News – Page 2 – 7th Level Music

The Shits “Thank You for Being a Friend” with their new single.

What’s the point of the howl of string to speaker, the hammering of stick-on skin? Is it transcendence, elevating the human spirit by catharsis in sound? Or is it summoning chaos, a purgatory in which to bask in all that’s unclean, the better to feel alive?

Why not both? Because that’s what’s on offer on Diet Of Worms, the second Rocket release by The Shits, Leeds via Newcastle’s titans of disgust and deliverance. This is a feast for the senses in the worst way possible – primal rock boiled down to its essence and flung full in your face. Using repetition, tortured vocal invective and heads-down intensity as blunt instruments, these eight tracks are an unprecedented torrent of acidic salvation. Whilst lurking somewhere on the decadence-destruction axis between the nihilism of prime Stooges and the bloody blackout of Brainbombs, Diet Of Worms is possessed of a legitimately uncompromising hostility that both elevates and debases it to co-ordinates unknown. Discussing today’s drop of the new single, ‘Thank You For Being A Friend‘, the vocalist of The Shits, Callum Howe notices: “The Shits are driving down the sleazy streets of West Yorkshire. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. You can’t stop us, we do this cos we love it.”

There are revelations here in the riffage and the rancour, even if they are the kind that occur in the bleary miasma of the lock-in, or witnessing the streetlight blur of the subsequent stagger home. Even more single-minded and remorseless than the band’s Rocket debut ‘You’re A Mess’, this is a record that demands full immersion. Whether it’s ‘Then You’re Dead’ hammering on a pulverizing garage-stinking riff until it begs for mercy, or ‘Change My Ways’, whose Creedence-In-Hell swagger and lurch is that of abjection transmuted into joy, this is psychedelia forcibly removed from its comfort zone of pastiche, and thrust into a bad-trip realm of the vivid and nightmarish.

But rarely has the process of making beauty and horror indivisible seemed like so much fun. If Werner Herzog was right, and the only harmony in the universe is that of overwhelming and collective murder, then The Shits are the true music of the spheres.

Pre-order Diet of Worms coming out April 3: Digital via Bandcamp here. And LP directly from Rocket Recordings here.

Keep your mind open.

[Thank you for subscribing.]

[Thanks to Dan at Discipline PR.]

JWords’ new single is, indeed, “LUSH.”

JWords —the project of Brooklyn-based producer Jennifer Hernandez—announces her new album, Sound Therapy, out May 8th and presents the lead single, “LUSH.” JWords is known for her production “nodding to both hip-hop’s brawny metronome and more uptempo electronic and dance influences” (Bandcamp). Her career is defined by collaborations, from her work with rapper maassai as the acclaimed duo H31R to her production on Nappy Nina’s 2021 record Double Down. Meanwhile, JWords has built a stylistically broad body of solo work, starting in 2020 with mixtape Sin Señal followed by a string of EPs that climaxed with Sonic Liberation. In the interim, she’s made major strides as a DJ, scoring a monthly residency at The Lot Radio and regularly hosting NTS shows.

Sound Therapy, the follow-up to her 2022 debut solo LP Self-Connection, deals with the troubles and triumphs JWords experienced over the last few years. It gets heavy at times, but the music she’s making now reflects her present circumstances. Instead of building a rollercoaster record based on the traumas of yesteryear, she opted for a confidently Zen approach: “It’s a new era,” she says. “A calmer, chiller, ‘Yeah, I got my shit together’ kind of era.”

Despite the fact that she began as an MC, Sound Therapy marks the first time JWords has been a lead vocalist on her own productions. On today’s single “Lush,” she repeats the phrases “I see me in you” and “I see you in me” over pillowy synths and a crinkly techno backbeat until her words become a mantra.

Listen to “LUSH” by JWords

Growing up Dominican-American in Union City, New Jersey, JWords was a sonic omnivore, devouring the hip-hop and R&B she heard on BET’s Rap City, the Jersey Club that took over the neighborhood, and the Latin music she heard at home. JWords’ music career has been ascendant since she first laid hands on a synth, but her personal life has been less steady, and she fell into a particularly deep rut in her late 20s. Sound Therapy looks back on those years with a sense of tranquility that’s absent in her earlier work. Her subject matter is still serious, but she addresses her trauma without fear or malice, acknowledging that it’s there without giving it the power to define her.

