New Music: For You

           

The new single from the French artist Requin Chagrin "For You" is arriving now, taken from the bands forthcoming album "Décollage" available here https://requinchagrin.lnk.to/Decollage , the video has been directed by Simon Noizat.

New Music: Island Of One

           

Miki Berenyi Trio's new song "Island Of One" is trippy and hypnotic, and it reminds more of Stereolab than Lush. Along with the studio recording, they've shared a video where they play a longer version of the track live in studio. Benreyi said: "Island Of One" took shape because I became quite obsessed with the track "Just A Western" by Nilüfer Yanya last year, and the Latin-y beat got me inspired. But I wanted a lively, catchy song to add to our live set, so it ended up less laidback and more 60s-breezy with some driving, scratchy guitars — once all three MB3 members pile in on the embellishments, a song ends up a fair distance from where it started! As ever, recording and production took place in our various home-studio set-ups, and the song was mixed by our brilliant Bella Union labelmate, Paul Gregory... the video was directed by Sébastien Faits-Divers

New Music: Winter Sky

           

Big Country’s co-founder and longest-serving band member, Bruce Watson, has announced that as of 1st January 2026 the band will move forward under the name Big Country Redux. 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of the passing of songwriter, frontman, and co-founder Stuart Adamson. Now there's a new single off "Winter Sky" taken from the forthcoming album Eastworld releasing Sept 2026. The track FeaturesMick McNeill of Simple Minds on accordion.

New Music: Stop

           

Embrace are approaching their 30-year milestone with a startling sense of clarity. Their upcoming album, Avalanche, marks a departure from the self-imposed pressures of their arena-filling past, leaning instead into a raw and uncomfortable honesty. Band's new single "Stop" is the heartbeat of this shift; born from a realisation of life’s fragility, the band views the fleeting nature of existence not as a tragedy, but as a liberating reason to drop the act and actually live in the moment. Of the single, vocalist Danny McNara comments: The track "Stop" pretty much says it all. It’s the clearest statement of where my head was at when we started this record. I was thinking a lot about scale, the fact that we’re on a rock spinning through space at a million miles an hour, heading into absolute nothing, with almost no control over the big picture. One day everyone and everything we’ve ever known will just be a fine layer of calcium, and there’s nothing we can do to change that. Oddly, I don’t find that depressing. I find it freeing. If none of this is permanent, then the pressure we put on ourselves, to be better, bigger, fixed, sorted, is kind of absurd. That song is a demand, to myself as much as anyone, to stop, look around, and actually live in the moment.

In Memoriam: Iconic And Veteran Actor "James Tolkan" Dies At 94

James Tolkan, the veteran character actor best known for his stern authority roles in "Back to the Future" and "Top Gun," has died at the age of 94.  James Tolkan, known for his roles as an authoritarian figure in the Back to the Future and Top Gun films, has died. He was 94.

Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, New York, where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, said Saturday. A brief obituary published on the Back to the Future website said Tolkan died "peacefully", but no cause of death was given.

In Back to the Future, Tolkan portrayed the bow tie-wearing vice-principal Gerald Strickland, who eyeballed students for trouble in the halls of the fictitious Hill Valley high school – in particular Marty McFly, played by Michael J Fox. "You got a real attitude problem, McFly," Tolkan's character says in the 1985 film.  "You're a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too."

Tolkan also appeared in Top Gun as commanding officer Tom "Stinger" Jardian. Near the end of the film, when Jardian asks Tom Cruise’s character, Capt Pete "Maverick"  Mitchell, about his choice for future duty, Mitchell replies that he wants to be a Top Gun instructor. "God help us," Tolkan's character replies, laughing. Tolkan's big-screen résumé also included The Friends of Eddie Coyle, The Amityville Horror, Wolfen, WarGames, Masters of the Universe, True Blood and Opportunity Knocks.

Born on June 20, 1931, in Calumet, Michigan, James Stewart Tolkan cycled through Chicago after his parents divorced and wound up in Tucson, Arizona, where he graduated from Amphitheater High School in 1949. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he attended Coe College and the University of Iowa, came to New York with $75 in his pocket and studied with Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio, where Beatty was a classmate in 1956.

He made his onscreen debut in 1960 on an episode of ABC's Naked City, and in 1966 he understudied for Robert Duvall before replacing him as bad guy Harry Roat in the original Broadway production of Wait Until Dark, starring Lee Remick. 

Later, Tolkan played insurance investigator Norman Keyes on five episodes of NBC’s Remington Steele and several characters over 21 installments of A&E’s A Nero Wolfe Mystery (he directed a couple of episodes as well). He also guest-starred on Miami Vice, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Wonder Years, Leverage and many other shows.

Survivors include his wife, Parmelee, who worked at the American Place Theater as a costumes and scenery painter. They met on the set of the 1971 off-Broadway play Pinkville when he was acting in it and she was a prop girl, and they married that year in Lake Placid. Donations in his memory can be made to your local animal shelter, animal rescue organization or Humane Society chapter.

Tolkan also played Napoleon and his look-alike in Woody Allen’s Love and Death and was the crooked accountant known as Numbers who works for Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy.He appeared in three movies directed by Sidney Lumet: as a cop in the Pacino-starring Serpico, as a determined D.A. in Prince of the City and as a judge in Family Business.On Broadway, Tolkan portrayed salesman Dave Moss in the original 1984-85 production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. (Ed Harris played the character in the 1992 movie adaptation.)

Tolkan is survived by his wife of 54 years, Parmelee Welles.

