mercury Prize were:

• The Car by Arctic Monkeys
• Where I’m Meant to Be by Ezra Collective
• Actual Life 3 by Fred Again
• Beautiful and Brutal Yard by J Hus
• That! Feels Good! by Jessie Ware
• I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
• False Lankum by Lankum
• Hugo by Loyle Carner
• Messy by Olivia Dean
• My 21st Century Blues by Raye
• Nymph by Shygirl
• Heavy Heavy by Young Fathers

Jessie Ware was nominated for her 5th studio album That! Feels Good!, which was released on April 28th of this year. The album includes singles such as “Pearls”, “Begin Again”, “Freak Me Now”, and the LP’s debut single “Free Yourself”, which the 38 year old performed live at the Mercury Prize ceremony.

Many of the other shortlisted acts performed on the Hammersmith Apollo stage, including RAYE, Shygirl, and 2023 winners Ezra Collective.

That! Feels Good! saw Jessie Ware achieve her highest placement on the American Top Album Sales chart, with the record peaking at number 16 for one week. Moreover, in the UK Albums Chart, the London-born singer celebrated her second top 3 entry, with the first being 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure?.

In July, Ware delighted fans with a new version of her song “Freak Me Now” that featured pop singer Roisin Murphy. The single was produced by electronic musician and DJ Stuart Price, who has produced for many artists including Madonna, The Killers, Gwen Stefani and more.

Jessie Ware will be hitting the road at the end of this year to promote That! Feels Good!. You can purchase tickets for the upcoming tour here.

Tour dates:

10/11/2023 – Victoria Warehouse – Manchester, UK

11/11 – Victoria Warehouse – Manchester, UK

13/11 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow, UK

14/11 – Barrowland Ballroom – Glasgow, UK

17/11 – Alexandra Palace – London, UK

18/11 – Alexandra Palace – London, UK

Arctic Monkeys claim their fifth nomination for the Mercury Prize for there 7th album The Car, making them joint most nominated artists in the award history along side Radiohead.

A popular fan favourite single from the album The Car by Arctic Monkeys “There better be a mirror ball.”  along with singles such as “Perfect sense” and “Hello you” could see a second time win for the band.

Mercury Prize Awards celebrates its 32nd year, although last years show was cancelled out of respect, for Queen Elizabeth’s II death.

This years show will go ahead in all its glory on September 7th at 9pm and will be played on BBC 4 and on iPlayer, along with full coverage, from BBC Radio 6, as well as all BBC online and social media outlets. Showcasing some amazing artists, and their latest albums, viewers and listeners will have a whole host of talent to look forward to.

London’s Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, will hold this years award show and tickets are available to purchase. Hosting this years Mercury Awards is DJ and Television presenter Lauren Laverne. There is no further announcement as to whether she will have a guest presenter along side her.

Each performer announced will feature 10 live and two pre-recorded performances at the award show; however, both Arctic Monkeys and Fred Again will be touring in September and unable to attend this years show. Instead, a special film will be shown, to celebrate both of their award nominated albums.

Mercury awards see’s four nominations for the second time, from acts Jhus, Loyle Carner, Young Father and Jessie Ware.

Jessie Ware on release of her album That! Feels Good! which is the title track to the first song, wrote on her official Instagram page to say, “This album is no longer mine, its all yours!”

Jessie Ware in an interview with NME, commented on how she felt to be nominated for her album That! Feels Good!, a decade on since her last Mercury nomination. She said, “It’s nice to see brilliant artists and lovely to be amongst them. It’s amazing to be up for my second Mercury a decade on, and I feel proud of myself.”

This highly sort after award has previously been won by the likes of Portishead in 1995 with their album Dummy, Badly Drawn Boy in 2000 with album The Hour of Bewilderbeast and Arctic Monkeys in 2006 with album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.

Mercury Prize Award has no categories, and is open to all musical genres, with 12 shortlisted ‘Album of the Year’ with 1 winner. The artist to win the award will take home, not only the ‘Album of the Year’ trophy, but also a cash prize of £25,000 pounds. Not to mention blow up their social media and public awareness.

“Whenever I Want”, which was released on the 3^rd April, is Mura Masa’s first material released as an independent artist since his 2015 debut EP Someday Somewhere. The track was released on Mura Masa’s new label Pond Recordings. The artist from Guernsey wrote on his Twitter that the single is the “first of a new series of records” and that it is the start of a “new era” for him.

new music tomorrow. Love u x pic.twitter.com/hNxpNMRyeH

— xander (@mura_masa_) April 2, 2023

The song samples vocals from the beginning of American hip hop collective Outsidaz’s track “Macosa” featuring rapper Eminem and sets it to a scatty jungle beat.