While Sound Therapy marks the first time JWords has been a lead vocalist, it’s her production that shines brightest. Opener “Lotus” contains the type of sparkling synthplay one might expect to find stowed away on a lost Dilla hard drive. “FELT” pummels you with a techno drum line but slowly morphs into a much chiller arrangement of synths. And “LoveCrime” presents an entrancing, oddly shaped structure that JWords somehow finds a way to rap over.

In the end, JWords is grateful for all of the experiences that have brought her to the present moment. She’s seen rock bottom now and never wants to return, but she learned some of life’s most essential lessons there. These days, she’s enjoying her hard-won serenity. She’s got a job teaching kids how to DJ and make electronic music. She’s learned to solder and has plans to create her own style of synth. She’s making her best music, transcending nominal genre boundaries in pursuit of brilliance. She’s calmer. She’s chiller. She’s got her shit together.

Pre-Order Sound Therapy

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Ahmad at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Ed O’Brien releases title track from upcoming new solo album – “Blue Morpho.”

Ed O’Brien announces Blue Morpho, his absorbing, second solo album and first under his own name, out May 22nd via his new label home, Transgressive, and releases the title track.

O’Brien likes to quote the Kentucky poet and farmer Wendell Berry: “To know the dark, go dark.” That philosophy became both compass and catalyst for Blue Morpho – a deeply personal album produced by Paul Epworth (Paul McCartney, Adele), born from one of the most challenging periods of his life. Though he remains one of rock music’s most lauded guitarists, Blue Morpho finds O’Brien beginning anew, finally starting to figure out his approach. With its moments of hypnotic psych-folk, radiant guitars, beguiling trip-hop and luminous stillness, it reveals an artist moving beyond familiar structures and feels like a map of O’Brien navigating exciting other ways to listen, work and live. He steps into the dark, and emerges renewed, evident on the stunning and uplifting “Blue Morpho,” inspired by the healing effects of nature.

Watch the Video for “Blue Morpho”

In April 2020, after releasing his solo debut, Earth, under his initials, O’Brien almost immediately regretted waiting nearly a decade to record those songs while balancing his schedule with Radiohead. Some of its impulses had been lost in the gap, and there was only so much he could do to support it as the world confronted catastrophe. Later that year, O’Brien entered the deepest depression of his life. Encouraged by his wife to sit in the fire of his emotions, he began a daily ritual, immersing himself in the breathing and cold-exposure teachings of Wim Hof, then retreating into his small London studio, playing guitar for hours until his brain began to fray.

There were no directions or preconceptions; O’Brien was simply using his instrument to navigate 50 years of emotional trauma and turmoil that had finally rushed to the surface. Years ago, when O’Brien began writing songs, Thom Yorke had told him a secret key to the craft was being a good librarian – cataloguing ideas when they happened to find and revisit later. As O’Brien played now through his past, his spiritual connection to nature in the Welsh countryside and his beliefs in the possibility of healing, he kept a record of what he was making. Over the next four years, those moments evolved into Blue Morpho, his first album fully detached from past regrets.

A series of serendipitous encounters steadily led to Blue Morpho. After a chance connection through their children’s school, producer Epworth became a key collaborator, leading to focused sessions alongside engineer Riley MacIntyre in Wales where the album’s foundations took shape. Saxophonist and composer Shabaka Hutchings contributed flutes following discussions at Glastonbury about frequency and natural resonance. And in Estonia, O’Brien bonded with composer Tõnu Kõrvits over their admiration for the classicist Arvo Pärt; Kõrvits then arranged strings performed by the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. The album was completed between O’Brien’s studio in Wales and The Church Studios in London, a 200-year-old former sacred space whose atmosphere mirrors the record’s spiritual undercurrent. Sequencing assistance came from Flood, known for his work with U2, PJ Harvey, and Nine Inch Nails, and Ben Baptie handled mixing.

An accompanying short film, Blue Morpho: The Three Act Play, which premiered at SXSW yesterday, will be released alongside the album, with more details to follow.