New Music: Days We Left Behind

           

Paul McCartney announces the released of his brand new album "The Boys Of Dungeon Lane" due out this 29th., May. The album title comes from a lyric in this track "Days We Left Behind". I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I'm just writing about the past but then I hink how can you write about anything else? said Paul himself. This nostalgic new single suggests a convincing mature style, without the unnecessary straining for relevance that marred some recent solo releases

New Music: Bad Husband

           

"Bad Husband" is the latest single from Trashcan Sinatras, taken off their upcoming seventh album Ever The Optimist, due out July 31 via TCS Recordings. Featuring vocals from Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell. Bad Husband” is an upbeat, primary-colored hop that cheerfully contradicts its subject matter, with Campbell’s voice wrapping around Francis Reader’s lead as both protagonists admit their failures with surprising joy. Reader sums it up perfectly: "Never has separation sounded quite so celebratory." The accompanying video, directed by Chris Dooley and shot in Los Angeles, stars real-life married actors Paul F. Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tompkins, whose improvised exchanges blur the line between performance and documentary reality.

New Music: Shush

           

The acclaimed singer-songwriter, pianist and composer Tori Amos recently shared a new single, "Shush," from her upcoming new album In Times Of Dragons. "Shush" follows "Stronger Together," the lead single from the album that featured supporting vocals from Amos' daughter. The new single expands the mythic landscape of In Times of Dragons, with a battle-hardened "lizard demon" billionaire standing at its center. "He represents what we're dealing with right now," Amos explained. "He sees congressmen, senators, and even probably presidents, as people who answer to him and other billionaires, who don't think you and I should vote. He's trying to develop the kind of feudal system we had hundreds of years ago." "But it doesn't look like it once did," she continued. "We don't look like we're in the trenches, in the muck. We have all the cool, digital devices now. So, it looks different. But it has the same philosophy." In Times of Dragons arrives on May 1st via Universal/Fontana 

New Music: Conflagration Mindset

           

Last year, Tim Darcy, formerly of Ought and currently of Cola, was one of many musicians whose homes were destroyed in the LA wildfires. On Cola's new song "Conflagration Mindset," Darcy sings about robotically marching on while forces far beyond you have thrown your life into chaos: "A decent way to dress it up/ Cold beer in a hotel cup/ I’m alone, but I’ll gas the car/ In conflagration mindset." A stark and bleary post-punk song about stark and bleary situations. Here's what Darcy says about it: This track began as a wintry-cold synth and drum machine exploration that Evan sent around. Ben and I were hanging out at his apartment and were immediately taken with it and started messing around with finding ways to play aspects of his synth part on bass and guitar, a fun challenge we continued to explore even in the studio as we played with blending the synthetic and live versions of the track.

New Music: Like A Cardinal

           

Just like going back to 2004, Hawthorne Heights are back with a brand new single "Like A Cardinal" the band is so excited to finally give this one and so proud to announce a new tour, and new song, and a new era of Hawthorne Heights. About the video, it was filmed, produced, and edited by Austin Voldseth

New Music: Evergreen

            

The Ladytron new album ‘Paradises,’ is out now on Nettwerk, is their eighth studio record and shines across 16 tracks of dark electro-Pop. Following Reuben Wu’s departure in 2023, the band stepped into the studio as a trio for the first time. That shift could have easily thrown them off balance. Instead, it seems to have lit a fire under them. And with “Evergreen” leading the charge as the sixth single, Ladytron have made it very clear: they are not here to coast on nostalgia.

 

New Music: Our Day Will Come

           

Dead Can Dance's new single is "Our Day Will Come," is a hypnotic ode to solidarity between Irish and Palestinian people. It's got the tingly sweep of their old music, combined with a certain world-weary determination. Lisa Gerrard doesn't seem to be part of the record, and it's the first thing to come out under the Dead Can Dance name since "Mushin," Brendan Perry's one-off collaboration with filmmaker Graham Wood. Half of the proceeds from "Our Day Will Come" go to benefit MAP (Medical Aid For Palestinians)

New Music: So What

            

MUNA returns with "So What", a bold, emotionally charged new track taken from their forthcoming albumDancing On The Wall, due 8 May. A somber epic with a quietly euphoric undercurrent, "So What" is the definition of Muna: defiant, vulnerable, and made for release.  Of the track, the band says, "We're at the point in our career where we've been to a lot fancy parties in beautiful rooms with important people and we know the particular sadness of realizing it doesn’t make you feel better. We've learned the hard way that validation is hollow and we actually just want connection. This is a song about going to one of those parties and leaving worse off than when we got there.” Across the record, MUNA explores desire, intimacy, and connection against a backdrop of a world in flux, capturing the tension of how to keep living, loving, and reaching for one another in challenging times. The video was shot by Dante Capone

 

New Music: Be With You

           

Muse have returned with a new single, "Be With You", from their forthcoming 10th album "The Wow! Signal".  Both songs will appear on the follow-up to 2022's 'Will Of The People', which is set for release on June 26 via Warner. Muse have previewed the album with epic lead single "Be With You". It begins with a grand church organ before introducing elements of driving electronica, eventually erupting with a dose of blistering guitar rock. "Be With You" is accompanied by a cinematic official music video starring Ella Balinska (Resident Evil, The Occupant), and directed by Nico Paolillo

New Music: Hedgesitting

           

May sees the release of Cost of Living Adjustment, the third album from Montreal’s Cola. Hedgesitting gives us the inside track on how it will sound. The band has acknowledged the moderate influence of Sarah Records on the song, and even the title makes me think of days full of purpose but little action, but when talking about doing stuff was exciting in itself. It has a perfect setting in how the band have given what seems like a stripped-down arrangement such a lush and dreamlike production, as if wanting you to lose yourself in the track’s meditative energies.As the lyrics call out to gods of the past and Mammon of the present, it isn’t all plain sailing, but that is what makes the song so vital – it makes you want to hear and absorb their message as you lose yourself in the textures.Video directed by Kristina Pedersen

New Music: House Of I

            

The Afghan Whigs announce the release of "House of I," their first new music since 2022 via Royal Cream/BMG. Driven by pounding drums, roaring guitars, and caustic lyrics steeped in desire, the track is delivered with Greg Dulli’s unmistakable vocals. Produced and mixed by Dulli and Christopher Thorn, “House of I” was recorded at Marigny Sound in New Orleans, LA, with additional recording and mixing completed at Fireside Sound in Joshua Tree, CA.

