Dua Lipa announced her third studio album, titled Radical Optimism

Ariana Grande 已习惯聚光灯下的生活，随着阅历渐长，她娴熟地和舆论玩起了捉迷藏，甚至可以在《yes, and?》的 MV 中轻轻调侃一番。发行第七张录音室专辑《eternal sunshine》时，正值这位流行巨星陷入绯闻漩涡，Grande 结婚、离婚、主演了好莱坞电影《魔法坏女巫》。她知道粉丝们心中有很多疑问：真相到底是什么？Grande 在专辑里给出了许多线索，却唯独没有给出答案。这也间接提醒我们，其实明星并没有责任公开自己的隐私。

专辑标题旨在致敬 2004 年的经典爱情片《暖暖内含光》（又译《纯洁心灵的永恒阳光》，Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind），喜剧大师 Jim Carrey 少见的忧郁之作。那部电影讲述的是恋人分手后试图删除回忆引发的连锁反应。而 Grande 一直是 Carrey 的影迷，她的专辑本身给人的感觉也和那部电影一样费解，模糊了现实和作品的界限。Grande 告诉 Apple Music：“真实故事，是根据不真实事件创作的不真实故事”。

专辑中唯一的插曲《Saturn Returns Interlude》 以土星回归的星相理论为名，但在被问及土星回归的相关经历时，她耸耸肩说：“就那样吧，什么也没变。没什么大不了的。”《暖暖内含光》让她得到灵感，她将电影形容为“漂亮衣服”，让她得以换上不同的视角来讲故事。“专辑不一定要讲述永恒的爱情故事，”她说，“爱是件复杂的事，我努力展现爱的两面。”

尽管 Grande 的作品文本虚实难辨，但专辑里的歌曲水准可是不打折扣，站在麦克风后面的仍然是那个 Ariana Grande——她还是能唱出惊天高音（《eternal sunshine》），还会在舞池中释放自己（《yes, and?》），以及从 90 年代的 R&B 里提炼精华（《fantasize》的续篇《the boy is mine》，连歌名都在呼应 Brandy 和 Monica 1998 年的对唱名曲）。《imperfect for you》是专辑里她最偏爱的歌，以致敬自己生活小圈子里的友人。“我们很幸运，所爱之人能够接受我们、坦诚以待，不管发生什么。”她表示，“我们生活在一个事事都要精简压缩的时代，但那首歌需要空间去感受微妙之处、人性和复杂性。”