Blue Morpho is available on CD, cassette, LP, indies exclusive Transfiguration Edition LP (orange vinyl) and artist store exclusive Flutter By Edition LP (cream vinyl). A limited edition blue 7″ of the “Blue Morpho” single is available as part of the LP album bundle on the artist store while stocks last.

Watch the Trailer for Blue Morpho: The Three Act Play

Pre-Order Blue Morpho

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Jessica at Pitch Perfect PR.]

A Place to Bury Strangers ask “Where Are We Now” with their new, unearthed single.

New-York based band A Place To Bury Strangers release “Where Are We Now,” the third single/video from their new rarities album, Rare And Deadly, out April 3rd via Dedstrange. Following the “full-on sonic attack” (Consequence) of “Acid Rain,” on which “frontman Oliver Ackermann delivers deadpan, near-chanted lyrics about systemic cruelty,” (Consequence) “Where Are We Now” finds A Place To Bury Strangers reflecting on the past: “Where are we now // Is it too late // Should I reach out // Where we are now // caught in our lives //did our dreams fade.” Ackermann says the song is about “looking back at friends you lost touch with. Wondering where they ended up. Remembering when everything felt possible.” The accompanying video was put together by Ackermann with footage from the Library of Congress National Archives. Ackermann says he made the video because “I think we need to look at people more and see the value and wonder of life so we can be compassionate towards others.”

Stream “Where Are We Now”

Watch the “Where Are We Now” Video

Rare and Deadly cracks open a decade-long vault of raw nerve and sonic chaos from A Place To Bury Strangers. Spanning 2015–2025, this collection of demos, B-sides, abandoned experiments, and forgotten fragments reveals the band at their most unfiltered—caught between breakthrough ideas and beautiful mistakes. Pulled from Ackermann’s personal archive of late-night recordings, blown-out tapes, and half-finished sessions, here the interference is closer, the electricity more dangerous, the edges left jagged on purpose.

What makes Rare and Deadly truly unprecedented is that every format tells a different story. The CD, cassette, vinyl, and digital editions each feature their own unique tracklisting, a fractured release strategy that is almost unheard of. No single version contains the “complete” album. Instead, each format becomes its own window into the archive, revealing alternate paths, missing links, and parallel versions of the band’s inner life. It’s a deliberately unstable document: the album shifts depending on how you choose to hear it, mirroring the chaos of its creation.

Across these recordings, you can hear the evolution of Ackermann’s restless mind. Some pieces feel like prototypes for future chaos, seeds that later bloomed on studio albums. Others are dead ends—ideas too volatile, too strange, or too personal to ever fit the frame of a proper release. But together they form a secret history of the band, a parallel world of possibilities that existed just outside the spotlight. The tracks contain riffs mutated by malfunctioning pedals, songs born from gear pushed past its limits, or delicate melodies overwhelmed by walls of feedback until only their ghosts remain.

Rare and Deadly is less a compilation and more a documentary—an aural snapshot of how sound takes shape before it hardens into something finished. You hear the room, the accidents, the restless experimentation, the immediacy of a moment being captured before it disappears. It’s a reminder that A Place To Bury Strangers has always thrived in this in-between space: the tension between control and collapse, melody and noise, beauty and distortion.

Watch:

“Where Are We Now” video

“Acid Rain” video

“Everyone’s The Same” video

Rare And Deadly Tracklists Per Format

A Place To Bury Strangers Tour Dates:

Tue. April 7 – Hamburg, DE @ MS Stubnitz

Wed. April 8 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz

Thu. April 9 – Praha, CZ @ Futurum Music Bar

Fri. April 10 – Brno-město, CZ @ Kabinet múz

Sat. April 11 – Bratislava, SK @ PINK WHALE BAR

Sun. April 12 – Budapest, HU @ A38

Mon. April 13 – Belgrade, RS @ Karmakoma

Tue. April 14 – Sofia, BG @ Mixtape 5

Wed. April 15 – București, RO @ Control Club

Fri. April 17 – Thessaloniki, GR @ Eightball Club

Sat. April 18 – Athina, GR @ Gazarte

Mon. April 20 – Rome, IT @ Monk Club

Tue. April 21 – Florence, IT @ Ex Fila

Wed. April 22 – Bologna, IT @ Social Center TPO

Thu. April 23 – Milan, IT @ Santeria

Fri. April 24 – Zurich, CH @ Bogen F

Sun. April 26 – Brussels, BE @ Magasin 4

Mon. April 27 – Cologne, DE @ Gebäude 9

Wed. April 29 – Utrecht, NL @ De Helling

Thu. April 30 – Deventer, NL @ Burgerweeshuis

Fri. May 1 – Eindhoven, NL @ Fuzz Club Festival 2026

Keep your mind open.

