Monthly Archives: July 2020

Post Malone claims to have seen several UFOs – Music News

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The ‘Circles’ hitmaker recalled the first time he allegedly saw an unexplained aerial phenomenon in New York, when he was 16, during a four-hour interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

He said: “I’ve seen one. I was probably 16. I was in upstate New York and it would just stay there.

“Let me precursor this: My aunt and uncle were very strict, and we had to go to bed at a very strict deadline, probably 10pm. I was looking out the window with my cousin and it’s just a light that just stays there and then just f*****’ goes off … I mean, you can’t explain it.”

Malone, now 25, went on to have sightings in Southern California and Utah, his current home, more recently.

He said: “I used to live in Tarzana .. .It looked kind of like, it sounds corny, but like a classic forcefield … it’s kind of like a dome in a circular shape. In Tarzana, looking down at the ****** city. And I’m like, ‘How did no one else see this?’ But I was there with like f*****’ four other people, and they saw it too.”

The ‘Better Now’ singer also said he believes ghosts ‘are real”.

Meanwhile, it was recently reported that the record producer wants to launch a world beer pong league.

Malone is believed to have filed legal documents to trademark the “World Pong League” name, with plans in place to launch his very own competitive series of beer pong games.

As per TMZ, the ‘rockstar’ rapper wants his World Pong League to operate official beer pong tournaments, competitions, events and exhibitions, as well as selling official World Pong League merchandise, including beverage glassware, drinking glasses, plastic cups, game tables, cup racks, balls, and casual sportswear.

Malone is a known fan of the popular drinking game – in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end – having previously won a whopping $50,000 when he beat Tyla Yaweh.

The star came up with the idea of a beer pong league with his manager, Dre London, but it’s thought the plan is still in its infant stages.

The latest business venture comes after he announced the launch of his very own rosé wine, Maison No. 9, back in May.



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BBC – Music – Review of Gallon Drunk

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We’re pretty sure that out of the millions of people taken by The Black Keys’ slick revivalism, most would be terrified by Gallon Drunk’s indignant, ragged take on the rawer edges of the blues. This isn’t just because the cult London-based band pedal a far grottier, dirt-kicking kind of rock’n’roll, instead of singing about the trials and tribulations of romance and cute chicks in denim cut-offs. It’s also down to James Johnston’s lyrics, which teem with an unforgiving nihilism. They’re far from your typical Grammy Award fodder.

Not that Gallon Drunk would have a problem with scaring the masses. In fact, they seem to relish their outsider bent, drawing a line through fellow purveyors of incandescent indecency and fringe fame, from Howlin’ Wolf and drugstore cowboys The Gun Club to the whiskey sodden Pogues and grating sexbeasts Grinderman. A former cohort of Nick Cave, as a one-time member of the Bad Seeds, Johnston carouses through the eight tracks on The Road Gets Darker From Here – the band’s seventh album since their 1992 debut – in the way only a true punk can. He croons with little concern for the casual listener, like a lunatic shouting at you on the top deck of the night bus. His voice squats, resplendent, in the middle of their Whitechapel by way of New Orleans racket, all staggering, squalling horns and grimy guitars only a mother could live.

You Made Me is Mudhoney goes Motown, with wailing, lawless riffs boosted by the kind of ire not present in Stuck in My Head, the album’s relatively soothing slowie. Featuring guest vocals from Underground Railroad’s Marion Andrau, it’s a satisfying change of pace, as is the psych sequestering The Perfect Dancer. But Gallon Drunk are much more in their element when pushing the death-rattle of Killing Time: “Forget the truth / I’d rather have a lie / And the walls are falling in / and we just lost everything,” growls Johnston over deliciously decaying sonics.

If that all sounds a bit too much, the track which follows, The Big Breakdown, is, melodically at least, a little less forsaken, a little more devious Delta swamp thump. Lyrically it’s still teetering on the fringes of desolation, but there’s a smattering of redemption in its locked-down groove. Black Keys fans, consider this your warning.



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Madonna was fined $1 million by Russian government over LGBTQ+ rights speech – Music News

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Madonna has claimed she was fined $1 million (£800,000) by the Russian government for publicly supporting LGBTQ+ rights during a concert in the country in 2012.

