Frequent collaborators Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding have teamed up once again for a new song. It’s called “Miracle,” and you can give it a listen below.
Goulding’s 2022 single “Easy Lover” received a remix from Four Tet, and the track went on to nab a Grammy nomination for Best Remixed Recording. The rework ended up losing to Lizzo’s “About Damn Time (Purple Disco Machine Remix).” Goulding’s last full-length Brightest Blue arrived in 2020.
Depeche Mode have shared another new track from their forthcoming LP Memento Mori. The latest cut is titled “My Cosmos Is Mine.” Check it out below.
Dave Gahan and Martin Gore announced Memento Mori last October, sharing “Ghosts Again” a few months later. Memento Mori is their first album in six years, following 2017’s Spirit, and it’s out March 24. It’s also the group’s final album with founding member Andy Cohen, who died in May 2022 at age 60.
Depeche Mode brought “Ghosts Again” and their classic “Personal Jesus” to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at the end of February. Later this year, they’ll embark on extensive tours of North America and Europe.
Read Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of Depeche Mode’s 1997 album Ultra.
A new Mach-Hommy album is out today. Notorious Dump Legends: Volume 2 is the sequel to 2018’s Notorious Dump Legends, and like the original it’s a joint project with frequent collaborator Tha God Fahim. The release will be followed by physical editions of Mach’s Triz saga on Monday, according to a Fader cover story. Check out the album below.
Last year, Mach-Hommy and Tha God Fahim released projects such as Dollar Menu 4 and Duck Czn: Tiger Style. As far as solo records go, Mach hasn’t dropped one since 2021’s Balens Cho (Hot Candles) and the Westside Gunn-executive produced Pray for Haiti released that same year.
De La Soul have, at long last, released their classic albums previously released by Tommy Boy Records on streaming platforms. The albums arrive just weeks following the death of Trugoy the Dove at age 54. Listen to 3 Feet High and Rising (1989), De La Soul Is Dead (1991), Buhloone Mindstate (1993), Stakes Is High (1996), Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump (2000), and AOI: Bionix (2001) below.
Ten days after Trugoy’s death, Maseo and Posdnuos wrote letters to their late bandmate and friend. “On one end I’m happy you no longer have to suffer the pain of your condition but on the other hand I’m extremely upset at the fact that you’re not here to celebrate and enjoy what we worked and fought so hard to achieve,” Maseo wrote.
De La’s records were kept off streaming platforms due to sample clearance issues. In 2019, Trugoy said in an interview that their streaming troubles originated with Tommy Boy’s Tom Silverman. “Tommy Boy—Tom Silverman, in particular—didn’t think that 3 Feet High and Rising was going to do well at all,” he said. “Because of that reason, they decided not to clear stuff.”
It appeared that they would finally become available in 2019, but then the group noted they would only earn “pennies” due to Tommy Boy’s contract terms. The streaming drop was scrapped after a public outcry. The dispute was resolved, the band revealed in 2021, after Reservoir acquired Tommy Boy.
Gorillaz have shared a new song called “Crocadillaz” featuring Dawn Penn and De La Soul, including a verse from the late Trugoy the Dove. It’s featured on Cracker Island (Deluxe), the latest version of the band’s new album. Other new features include Del The Funky Homosapien (“Captain Chicken”) and MC Bin Laden (“Controllah”). Check out “Crocadillaz” below.
Trugoy the Dove died earlier this month at 54. He won a Grammy for his contributions to Gorillaz’s 2005 single “Feel Good Inc.” De La Soul announced a celebration at Webster Hall in New York City dubbed “The D.A.I.S.Y. Experience.” Scheduled for March 2, the event is produced by Amazon Music and meant to pay tribute to Trugoy and De La Soul, featuring artwork from the group’s debut album 3 Feet High and Rising and a DJ set from the Originals (Stretch Armstrong, Rich Medina, and Tony Touch). The Amazon Music channel on Twitch is set to livestream a series of interviews with friends of De La Soul and special guests that night.
Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn recently announced that the animated feature being developed about the cartoon band is now in limbo after after Netflix exited the project.
Thomas Bangalter, formerly half of Daft Punk, has shared a new movement from Mythologies, his score to a ballet of the same name. Listen to the piece, titled “Le Minoutaure,” below.
Ballet Preljocaj premiered the Mythologies ballet last year; the company’s founder, Angelin Preljocaj, served as choreographer and also commissioned Bangalter’s 90-minute score. The Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine performed “Le Minoutaure” and the rest of the score, and recorded it under the musical direction of Romain Dumas. Mythologies, Bangalter’s album, is out on April 7; he shared “L’Accouchement” from the record last month.