[Where is your subscription?]

[Thanks to Steven at Dedstrange PR.]

Noir Addiction serve up a slick new single with “Serve Me Some Crime.”

Alternative-industrial rockers Noir Addiction present their new single “Serve Me Some Crime”, a sarcastic manifesto about embracing chaos and contradiction, where rule-breaking, humor and non-conformity become tools of personal freedom. Presented with a smashing new video directed & edited by ‪Jack Lucas Laugeni, it celebrates choosing instinct and madness over routine, control, and the suffocating seriousness of everyday life. This is the first taste of the album “Pretty Things Don’t Last”, forthcoming via Berlin-based Soulpunx label.

Emerging with a raw, industrial-tinged soul, Noir Addiction is a powerhouse trio that harnesses a dark, heavy aesthetic against a backdrop of classic rock ’n’ roll grit. Founded by Sonny Lanegan, who handles vocals, guitars, synthesizers, and programming, the band is rounded out by drummer Roberto Catanzaro and Nessie Zorba on keyboards and percussion. A seasoned musician and producer, Lanegan’s creative vision was shaped by cutting his teeth in Los Angeles’s high-octane music scene, where he honed his experimental style as singer-songwriter for White Pulp and co-founder of The Dead Good.

“Serve Me Some Crime” started from a really simple feeling: sometimes life gets too serious. Too structured. Too polite. The word “crime” in the song isn’t literal it’s more about breaking small, invisible rules. It’s about those moments when you don’t want to behave exactly how you’re expected to. A regular Sunday can feel predictable, almost scripted, and the song plays with the idea of shaking that up adding a bit of danger, irony, or mischief to something ordinary,” says Sonny Lanegan.

“At its core, the song is about freedom not the peaceful, inspirational kind, but the messy kind. The kind where you allow yourself to be contradictory, to not have it all figured out, to embrace a bit of chaos instead of pretending you’re always in control. It’s me saying: if life insists on being absurd, I might as well play along.”

Based in Italy, Noir Addiction has electrifying their way onto the music scene through their clever mix of glamorously haunting atmosphere, sense of decadence, rebellion and obsession, Noir Addiction bring a high-voltage fusion of dark rock, grunge attitude and shock-rock energy. By fusing heavy, distorted guitars and electronic textures with theatrics and raw emotion, they offer an immersive experience that is meant to be felt just as much as it is heard.

“There’s a lot of contradiction in the lyrics on purpose. Lines like “I don’t need forgiveness right now” or “I wear the joke to fight” reflect that push and pull between being sincere and hiding behind humor. I think many of us do that… we joke when things get uncomfortable, we act cool instead of saying what we really feel. The song lives in that space. Writing it felt like letting myself misbehave creatively. I didn’t overthink it, I followed the impulses that felt a little reckless. The lyrics came out in bursts, almost like I was arguing with myself. There’s tension in the song because that’s how I felt: torn between wanting to stay composed and wanting to blow everything up,” says Sonny Lanegan.

“When we recorded it, I wanted that tension to stay alive. We didn’t polish away the edges. The vocals needed attitude something slightly provocative, almost teasing. I wanted the track to feel cool but restless at the same time, like there’s something simmering underneath. We played with that contrast between restraint and release, keeping it tight in some moments and then letting it loosen just enough to feel unpredictable. That balance is really what gives the song its character”.

Sonny Lanegan brings years of behind-the-scenes studio and production experience to Noir Addiction. Many of his songs have also been licensed to and featured in American TV shows, cementing his presence in mainstream media and propelling him into notable collaborations with artists and producers, which has sharpened his sound and pushed his creative vision to new heights.