The Vogue singer delivered a moving speech, praising love and freedom and comparing LGBTQ+ fights to the civil rights movement in the 1960s, when she performed in St. Petersburg as part of her MDNA Tour.

While at the time it was reported that Madonna was to be fined $17,000 (£13,500) over the incident, she took to social media on Monday to reveal it was actually a much higher amount.

Sharing a clip from the concert and revealing the fine, she tweeted: “I made this speech at a concert in St. Petersburg 8 years ago. I was fined 1 million dollars by The government for supporting the Gay community.”

“I never paid,” Madonna insisted, alongside the hashtags “#freedomofspeech #powertothepeople #mdna”.

Madonna has been a lifelong advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and was honoured with the GLAAD Advocate for Change Award for her ongoing activism last year.

In her speech at the 2012 concert, she told the crowd: “I’m here to say that the gay community, and gay people, here and all around the world, have the same rights (as everyone else)… the same rights to be treated with dignity, with respect, with tolerance, with compassion, with love”.

Before her visit to Russia, authorities were considering a bill which prohibited advocating homosexuality to children. It was eventually passed in 2013.



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BBC – Music – Review of Karin Krog and Bengt Hallberg

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The venerable Swedish pianist Bengt Hallberg will be 80 in September 2012, but he has been the doyen of Scandinavian pianists since the 1950s, when he was the accompanist of choice for visiting Americans Clifford Brown and Stan Getz. Recently he has performed less often, but he still has plenty to say, with the added bonus that in whatever style he plays, he sounds like himself — a mixture of gentle swing, great sensitivity and occasionally startling originality. On this new duo album recorded in August 2011, he is teamed up with Norway’s finest jazz singer Karin Krog.

Krog may be best known for her experimental collaborations with John Surman, but as she proved last year in London, she is a superlative interpreter of standards. This summit meeting dusts off some less well-known corners of the repertoire, and also shows two musicians who like to dig deep into chord sequences and lyrics, to get a lot out of even the simplest song. Karin’s own Who Knows draws some delicate playing from her accompanist, as she catches a wistful mood of Nordic melancholy. But there’s a joyous side to the collaboration too, the pair celebrating their own history of recording together sporadically since the 1980s. So, for instance, the opening Just You, Just Me digs into stride piano, boogie patterns and scat singing, as well as presenting carefree lyrics with a great sense of fun.

Once or twice Hallberg seems to falter momentarily, lacking the flawless fluency he had had half a century ago, but the quality of his ideas surpasses any tiny frailties. Meanwhile he has Ms Krog on absolutely top form, clearly relishing the chance to investigate the subtleties of Ellington’s Prelude to a Kiss as well as to romp through such staples as Give Me the Simple Life.



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Emma Bunton torn over having another baby – Music News

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Emma Bunton is toying with the idea of having another child.

The Wannabe hitmaker and her longtime boyfriend, Damage singer Jade Jones, have two sons – 12-year-old Beau and nine-year-old Tate – and the boys are desperate for a sibling.

Speaking on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, Emma said: “(Jade) would love to have more children. I battle with myself because I think obviously I would never regret having a child, but I might regret not having another child.

“My kids want another one. On New Year’s Eve we all sat around the table and I was like, ‘Right, wishes for this year?’ Both of them said, ‘We would like another sibling’. No pressure. We’ll see.”

If Emma does have another child, she explained that it might derail plans for another Spice Girls tour – particularly after she previously joined the girls in 2007 for their first reunion just two months after giving birth.

“That was quite a difficult time. I just felt, ‘Oh my God, this is happening so fast’,” she explained. “If anyone said to me, ‘I’m going to go on tour two or three months after the baby’, I’d say, ‘No, you’re not’.

“The time when I had just had Beau, that tour for me was special. We had babies around so I would say it was the most difficult of tours. It was a lovely time but definitely the hardest tour for me.”

Emma recently revealed she met up with Mel C, Geri Horner, Mel B, and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for a hike in the English woods.



