#Virtual Singer Summer Concert

[stardust-medium5]

非日常Neverland 【Yan he/Xin Hua/Yongye/POPY Original】

Vocals：言和、心华、Yongye/Minus、POPY

Music/Arrangement/Mixing：楽素

Lyrics : 大九_LN

Tuning：某只泽

Illustration：利刹牙口

Planning/PV：毛腿猪兔子

Illustration of Yongye from the PV:

「 ✦ Artist: 利刹牙口 ✦ 」

★│Source: BiliBili│★

[ratarade]

Hatsune Miku: The First Virtual Pop Diva

To begin, I must explain what VOCALOID is. It is a voice synthesis software application, capable of singing, developed by Yamaha Corporation. It allows users to generate a song simply by writing the lyrics and melody. Depending on which VOCALOID is used, the voice of the song will vary. In 2004, Crypton Future Media released their first Vocaloid with the software VOCALOID01, called Meiko.

Although Meiko, and later Kaito (2006), did not achieve great success, Crypton Future Media, in 2007, launched Hatsune Miku through the VOCALOID2 software (an update to the first version). Her name translates to "First Sound of the Future." Hatsune Miku was the first virtual vocal character and remains the most famous to this day.

She quickly went viral on a Japanese video-sharing platform (Nico Nico Douga), where users listened to the songs and created collaborative content. Starting from the original song, other users on the platform would create illustrations, 2D and 3D animations, and remixes, demonstrating the various possibilities of using the software for multimedia content creation.

After this initial success, various projects involving Hatsune Miku began, one of the most important being the release of her own video game, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (2009) a rhythm game released by Sega for the PlayStation Portable, featuring songs such as 'World is Mine' and 'Levan Polka. That same year, Hatsune Miku made her first guest appearance at a concert (Animelo Summer Live), where she was projected on a 2D screen.

A few months later, on August 31, the “Miku FES'09 (Natsu)” took place, where Hatsune Miku performed as the first hologram singer. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled “Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day” took place, becoming one of her most viral and visited concerts on the internet to this day.

Although the title of this blog is "Hatsune Miku: The First Virtual Pop Diva," her music varies in terms of musical genres. This is due to what I explained earlier: anyone can use the Hatsune Miku software and can use her voice to create the music they desire. Therefore, she is not only the first virtual singer and the first hologram singer, Hatsune Miku is a massification tool for music creation.

[tomorrowxtogether]

TOMORROW X TOGETHER Prepping 7th Mini Album, ‘The Star Chapter: SANCTUARY’

The group's follow-up to April's "Minisode 3: Tomorrow" drops next month.

K-pop boy band TOMORROW X TOGETHER are gearing up to release their seventh mini-album, The Star Chapter: SANCTUARY. The latest release from Soobin, Yeonjun, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and HueningKai is due out on Nov. 4, seven months after the group’s previous mini, minisode 3: TOMORROW.

According to a release, The Star Chapter will usher in “a new phase of their artistic journey as K-pop‘s visual storytellers.” That promise was teased further in a 20-second promo video that dropped on Sunday (Oct. 6) which features a flaming cartoon version of the star X logo from minisode 3transforming into a celestial diamond shape floating in space as the pieces come together and zip through the cosmos before a series of three twinkling stars unite above the band’s name and the album title.

“The Star Chapter: SANCTUARY will open a new chapter in Gen Z Icons’ one-of-a-kind narrative, building upon the intriguing saga established throughout The Dream Chapter [2019] The Chaos Chapter [2021] and The Name Chapter [2023],” reads the release in reference to three of the group’s previous studio albums.

Earlier this year, the innovative group announced their first-ever virtual reality concert, HYPERFOCUS : TOMORROW X TOGETHER VR CONCERT, an immersive event that found the five singers offering superfans a more up-close-and-personal view during screenings in California and Texas; the final run of shows will continue through Oct. 13 in Chicago with the experience winding down its run from Oct. 17-Nov. 10 in New York.

The group also cooked up an anthem to soundtrack Samsung’s latest Galaxy series, “Open Always Wins,” this summer, with lyrics penned by members Sobin, Yeonjun, Taehyun and HueningKai.

Check out the album logo animation below.