 

New Music: Alma

           

Deary's new song "Alma" is an extended rippling sigh, and it sounds like an invitation to crawl under some blankets and lazily bliss out all day long. Bandleader Rebecca "Dottie" Cockram says, "I see 'Alma' as an embodiment of our band. It has been with us for a long time and changed with us along the way. In the past four years, we have grown into ourselves and have a much clearer idea of what deary is. In this song, I am talking to my younger self, who made the decision to look after us and become a better person."In the Limb-directed video for "Alma," identical twin sisters Robin and Charly Faye stand above a cloudy ocean and sing the song to each other.  

In Memoriam: Legendary Martial Artist And Actor "Chuck Norris" Dies At 86

Martial arts phenom and Hollywood action star Chuck Norris has died on Thursday at the age of 86, in what his family described as a "sudden passing."

A message poster by his family on Friday confirmed the deceased: "It is with heavy hearts that our family shares the sudden passing of our beloved Chuck Norris yesterday morning," "While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace." 

Born Carlos Ray Norris in Ryan, Oklahoma, on March 10, 1940, he grew up poor. At age 12, he moved with his family to Torrance, Calif., and joined the U.S. air force after high school, in 1958. It was during a deployment to Korea that he started training in martial arts, including judo and tang soo do.

"I went out for gymnastics and football at North Torrance High," he told The Associated Press in 1982. "I played some football, but I also spent a lot of time on the bench. I was never really athletic until I was in the service in Korea."

After he was honourably discharged in 1962, he worked as a file clerk for Northrop Aircraft and applied to be a police officer, but was put on a wait list. Meanwhile, he opened a martial arts studio, which expanded to a chain, with students including stars like Bob Barker, Priscilla Presley, Donny and Marie Osmond, and Steve McQueen, whom he later credited with encouraging him to get into acting.

Before he would become a star in movies and on TV, Norris was wildly successful in competitive martial arts. He was a six-time undefeated World Professional Middleweight Karate champion. He also founded his own Korean-based US hard style of karate, known sometimes as chun kuk do, and the United Fighting Arts Federation, which has awarded more than 3,300 Chuck Norris System black belts worldwide.

Black Belt magazine ultimately credited Norris in its hall of fame with holding a 10th-degree black belt, the highest possible honour.

Norris made his film debut as an uncredited bodyguard in the 1968 movie The Wrecking Crew, which included a fight with Dean Martin. He had crossed paths with Bruce Lee in martial arts circles. Their friendship — sometimes as sparring partners — led to an iconic faceoff in the 1972 movie Return of the Dragon, in which Lee fights and kills Norris's character in Rome's Colosseum.

He went on to act in more than 20 movies, such as Missing in Action, The Delta Force and Sidekicks.

"I wanted to project a certain image on the screen of a hero. I had seen a lot of anti-hero movies in which the lead was neither good nor bad. There was no one to root for," Norris said in 1982.

In 1993, he took on his most famed role, as a crime-fighting lawman in TV's Walker, Texas Ranger. The show ran for nine seasons, and in 2010, then-governor Rick Perry awarded him the title of honorary Texas Ranger. The Texas Senate later named him an honorary Texan. 

Norris also made a surprise comedic appearance as a decisive judge in the final match of the 2004 movie, The only on occasion has he taken on acting roles in recent years, including 2012's The Expendables 2 and the 2024 sci-fi action movie Agent Recon. He's due to appear in Zombie Plane, an upcoming film starring Vanilla Ice.

Then it come the "Chuck Norris Facts", it was around the time of Dodgeball that his toughman image became the stuff of legend — literally. "Chuck Norris Facts" went viral online with such wildly hyperbolic statements as "Chuck Norris had a staring contest with the sun — and won" and "They wanted to put Chuck Norris on Mt. Rushmore, but the granite wasn't tough enough for his beard."

Norris ultimately embraced the absurdity of the meme, putting together The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book, which combined his favourites with supposedly true stories and the codes he aimed to live by. He would also write books on martial arts instruction, a memoir, political takes, Civil War-era historical fiction and more.

"To some who know little of my martial arts or film careers but perhaps grew up with Walker, Texas Ranger, it seems that I have become a somewhat mythical superhero icon," Norris wrote in the forward to the Fact Book. "I am flattered and humbled."

Norris is survived by five children: stunt performers Mike and Eric with his late ex-wife Dianne Holechek; twins Dakota and Danilee with his wife Gena Norris; and Dina, the result of an early 1960s "one-night stand" revealed in his autobiography.

Norris celebrated his birthday just over a week before his death, posting a sparring video on Instagram.

"I don't age. I level up," he wrote.

New Music: Blue Morpho

           

Former Radiohead's Ed O'Brien is back with "Blue Morpho". Now O’Brien is reframing that uncertainty as creative freedom. Writing the album meant confronting the weight of coming from what he calls a “place of extraordinary musicianship and extraordinary songwriting” — and choosing, consciously, to let it go. It’s a mindset that aligns with the album’s nature-driven themes, though the real arc here is internal. If Earth was about searching for footing, Blue Morpho finds O’Brien more willing to trust his instincts — and to follow them wherever they lead. That includes new tools. Among them: the Circle Guitar, a MIDI-controlled, self-strumming electric guitar he says he’s been “longing to find” — and one that may yet shape the sound of his next chapter. The visuals ared under direction by Kit Monteith

New Music: Where Are We Now

           

A Place To Bury Strangers are sharing "Where Are We Now"  the third single and video off the band upcoming rarities album "Rare And Deadly" out April 3 on Dedstrange. The video was made by APTBS frontman Oliver Ackermann: "I put together this video with footage from the Library of Congress' National Archives. At a time when I think we need to look at people more and see the value and wonder of life so we can be compassionate towards others."  About the song "Where Are We Now," is a reflective cut that drifts through memory and distance. The song turns inward, "looking back at friends you lost touch with," wondering where they ended up and “remembering when everything felt possible." Melancholic yet expansive, it captures time slipping by and paths diverging, offering a quietly emotional glimpse into the band's forthcoming rare tracks album Rare And Deadly.