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BBC – Music – Review of Hollie Cook

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In a blindfold test, this dub collection could pass for a 1970s original, or at least a 1980s Adrian Sherwood production-warping of Jamaican experimentations. Instead, the reality is that modern-day producer Prince Fatty has versioned London singer Hollie Cook’s 2011 debut album. Fatty (aka Mike Pelanconi) is not particularly a dub reggae specialist. The form is just one of his many stylistic outlets, which makes the authentic depth of this analogue fetishist’s immersion all the more impressive.

Hollie is the daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, continuing the old connections between punk and dub. She was even part of the recent line-up of The Slits. Cook’s vocals bring another element, though. The sweetness of her voice calls up Lovers Rock comparisons, or maybe a feminine continuation of Horace Andy’s style. Other precedents could be Neneh Cherry or Nicolette.

It’s unusual to have a singer so upfront and constant in a dub production. Customarily, a vocal fragment will rear up and then submerge, to be replaced by sheer space, or spurts of bass, drum or keyboard echoes. The shivery ghost-keys, infinity guitar and bass molasses are present here, of course, with Crying Dub being particularly low-slung, loaded with swampy vocals, clipped keys and a seductive tenor saxophone solo.

For Me You Are Dub involves a radical dispersion of matter: dub as narrative, its phases shifting briskly, within three minutes. It’s another inspirational three minutes when The Shangri-Las are indirectly subjected to dub methods on Walking in the Sand. It’s the freshness of youth versus old-school ocean-floor plummeting.

Cook invests this uncompromising dub soundscape with her pop-attuned approachability. The album’s thundering wobble certainly can’t be deemed a result of any flabbiness. Such sonic extremity is normally out on the perimeter, but Cook gives the experimentation a specific emotional depth charge.



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Spice Girls reunite with Victoria Beckham for socially-distanced walk in the woods – Music News

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The Spice Girls reunited with Victoria Beckham last week to enjoy a post-lockdown walk in the woods.

According to Emma Bunton, she met up with Victoria, Mel C, Geri Horner, and Mel B for the hike, revealing that her bandmates were right at the top of the list when it came to reuniting with friends following the Covid-19 shutdown.

“As things slowly, slowly start to get back to normal and we’ve all started to meet up with friends again haven’t we?” she said on Sunday night’s instalment of her Heart FM radio show.

“I actually started to think I would never see them again… well unless it was on Zoom calls,” she continued. “And this week, yes, I finally got to meet up with Geri, Mel B, Mel C and Victoria!

“Now you may think we propped up a bar somewhere or had drinks in the garden but no! We went on a social distancing walk in the woods!”

Reflecting on the year since the girls embarked on their Spice World reunion tour, minus Victoria, Emma added: “This time last year we were performing at Wembley all glammed up. Well this year we were in wellies… walking in the rain… Yes, something you don’t see every day – five Spice Girls in their wellies!”

News of the get-together comes after Victoria celebrated son Brooklyn’s engagement to actress Nicola Peltz on Saturday, just hours after the 21-year-old photographer confirmed he’d popped the question.

Alongside a snap of the couple, the fashion designer wrote that this was “the MOST exciting news,” gushing: “We could not be happier that @brooklynbeckham and @nicolaannepeltz are getting married! Wishing you so much love and a lifetime of happiness… We all love you both so much x.”



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BBC – Music – Review of The Invisible

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Terrible things can happen to terrific people. Just ahead of the release of this second LP from Mercury Prize-nominated trio The Invisible, genial frontman Dave Okumu severely injured himself on-stage in Nigeria. He’s out of action for a while, putting the (live) promotion of Rispah on hold. It’s almost as if the opening lines of this album, Generational’s “This is serious / So messed up,” came alive with malignant intent. But to summon a perfectly common cliché: good things come to those who wait. And those who’ve anticipated this follow-up since 2009’s eponymous debut won’t be disappointed.

Rispah is named after Okumu’s mother, who passed away during its writing. It is, palpably, a collection affected by loss – vocals float ghostly in the mix, ethereal atmospheres draped over tender arrangements performed with bewitching poise. This is every second the sound of progress, comparable to Wild Beasts’ discernable development from Limbo, Panto to Two Dancers. And it deserves comparable levels of critical acclaim.

