New Music: Broke As Folk

           

Kula Shakes shares their new single "Broke As Folk" supported by Jay Darlington’s inimitable swirling Hammond bursts. Crispian Mills’ melodious voice delivers lyrics which possess an undercurrent of anger at economic inequality. However, in keeping with Kula Shaker’s spiritual philosophy, this is a song which exalts love and the purity of nature as the things we need to get through it. The music captures a similar atmosphere, too. Its organic sound is sourced from its warm, natural production. Crispian Mills says about the "Broke As Folk"' is a song for everyone who didn't fly in to Jeff Bezos's wedding, who's not the 1%. The world is broke and has been for a while. So this is about all that. It’s also about counting one's blessings. We should be grateful for the spiritual joys that money can't buy. Like friends, family, and foraging for mushrooms. The song comes as they put the finishing touches to their eighth studio album.

New Music: Say Something

           

Royel Otis unveil "Say Something", their third single from upcoming album "Hickey", featuring jangle-pop melodies and co-written with Walsh and Fedi. The track, co-written with Billy Walsh and producer Omer Fedi, features jangle-pop melodies and prominent drums. The duo, comprising Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic, describe the song as being about unspoken words. 

New Music: I Can Hear Your Love

           

My Morning Jacket shares their new single and unveiled the video for "I Can Hear Your Love." The blissed-out track appears on Is, the quintet’s recently released 10th studio album. Danny Clinch shot the video. "We had so much fun making this video, all captured LIVE in ONE take, we hope you enjoy it!" the band stated of the experience. The video opens in black-and-white before shifting into full color a la Wizard Of Oz. Gabriel Judet-Weinshel created special effects as sparks fly off the band members and kaleidoscopic imagery is displayed

New Music: The Subway

           

Chappell Roan has shared her long-awaited release new single, "The Subway," Chappell Roan has shared a music video for the song, a ballad she performed for the first time more than a year ago, at the 2024 Governors Ball festival. The clip, directed by Amber Grace Johnson, is a New York City-themed fantasy that features the singer in multiple, often surreal scenes: walking down crowded sidewalks in a variety of comically longhaired wigs, splashing around in the Washington Square Park fountain, peeling off a business suit on a windblown street, and of course riding the subway.

Books: This Is What You Get

This retrospective catalogue is the first institutional show focusing on the visual works of art by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke. The majority of the paintings, drawings and digital works were specifically made for Yorke's internationally celebrated band Radiohead, formed in Oxford in 1985. This features iconic artworks from the 1980s until today, relating to Radiohead albums, their covers and promotional band images, as well as sketchbooks and rare materials from their archives that have never before been published. It offers fresh views on the art of album covers, exploring the complex relationship between visual art and music.

Radiohead was formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The collaboration with the artist Stanley Donwood began in 1994 when the band was developing their second album, The Bends, which was released on 13th March, 1995. 2025 is therefore the 40-year anniversary of the band and the 30-year anniversary of the release of The Bends. The catalogue’s focus is upon the art produced by both Stanley Donwood and the band’s lead vocalist, Thom Yorke presented chronologically. Radiohead’s popularity has never waned and they have a strong core following and new fans (many of who are the children of ‘original’ fans).

The high-quality reproductions are complemented by exclusive interviews with the artists, and essays by Alex Farquharson, Nico Kos Earle, Benjamin Myers, James Putnam and Jennifer Ramkalawon.

A major retrospective will be held at the Ashmolean Museum from August 2025 to January 2026.

 

Title: This Is What You Get 

Publisher: Ashmolean Museum

Binding/Pages: Hardback 256 Pages

Rocktrospectiva: The Welcome Back To The Form "Made Of Rain" Turns 5

Released on 31 July 2020, "Made Of Rain" was the 8th., studio album by English rock band The Psychedelic Furs, it was the first studio album from the band in almost 30 years and has received positive reviews. The album spawned two singles "Don't Believe" & "You'll Be Mine" & "Wrong Train". It was also the first album with Rich Good ex The Pleased and Amanda Kramer ex Information Society.