New Music: You're My Patient Now

           

Inspired by the hardboiled detective fiction of Raymond Chandler and musically is in the vein of Link Wray and The Cramps, "You're My Patient Now" is the final single from the band's new album "Gained/Lost". Psychobilly sounds in black and white, urban landscape of Howard Hawks, a photograph of a dream. Like a spiderweb or broken glass in the gutter. Dream songs are like paintings, memory songs are like photographs, but in the case of You're my Patient Now, it is a dream song that is a photograph

New Music: Riptide

           

Death Cab for Cutie are back and has announced their eleventh studio album, I Built You A Tower, set for release on June 5, 2026, via ANTI- Records, the announcement has been preceded by the lead single "Riptides" accompanied by a Jason Lester-directed video, about the song, it explores the paralyzing challenge of navigating personal struggles amidst global tragedy. 

Rocktrospectiva: The Groundbreaking "Firestarter" Turns 30

Released on 18 March 1996 "Firestarter" was the groundbreaking song by British electronic dance music band the Prodigy as the first single from their third album, The Fat of the Land (1997). It was co-written and produced by Liam Howlett and featured vocals by Keith Flint. It also was the group's first number-one single on the UK Singles Chart, staying on top for three weeks, and their first big international hit, topping the charts in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, and Norway. In the United States, it peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video was directed by Walter Stern and filmed in the London Underground, in black-and-white. Melody Maker ranked the song number two in their list of "Singles of the Year" in 1996. 

The songwriting credits included Kim Deal of the Breeders, as the looped wah-wah guitar riff in "Firestarter" was sampled from the Breeders' track "S.O.S." from the album Last Splash. The drums are sampled from a remix of the song "Devotion" of the group Ten City. The "hey" sample is from the 1984 song "Close (to the Edit)" by Art of Noise. Then-members Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, J. J. Jeczalik, Gary Langan and Paul Morley also receive songwriting credits. 

The accompanying black-and-white music video for "Firestarter" was directed by English director Walter Stern and was filmed in an abandoned London Underground tunnel at Aldwych. The video was subsequently banned by the BBC after it was shown on Top of the Pops and supposedly terrorised children.

Critics praised the track because musically this cut found the boys slamming through an exhilarating, breakbeat techno theme for snowboarding freestylers. Half-pipe hardcore — you know the score. Some named it Single of the Week and a the powerful return for the kings of live techno, and that  even managed to make the Chemical Brothers sound soft.

Over the last 30 years "Firestarter" has been used in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 reveal trailer and the films Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), The Condemned (2007), Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021), and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), as well as the cold opening of The Beauty (2026). 

 

Firestarter Track List:  

 

UK Cassette Single

• Firestarter (Edit)
• Molotov Bitch

US Maxi.CD Single

• Firestarter (Edit)
• Firestarter (Empirion Mix)
• Firestarter (Instrumental)
• Molotov Bitch

European CD Single

• Firestarter (Edit)
• Firestarter (Empirion Mix)

UK And US 12-inch Single

• Firestarter
• Firestarter (Instrumental)
• Firestarter (Emprion Mix)
• Molotov Bitch 

US CD Single And Cassette Single

• Firestarter (Edit)

Rocktrospectiva: The Lovely And Well-Crafted "Lovelife" Turns 30

Originally released on 18 March 1996 "Lovelife" was the third and final studio album by English rock band Lush. It was released on 18 March 1996 by 4AD. On Lovelife, the band moved away from their earlier dream pop and shoegazing style and embraced a more Britpop-oriented sound. 

The album was produced by Pete Bartlett and the band at Protocol Studios in London, and engineered by Giles Hall. The album spawned three singles: "Single Girl", "Ladykillers", and "500 (Shake Baby Shake)", all of which achieved moderate success on the UK Singles Chart, reaching the top 30 positions. 

Lush first two albums were firmly entrenched in shoegaze style sound-a-like as Slowdive and Sleeper, but this time, the band decided to put a stake on britpop sound and produced three lovely singles from the Britpop era. The band marked a shift in sound, from shimmering introspection to confidently upbeat indie and sparkling, hook-laden pop. But while the melodies became catchier the four-piece didn’t compromise their integrity, and this album represents no cynical pursuit for money by joined the Britpop bandwagon. Compared to albums of the time from the likes of Cast, Menswear and Shed Seven, all of which have dated terribly, Lovelife on the other hand standed up so well to contemporary scrutiny. 

The scene idol Jarvis Cocker descended from his lofty perch above the wannabe pack to duet with singer Miki Berenyi on "Ciao!", "Papasan" was a stripped-bare affair, the interwoven voices of Berenyi and Emma Anderson truly raising the hairs, and Tralala is the atmospheric opposite of its onomatopoeically jolly title, a downbeat delight. "Heavenly Nobodies" was about her and a friend's star-struck encounter with Hole frontwoman Courtney Love. She also added that the song was not intended as a dig towards her, and that the riff was inspired by the Monkees and the Kinks.

"Single Girl" proved to be one of the band's largest hits, though the band's discomfort with the more commercial sound of the song almost led to its shelving. Berenyi recalled, "Pete [Bartlett] knew 'Single Girl' was a single right off the bat but says: 'You and Emma seemed almost embarrassed by the idea of commercial success and Emma kept trying to dismiss it as a B-side'. 

"Ladykillers" and "500 (Shake Baby Shake)" were the hits that evoked memories of teenage days where all possibilities seemed achievable, where one's future wasn’t written by forefathers or schooling limitations. Unfortunately, it was a true tragedy that the band's upward trajectory was so dramatically halted in October 1996, when drummer Chris Acland committed suicide. 