Rispah possesses a proud confidence carried by compositions never cluttered with unnecessary instrumentation – every element serves these songs, with nothing added just because it can be. Even when Leo Taylor’s inventive percussion busies itself, his skills complement proceedings rather than distract from the overall picture. A few tracks feel fairly minimal on an initial listen: The Wall, Surrender and What Happened are pieces of slow-burn intrigue. But repeat listens reveal salubrious textures, tiny details that bring these slight pieces to brilliant life.

What’s most compelling about Rispah, acknowledging the grief flowing through so much of its DNA, is that it feels so very alive: it’s the human retort to the mechanical motifs of its predecessor. Okumu recorded a group of women singing traditional Kenyan spirituals at his mother’s wake, and these voices surface at key junctures of the album’s sequencing: beginning, middle, and during the final seconds of closer and lead single, Protection. To quote Okumu, “it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard”; but these samples comprise just one facet of Rispah’s sublime design. Unconcerned with delivering a more-of-the-same affair, The Invisible have realised a set that is both contemplative and cathartic, maintaining a significant emotional hold on the listener long after finishing.

Okumu should rest up easy. Records like this don’t need to be forced upon the listening public. Rispah is brilliant enough for the listening public to find it naturally, in their own time.



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The Ivors Academy announce nominees and mentors for new Rising Star Award – Music News

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The Ivors Academy has today announced the five nominees for its brand-new Rising Star Award with Apple Music.

The Ivors – now in their 65th year – celebrate excellence in British and Irish songwriting and composing across categories for songs, albums, film, TV and video game scores.

Apple Music is supporting The Ivors Academy’s mission to cultivate the next generation of Ivor Novello Award winners. The Rising Star Award with Apple Music is the first new Ivor Novello Award category to be introduced in 10 years and honours young British and Irish songwriting and composing talent who demonstrate exceptional potential and ambition.

The new award helps discover, support, and accelerate the careers of the most promising music creators in the UK and Ireland, and demonstrates Apple Music’s continued support of the songwriter and composer community.

The Ivors Academy called for public submissions for the Rising Star Award last year, receiving the most applications for any category in the 65-year history of The Ivors. In addition to the record-breaking number of entries, 60% of entries were also made by female music creators.

An Ivor Novello Award is particularly important to the industry as it represents peer recognition, with the five nominees announced today chosen by The Ivors Committee: a group of award winning songwriters and composers from across The Ivors Academy’s membership.

The 2020 Rising Star Award Nominees are:

Amahla
Soul singer-songwriter Amahla has already garnered critical acclaim since releasing her debut EP ‘Consider This’ and performances at The Royal Albert Hall and Jazz Cafe. Amahla’s latest single ‘Apathy’ showcases her ability to influence society not only to reflect it.

Carmel Smickersgill
Carmel Smickersgill is a composer based in Manchester working predominantly within classical and electronic genres. A Royal Northern College of Music graduate, she is also the recipient of the 2019 Christopher Brooks prize with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

Griff
Pop artist Griff plays, writes and largely produces her own music, blending soulful vocals with pop hooks over sparse atmospheric arrangements and beats. Her most recent single ‘Forgive Myself’ follows ‘Good Stuff’ and 2019’s EP ‘The Mirror Talk’.

lullahush
Irish songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel McIntyre is the talent behind musical project lullahush. A measure of the distance between ambience and pop, lullahush released ‘Elysium’ and ‘If Spring Had a Spare Room I’d Rent It With You’ in 2019.

Mysie
Artist and songwriter Mysie released her debut EP ‘Chapter 11’ in 2019. Focused on the freedom music provides and rejecting genres and stereotypes, she has since dropped additional singles ‘Sweet Relief’, ‘Heartbeat’ and most recently, ‘Gift’.

The award includes a new mentoring scheme from Apple Music whereby all nominees receive a year-long mentorship from a well-established Academy member to help develop their networks, discover new opportunities and better understand how to navigate their careers.