“The main theme of the record is desperation; you don’t hear an unreliable narrator but someone who is kidding themselves that they have everything under control, but they don’t.” Geordie Greep
Geordie Greep (guitarist and vocalist in black midi) today announces his debut solo album ‘The New Sound’ and shares its first single ‘Holy, Holy’.
Following three astonishing albums with black midi, most recently 2023’s ‘Hellfire’, and almost non-stop worldwide tours for near-on five years, Geordie Greep has somehow found time to record his first solo album ‘The New Sound’, an album that has allowed him scope to explore creative ideas like never before. It boasts a brand of high quality, all-embracing alternative pop fun not heard in a very long time. Geordie Greep; “With recording ‘The New Sound’, it was the first time I have had no one to answer to. And with every impulse I had, I was able to completely follow it through to its conclusion. Being in a band (black midi), we often have this ‘we can do everything’ feeling, but you are also kind of limited in that approach, and sometimes it's good to do something else, to let go of things.”
Over thirty session musicians were involved in the making of the album, on two continents, in São Paulo and London. Geordie Greep; “Some of the tracks we had recorded already, elsewhere, but it just wasn’t right, so we re-recorded them with new people. Half of the tracks were done in Brazil, with local musicians pulled together at the last minute. They’d never heard anything I’d done before, they were just interested in the demos I’d made. The tracking was all done in one, maybe two days. Then we did the overdubs later, in London.”
Geordie Greep has had plenty of practice with black midi over the years in performing musical and lyrical Cruyff turns, full of stop-starts, blasts and bangs and whispered soliloquies. Here the method is employed to ask: what part of the narrative should we listeners believe, or take as our emotional crutch? The mercurial, insouciant tone set in ‘Terra’, or the gruesome imagery it is juxtaposed with? After all, Greep tells us, this is the story of “the museum of human suffering.” Consider, too, the strange emotional undulations created in ‘Through a War’, where the music makes a very polished stab at aping a soul revue; or a salsa class. It’s there to give colour to a set of imaginings which include cannibalism, being boiled alive, and a woman giving birth to a goat. You’re never quite sure when, or whether, you are supposed to be shocked; or laugh. Even if, as with the latter, Geordie Greep gives us the punchline; “And that’s how I spent my adolescence.”
Street life is all around: the listener is thrown into a world of cafes, bars and clubs, visit theatres, cabarets and strange museums, or rented rooms. Here we see our heroes carry out a series of naughty assignations, military cosplay or socio-economic triumphs. Greep; “I was often thinking of walking through a city, and thinking about a million dollars, showing that kind of feeling, you know?” Taking on The New Sound in its entirety can feel like you are trying to cross Piccadilly Circus after a skinful. Single ‘Holy Holy’ is possibly the best example: has urbane romantic fantasy ever sounded this way? Probably not since Noël Coward. This story of an imaginary liaison in a nightclub is soundtracked by ’noughties indie pop chords and bravura Latin big band arrangements - including a three-piano attack (Steinway, Bechstein, electric). ‘Motorbike’ sees a change in vocal duties: as bassist and album producer Seth ‘Shank’ Evans starts up a doleful soliloquy about not getting what he wants.
It’s certainly an album that fully engages the listener, throughout the eleven tracks. Greep; “I was worried about the length in terms of not overblowing it. But I’m also really bloody bored of listening to music and, for better or worse, knowing in advance what it means or what it’s trying to do. All my favourite music is about the listener coming to terms with what is going on. My favourite singers, like Peter Hammill or Nat King Cole, are literally one of a kind. I love that. Especially with lyrics, where you’re not sure what they’re going on about, but you know it’s not just abstract thoughts.”
What next? Could we see The New Sound as a live concept or is the album going to stay forever in our collective imagination? Greep; “My plan is to ‘do a Keith Jarrett thing’, have a different group of session musicians in a different place and lean into the fact that we’re not going to get it the same.” How can anything ever be ‘the same’ with Greep at the helm?

One of the most exciting musicians today, Nilüfer Yanya returns with a brand new studio album ‘My Method Actor’ set to release Sept 13th via Ninja Tune. With a unique blend of soulful melodies, indie rock grit, and jazz influences, Yanya’s music continues to captivate audiences worldwide. The new body of work being a development and evolution from her previous sound. Her first album ‘Miss Universe’ and its 2022 follow-up ‘Painless’ cemented her as one to watch and a staple in the indie scene, lauded by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Since her debut, she has performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Later with Jools Holland and NPR’s legendary Tiny Desk.

来自迈阿密、现在在洛杉矶发展的双人组 Magdalena Bay，由 Mica Tenenbaum 和 Matthew Lewin 组成，在第二张专辑《Imaginal Disk》里，他们沿袭了首张专辑《Mercurial World》复古合成器弥漫的灵动风格，并将其发扬光大。开篇曲《She Looked Like Me!》始于 Tenenbaum 沉静甜美的歌声，霓虹闪烁般的键盘和嗡嗡的低音合成器点缀其中；然而不久之后，冲击力十足的鼓声给整首歌注入紧密的脉冲，融合了 Hyperpop 的能量与经典摇滚乐的起伏不定。《Image》受到 Disco 启发，奇妙有趣的合成器音色激发舞动能量，时而急速前进、时而缓慢前行，而 Tenenbaum 的声音则毫不费力地漂浮在喧嚣之上。她唱道：“你拥有的最好的是什么？/我遗忘了所有的常识/我需要所有的常识/是时候从头开始计时了”（What's the best you've got?/I forgot all my common sense/I need all the common sense/Time to start the clock from the top），轻盈的编曲为她抽象的歌词注入深意。《Imaginal Disk》一面揭开未来世界的斑斓绚丽，一面提示了潜在的危机与恐惧，但对  Magdalena Bay 来说，最重要的或许是：纵使世界笼罩于危机之下，我们也别忘记跳舞。