Lovelife was a bittersweet collection of songs crafted so well in the first place that they were effectively withstood the ravages of time. And those singles, with their sing-or-shout-along choruses, rightfully remain indie-club classics to this day. 

 

Lovelife Track List: 

 

1. Ladykillers

2. Heavenly Nobodies

3. 500 (Shake Baby Shake)

4. I've Been Here Before

5. Papasan

6. Single Girl

7. Ciao!

8. Tralala

9. Last Night

10. Runaway

11. The Childcatcher

12. Olympia

New Music: Time Is A Bomb

           

Taken from Romanticize The Dive, the band's forthcoming album, today they're back with another preview called "Time Is A Bomb." Say what you want about the wellness boom, I think it’s a natural response to the unrelenting awareness we have of our mortality," Emily Haines says, continuing: The powerless feeling of wanting to hold on and make time stop while simultaneously doing everything you can to max out your fleeting vitality — this song expresses that inner tension. I love my life and I’m truly amazed that I made it to my happily ever after, but I don't want to spend the time I have left obsessing over personal consequences, being boring and hiding from fun. I don’t expect to be jumping off speaker stacks or crowd surfing like I used to, but it’s still too soon to say never. 

Albums: Wormslayer

Kula Shaker are back and releases their eighth studio album "Wormslayer", the 11 track album featured the singles "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Good Money", "Lucky Number" and "Wormslayer". 

Emerging in the mid 90's in the days of rising Britpop sound, but the band decided to give their touch and mix it with classic 60’s psychedelia and various stylings of Indian music. On their new album, that is "Wormslayer," the band plays with elements that remarks what Kula Shaker's music is: both energetic and stylistically broad, indeed, there's something very British about their sound that fuses Anglo and Indo styles, a style that continues a trend with certain artists such as Cornershop in the 1990s.

Last year, the band shared a handful of new songs that showed they were still spreading their creative wings. The group delved into their funky side with "Good Money", incorporating R&B rhythms and girl group backing vocals for a song that sounds like a lost 70's club banger. They explored the darker edges of britpop and haunting alternative sounds on "Charge of the Light Brigade", played around with certain Bob Dylan when he was electric type melodies on the organ-led sing-along "Broke as Folk".

Apparently and despite the band have risen in the 90’s, their musical heart seems firmly in the 60’s, as the throwback elements of these tracks never feel like an homage. A "folk" song to them isn’t just a man and an acoustic guitar – it's a fully orchestrated, lush production like the dreamy "Little Darling". The pop tune "Shaunie" with uplifting guitar chords, other songs can be just as twisty and poetic as the music, as they spill out lines like "Your crooked smile dances on a serpent for your lover's eyes" on "Be Merciful".

Another element clearly evident is their Beatles (Sgt. Peppers era) journey sound on the excentric "Wormslayer", a song that evolute from heavy into a head-banging denouement. You can also hear Dylan elementes it in the simple melody and thoughtful delivery of "Day for Night", or in the mix of plaintive vocals and group harmonies on the philosophical closer "The Dust Beneath Our Feet". And really, if the music of the 60's is your sound, this album was created for you.

 

Wormslayer Track List:  

 

1. Lucky Number

2. Good Money 

3. Charge Of The Light Brigade

4. Little Darling

5. Broke As Folk

6. Be Merciful

7. Shaunie

8. The Winged Boy

9. Day For Night

10. Wormslayer

11. Dust Beneath Our Feet  

New Music: Blow My Mind

           

Robyn, the pop singer rewrote one of her love and well-knowm songs for her three-year-old son, of course, her latest song will be familiar to longtime fans. "Blow My Mind," the fourth single on her new album, Sexistential, is an electro-funk remake of her original 2002 love song of the same name. This time, it was rewritten and re-recorded, the song's new lyrics are all about her three-year-old son. Robyn said in a press statement. "I was in that early stage when I was with him all the time, and something about that closeness opened the song up to me again. Listening back to the original I thought, ‘I think it's one of the best songs I ever recorded, and I'm just gonna do it again.' I rewrote the lyrics and I love this version's rawness. It's not cute, because it's not cute with children. They're cute, but the experience isn't. "Blow My Mind" follows the release of singles "Sexistential," "Dopamine," and "Talk To Me."

New Music: Waiting On You

           

Nearly a month ago Rick Astley released "Waiting On You" a landmark to celebrate his 60th., birthday, now the legendary Rick shares the official video for "Waiting On You", A nighttime wander through London, actually the intro showcasing London Bridge iluminated reminds me a little to certain scenes of Paul McCartney's "No More Lonely Nights", the video was filmed on location in London on Apple iPhone by Peter Neill and Lee Thorpe.

New Music: Play Me

           

Kim Gordon releases "Play Me," the title track from her upcoming solo album via Matador Records, continuing her legacy as a pioneering figure in alternative and experimental rock. The Influential musician Kim Gordon, best known for her work with Sonic Youth, has released the title track from her upcoming solo album as her third single. With "Play Me," Gordon continues exploring experimental sonic territory, blending industrial textures, minimalist electronic elements and sharp cultural commentary. Her work maintains the conceptual depth and critical perspective that have characterized her artistic vision for decades. The single is accompanied by a music video directed by Barney Clay, which enhances the provocative and minimalist aesthetic that defines this new creative chapter for Gordon.

New Music: Star

           

After several years of relatively quiet, with singer and guitarist Elias Rønnenfelt releasing his debut solo album Heavy Glory in 2024, followed by Speak Daggers in 2025. The new single of the band "Star" arrives as the first new music from the band since their 2021 album Seek Shelter, and comes alongside a video directed by Thinh T. Petrus Nguyen. The track is described as a love song with Rønnenfelt's grit building the core. 