Since Daft Punk’s split, the duo has been relatively quiet. These pieces from Bangalter, which comprise his first solo album since 2003’s Outrage, are the first releases from either artist since the breakup, though ephemera from the Homework era was released as part of that album’s 2022 reissue campaign. This week, Daft Punk announced a 10th-anniversary reissue of Random Access Memories.
Pusha T has shared a new track, a remix of Melle Mel’s 1983 classic “White Lines (Don’t Do It).” The newest single from the rapper, who called himself “Cocaine’s Dr. Seuss” on last year’s It’s Almost Dry, accompanies the new movie Cocaine Bear. The dark comedic thriller follows the exploits of a coked-up creature wreaking havoc on the woods. Check out Pusha T’s “White Lines (Cocaine Bear Remix)” below.
After issuing his fourth LP It’s Almost Dry in April, Pusha T reignited his fast-food beef with McDonalds, taking a pro-Arby’s stance with a promotional diss track titled “Rib Roast.” It’s Almost Dry became Pusha T’s first-ever No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart upon its release. The album picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, losing out to Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.
Skrillex has surprise released a new album. It’s called Don’t Get Too Close, it’s out now via Owsla/Atlantic, and it features Yung Lean, Bladee, Chief Keef, Justin Bieber, PinkPantheress, Trippie Redd, Bibi Bourelly, Kid Cudi, and more. Give it a listen below.
Before their show at Madison Square Garden in New York City tonight (February 18), Skrillex, Fred Again.. and Four Tet performed an impromptu set from a converted school bus in Times Square. Earlier this year, Skrillex shared the title track “Don’t Get Too Close” (ft. Bibi Bourelly), “Way Back” (ft. PinkPantheress and Trippie Redd), and “Real Spring” (ft. Bladee).
Skrillex put out his second solo album Quest for Fire on Friday (Feburary 17). The LP includes the Missy Elliott and Mr. Oizo joint “Ratata” as well as collaborations with Porter Robinson, Pete Wentz, Aluna, Bibi Bourelly, and Beam, among others. It also features the singles “Butterflies” (with Starrah and Four Tet), “Too Bizarre” (with Swae Lee and Siiickbrain), “Supersonic (My Existence)” (with Noisia, Josh Pan, and 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady), “Rumble” (with Fred Again.. and Flowdan), “Leave Me Like This” (with Bobby Raps), and “Xena” (with Nai Barghouti).
His debut solo full-length, Recess, came out in 2014.
A posthumous album from Big Scarr, the Memphis rapper, who died in December aged 22, is out now. Listen to The Secret Weapon below. Gucci Mane, who signed Big Scarr and is releasing the album on his New 1017 imprint, said in a press release, “I hate that he’s not here to celebrate this great body of work that he worked so hard on.”
Gucci Mane also features on the album, on a track called “Trappin n’ Rappin.” Other guests include Key Glock, Pooh Shiesty, Enchanting, and Seddy Hendrinx. The record will serve as a epilogue to the two records Big Scarr released in his lifetime: debut mixtape Big Grim Reaper and its expanded edition, Big Grim Reaper: The Return.
Skrillex is releasing his new album Quest for Fire this Friday, February 17, via Owsla and Atlantic. Today, Sonny Moore has shared his latest single from the album. “Don’t Get Too Close” features Bibi Bourelly. It’s a rare vocal turn from Moore that arrives with a visual featuring an adorable creature whose spines are blood-soaked swords. (Don’t get too close!) Give it a listen below.
Prior to the album’s announcement last week, Skrillex shared “Way Back” with PinkPantheress and Trippie Redd, “Rumble” with Fred Again.. and Flowdan, “Leave Me Like This” with Bobby Raps, “Real Spring” with Bladee, and “Xena” with Nai Barghouti. It follows his previous solo album, 2014’s Recess.
Beck has shared a new song, a single titled “Thinking About You.” Listen to it below
Last year, Beck joined Dolly Parton, Eminem, Rage Against the Machine, A Tribe Called Quest, and more in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2022. He also covered Neil Young’s “Old Man” for a Sunday Night Football promotion, earning an indirect rebuke from the Canadian singer-songwriter. In August, Beck will embark on a co-headlining tour with Phoenix, winding through the United States for more than a month. His most recent album was 2019’s Hyperspace.
M83 has shared six songs from his forthcoming Fantasy LP. “Water Deep,” the previously-released “Oceans Niagara,” “Amnesia,” “Us and the Rest,” “Earth to Sea,” and “Radar, Far, Gone” make up “Chapter 1” of the ninth studio album by French multi-instrumentalist Anthony Gonzalez. Listen to “Chapter 1” below.
Fantasy is out March 17 via Mute. It follows his DSVII LP and the Knife + Heart soundtrack, both of which were released in 2019. “I wanted this record to be very impactful live,” Gonzalez said of Fantasy in a press release. “The idea was to come back with something closer to the energy of ‘Before the Dawn Heals Us.’ The combination of guitars and synths is always in my music, but it’s maybe more present on this new record than on the previous ones.”