Lanegan eventually reconnected with his old friend Nessie Zorba, former bandmate in PostHuman, with whom they toured Europe, rekindling their deep musical connection and passion for relentless intensity and depth and channelling this unfiltered energy into this new, heavier, darker project. Drummer Roberto Catanzaro then joined in, bringing a new dynamic layer to their presence, his powerful and heavy-weighted performance adding body, urgency and raw impact to their overall sound.

Soulpunx is an independent record label and media production house founded in 2017 by music producer and film composer Konstantin Dellos. Dedicated to the creation and promotion of high-quality audiovisual art, the label’s focus is modern rock and alternative music. Beyond music, Soulpunx produces short films, documentaries and music videos, always emphasizing powerful storytelling.
As of March 20, “Serve Me Some Crime” will be available across digital platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. The full “Pretty Things Don’t Last” album will be released on July 16 via SoulPunx Records.

Noir Addiction will be touring in support of this EP, beginning with two special shows in Prague – at Subzero Prague on May 14 and at Chapeau Rouge on May 15.

Keep your mind open.

[Serve me a subscription.]

[Thanks to Shauna at Shameless Promotion PR.]

Hiss Golden Messenger’s single is “In the Middle of It.”

Hiss Golden Messenger—the North Carolina-based project of MC Taylor—announces his new album, I’m People, out May 1st via Chrysalis Records, and presents the lyric video for its lead single, “In The Middle Of It.” In conjunction, he announces a U.S. tour with a full band. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 13th at 10am local time and will be available here.

Arriving three years after Jump For Joy (2023), praised by The Guardian as “a triumph of wide-eyed wonder,” I’m People is an intensely human record—immediate, vulnerable, and full of spirit, something you could touch, sing along to, dance with, know about, recognize, relate. Taylor, grappling with the heartbreak and exhilaration, the absolute black comedy of being alive in America circa 2026, seems to ask: What other choice do we have than to be hopeful?

“The songs on I’m People are about running towards and away from things, about reasonable and realistic hope and expectations, about having babies, getting older, love and lust and luck and music. They are songs about solitude and heartbreak and poverty of the spirit, and maybe community as some kind of antidote for these particular types of sicknesses. Shedding old skin. Mystery as a beautiful necessity. My grandmother Lucy’s Cadillac, filled with cigarette smoke, Conway Twitty singing ‘Slow Hand.’ The lightning fields outside Santa Rosa, NM, midnight. Late nights drinking wine, running wild, bondage, fealty, devotion, seeing and being seen, owning and being owned. My wife, my children, summertime in the mountains, wild roses climbing the fence, a peaceful mind, rummaging through scrap heaps of the heart, breaking and making and breaking again. To dust. Truth, lies, magic, faith.”
— MC Taylor

Taylor refers to lead single “In The Middle Of It” as a “Santa Fe song.” Written in a corner room of the El Rey Court hotel, he cites “Highway 10 through the desert towns, Los Angeles to El Paso … Art Bell’s Coast to Coast droning from a bunker in the middle of Nevada. Ghosts and UFOs and vagabonds. The engine sings out over the long lightning fields. In the middle of it: the country, the story, the relationships.”

Stream “In The Middle Of It”

I’m People was written in New Mexico, California, and North Carolina, co-produced by Taylor and Josh Kaufman, engineered by Chris Boerner and Gillian Pelkonen, and mixed and mastered by D. James Goodwin. The album was recorded at Dreamland, a decommissioned church outside of Woodstock, NY. “I wanted the record to feel the way that upstate place feels, deep in the pocket, a place of poetry, earth and sky and mountains. A place where a lot of my favorite music has come from,” Taylor comments. The album features instrumentation from Taylor, Kaufman, JT Bates, Cameron Ralston, Bruce Hornsby, Sam Beam, Marcus King, Sara Watkins, Amy Helm, Matt Douglas, Eric D. Johnson, and Griff and Taylor Goldsmith.