New Music: I Just Can't Get Over Losing You

           

The Lemon Twigs aka brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario have announced a new album, Look For Your Mind!, and shared its first single, "I Just Can't Get Over Losing You," via a music video. Look For Your Mind! is due out May 8 via Captured Tracks. The new album features live members Reza Matin (drums) and Danny Ayala (bass), which opens up the recording process after on previous albums the D’Addario brothers handled everything in the studio themselves. Aboute the album title, Brian says in a press release: "I do think that now is a time of insanity. You really have to hold onto your own mind if you don’t wanna lose it." About the new single, he says:  "Every time we try to write something that's completely straightforward, we can't help adding an element which comes out of left field. We always want to write a song we've never heard before."

Rocktrospectiva: Pet Shop Boys Hit Medley "Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) " Turns 35

Released on 11 March 1991 "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)" was a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys. The song was a medley of U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", a 1967 song by Frankie Valli, though in an arrangement informed by the 1982 disco version of the song by the Boys Town Gang rather than the original.

The song accompanied "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", the third single from their fourth studio album, Behaviour, as a double A-side in the United Kingdom (both singles were released separately in the United States). Released in March 1991 by Parlophone, the song became the duo's 15th consecutive top-20 entry in the UK, peaking at number four on the UK Singles Chart.

Chris Lowe had the idea for the unusual mashup, realising that "you could sing the one going into the other", while recording "I'm Not Scared" with Patsy Kensit for her band, Eighth Wonder. Lowe and Neil Tennant then noticed that "the guitar on U2's record sounded like a sequencer". The duo intended to record it with Eighth Wonder as a follow-up to "I'm Not Scared"; instead, they recorded it themselves several years later, as they "needed a big hit. It was absolutely shameless." Having "turn[ed] a mythic rock song into a stomping disco record".

The Pet Shop Boys version differs significantly from that of U2 in its musical arrangement. In contrast to the U2 version's instrumental build-up, the Pet Shop Boys version opens abruptly with synthesized and sampled noises and a drum machine. The musical climax of the song was also changed in other elements; a background vocal sample of "burning down love" was played right at the start, and synthesised horns erupt with even higher notes immediately following each chorus. Tennant performed the lyrics with no vocal exertion or stresses, in contrast to Bono's performance. In addition, at the transition between "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", Tennant sang the two lines one after the other, with no change in pitch, demonstrating the similarities in the two songs.

The single's other A-side, "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", criticised the insincere humanitarian messages of a number of pop stars during the 1980s and the institutionalization of rock and roll. The band noted that "one song is about rock stars so to have a U2 song with it serves as a further comment." 

Following the release of the single, U2 joked, "What have we done to deserve this?", referring to a Pet Shop Boys song. Critics were mixed and fairly good by saying the track was a cool, happy music no-one else took the piss quite so shockingly. A bizarre mixture of two completely different songs, on paper it read and felt like a painful nightmare. But on record, it gels rather well. Neil and Chris' Hi-NRG treatment of both tracks run ridiculously smoothly with added eloquence, forcing even the Boys' detractors to give credit where it's due.

 

Where The Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off You Track List:

 

1. UK/Australia 7-inch and cassette single 

• Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?

2. UK 12-inch single

• Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) Extended Mix
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?
• Bet  She's Not Your Girlfriend

3. UK 12-inch single (remixes)

• Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) David Morales Remix 
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? Mo Mo Remix
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? Ragga Zone Remix 

4. UK CD Single

• Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?
• Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend
• How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? Classical Reprise 

5. US 12-inch single

• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)  12-inch dance mix
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)  red zone mix
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)  eclipse mix
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) ska reprise
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) 7-inch version

6. US And Canadian CD Single

• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) original 7-inch mix
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) 12-inch dance mix
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) red zone mix
• Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend
• I Want A Dog techno funk mix 

7. US And Canadian Cassette Single

• Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You) original 7-inch 
• Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend 

In Memoriam: Boston Lead Singer "Tommy DeCarlo" Dies At 60

Tommy DeCarlo, who became the lead singer of the band Boston for nearly 20 years based on a Myspace tribute to the band's original singer, has died at 60.

DeCarlo's children, Annie, Talia and Tommy Jr., said in posts on his Facebook and Instagram pages that their father, who had been struggling for months with brain cancer, died Monday. They said, "He fought with incredible strength and courage right up until the very end." 

Brad Delp, the original singer of the band that was founded in 1975 and had hits including "More Than a Feeling" and "Peace of Mind,", & "Amanda" died in 2007. DeCarlo, then a 43-year-old working at a Home Depot in North Carolina, wrote, sang and recorded a tribute song to Delp. He posted that song along with a few Boston covers to his Myspace page and sent the link to the band.

DeCarlo initially got a polite rejection, according to Rolling Stone. But founding guitarist and songwriter Tom Scholz, struck by his voice's resemblance to Delp, invited DeCarlo to perform at a tribute concert for the late singer. Scholz then asked him to join the band. "It wasn't like I was trying to sing like Brad," DeCarlo said in a bio on the band's website, "it was just that I loved to sing along with him."

DeCarlo toured with Boston for nearly 20 years and sang on their 2013 album, "Life, Love and Hope."

New Music: The Monster Of Pig Alley

           

Morrisey has just released their brilliant new album "Make-Up Is A Lie" and a week later of the released of Roxy Music cover "Amazona", the icon released his new single with a video "The Monsters Of Pig Alley" with a video directer by Lewis Cater, the track is fantastic, you see this is what happens when Mozza and aAlain Whyte work together, a brilliant tune from the beginning 'til the end.  

New Music: All In Now

           

Keanu Reeves band "Dogstar" have announced their new album "All In Now" and shared its title track as a single, the alt-rock band, in which the movie star Reeves plays bass alongside vocalist Bret Domrose and drummer Rob Mailhouse, reunited in 2023 after a two-decade absence. Now, they have confirmed that the follow-up to that album ‘All In Now’ will be released on May 29. The video was shot by Carlos Garcia Medina.