He added: I wanted to be more present lyrically and vocally even if that was daunting at first. I thought if I could achieve that, this album will be more personal than those that came before.”
Squid have announced their second album: O Monolith is due out June 9 via Warp. Ahead of the release, the band has shared a new track called “Swing (In a Dream).” It comes with a video directed by Yoonha Park. Check it out below, along with the artwork and tracklist for O Monolith, plus the band’s upcoming European tour dates.
In a statement accompanying the single, frontman Ollie Judge said that the song was inspired by a dream he had involving the Jean-Honoré Fragonard painting The Swing. “In my dream, I was in the painting, but it was flooded and everything was floating away,” he said.
Squid released their debut album, Bright Green Field, in 2021. The album was followed by the band’s inaugural U.S. tour, for which they unveiled a cover of the Bill Callahan song “America!” to mark the occasion. “We wanted to release something special just in time for us heading over to tour the U.S.A.,” they said at the time.
01 Swing (In a Dream) 02 Devil’s Den 03 Siphon Song 04 Undergrowth 05 The Blades 06 After the Flash 07 Green Light 08 If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away
PinkPantheress has teamed up with Bronx rapper Ice Spice for a new remix. “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” is a remix of “Boy’s a Liar,” a track that originally appeared on PinkPantheress’ Take Me Home EP last year. Check out the remix below.
“When it comes to collaborations, I’m quite picky: I always want someone who can match me well on a track,” PinkPantheress said of the new remix in an interview with NME. “Even though Ice Spice does drill, her flows are super unique and the beats she chooses are different. A lot of people would struggle with the beats I choose, but I knew she’d be good for it.”
Glorilla has shared a new song titled “Internet Trolls.” The fresh single arrives ahead of her performance at the Grammys this weekend, where she’ll join Missy Elliott, the Roots, Future, and Lil Wayne in a tribute to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop’s inception. Check out “Internet Trolls” below.
Since releasing her debut EP Anyways, Life’s Great… late last year, the Memphis rapper has announced a tour that’ll continue to take her through the United States this month. Last month, she and Moneybagg Yo released the single “On Wat U On.” She’ll take the stage at Coachella for the first time later this year.
In this ongoing series, we are sharing advice, tips and insights from real entrepreneurs who are out there doing business battle on a daily basis. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Darren Nakonechny, CEO and founder of Flock Audio
Who are you and what’s your business?
I am Darren Nakonechny, CEO and founder of Flock Audio. We are a professional audio technology company that specializes in advanced analog routing technologies and hardware management solutions. Our patented analog routing technology is the first of its kind and we’re setting a new standard in our industry for using analog hardware in the professional audio field.
What inspired you to create this business?
After leaving a very stable career with many job promotions, I felt like I needed a change. Although I was making strides in my current career, I wasn’t happy or feeling fulfilled. So I changed my career path and ventured into uncharted waters, deepening my passion for audio production and recording studios — which I had been doing on the side for many years with local bands and artists. Once I left my career and began recording full-time, growing my studio and adding more recording hardware/tools along the way, I noticed there was a vital part of our industry that was missing and still stuck in the archaic past: the analog patchbay.
Analog routing in recording studios was still being done by a 150+-year-old technology, originally developed for the telecommunications industry. We are all familiar with the classic black-and-white footage of lady operators on stools, routing phone calls on a giant patch panel as they plugged and unplugged cables to connect phone calls. It turns out that this very technology was being used a century and a half later in the audio industry, and remained the only lucrative option for thousands of audio professionals worldwide. Upon experiencing this limited and grossly outdated method of analog routing firsthand, I knew there had to be a better way. More importantly, I questioned why there wasn’t a better way. This is what led to my journey into creating our industry’s leading analog routing technology, the Flock Audio PATCH Series.
Patch
What has been your biggest challenge and how did you pivot to overcome it?
As with any groundbreaking technology, it’s overcoming the naysayers. To my surprise, most of our industry accepted and adopted our new technology solution with open arms, but this didn’t change the fact that we had to win over a range of more skeptical audio professionals, who despite seeing the growing successes of the product, were still unconvinced that this was the future of analog routing. New technology and change can be scary among the masses until you see what it can offer, and this is exactly what transpired with the Flock Audio PATCH Series.
Once those skeptical audio professionals started to see more of the Flock Audio brand and eventually test it for themselves, they all agreed: there was no going back, and nothing else like it. This truly was the future of our analog hardware industry. I generally dislike the term “game changer” but the PATCH Series has been one of, if not the biggest game-changing technology in our industry. Seeing, hearing and experiencing is indeed believing.
What advice would you give entrepreneurs looking for funding?