Representing an incredible array of talent and experience this year’s mentors are:
Ivor Novello Award winning composer, producer and performer Anna Meredith MBE
Ivor Novello Award winning film and television composer and Academy Fellow David Arnold
Grammy and Ivor Novello Award winning music producer and songwriter Fraser T Smith
Multiple award winning singer, songwriter and producer Kamille (Camille Purcell)
Ivor Novello Award and multiple Grammy winning composer, producer, arranger and guitarist Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers, who is mentoring Amahla, said: “The Ivors, in my view, offer amongst the most prestigious accolades that a songwriter can receive anywhere in the world. To be able to get this acknowledgement at such an early stage in your career will be an important catalyst for this incredibly diverse range of new talent. All five of the Rising Star nominees being celebrated by The Ivors Academy and Apple Music have been selected on the strength of their creative talent, and I can’t wait to see them grow and give the world what I hope will be many of the great songs of the future.”

Helienne Lindvall, Chair of The Ivors Award Committee at The Ivors Academy, said: “I’m delighted that The Ivors Academy is working with Apple Music on the brand-new mentorship programme to empower young songwriters and composers. Right now, there are more opportunities but we are also facing more challenges than ever, so it’s more important than ever to support and champion music creators. Starting out in the music industry is notoriously difficult, so it really matters that we nurture songwriters and composers at the beginning of their careers. It’s fantastic that the Rising Star Award with Apple Music is recognising and promoting such extraordinary and inspiring young talent.”

The nominees will also receive Logic Pro X and GarageBand workshops to ensure they are able to make the most of Apple’s creative tools, and receive support from the Creative Services team within Apple’s Music Publishing division to optimise their compositions on Apple Music. Recognised as a pinnacle of achievement since they were first presented in 1956, The Ivors Academy presents Ivor Novello Awards twice a year to honour and celebrate exceptional songwriting and composing.

The Ivors with Apple Music sees the presentation of Ivor Novello Awards to celebrate songwriting and screen composition. The Ivors Nominations will be announced on Monday 20 July. These categories recognise works released in the UK during 2019 and as with the Rising Star Award, judging took place earlier in 2020.

Winners across all categories will be announced on Wednesday 2 September 2020.



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BBC – Music – Review of Ladyhawke

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Even a staunch Ladyhawke supporter could be forgiven for approaching this record with caution. For a start, there’s the title. Calling an album Anxiety hardly smacks of self-confidence, especially when that album is the follow-up to a well-regarded debut. Critics praised the first Ladyhawke LP when it came out in 2008; pop buffs wanted it to sell better than it eventually did.

Nor is the title entirely tongue-in-cheek. Pip Brown, the singer-songwriter behind the Ladyhawke name, piled so much pressure on herself that making this album “felt like a two-year-long anxiety attack”. Factor in several delays to release date and an ugly cliché slithers onto the tongue…

Thankfully, notions of a “sophomore slump” can be dismissed. Anxiety is a pretty cracking second album, though it’s not the second album fans might have expected. The first Ladyhawke record worked a twinkly synth-pop sound, prompting comparisons to 1980s pop idols Kim Wilde and Cyndi Lauper. This is an album of fuzzy guitar-pop tunes. In fact, Anxiety features no synths at all, only some retro-sounding organ parts from Pascal Gabriel, Brown’s co-writer/producer on all 10 tracks.

Ladyhawke still sounds like Ladyhawke, just tougher and more muscular, like Ladyhawke after a boot camp. She’s broadened her remit too. Anxiety’s reference points range from the 1960s psychedelia of album opener Girl Like Me to Britpop and beyond: closing track Gone Gone Gone cribs its vocal hooks from The Dandy Warhols‘ 2000 hit Bohemian Like You.

In between, there are power-pop gems aplenty. Sunday Drive is a wistful mix of Blondie and 1980s Fleetwood Mac. Cellophane aims for the widescreen grandeur of David Bowie‘s “Heroes” and doesn’t disgrace itself. Blue Eyes is an infectious Joan Jett-channelling kiss-off.

Infectious is a key word here. The anxiety of the title may permeate the lyrics – one song acknowledges the connection between “self-destruction”, “self-obsession” and “vanity”, while another pushes its luck by rhyming “cautious” with “nauseous”. But it doesn’t affect the quality of the music: Anxiety is as tight and catchy as a baseball mitt. On this evidence, one thing that needn’t cause Pip Brown anxiety is her ear for a tune.



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