i think i better follow you around

Benjamin Booker has shared a new single, “Same Kind Of Lonely”, off his upcoming album “Lower” out January 24th on Fire Next Time Records via Thirty Tigers.

The video was co-directed by Booker and Gerry Cisneros. Booker shared this about it: “For this video, one of the things we were interested in looking at is our twisting and distortion of ourselves and the world. The co-director, Gerry Cisneros, and I tried to express this idea through visuals, slowly turning algae on a lake into digital needles or having eyes appear in trees.  We wanted to take nature and find ways to manipulate it. We were inspired by Haitian Vodou ceremonies, the paintings of Paul Gaugin, Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England, and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Booker shared this about the song: “I was thinking a lot about existence and the natural world, how things that start off so beautiful are often twisted into something unsettling or sinister. Maybe the disconnect between the natural state of things and the modified state of things is the source of a lot of pain, suffering and loneliness in the world.”

The Horrors have shared the third single, “Lotus Eaters”, off their upcoming album “Night Life” out March 21st via Fiction.

The band shared this about the song: “‘Lotus Eater’ has had several past lives. It was one of the first songs from the Night Life sessions that we felt really excited about—Rhys’ original lyric had a feeling that made me think of ‘5 Years’ by David Bowie, and I started to build on the idea. A lotus eater lives in a state of blissful ignorance, and the song to me describes the moment of coming back to reality. We wanted it to have a feeling of both melancholy and euphoria, letting go of the past and starting again. The spoken word section was improvised in the studio, and the mid-section of chopped-up electronics came from Amelia’s world of synth programming. It feels almost like a sister track to ‘Sea Within a Sea’ in some ways, and it’s one of our favourite songs on the new album.”

Miguel has shared a new single, “Always Time”, off what may be his new album.

The song was produced by Dave Sitek and Jeff Bhasker.

The video for the song was directed by Miguel himself.

Miguel shared this about the song: “This may be the most difficult song I’ve ever had to write, for all of the life lessons and experiences that live between each line. I’m grateful for the closure it has given me and know it’s the most honest way to begin this chapter of my artistry and relationship with my audience.”

Sleaford Mods and Hot Chip have released a 7″ that will raise money for Warchild with the tracks “Nom Nom Nom ” & “Cat Burglar” available now via Domino.

Joe Goddard shared this about them: “Making these songs over the course of one day at Abbey Road was a great experience. We arrived without a plan but quickly began working together in a harmonious way, with lots of improvisation and very little ego. We are very grateful to Sleaford Mods for joining us and very proud of the result.”

Squid have shared the first single, “Crispy Skin”, off their upcoming third album “Cowards” out February 7th via Warp Records.

TRACKLIST:

1. Crispy Skin
2. Building 650
3. Blood on the Boulders
4. Fieldworks I
5. Fieldworks II
6. Cro-Magnon Man
7. Cowards
8. Showtime!
9. Well Met (Fingers Through The Fence)

The video for the song was directed by Takashi Ito and he shared this about it: “The video for the song is an adaptation of my award-winning experimental 1995 short film “Zone”. It’s a film about a man without a face. His arms and legs bound with ropes, still without even a quiver in a white room. This man, enwrapped in wild delusions, is also a reconstruction of myself. A series of unusual scenes in this room that expresses what lies inside me. I tried to create a connection between memories, nightmares and violent images.”

Ollie Judge shared this about the song: “‘Crispy Skin’ was lyrically inspired by a dystopian novel Tender Is The Flesh I read where cannibalism becomes the societal norm and humans are manufactured and sold in supermarkets. I think when most people read books like these they picture themselves as the sort of person that would take the moral high-ground within these narratives. The track was written about how the reality of having a moral-compass in these stories of desperation and horror would be extremely difficult. If I was actually in that world, I probably would be the coward in this instance.”

Kendrick Lamar has shared the first video, for “squabble up”, off his just released album “GNX”.

The video for the song was directed by Calmatic.

Kendrick didn’t share thoughts on the video or song mostly because he doesn’t need to.

It’s all there in the music.

It’s all there in the lyrics.

It’s all there in the video.

Beirut has shared the first single, “Caspian Tiger”, off a new soundtrack titled “A Study Of Losses” created for the Swedish contemporary circus Kompani Giraff.

The video for the song was directed by Jan Pivoňka.

Zach Condon shared this about it: “When I was first approached about writing a soundtrack for a circus, a certain amount of “Elephant Gun” era trauma initially came rushing up. I had been pigeonholed for years as a whimsical circus waif, full of sepia-toned images of penny farthings and perhaps lion tamers with handlebar mustaches. It couldn’t have been further from how I pictured the music I was making. I had been quietly avoiding the subject for years.

Ironic then, that I found Kompani Giraff’s project so enticing, and writing something for acrobats to perform so enjoyable. ‘Caspian Tiger’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the new album, with images in mind of the poor animals caged or fighting in Roman colosseums. They had been taken from the Asian steppes around the Caspian Sea and from as far east as Tashkent, an area I’ve been fascinated by for years. The sonic influence came in large part from choir music that I was obsessing over at the time.

Perhaps I subconsciously aimed to embrace and even improve on the imagery I had been originally written off for.”

Saint Etienne have shared the first single, “Half Life”, off their upcoming album “The Night” out December 13th via Heavenly.

TRACKLIST:

1. Settle In
2. Half Light
3. Through The Glass
4. Nightingale
5. Northern Counties East
6. Ellar Carr
7. When You Were Young
8. No Rush
9. Gold
10. Celestial
11. Preflyte
12. Wonderlight
13. Hear My Heart
14. Alone Together

Pete Wiggs shared this about the single: “‘Half Light’ is about the edge of night, the last rays of the sun flickering through the branches of trees, communing with nature and seeing things that might not be there.”

Pete Wiggs shared this about the album: “It was great to all be in the same studio together again up at Gus’s in Bradford, we realized that it had been several years since we’d actually done that, sprawling out on the carpet, mugs of coffee in hand, sheets of lyrics and half ideas for titles lying around us. We wanted to continue the mellow and spacey mood of the last album, perhaps even double down on it, but it’s a very different album, not based on samples; songs, moods and spoken pieces drift in and out whilst rain pours down outside. It’s the kind of record I like to listen to in the dark or with my eyes closed.”

Sarah Cracknell said this: “It was so good to be back in the studio together after recording the last album remotely. One of my favorite songs on the record is ‘Preflyte,’ it made me cry when I sang it for the first time.”

Bob Stanley added: “We wanted ‘The Night’ to be a calming album, warm and serene, but at the same time we wanted to create something gorgeous and dense. We were trying to find the state that’s between being awake and asleep, that dream space, with half forgotten thoughts drifting in, bits of TV dialogue, place names, streets, or football grounds you’ve never even been to. You feel very receptive to sound and half-covered memories when you’re in that state. Rain noise runs right through it. It was designed to gently wash away the stuff in your head that keeps you awake at 2am. You could think of it as one continuous, single track. It’s definitely a headphone album.”

Elbow have shared a new song, “Adriana Again”, off what seems to be a new EP coming out soon(ish).

The video for the song was done by Elbow and it features the band ‘Novocane’ playing as Elbow.

Guy Garvey said this about the song: “With ‘AUDIO VERTIGO’, it’s like we built a new vehicle for ourselves, and we wanted to give it another spin, hence the new EP. Take the ride that is “Adriana Again”