Sending the viewer on a nauseatingly dizzy trip, the music video features a 360-degree rotating camera rig and stars fans of the artist spinning in a warm-lit liminal rave setting. The video was shot by London-based directors known as the Reids, brothers Ed and Will, who have previously worked with brands such as Nike, Adidas, Converse, Stone Island, Dazed Magazine, i-D Magazine, and Hypebeast.

Watch the video for “Whenever I Want” below:

Mura Masa, aka Alexander Crossan, takes his alias from the legendary Japanese swordsman Sengo Muramasa. He first started making electronic music using Ableton Live at 16 and later uploaded it to Soundcloud where it was picked up by BBC Radio 1 DJs. His self-titled debut LP was nominated Best Recording Package and Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018 and he took home the award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical the following year for his remix of Haim’s track “Walking Away“.

One of Crossan’s best-known tracks is 2016’s “Love$ick” featuring American rapper A$AP Rocky which skyrocketed to number one on the Spotify Viral charts in both the UK and the US. Recently, the artist achieved huge success with the single “Boy’s a Liar pt. 2” he co-produced for Pinkpantheress and Ice Spice, which peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Known for his collaborations, Crossan’s discography is crammed with a variety of other stars such as Charli XCX, Nile Rodgers, Christine and the Queens, Damon Albarn, Slowthai, Clario, Lil Uzi Vert, Shygirl, Ariana Grande, and Stormzy. For his LP demon time, he collaborated with Lil Uzi, Shygirl, & PinkPatheress on his cover of “Baby Cakes”  and with Pa Salieu & Skillbeng on his single “Blessing Me”.

Mura Masa also announced he’ll be playing two dates in California this month in between his performances at the Coachella weekends.

Toying with dark sensualness, the first half of the song, “Playboy” starts with a dissonant melody with Shygirl cooling rapping over the top. In the video, a bikini-clad woman spins around a pole in a dark room an eerie face-printed mask obscuring her face. Shy introduces the second half of the song by uttering, “Wait let me just change positions quickly”, the beat quickening with the singer adopting a breathier vocal style. The video for the “Positions” portion features two tattooed men wrestling on a dry grassy football pitch.

Watch the video below:

Irish singer Cosha, English record producer Karma Kid, and English producer to the stars Mura Masa all worked with the singer on the single. London-based photographer Samuel Ibram teamed up with Shygirl once again for the haunting video. He previously directed the video for Shygirl and Björk’s “Woe (I See It From Your Side)” as well as photographed Shy for the cover for Nymph.

Nymph_o, the deluxe version of Shygirl’s 2022 debut album, Nymph, will be available on streaming on the 14^th of this month. The album will contain reimagines and remixes of songs on the original LP as well as some brand-new tracks like “Playboy/Positions”. So far, Shygirl has released three other songs that will feature on Nymph_o: a club mix of “Poison”, a reimagining of “Heaven” featuring the celestial vocals of alt R&B singer Tinashe, and Björk’s ethereal remix “Woe (I See It From Your Side)”. The genre-bending LP will also feature Eartheater and Arca. To preorder the album click here.

Southeast London rapper, DJ, and singer-songwriter Blane Muise, better known as Shygirl, entered the scene in 2017 receiving praise for her unique deconstructed club and experimental hip hop sound. Her debut EP Cruel Practice and her sophomore EP Alias caught the attention of Pitchfork, NME, Vogue, and Crack Magazine.

Currently, Shygirl is performing in North America on her Nymph World Tour. She will be performing at several festivals later this summer including Wide Awake Festival, Parklife, Flow Festival, and Øyafestivalen. For tickets see here.

For Shygirl’s UK & Europe dates see below:

27/05/23 – Wide Awake Festival – London
10/06 – Parklife – Manchester
09/08 – Øyafestivalen – Oslo
11/08 – Flow Festival – Helsinki

Twigs said at the time that “I feel proud. Burberry has such heritage – it’s a very stoic brand that’s extremely iconic. But to be honest, I guess being from Gloucester, I remember that the fittest boys would drive around town in flashy cars with Burberry caps on. All the boys I fancied growing up wore something Burberry, for sure.“

Caprisongs came out earlier this year on January 14^th, and you can read more about it here. This is the fifth music video released from it. Previous ones include “meta angel“, “Tears In The Club“, “jealousy“ and “darjeeling“.

She’s been doing quite well in terms of collaborations as well, with acclaimed singer-songwriter The Weeknd featuring in “Tears In The Club“, Nigerian rapper Rema appearing in the video for “jealousy“ and artists Jorja Smith and Unknown T making an appearance in “darjeeling“.