As with every business, product and company scenarios are always unique. There is no simple solution or method to obtain funding. You will be promised a lot of opportunities for funding, and disappointed by a lot of roadblocks and gatekeepers along the way, but keep going. If it was simple or easy, everyone would do it. You will have to experience many hardships, difficulties and dark days during the early times of starting your company, but don’t stop. Accessing capital can come in many different forms of VCs, angel investors, love money, self-funding, preorder funding and more. But don’t expect some golden-throated investor to come along and sign a check to get your business off the ground. It takes determination, stamina and decisiveness to figure out the routes that others haven’t taken, and what might work for your company — specifically in terms of funding options that haven’t been explored. Our company was promised a lot of money and investments along the way during the early years, but not a single penny came through, and we had to do it on our own using creative and decisive methods. Despite the pain and disappointment of not getting any funding from outside sources, we made Flock Audio a true success story.
For me, “entrepreneur” means a trailblazer: someone who can fit a square peg into a round hole. Perhaps someone who sees things differently? For the first 30 years of my life, I admittedly didn’t really know, care or had any reason to understand what ‘entrepreneur’ ever meant. It never made any sense to me until I lived it, and that included the heartbreaking times as well as other times of achievement that made you feel like a champion. I believe a true entrepreneur is not born. Instead, you are sculpted through early mornings and late nights of small successes and major defeats, until finally, you find the perfect balance towards achieving your dream. Never lose that focus, never forget why you started, and keep both of these things in your field of vision until you get there.
What is something many aspiring business owners think they need that they really don’t?
Partners, co-owners, etc. I hate to sound like a lone wolf but no two people, and no two business owners, are alike. If you have a vision for your life and how you want to live it, you don’t rely on other people to get you there. You need a great team, good individuals and positive reinforcement around you to help assist in fulfilling that dream but partnering with the wrong people can destroy in a matter of weeks what may have taken months or years to establish in your mind. Like many entrepreneurs, I made the typical mistake of thinking that I needed someone else to share this journey with and I was wrong. While that partnership didn’t work out, it ultimately taught me that even though you need a good team, you don’t necessarily need a partner to help you achieve your vision. No one will work harder for your dream than you. So I say go in it alone, be the lone wolf, be the odd one out. It’s not always fun, but it’s invigorating and can teach you so many things about yourself, including strength and perseverance you never knew you had in you.
Is there a particular quote or saying that you use as personal motivation?
There are so many, but my favorite is one from Les Brown: “Some people get even, and some people get ahead, stay focused.” This quote has carried me through many difficult times, particularly in my own industry where there were some early naysayers who said my product would never be successful. Each and every time I heard this, I reminded myself of this quote above. The best approach was to keep my head down, stay focused and remember that the best revenge of all is proving people wrong with results; not by arguing online in an otherwise noisy world. I kept telling myself, “stay focused, stay focused, stay focused.”
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The music industry is one of the toughest businesses to crack. And even after they find success, musical entrepreneurs have to adapt to their field’s constantly changing landscape. But sometimes, an advance in technology comes along that makes things a little bit easier — like the EasySplitter app.
StackCommerce
EasySplitter is an AI-based vocal remover that can revolutionize the way musicians mix and master their tunes. It’s perfect for singers, DJs, sound producers, composers, music arrangers, and others in the industry, and right now you can score a lifetime subscription to a Pro Plan, which gives access to 960 PRO credits a year for just $29.99.
EasySplitter can be accessed on the web and on both iOS and Android devices, helping any would-be and established musicians easily split songs into separated STEMs manually. This AI-powered vocal remover app employs innovative technology that lets musicians remove vocals from songs and access the four separate versions — instrumental, vocal, drums, and bass. It also has a feature that removes background noise and unwanted sounds from an audio file.
Individuals involved in all facets of the music business will enjoy the ability to split songs quickly and easily. And they can have peace of mind knowing the app is bug-free, having been developed with the cleanest code and tested by pros.
User Asad wrote, “I didn’t realize it was so easy to split tracks and tailor-make the song for my enjoyment.” And user Fariborz raved, “As a music lover, I always dreamt of separating music channels. This utility makes it easier for me to study the lyrics by eliminating instruments’ sounds.”
Make one thing in life easier with EasySplitter AI-Based Vocal Remover. A lifetime subscription to the Pro Plan is available now for just $29.99 (reg. $599).
Rosalía has released her first new single of the year. The track is titled “LLYLM,” short for its refrain of “Lie like you love me.” Check it out below.
After issuing her third LP Motomami last March, the Spanish singer updated it with new songs and a Cardi B remix of “Despechá” for Motomami+ in September. Motomami earned Rosalía Latin Grammys for Album of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album, Best Engineered Album, and Best Recording Package. It picked up additional nominations for Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album and Best Music Film for the general Grammys ceremony in 2023. She’s set to perform at Primavera Sound and Coachella later this year.