 

The band reunited in 2000, and they had intended on recording new material but principal songwriter Richard Butler did not feel confident in any newly written songs until six months before prior to the sessions for Made of Rain. It was the first studio release by the group since 1991's World Outside and was preceded by lead single "Don't Believe". The album was initially scheduled to be released on 1 May, but was delayed until 31 July due to logistical issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was like a dreamlike pop album tailor-made for these garish, even nightmarish, days. It was all backed by a typically rousing rhythm from Paul Garisto – sometimes employing the crisp patterns that shimmered from Ringo Starr’s Revolver era-banging his drum with furious, fast-paced precision, whacking each and every piece to their breathless finale.

 

About Richard, he in particular rised to the challenge, bellowing out a deceptive but nonetheless readily harebrained style that pushed with the energy the choppy, colorful licks aim for. If nothing else, Made of Rain proved a love letter to the days when singles, not albums, were the audience tipple of choice. 

 

Highlights were the apocalyptic "Don't Believe", tumbling through the twisted instrumental segments with weathered, rain-torn precision. With "No One", a pounding, effects-heavy look at the disenfranchised within us, lightened by Tim's hypnotic finger work.  "Come All Ye Faithful" which was closest Richard Butler's canon to a gospel ballad-brought to greater life, thanks to the stop/start bass that leads the song to the enthralling guitar coda. The longtime Psychedelic Furs collaborator Mars Williams soundscapes the tunes with a series of tangy saxophone solos. Now think about "You'll Be Mine" a ballad that romanticizes the violence and opulence of love in equal measure-showcased his best work, expressing an explosion more commonly heard on a punk rhythm guitar, and of course the tremendous "Wrong Train" that particularly took me back to the good old days "Talk Talk Talk" or "Forever Now" and finally the trangressive "The Boy That Invented Rock And Roll". The album was co-produced by Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus.

 

Made of Rain received "generally favorable reviews" and called it "long overdue", with some repetition and an over-long runtime but there were several songs that highlighted Richard Butler's talents as a performer and songwriter, also praised the several technical aspects but also criticizing the sequencing and sameness of several songs. It was welcome return to the Furs'  classic blend of aggression, tender melody and brooding ambience" that is darker than previous material. 

 

Made Of Rain Track List:  

 

1. The Boy That Invented Rock And Roll

2. Don't Believe

3. You'll Be Mine

4. Wrong Train

5. This'll Never Be Like Love

6. Ash Wednesday

7. Come All Ye Faithful

8. No-One

9. Tiny Hands

10. Hide The Medicine

11. Turn Your Backs On Me

12. Stars

Rocktrospectiva: The Career-Defining "Marks To Prove It" Turns 10

Released 31 July 2025 "Marks To Prove It" was the 4th., and final studio album by the English band The Maccabees, the album peaked on No. 1 in the UK and spawned three singles "Marks To Prove It", "Something Like Happiness" & "Spit It Out".

The album was recorded in the band's studio in Elephant and Castle and throught its 41 minutes pays tribute to the area, including the album cover being of the Michael Faraday Memorial that is near the studio. Marks to Prove It, took two and half years to complete, this album is an amalgamation of the Maccabees' previous slush indie pop sound –  from Colour It In and then the stronger Wall of Arms – and the sailing, mystifying and altogether more layered sound of Given to the Wild. 

The product of such a combination has left a suite painted seriously with concerns of texture, pace and maturity; it was an album that took us out at twilight, throws us into the depths of the night with all its endeavours and its heartbreaks, and then hails us the night-bus all the way back until dawn and its insight.

From the opener "Marks to Prove It", placed the listener up for a teeth­grittingly fast ride; jagged guitars and staccato piano keys bounce around, while the sound clutches at the seams of the record as it cascades forward into the body of the album; the album had nothing of its predecessors, and this song was nothing like its forbearers. Influenced by the beginnings of gentrification of the transport system at Elephant & Castle – the roundabout of which is adorned on the album cover – the album addresses the more matured outlooks upon themes such as love and its loss, the quiet inevitability of the passing of age and time; it monopolizes the grasping but not quite reaching of something to hold onto whilst everything changes, and this era silently moves into the next.