The tape itself didn’t do too bad either, reaching no.1 on the US Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and getting a good bit of positive feedback on the way. NME called it Twigs’ “brightest, poppiest music“ in a four-star review.

Twigs has also been getting into directing her own movies as of late. You can read here about her latest short film Playscape, which was made to celebrate the International Woolmark Prize for achievements in fashion. Made in collaboration with artist Juliano Nunes, it shows Twigs & co dancing to tracks by Duval Timothy/Rosie Lowe and X-Ray Spex. You can see the video down below.

And she’s also reportedly going to be doing some acting sometime soon, having been cast in the upcoming remake of The Crow, the infamous 1994 movie where an accident onset led to the death of Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee. The new version will star Bill Skarsgård in Brandon Lee’s role of Eric Draven, and will reportedly be directed by Rupert Sanders of Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell fame.

Otherwise, if you want to get any of Twigs’ new merchandise or purchase her latest mixtape, you can look at her website here.

The song, which was released in 2004 by 3 of a Kind, reached number one in the UK charts and seemed to define a different era. Crossan explains that “I feel like ‘bbycakes’ is a future facing record. Clashing UK with US, hard drill music with cute UK garage culture …. Most of all it’s a mission statement for the vicarious and playful nature that I think popular music needs to be looking to in an increasingly cynical culture.“

It seems nostalgia has touched a nerve in this case, with him also saying the track represents a time “where all these new ideas were exciting and we were like ‘we’re living in the future’. And now we actually are and it’s really boring.“

And with all the names sat beside him, it seems he’s not alone in thinking this. Some of his collaborators are hardly a surprise choice. PinkPantheress is known for her own unique brand of nostalgia pop, looking back to dance and garage music from the noughties in her acclaimed 2021 mixtape To Hell With It. Crossan even helped out with her track “Just For Me“. As for Shygirl, she collaborated with Crossan last year on a remix of the Lady Gaga track “Sour Candy“.

The cover sees each guest adding their own original verse between each rendition of the chorus, the production being a proudly noughties affair; chiptune-esque cutesiness and vocals lathered in dream-pop after-effects. It’s Crossan’s latest single since last November’s “2gether“, and it’s a good sign of things to come concerning his third LP.

Crossan’s always had good luck with the collaborators he manages to get a hold of, with R.Y.C featuring the likes of Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, Slowthai and Clairo. And his work isn’t being ignored either. Having been nominated for three Grammy Awards (winning Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his remix of Haim’s “Walking away“), he’s the first artist to be nominated on the same album as both a creative director and musician, this being for his 2017 debut LP Mura Masa.

And it doesn’t stop there, with R.Y.C being awarded five stars by NME. The album was described as “at its most provocative and memorable when its larger-than-life characters and productions become unhinged and combustible with lust for life …. Yet Mura Masa’s anxious contemplation of modern-living – the highs, the lows, the lies we tell ourselves to make it all better – hits just as hard.”

If you’re interested in seeing noughties UK garage make a comeback, this single’s the one for you. And there’s a whole album of the stuff coming soon, so keep your fingers crossed.

Cleo drops today from 6pm uk time
tune into @BBCR1 for first play

pic.twitter.com/eljZniM0V6

— SHYGIRL (@0800shygirl) October 26, 2021

Blane Muise aka Shygirl is a British rapper, DJ, singer, songwriter and co-head/founder of the record label and collective NUXXE The singer/rapper released her debut single “Want More” and went on to release singles “Msry” and “Nvr” in 2017. The singer made a decision to leave her modelling agency job in 2018 to pursue her music career full time. The singer has not yet released an album and released her debut EP Cruel Practice in May 2018 to positive reviews.

The singer released her second EP Alias in November 2020. A performance film Blu was released in June to showcase songs from the EP. The musician directed the film that also features her single “BDE” with Showthai. The EP received a positive reception and achieved the best EP status for 2020. In September the singer released a remix of Lady Gaga’s and Blackprint’s single “Sour Candy” and released her BDE 3XL EP. The musician has collaborated with Arca and lists Madonna, Mariah Carey, Aphex Twin, Roisin Murphy and Bjork as her musical influences.