[oacest]

Saturday’s British charge was led by Oasis, the wonderfully melodic Manchester outfit that was making its first formal concert appearance since it broke off a U.S. tour last year amid rumors that the often battling Gallagher brothers had decided to split apart. Instead, the group returned to the recording studio to work on a new album (due later this summer) and to take a much-needed break from years of virtual nonstop touring. In resuming live shows, Oasis seemed like a band reborn. Though the group didn’t preview any material from its upcoming album, the quintet played such favorites as “Champagne Supernova,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “Wonderwall” with sometimes breathtaking intensity and grace. Not only were the textures more muscular than before, but the songs were also stretched out dramatically--as if the group was so delighted at being back onstage that they wanted to squeeze every liberating ounce of emotion from the songs. The band was in such good spirits that songwriter-guitarist Noel Gallagher had his arm around younger brother Liam, the band’s singer, at the end.

Oasis leads the way as the English take charge at KROQ’s Weenie Roast & Luau, LA Times, June 16 1997

[jgthirlwell]

2023 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2023

JG Thirlwell Composer Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

2023 was an intense year. The year began with the premiere of my symphony for Alarm Will Sound and ended with guesting vocalizing with Dinosaur Jr on some Stooges classics. I completed the final season of Archer. Wrote a lot of material for new Xordox and Foetus albums. Released an album of string quartets and scored a Venture Bros movie. Worked with some great singers and premiered my Ensemble project in London. I spent several months traveling and set up a small studio in Melbourne for a bit. Road tripped through NZ with my partner, Dora. I played some excellent shows in London, Colchester, Auckland, Wellington, Melbourne and Sydney. I still woke up 5am in a panic on too many occasions. And I saw some great concerts.It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2023, in no particular order.

Albums

Poil Ueda Yoshitsune (Dur et Doux) Poil Ueda - Poil Ueda (Dur et Doux) Genevieve Artadi Forever Forever (Brainfeeder) Knower - Knower Forever (Brainfeeder) Ultraphauna No No No No (Dur Et Doux) Gahlmm Break A Leg (GEIGER Grammofon) Oneohtrix Point Never Again (Warp) Lankum - False Lankum (Rough Trade) Evian Christ Revanchist (Warp) Chromb Cinq (Dur et Doux) Deskartes A Kant After Destruction (Cleopatra) Gazelle Twin Then You Run (Original Score) L’Rain I Killed Your Dog (Mexican Summer) Loraine James Gentle Confrontation (Hyperdub) Royal Blood Back To The Water Below (Warner) John Luther Adams Darkness and Scattered Light (Cold Blue) Catherine Christer Hennix Solo for Tamburium (Blank Forms) Rachel Fannan Bjork Impersonations (Instagram) Regal Worm Worm! (Quatermass) Wild Up Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? (New Amsterdam) PJ Harvey I Inside the Old Year Dying (Partisan) Poppy I Disagree (Sumerian) Sparks The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte (Island) Queens Of The Stone Age In Times New Roman (Matador) Time Wharp Spiro World (Leaving) Murderpact Ultraheaven (Bandcamp) RVG Brain Worms (Our Golden Friend) HMLTD - The Worm (Lucky Number) Catarina Barbieri - Myuthafoo (Editions Mego) Ligeti Quartet and Anna Meredith - NUC (Mercury KX) Mandy Indiana I’ve Seen a Way + EP(FireTalk) Kate NV WOW (RVNG) Kelly Moran Vesela EP (Warp) Kurws Powiez / Fascia (Korobushka) Fever Ray Radical Romantics (Mute) Netherlands Severance (Svart) Tim Hecker No Highs (Kranky) Bohemian Flesh Bohemian Flesh (Ojet) Pure Adult II (FatCat) Model/Actriz - Dogsbody (True Panther Sounds) Laurel Halo - Atlas (Awe) Water From Your Eyes - Everyones Crushed (Matador) Moritz Von Oswald - Silencio (tresor) REZZETT Meant Like This (Trilogy Tapes) Jess Johnson and Simon Ward 'Terminus' Virtual Reality exhibition at the Museum in Dunedin NZ.

Books

Naomi Klein Doppelganger Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau Rikers : An Oral History Thurston Moore Sonic Life Malcolm Gladwell The Bomber Mafia Tony Cohen Half Deaf, Completely Mad Brett Anderson Coal Black Morning Book Wesley Doyle Conform To Deform Primo Levi Survival in Auschwitz

Films + TV

Beef Barry Fargo The YouTube Effect Mutiny In Heaven Beau Is Afraid In The Court Of The Crimson King Oppenheimer