Other remarkable tracks were "Kamakura" explosive choruses that gave sense to its sound of easy rhythm, "Ribbon Road" was another genius cut, "WWI Portraits" was inspired y the Imperial War Museum located in the surrounded areas of Elephant, then "Spit it Out" showed a powerful face of the band,  

The album was mature in both its sound and its lyricism. The Maccabees wandered into unknown territory with touches of jazz and blues from a brass addition, quasi-militant waltzes and discordant layering, as well as the addition of quieter piano-centred tracks like in "Pioneering Systems". There too were switched up vocals, with Hugo sang on "Silence" and lyrics recorded in one take on "Dawn Chorus". There was something distinctly raw, dark and slightly violent on the edges of even the most beautiful moments in the work; a deft and swift sadness shakes all the songs.  

Looking at the back catalogue of albums from the Maccabees was reminiscent of reading old private diaries; observing as the personal outlooks upon life progress all the way from boyhood through adolescence to manhood. Then Marks to Prove It is the musings of men in their late twenties, not the. It was a testament to the war wounds and love wounds inflicted over the years; the insight that experience gives; the heartbreak of time. In it, romanticising has been firmly moved aside, gentrification has been reacted to by resolute solidarity of men against change.

The Maccabees have proven themselves as unique, multi-talented and highly skilled band on this album, which was honest, humble, and quietly astounding. It was their career-defining; real artistry. Beauttiful way to end its career. 

 

Marks To Prove It Track List:  

 

1. Marks To Prove It

2. Kamasura

3. Ribbon Road

4. Spit It Out

5. Silence

6. River Song

7. Slow Sun

8. Something Like Happiness

9. WW1 Portraits 

10. Pioneering Systems

11. Dawn Chorus 

New Music: In This City

           

The band Moon Elevator was formed in 2024 by Gareth Soeby, Nigel Moyes and Stephanie David, they're described as "at home in any David Lynch soundscape", now they have shared their single "In This City" the opening track from "The Shadow That Follows You Home", from their four track EP out last July 25, 2025.

New Music: Dancing With The Europeans

           

Suede are releasing their new album, Antidepressants, on September 5 via BMG. Now they have shared its third single, "Dancing With the Europeans." Chris Turner directed the song's video. Frontman Brett Anderson had this to say about the song in a press release: "There's a sense of optimism about this song. I remember specifically we were doing a gig in Spain during the time we were writing this album. I was going through a bad time and at a low, personally. But we played this brilliant gig. There was a great connection between me and the audience. I thought of the phrase, dancing with the Europeans. There's something about that word, Europeans, that I really like. The phrase summed up the experience of looking for connection in a disconnected world. This sense of, where do we find those bonds with our fellow human beings? That show in Spain broke down those barriers". Antidepressants is the Britpop band's 10th album and the band called Antidepressants, because this is broken music for broken people.

New Music: End Of Summer

           

Tame Impala has shared the music video for their new single "End of Summer," a nostalgic track influenced by psychedelic rock and experimental electronic music. Throughout its nine-minute duration, the video immerses us in a divided universe, where two screens simultaneously play complementary scenes: one focused on Kevin Parker in the studio, and the other on his personal experience outdoors. The visual approach emphasizes the duality between creative introspection and the physical experience of the end of summer. The song evokes a sense of emotional closure, as if summer were a metaphor for the passage of time or a vital transformation. There is no conventional narrative with defined characters, but rather a sequence of intimate moments connected through gestures, gazes, and locations. Kevin Parker appears both working on his music and enjoying familiar surroundings, exploring the connection between his artistic and everyday self. One of the most powerful elements of the video clip is the use of the split-screen format, which divides the screen into two parallel sequences. This duality not only provides visual richness but also functions as a metaphor for the doubling of experience and memory. We see two moments occurring simultaneously, but not always synchronized, as if each half of the screen represented a different layer of consciousness. It is a way of expressing how the end of summer is never an exact point, but rather a memory that coexists between the real and the remembered. The technique reinforces the idea that time does not flow in a straight line, but in parallel, like our emotions and memories.