Pre-order/Pre-save I’m People

Hiss Golden Messenger Tour Dates:
Thu. Sept. 24 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
Fri. Sept. 25 – Beaver Creek, CO @ Vilar Performing Arts Center
Sat. Sept. 26 – Aspen, CO @ Belly Up
Tue. Sept. 29 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up
Fri. Oct. 2 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
Tue. Oct. 6 – Healdsburg, CA @ Little Saint
Fri. Oct. 9 – Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theatre
Sat. Oct. 10 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
Sun. Oct. 11 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
Wed. Oct. 14 – Minneapolis, MN @ Icehouse
Fri. Oct. 16 – Newport, KY @ Southgate House
Sat. Oct. 17 – Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
Sun. Oct. 18 – Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
Wed. Nov. 4 – Ardmore, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall
Thu. Nov. 5 – Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theatre
Fri. Nov. 6 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
Sat. Nov. 7 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Mon. Nov. 9 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Wed. Nov. 11 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
Thu. Nov. 12 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
Fri. Nov. 13 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
Sat. Nov. 14 – Nashville, TN @ Basement East
Wed. Nov. 18 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
Thu. Nov. 19 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel
Sat. Nov. 21 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Sun. Nov. 22 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle

Keep your mind open.

[Why not subscribe?]

[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

American Sharks are “Not Dead Yet” thanks to their new single.

Austin trio American Sharks drop a new single today, the title track to their first new album in 6 years, Not Dead Yet. The song, “Not Dead Yet” is available to hear and share on all DSPs HERE.

The band returns to the stage this week with two special performances at SXSW in Austin. First, Hotel Vegas’ 15th Anniversary Party on March 12th, and at Sagebrush for Duel Step with Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol on Friday the 13th. American Sharks will be main support on the upcoming full U.S. tour dates with Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol beginning in April. Please see all dates below. Tickets for all shows are available HERE.

American Sharks is a three-piece band hailing from Austin, TX. Their punk-metal hybrid sound blends pop hooks with blasting-yer-face riffs resulting in something akin to if Weezer went Stoner Rock. Coupled with hook-laden singalong lyrics, American Sharks’ forthcoming 2026 album Not Dead Yet is, well, a breathtaking return.

The band is joined on the album by special guest guitar soloists: Mike Derks (GWAR), Zach Blair (Rise Against), Kyle Shutt (The Sword), David Sullivan (Red Fang), and Leo Lydon (Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol).

Since the release of their 2013 self-titled debut album, American Sharks has toured extensively supporting the likes of GWAR, Clutch, The Sword, Red Fang, Big Business, Corrosion of Conformity and many others. After touring to support their debut album on The End Records, American Sharks took time off to write and record their self-produced follow up album, 11:11 on BMG. After a 5 year break, American Sharks are back (centered around founders, vocalist/bassist Roky Moon and drummer Nick Cornetti) with 9 fast-paced, pummeling tracks.

Not Dead Yet will be available on LP, CD and download on April 17th, 2026 via Permanent Teeth.

Pre-orders are available HERE.

AMERICAN SHARKS – LIVE 2026:

04/16 Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater *#

04/17 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge *

04/18 Kalispell, MT – Rocky Mountain Riff Fest

04/19 Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern *

04/20 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios *

04/22 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of The Hill *

04/23 Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon *

04/25 San Diego, CA – The Casbah *

04/26 Pioneertown, CA – Pappy & Harriet’s *

04/28 Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge *

05/01 Oklahoma City, OK – Resonant Head *#

05/02 Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck *#

05/03 Omaha, NE – Reverb *#

05/04 Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry *#

05/06 Milwaukee, WI – Falcon Bowl *#

05/07 St. Louis, MO – Blueberry Hill Duck Room *#

05/08 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle *#

05/09 Cleveland, OH – Mahall’s *#

05/10 Toronto, ON – The Garrison *

05/12 Montreal, QC – Cabaret Foufs *

05/13 Boston, MA – Sonia *

05/15 Brooklyn, NY – TV Eye *

05/17 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s *

05/18 Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery *

05/20 Charlotte, NC – Neighborhood Theatre *

05/22 Atlanta, GA – The Earl *

05/23 Nashville, TN – The Blue Room *

* w/ Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol

# w/ Pink Fuzz

Keep your mind open.

[Why haven’t you subscribed yet? Are you dead?]

[Thanks to Dave at US / THEM Group.]

Grab your surfboard and sunscreen for Motherhood’s new single – “Kyle Hangs Ten.”