Concerts

01.28.23 Kodak Quartet performed at the Jack Studio Festival Event at The New School, performing a work by Khyam Allami and a stunning rendition of Ligeti’s String Quartet No 1. 02.21.23 Pure Adult opened for Gilla Band at Brooklyn Made and both were excellent! 02.22.23 Clown Core (featuring Louis Cole on drums and keys) Elsewhere in NYC. 03.02.23 Laurie Anderson performs at a drone event anchored by Lou’s guitar generating feedback drones, on the occasion of Lou Reed’s birthday .Other musicians joining the drone included Shazad Ismailey, Steven Bernstein, Stan Harrison, Briggan Krauss and more. 03.09.23 Michael Byron’s new work In One Second There Will Be A Thousand Plateaus Perhaps for two pianos and small orchestra featuring pianists Joseph Kubera and Steve Beck with Petr Kotik conducting members of the S.E.M. Ensemble. At Roulette Intermedium. 04.04.23 Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs brought the rock power and played an intense and triumphant show at Mercury Lounge to end their first US tour. 04.08.23 Amarcord Nino Rota, a reimagining of the Hal Willner’s Nino Rota tribute album, at Roulette Intermedium. 05.03.23 Genevieve Artadi played a grreat set at Public Records in Brooklyn to support her new album Forever Forever, with Louis Cole on drums. 05.27.23 Gloryhammer at Irving Plaza. Saw them in Melbourne too. 06.27.23 Sparks played a brilliant show at the Beacon Theater in NYC and I also caught them at Palais Theater in St Kilda, Melbourne, Australia on 10.26.23 07.04.23 75 Dollar Bill at Union Pool 08.20.23 BeatFox . Incredible luck to see this guy busking on Brick Lane. 08.21.23 The very wonderful Deerhoof at The Lafayette in London 08.22.23 clipping. played a killer show at Outernet in London 08.23.23 The incredible Poil Ueda from Lyon, France played in London at the Lexington + Lost Crowns 08.24.23 Swans played an epic set at The Troxy in Londo 09.24.23 TENGGER played an amazing set at the Art Gallery of NSW. 10.06.23 Fuji|||||||||||ta at Tempo Rubato in Melbourne, Australia. 10.07.23 RVG played a killer show to a packed house at Northcote Theatre in Melbourne, Australia 10.17.23 Chloe Sobek at Make It Up Club in Melbourne Australia. 10.21.23 Paul McCartney at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne Australia 10.28.23 Sarah Mary Chadwick at Wesley Anns as part of The 86 Super Saturday Festival 10.28.23 Party Dozen from Sydney played a great set at The 86 Super Saturday Festival in Melbourne Australia. 11.10.23 Devon Townsend played a beautiful, brutal and ecsatic show in Melbourne Australia at the Forum. 12.06.23 Ashley Bathgate and percussion sextet Mantra Percussion performed Matt McBane’s Topography at National Sawdust in NYC.

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Michel Langevin (aka Away/Voïvod)

My coups de coeur in 2023:   TV Series: The Last of Us   Music: The Damned - Darkadelic Godflesh - Purge Crown Lands - Fearless Gong - Unending Ascending Soft Machine - Other Doors   Best show: KISS End of the Road World Tour in Montréal on Nov 18th   Best Moments: -Recording and touring the new Voïvod album, Morgöth Tales, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the band -Celebrating my 60th birthday on stage in Lyon on the Voïvod/Testament Euro tour -Jason Newsted joining the band on stage in Fort Lauderdale, USA -Eric Forrest joining the band on stage at Hellfest, France  

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Lydia Lunch

https://www.lydia-lunch.net/

“Time-one long second that goes on forever” So enjoy it motherfuckers!

BOOKS

Love the World or Get Killed Trying Alvina Chamberland Mother Howl Craig Clevenger Nein, Nein, Nein! : One Man's Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust Jerry Stahl Mystic Debris Justin Gradin Niagara, NY Ric Royers The Pale-Faced Lie : A True Story David Crow The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror Thomas Ligotti The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe Lynne McTaggert Yuval Noah Harari Box Set (Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons for 21st Century) Season of the Witch Cathi Unsworth Every word John Tottenham utters or writes

TOURS with Sylvia Black & Gregg Foreman, Joseph Keckler, Marc Hurtado (tribute to Alan Vega & Suicide), Ian White, Kevin Shea (Sinister Impulse), Tim Dahl & Matt Nelson (Murderous Again)

Workshop & Performance Badass Babes of Burlesque w Rita D’Albert Zebulon LA

Workshop at the University of New Mexico thanks to Greg Moss

Reading with Zoe Hansen & Ron Athey at The Philosophical Research Center LA Reading with Eugene Robinson Makeout Room SF

Finishing the documentary with Jasmine Hirst Artists - Depression, Anxiety, and Rage and premiering it in Italy

Meeting butuh Queen Azumi OE and discussing up coming performances together with Tim Dahl

Completing the 233 episode of The Lydian Spin with Tim Dahl

FUN

Nights in London & Brighton spent with Nick Soulsby, Cathi Unsworth, Billy Chainsaw, Chris Bohn, Jack Sargeant, Pam Hogg,

Tina Kit (opened for my Suicide tribute in London & Brighton) best new band of suited and booted bad boys

Squired around Europe by Sebastien Greppo, a man like no other - who so lightens my burden…

Watching every episode of The Dark Side of The Ring with Kevin Shea

Training squirrels, levitating objects, saving lives, screaming into the void.