New Music: Why Don't You

           

The legendary band Squeeze are back with a brand neew album "Trixies" and a new single "Why Don't You" it's the band first new album in nearly a decade is based on material written when they were teenagers, the single has all the Squeeze classic sound and video mixing scenes of the band with dancers and acrobats was directed by Oska Zaky and Connie Virdie

New Music: The Best Thing

           

The legendary icon rockers Cheap Trick have released the official music video for their latest single "The Best Thing", taken from the band 21st studio album "All Washed Up" out now. The album was produced by Cheap trick with longtime associate Julian Raymond and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge. 

New Music: Universal Soldier

           

The English electronic band Depeche Mode has just released the brand new track "Universal Soldier" via War Child Records. The track is out now as part of the charity compilation "HELP(2)", released last March 6, 2026, and is included alongside contributions from Anna Calvi, Arctic Monkeys, Arlo Parks, Arooj Aftab, Bat For Lashes, Beabadoobee, Beck, Beth Gibbons, Big Thief, Black Country, New Road, Cameron Winter, Damon Albarn, Dove Ellis, Ellie Rowsell, English Teacher, Ezra Collective, Foals, Fontaines D.C., Graham Coxon, Greentea Peng, Grian Chatten, Kae Tempest, King Krule, Nilüfer Yanya, Oasis, Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp, Sampha, The Last Dinner Party, Wet Leg and Young Fathers.

Rocktrospectiva: R.E.M.'s Final Album "Collapse Into Now" Turns 15

Released on 7 March 1991 "Collapse Into Now" was the 15th., and final studio album by US alternative rock band R.E.M. Produced by Jacknife Lee, who previously worked with the band on Accelerate (2008), the album was preceded by the singles "It Happened Today", "Mine Smell Like Honey", "Überlin" and "Oh My Heart".

Regarding the album's title, lead singer Michael Stipe noted, "It's the final thing I sing, the last song on the record before the record goes into a coda and reprises the first song. In my head, it's was like I'm addressing a nine-year-old and I'm saying, 'I come from a faraway place called the 20th century. And these are the values and these are the mistakes we've made and these are the triumphs. These are the things that we held in the highest esteem. These are the things to learn from."

The band did not tour to support the album and therefore never performed any of the songs in concert, although Michael Stipe did play "Every Day Is Yours to Win" without R.E.M. for the Tibethouse Annual Benefit Concert.

In 2008, while touring in support of Accelerate, R.E.M. discussed the possibility of ending the band in the near future. Entering the studio with producer Jacknife Lee, the band began recording a final studio album, with the intention of "going out on a high note." Regarding these initial discussions, bassist Mike Mills stated, "We knew we had some decisions to make regarding our contract with Warner Bros. We had to make some decision about how to continue going forward as a recording unit, and if we still wanted to tour together. Oddly enough, I think that independently, we all arrived at the conclusion that this was such a great opportunity to walk away on our own terms, that we thought, 'Why not take advantage of it?'" Buck later would state that the final decision to end the band came when Stipe remarked that "I need to be away from this for a long time." Buck suggested "How about forever?" and they thus decided to break up.

Collapse into Now was recorded in four different cities: Berlin, Germany; Nashville, Tennessee; and New Orleans, Louisiana, with demoing taking place at Jackpot Studios in Portland, Oregon. Regarding the recording process, and the fact that it marked the conception of their final studio album, Mills noted, "We tried to enjoy it as much as possible and make it as fun as possible, but we’re not super-sentimental people in that sense. The only time we got really poignant was when we were working in Berlin, and they have a beautiful room there, Meistersaal, where we recorded seven or eight songs. There was no one there really except some friends, family, and significant others, and we knew that was probably the last time we would ever play together as R.E.M. That was a pretty fraught day. But it was fun."

In comparing the record to the band's previous release, Accelerate, Mills noted that the band, "wanted this new one to be more expansive. We wanted to put more variety into it and not limit ourselves to any one type of song. There are some really slow, beautiful songs; there are some nice, mid-tempo ones; and then there are three or four rockers." He has spoken about the album's theme, saying: "It's more of a personal record than a political one. Current events do come into our mind when we write, but the themes here are more universal." The album had guest appearances by Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder, Peaches, Lenny Kaye, and Joel Gibb.

According to Michael Stipe, the album contains "one of the only autobiographical songs of my entire career as a songwriter, in the opening track, 'Discoverer'. It's a song of discovery. It's about realizing that the city offers you this unbelievable potential and opportunity; all the things you are looking for in your teens and your twenties. That's what New York offered me."

To promote the album, the band released music videos for each song on the album, featuring directors such as James Franco, Sam Taylor-Wood, Jim Herbert, and lead singer Michael Stipe. Stipe notes that: "The idea was to present a 21st-century version of an album. What does an album mean in the year 2011, especially to generations of people for whom the word album is an archaic term? An album for me as a teenager in the '70s was a fully formed concept. It was a body of work from an artist I liked or trusted or who excited me..[...] I wanted to present an idea of what an album could be in the age of YouTube and the Internet.

During promotion, the band stated that it had no intention of touring to support the album, with Peter Buck citing in an interview with NME that "it does seem like we've toured a lot in the last eight or ten years. To some degree it felt like we'd just been doing kind of the same thing we did last time. You just don't really want to repeat yourself in that way." He also stated that touring doesn't help album sales and concluded, "It seems like less and less people are buying albums, so do what you want."

Complying with their resolution of not engaging in a new tour, R.E.M. officially disbanded as a group in September 2011, six months after the album was released.

Collapse into Now received "generally favorable reviews" by saying that this album is host to more such complexity than anything since 1998's Up, but Collapse Into Now still sounds like the work of a band caught between old habits and new adventures." Others called the album as mostly sounded like a familiar friend—reliable in all the best ways, but still capable of quietly insinuating surprises.