It’s no secret that Motherhood loves surf music – they are Canada’s Evil Beach Boys, after all. But usually by the time they release a song, the original influences have been hidden under layers of subterfuge, with our attraction to play far outweighing our ability to stay put.

“With ‘Kyle Hangs Ten,’ we were trying to write the most surfy song we could without over-complicating a genre that, at it’s core, is just swaggy country music” explains the band. “Adam had a drum beat that we jammed over, eventually falling into a Miserlou-adjacent guitar melody and filling the rest with pastiches.”

When the band were preparing to record their latest LP, Thunder Perfect Mind, the band couldn’t agree on the proper tempo for the song, until Kyle Cunjak (co-producer of the album) suggested both speeding it up AND slowing it down, creating 2 songs with the same bones.

“In the end, the slow version (the spaghetti western “Kyle Hangs at Noon”) made the record and the fast version (“Kyle Hangs Ten”) didn’t,” explains the band, “but we still love the song. Kyle promised us he’d be able to hang 10 by the time this song comes out. If not, he hangs at noon.

March 28 – Boise, ID: Treefort Music Fest // tickets
April 18 – Fredericton, NB: The Cap
May 14/15 – Paris, FR: Supersonic’s Block Party // tickets
May 16 – Strasbourg, FR: Pelpass Festival // tickets
May 18 – Skofja Loka, SI: AKC Nama
May 19 – Budapest, HU: Szimpla Kert // FREE
May 20 – Pilsen, CZ: Mistni Borci
May 21 – Hamburg, DE: Deichdiele
May 22 – Frankfurt, DE: Dreikönigskeller
May 23 – The Hague, NL: Sniester // tickets

Keep your mind open.

[Catch a wave to the subscription box.]

[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Cosmic Sonic Rendezvous releases first batch of their 2026 lineup.

COSMIC SONIC RENDEZVOUS hits North Brooklyn on May 23rd/24th at The Brooklyn Monarch. LIMITED early-bird weekend passes available NOW.

From the dark and menacing riffs of Pentagram and Eyehategod to the sky-gazing grooves of Dead Meadow and Al-Qasar, guitar driven explorations of the best psych and heavy rock will take over an industrial Brooklyn block for one lovely weekend in May.

It’s a Cosmic Sonic Rendezvous.

Teepee Records is thrilled to welcome:

Pentagram
Eyehategod
Legions of Doom
Dead Meadow
The Obsessed
Al-Qasar
Sacri Monti
The Atomic Bitchwax
Freedom Hawk
Satan’s Satyrs
Casket Rats
Sun Voyager
The Golden Grass
Worshipper
Carousel
Mirror Queen
Black Moon Cult
Mick’s Jaguar
Cat’s Eye
River Cult
Dead Hits
and more to be announced

Venues: The Brooklyn Monarch; The Meadows; The Woodshop
Website: cosmicsonicfest.com

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe before you go.]

[Thanks to Jason at Teepee Records.]

Kevin Morby tosses out a new single – “Javelin” – and 2026 tour dates.

Kevin Morby announces his eighth studio album, Little Wide Open, out May 15th via Dead Oceans, and shares its lead single & video, “Javelin.” Little Wide Open was produced by Aaron Dessner. Additionally, Morby announces his 2026 world tour.

“Little Wide Open is set to a backdrop of tangled highways, towns with populations less than 100,000, roadside crosses, a rock and roll romance, coupling butterflies, being an American entertainer, Econoline vans and more,” explains Morby. “This is, without a doubt, the most personal and vulnerable album I’ve ever made. Aaron did a heroic job of holding me back from throwing too many tricks at the songs, and letting my stories stand a bit naked. Despite its title this album is in fact, very wide open.”

Of today’s single, “Javelin,” Morby says: “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone you keep circling around the globe, relentlessly traveling through the air and down highways, and then returning home alone to middle America. Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso) shines here, with her incredible vocals. I had invited her into the studio and asked that she create a backing choir out of just her voice – but her presence is so special that her ‘backing vocals’ can’t help but take the lead.”

The accompanying video for “Javelin” stars Morby and friend Caleb Hearon on an ATV driving around the fields and backroads of Missouri, with cameos from Katie Crutchfield and Tara Raghuveer. “I think it captures all the fun we had making it,” says Morby.