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Mike Berdan

(Uniform) https://uniform-nyc.com/

ALBUMS

Lankum - False Lankum

Surgeon - Crash Recoil

Ryuichi Sakamoto - 12

Fellwinter - The Dawn Of Winter

Abysmal Lord - Bestiary Of Immortal Hunger

Death Kneel - Dawn Simulation

Shit And Shine - 2222 And Airport

Carnivorous Bells - Room Above All

Agonal Lust - Mankind Is A Talisman Of Misfortune

Godflesh - Purge

FIRST-TIME READS

A History Of Violence (1973) - David Cotner

Someone Who Isn't Me - Geoff Rickly

Your Dreams - Thomas Moore 4. In A Lonely Place - Karl Edward Wagner

Burn You The Fuck Alive - B.R. Yeager

The Holy Day - Christopher Norris

A Collapse Of Horses - Brian Evenson

The Devil Thinks I'm Pretty - Charlene Elsby

Let's Go Play At The Adams' - Mendal W. Johnson

Counterillumination - Audrey Szasz

MOVIES

Godzilla Minus One

CIGARS

Cohiba Magico Maduro Petit Robusto

God Of Fire Serie B Double Robusto

Padron Family Reserve no. 95 Maduro Petit Gordo

El Pulpo Toro

Tatuaje Reserva J21 Broadleaf Robusto

Atabey Benditos Double Corona

Romeo y Julieta Línea de Oro Nobles

H. Upmann Half Corona

Foundation Cigars The Tabernacle Robusto

OpusX Eye Of The Shark

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Mario Diaz deLeon (composer, Luminous Vault, Bloodmist)

ALBUMS Evita Manji - Spandrel? Eartheater - Powders Slowspin - Talisman Marta DePascalis - Sky Flesh Kalia Vandever - We Fell in Turn Eraldo Bernocchi + Hoshiko Yamane - Sabi JakoJako -  Verve Surgeon - Crash Recoil Cavalera - Morbid Visions / Bestial Devastation Bell Witch - The Clandestine Gate Steve Lehman + Orchestre National de Jazz - Ex Machina

SONGS Kelly Moran - Vesela Vines - I Don’t Mind Cybotron - Maintain Barker - Birmingham Screwdriver VMO - Supergaze Omar Hisham - Adhan (Be Heaven)

EVENTS New Firmament: MONAD - Roulette Peter Evans: Being and Becoming - Roulette Anna Sperber: Amplifier - Roulette 20 Years of Shinkoyo - Roulette Anthony Braxton + Wolf Eyes - Pioneer Works Caterina Barbieri - Pioneer Works Felipe Lara + Claire Chase + Esperanza Spaulding + NY Phil TAK Ensemble: Swoonfest - The Clemente Center Kayo Dot: Choirs of The Eye - MilkBoy Cecilia Vicuña / Raven Chacon - The Poetry Project Krallice / Indocrithere / Geryon / Ocrilim - Saint Vitus Cavalera: Morbid Devastation - Irving Plaza Hulder / Blackbraid / Aeviterne - Le Poisson Rouge Eartheater / Concrete Husband - Elsewhere

BOOKS Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States

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Alexander Tucker (Microcorps)

I started off the year by releasing a project very close to my heart: Fifth Continent, a collaboration with the late Keith Collins, partner and collaborator of film maker and artist Derek Jarman. The album was partially recorded in Jarman’s cottage in the desert-like landscape of Dungeness, on the South East coastline of Kent, in the UK, with elements constructed from Collins own spoken word pieces, and environmental recordings. The album was released on James Ginzberg’s Subtext label, and we also produced Fifth Quarter, an anthology publication of writing, recollections, photography and newly commissioned artworks about Jarman, Collins and Dungeness.