First impressions of the new single according to NME states that the single “Opens with a luscious orchestral passage, simmering and swelling as Shygirl’s reverb-flourished vocal soars over the mix. About a minute in, however, the track shifts dramatically into a thumping pop tune, with colourful, club-ready pad synths and a crisp beat driving the energy”

Watch the video for the single “Cleo” here  

The musician was set to embark on her UK and European tour this month and has now postponed her tour to March due to the Covid 19 Pandemic. Following the cancellation, the singer said in a tweet

Super sad we’re not able to go ahead with the tour this year due to a few complications out of my control New tour dates announced for next year though with bigger venues for the ones that missed out on tickets last! All info on my website https://t.co/sAL7qj10V5 pic.twitter.com/lniy2FKTU8 — SHYGIRL (@0800shygirl) September 28, 2021

The singer’s tour will now kick off in Manchester on March 1st and end in Berlin on March 16th. The tour will see the singer perform in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Bristol and Amsterdam. The tour will be the singer’s biggest tour to date and tickets went on sale on September 30th. The singer has also been announced to perform at the Primavera  Sound Festival Weekend 1 from June 2nd- June 8th.  Followers who do not wish to wait until the singer’s concerts can catch her performing at both the Positive Education and Pitchfork Music Festivals in November.

Listen to Shygirl’s BDE 3XL EP here

See the Festivals, UK and European Tour dates for Shygirl below and buy tickets here

10/11 Positive Education Festival- Saint Etienne-France
16/11 Pitchfork Music Festival- Paris

UK and European Tour
01/03/22 Band on the Wall- Manchester
02/03 St. Lukes- Glasgow
04/03 The Caves- Edinburgh
05/03 Belgrave Music Hall- Leeds
06/03 Trinity- Bristol
09/03 Heaven- London
15/03 Melkweg Upstairs- Amsterdam
16/03 Berghain- Germany, Berlin

02/06- 08/06 Primavera Sound Festival Weekend 1

The festival is to be held in Northampton, the hometown of Slowthai, at the County Cricket Club. The personal feel of the festival on Slowthai’s behalf, has caused it to receive hopeful reception. Festival goers can expect the same energy at the festival as that which Slowthai delivers in his music and performances.

The line-up includes names such as Greentea Peng, beabadoobee, Easy Life and Shygirl – a list hand-selected by Slowthai himself. The line-up shows the diverse talent that the next generation of UK music has to offer. It has been stated that each act represents “a different facet of the UK music scene in 2021”. So, it is no surprise that all of the artists chosen have  risen in popularity throughout the last year or so, with the production of unique and modern music.

Of course, amongst those set to play at Happyland is Slowthai himself. After the success of his second album, ‘TYRON’ earlier this year, fans eagerly anticipate the festival – for with it brings the first live performance of the album. The rapper’s gritty, punk energy and politically charged lyrics add a uniqueness to his music and makes him extremely distinctive as an artist. This year has been a turning point for the British rapper and his career. We can be confident that Happyland is another reason to confirm Slowthai’s importance on the music scene.

Discussing the festival, Slowthai said: “Happyland with happy folk. The place where we can laugh and joke. The place you can be yourself without judgment, expectations and impressions of someone else. The space from the shackles of the everyday. The mountain where we climb to run away”.

starting my own festival in my hometown!!! NN to the world… this has been a dream of mine forever. i’ll see you at the happyland

]]> https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/slowthai-introduces-his-one-day-festival-happyland/feed/ 0 https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/end-of-the-road-announce-their-2021-line-up-featuring-pixies-king-krule-big-thief-and-many-more/ https://www.mxdwn.co.uk/news/end-of-the-road-announce-their-2021-line-up-featuring-pixies-king-krule-big-thief-and-many-more/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2020 18:43:22 +0000 http://www.mxdwn.co.uk/?p=28042 The notorious End Of The Road Festival have announced the line-up for their 2021 festival. The event will take place on the 2-5^th September and will be held in the magical venue of Larmer Tree Gardens.

‘To spread some cheer before the end of a very difficult year, we are thrilled to reveal who’s joining Pixies, King Krule, Big Thief, Bright Eyes, Little Simz and Aldous Harding at End of the Road 2021’ the festival wrote in an Instagram statement ‘Feast your eyes on over 100 artists on the bill, some familiar from 2020, some not so much…’

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Like many festivals, this year’s event was cancelled due to the ongoing global pandemic. However, a number of the artists initially booked will still headline the 2021 event. In addition, the festival’s line-up also features some new additions, such as Perfume Genius, Arlo Parks, Sorry and Shygirl, who will all take to the festival stage come September.

The festival has been praised by fans and critics alike, with The Independent calling last years event a ‘weekend filled with unexpected thrills,’ and The Guardian stating it was full of ‘potent bacchanalia and mysticism’. With some if the best emerging artists from the UK and beyond set to grace the event, End Of The Road Festival 2021 is set to take the already beloved event to new heights.

You can buy tickets to End Of The Road 2021 here.

 

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