 

Collapse Into Now Track List:  

 

X-axis

1. Discoverer

2. All The Best

3. Überlin

4. Oh My Heart

5. It Happened Today

6. Every Day Is Yours To Win

 

Y-axis

7. Mine Smells Like Honey

8. Walk It Back

9. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter

10. That Someone Is You

11. Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando And I

12. Blue 

Rocktrospectiva: The Modest "Journeys To Glory" Turns 45

Released on 6 March 1981 "Journeys To Glory" was the debut studio album by the English synth-pop band Spandau Ballet. All of the songs on the album were produced by Richard James Burgess and written by band guitarist Gary Kemp to appeal to the patrons of a weekly Tuesday night club the band started attending called the Blitz, where they were accustomed to hearing "white European dance music". 

Their performances at the Blitz and other exclusive venues attracted the attention of record labels eager to sign them, and one of the songs they had been performing, To Cut a Long Story Short", gained popularity through a recording session made at BBC Radio 1.

The high demand for their music instigated the commencement of recording the album and the release of "To Cut a Long Story Short" as their first single. The song reached number 5 on the UK Singles Chart, and two subsequent hits, "The Freeze" and "Muscle Bound", peaked at 17 and 10, respectively. 

The influence of David Bowie on Journeys to Glory has been discussed by Kemp as well as critics of the album, who gave it mixed reviews upon its release and years later. After their composer attempted to shift to a more American style of funk with songs like "Glow" and the first single for their next album, "Chant No. 1 (I Don't Need This Pressure On)", he remembered that the songs from Journeys to Glory had been rehearsed at concerts before they were signed to a label and had received the approval of their original fanbase. When some of the new songs for the second album did not chart as well, the band recovered by remixing a fourth single as a more pop-flavoured tune and lost the interest of the hipsters that Spandau Ballet had initially courted with the songs that were recorded for their debut. Kemp then felt freed from trying to please that crowd and began writing mainstream pop songs that were the band's biggest hits.

While still performing as the Gentry, Spandau Ballet recognized that a new London club scene was taking root at a weekly Tuesday night gathering called the Blitz and decided to focus on playing what they had become used to hearing there, what their guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp called "white European disco music". He was committed to their new genre: "All fancy rock patterns had to go …, we'd discussed it at the club: these new songs would be to a disco beat; there would be a [discarding] of all the old power pop stuff; our future sound had to be like the one we heard every Tuesday night. If we were to attempt to be the band that represented this new cult, then we had to be absolutely ready.^"

Before the Gentry members began attending the Blitz in February 1979, their hangout was a similar Soho club called Billy's that they first went to in the autumn of 1978. According to Spandau Ballet's guitarist/saxophonist, Steve Norman, "The oldest song on the album, 'Confused', is the only song to survive from the period before we first went to Billy's." He described how it created a meaningful point of entry for them into the club scene: "It's the song that, when we first got to Billy's, would make you think we belonged there." Their guitarist, Martin Kemp, admitted that "Confused" was the track from the album that meant the most to him because it dates back to the period when the band was still called the Makers and he was just a roadie for them. During a two-week stint in the summer of 1980 at a club in Saint-Tropez, the band performed "Confused" along with "Age of Blows", an instrumental that Norman felt was one of the weaker cuts on the album and theorizes. "To Cut a Long Story Short" the singer begins providing details regarding certain undesirable circumstances but concludes with, "To cut a long story short, I lost my mind". On BBC Radio 4's Mastertapes series in 2013, Kemp said, "The lyrics to those kind of songs, I mean, I suppose they owed something to Bowie's famous cut-ups, you know, slightly esoteric, this grand landscape that we're all living on. That was the kind of lyric, very early '80s lyric about a kind of heroic place that we all wanted to put ourselves."

Puzzled by the opening line of "The Freeze", "Blue sing la lune, sing lagoon", former Evening Standard and music magazine journalist David Johnson did not see the song as an obvious choice for a single but pointed out that it "was not chosen for singability but for its New Romantic clubbing credibility. In 1981 the pathfinding band were consolidating the new approach they had styled—White European Dance Music—led on 'The Freeze' by Gary Kemp's two-fingered synth arpeggios, plus enough percussive kick-drum snaps underpinned with bassline rhythms to fill dancefloors. "Muscle Bound" According to Kemp he was asked about working with Graham Smith on the cover art for Journeys to Glory and commented, "We enjoy playing with imagery, but at that time everyone was taking us far too seriously." To give an example of a lighter moment from the album, he said, "'Muscle Bound' was quite tongue-in-cheek," and explained, "I've always liked folk music since I was really young, and 'Muscle Bound' was like a folk song with quite a funny lyric."   

The recordings began in September 1980 Spandau Ballet began recording Journeys to Glory at The Manor in the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire. Because "To Cut a Long Story Short" was so well received at BBC Radio 1, the record labels competing for the band agreed that they could start recording it as a single in addition to the rest of their first album and that the label they signed with would pay for the studio time. Some of the sessions were also done at Trident Studios. Norman said, "The sound of all the legends must have been in all the walls," and described the effect of those particular surroundings: “The place had such an energy to it; it makes you raise your game." Its location in Soho also made a difference in that their friends from the Blitz could hang out and provide support.

The album received generally mixed reviews at the time of its release. Some called the album, he wrote, represented 'superficial music for superficial people." Others called an unremarkable affair by any standards. Not bad, but modest." Other chose "Age of Blows" and "Confused" as the best tracks on the album. a more than fair debut album with some good songs and a couple of duff ones, a talented set of musicians and a singer who needs a tragic love affair or something to put a little humanity into his performance."

 

Journeys To Glory Track List:

 

1. To Cut A Long Story Short

2. Reformation

3. Mandolin

4. Muscle Bound

5. Age Of Blows

6. The Freeze

7. Confused

8. Toys