Watch the Video for “Javelin”

In the summer of 2024, Dessner had asked Morby to support The National at their London show in Crystal Palace Park. Shortly after, Dessner—who was on a hot streak, having produced albums for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Gracie Abrams—reached out to Morby to say he’d love to produce his next album. They began recording at Aaron’s Long Pond Studio in Stuyvesant, NY, early in 2025 and finished in September of that year.

The album, which includes a host of contributors such as Dessner—who plays multiple instruments across it— Meath, Justin Vernon, Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Mat Davidson, Meg Duffy, Oliver Hill, Rachel Baiman, Stuart Bogie, Tim Carr, Andrew Barr, Benjamin Lanz, Colin Croom and Tom Moth, and mixed by Bella Blasko & Jonathan Low, has been described by Morby as the third in an unintentional trilogy of releases, following 2020’s Sundowner and 2022’s This Is a Photograph, which catalogued his time in middle America after moving back to Kansas City. This time out, Dessner’s production elevates Morby’s recordings while never losing focus of the songs themselves. There’s a newfound confidence and clarity in both Morby’s writing and Dessner’s production that recalls Tom Petty’s 1994 classic Wildflowers. Now primarily living in LA, the atmosphere that runs through Little Wide Open has changed somewhat from its predecessors. The feeling of restlessly hurtling towards something new. A future unseen and untested, but inevitable.

Kevin’s friend, critically acclaimed novelist Rachel Kushner, has written an astonishing essay about Little Wide Open, entitled “Field Guide to the North American Troubadour.” Rather than mangle or chop up the work for the purposes of fitting something so artistically written into the format of a press release, please read her full essay below.

Read Rachel Kushner’s “Field Guide to the North American Troubadour”

Pre-order Little Wide Open

Kevin Morby Tour Dates
Sat. March 14 – Austin, TX @ The Long Time
Fri. May 8 – Woodstock, NY @ Levon Helm Studios *
Wed. May 13 – Aspen, CO @ Belly Up Aspen *
Thu. May 14 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre *
Fri. May 15 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party
Sun. May 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom *
Mon. May 18 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre *
Tue. May 19 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall *
Thu. May 21 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore *
Fri. May 22 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
Sat. May 23 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s *
Sun. May 24 – San Diego, CA @ Music Box *
Tue. May 26 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom *
Wed. May 27 – Santa Fe, NM @ The Bridge at Santa Fe Brewing *
Fri. May 29 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater *
Sat. May 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall *
Tue. June 2 – Chicago, IL @ Metro *
Thu. June 4 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall *
Fri. June 5 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY *
Sat. June 6 – Montréal, QC @ Théâtre Beanfield *
Sun. June 7 – Boston, MA @ Royale *
Tue. June 9 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer *
Wed. June 10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel *
Fri. June 12 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre *
Sat. June 13 – Charlotte, NC @ The Underground *
Sun. June 14 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse *
Tue. June 16 – New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
Thu. June 18 – Houston, TX @ The Heights Theater
Fri. June 19 – Fort Worth, TX @ Tannahill’s Tavern and Music Hall
Sat. June 20 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
Thu. July 2 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso *
Fri. July 3 – Beuningen, NL @ Down the Rabbit Hole
Sat. July 4 – Lille, FR @ L’Aéronef *
Sun. July 5 – Hérouville-Saint-Clair, FR @ Festival Beauregard
Mon. July 6 – Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel *
Wed. July 8 – London, UK @ Troxy *
Thu. July 9 – Manchester, UK @ The Ritz *
Fri. July 10 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK *
Sat. July 11 – Brugge, BE @ Cactusfestival
Sun. July 12 – Köln, DE @ Even Flow Festival
Tue. July 14 – Zurich, CH @ Rote Fabrik *
Wed. July 15 – Galzignano Terme, IT @ Anfiteatro del Venda *
Thu. July 16 – Feldkirch, AU @ Poolbar Festival *
Fri. July 17 – Vienna, AU @ Simm City *
Sat. July 18 – Munich, DE @ Technikum *

* = support from Liam Kazar

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]