Childish Gambino has the summer on smash. The rapper-actor brings the heat with a “summer pack” of two breezy new tracks—”Summertime Magic” and “Feels Like Summer.” Both songs were co-written and co-produced by Gambino and Ludwig Goransson, the team behind the chart-topping “This Is America.”
Kali Uchis dropped the video for “After the Storm” featuring Tyler, the Creator and Bootsy Collins. The video for the BADBADNOTGOOD-produced track was directed by Nadia Lee Cohen, who’s previously collaborated with ASAP Rocky and Juicy J. Shooting took place in Los Angeles. The track was written as a message of “solace” for anyone going through a storm of their own.
In past years, Still Corners were a London-based synth-pop duo. But ahead of their newly announced fourth album Slow Air, they made some changes. Now based in Woodstock, NY, the group’s stateside phase first began in Austin, where songwriter/producer Greg Hughes and vocalist Tessa Murray relocated to work on new music. The resulting album is thematically and aesthetically indebted to their new surroundings; they cite the deep, suffocating heat of a Texan summer as the inspiration for the title Slow Air.
Accordingly, Slow Air might turn out to have a more organic, sun-drenched sound than their past work. “We wanted to hear beautiful guitar and drums and an otherworldliness, something almost indefinable along with a classic song writing vibe,” Murray said of their ambitions going into the album. “We’re always trying to get the sound we hear inside of ourselves, so we moved fast to avoid our brains getting in the way too much. The name Slow Air evokes the feel of the album to me, steady, eerie and beautiful.”
Along with the announcement, Still Corners shared Slow Air’s lead single “Black Lagoon” as well as an accompanying video that they shot themselves with a handheld camera. The video splices performance footage with clips of the band traveling through Texas, Arizona, and California, through the desert and to the ocean “in search of a lost Eden.” The whole thing has a vintage quality to it, a sort of lived-in brightness burning inside the images.
It’s a fitting pairing with the song itself, which seems to be a pretty good summation of what Still Corners were going for with Slow Air. There’s still synthesizers and a certain atmospheric shimmer at play, but it’s deployed in a specific way: Listening to “Black Lagoon” totally conjures up the Texan summer, as well as ambling, endless journeys through the American desert. Dominated by mirage-like guitars and Murray’s hazily sighing vocals, it’s got the sound of a road song — the kind of song that drives forward but also feels as if it may evaporate at any moment just like the landscapes tumbling by at your side.
The Rover,” the first single from Interpol’s forthcoming sixth album Marauder, is apparently about a crazed quasi-religious figure, though you wouldn’t necessarily know that from reading the lyrics. Now, it gets a wild music video that tells “the origin story of the character described in the song, the birth of a cult leader,” according to a statement from frontman Paul Banks.
The clip stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach (of Girls and The Punisher), who takes a romp through Mexico City with a small group of followers.
After 10 years of silence on the dance floor, the spirit of funk has finally been revived because Chaka Khan has re-emerged with a new single called “Like Sugar.” The timeless track is a collaboration with Major Lazer member Switch. The Kim Gehrig-directed visual is essentially the dance party of your dreams as a colorful cast of dancers perform choreographed routines while decked out in the freshest fits. Chaka Khan has also signed to the producer’s new label, Diary Records. The Queen of Funk hasn’t released new material since her 2007 album Funk This.
Debut single ‘Malibu’ – released June 22 via Propeller Recordings – demonstrates Lokoy’s inquisitive approach to pop writing, combining “Indian folk rhythms, analog synth pads and cellos”, alongside more subtle sampling. ‘Malibu’ features the partnering vocal of Girl In Red (Marie Ulven).
The Last Shadow Puppets co-frontman Miles Kane is back with a new solo album, his first in five years. Coup De Grace follows 2013’s Don’t Forget Who You Are and arrives on June 8th via Virgin EMI.
As a preview to the release, Kane has shared the lead single, “Loaded”. Recorded in Los Angeles and produced by John Congelton (St. Vincent), the track was co-written with Lana Del Rey and Jamie T. In a press release, Kane describes the hooky, guitar-laden tune as “upbeat and kind of punky.” His last single is ‘Coup de Gras’.