Although I probably made more music than usual this year, and had a greater focus than ever on the various projects I have underway, 2023 felt like a weird and often frustrating year for me and music. About five years ago I set about teaching myself modular systems, experimenting, and recording the results as I went along. This culminated in a new solo guise primarily for electronics and the synthesis of voice and acoustic instruments, MICROCORPS (the debut album Xmit came out on Alter records in 2021). Using these systems is at the same time liberating and incredibly frustrating. For a while this year nothing felt good enough: I could feel the potential of my ideas glimmering in the distance but was unable to catch up with them. I decided to take a short break from the modular, and focused upon compositions for cello, saxophone, and clarinet. But the pull of electronics is never far, so I began processing these recordings, using granular synthesis to stretch, mutate and reorganise the audio into new pieces. As soon as you want more from your practice and yourself, things can become more laborious - it’s difficult to be in the moment and focus on what’s in front of you. I used to be happy with the immediate effects I produced, but I think this is being replaced by a different approach, something more considered, which is exciting and, in some ways, sobering - even if the results are far from what you would describe as sober. I’m also so lucky to have many friends and fellow artists around me to offer help and suggestions, to whom I’m eternally grateful. As R.Crumb says, “Keep on truckin”.

Music I dug this year: Godflesh - Purge (Avalanche Recordings) Rắn Cạp Đuôi - *1 (nhạc_gay) Mun Sing - Inflatable Gravestone (Planet Mu) RS Tangent - When A Worm Wears A Wig (The Trilogy Tapes) Arnold Dreybaltt And The Orchestra Of Excited Strings - Resolve (Drag City) Elvin Brandhi and Lord Spikeheart - Drunken Love (Hakuna Kulala) Mark Fell and Will Guthrie - Infoldings / Diffractions (NAKID) Afrorack - The Afrorack (Hakuna Kulala) Kinn - Dogtooth (First Light Records) General Magic - Nein Aber Ja (GoTo Records)

Live shows: Emptyset - Village Underground Elvin Brandhi - IKLECTIK Mick Harris/FRET – Downwards’ 30th, Centrala Mun Sing, Crys Cole, Penelope Trappes - Boundaries Festival  Maxwell Sterling - Cafe OTO Pole - EartH Nik Colk Void - Too many to count! Phew - Cafe OTO Residency Acid Horse Festival Devo - Hammersmith Apollo Kinn - New Cross Road Baptist Church

Comics: In 2023 I produced a new issue of my ongoing oblique and nonlinear comic series, Entity Reunion. For this issue I drew upon my love of HP Lovecraft, using the repetition of the comic format to peel back layers of the everyday to reveal omnipotent entities underlying all reality. The viewpoint of each page is from the point of view of the protagonists, who hold an electronic device, photographing their surroundings only to capture the blurred features of some insidious face. There are also references to Lovecraft’s own fictional grimoire the Necrononmicon. I wanted that dreamlike sensation of being the protagonists of the dream but also viewing yourself as separate entity.

Books: I read nearly all of Patrica Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’ books, a bunch of John Le Carré novels, Mark Kermode’s book on The Exorcist and I’m currently working my way through the spy novelist Eric Ambler’s books. I also re-read Bruce Robinson’s analysis on Jack the Ripper and Victorian society, ‘They All Love Jack’. 

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Tom Chiu (composer, Flux Quartet)

2 0 2 3  IN  REVIEW

Albums Worth Exploring (including a couple entries from 2022 that I discovered late)

Bar Italia                 Tracey Denim (Matador)

Blur                         Ballad Of Darren (Parlophone)

Bush Tetras             They Live In My Head (Wharf Cat)

Death Valley Girls    Islands In The Sky (Suicide Squeeze)

Dummy                    Mono Retriever (Sub Pop)

Duster                        Remote Echoes (Numero Group)

En Attendant Ana       Principia (Trouble In Mind)

Everything But the Girl     Fuse (Verve)

Horse Lords               Comradely Objects (RVNG)

Kelela                         Raven (Warp)

Lael Neale                  Star Eaters Delight (Sub Pop)

Lana Del Rey             Do You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (Interscope)

Lewsberg                   Out And About (12XU)

Munya                        Jardin (Luminelle)

Slowdive                    Everything Is Alive (Dead Oceans)

Sweeping Promises    Good Living Is Coming For You (Sub Pop)

Wednesday                Rat Saw God (Dead Oceans)

Yo La Tengo               This Stupid World (Matador)

Night at the Movies

Poor Things Past Lives Monster

Recurring Personal FAVES

FAVE Sandwich: Mekelburg's  Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

FAVE Burger: Two8Two Bar & Burger, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

FAVE Craft Beer Brewery Omnipollo (Sweden), brewed at Twelve Percent Beer Project, North Haven, CT

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Pierre Cerrato

Producer - Editor  Floyd County Productions (Archer)

Favorite Movies/TV Archer Season 14 The Last of Us Gen V Beef This Fool Season 2 Fargo Season 5 Primo (Amazon Prime Show) The Bear Season 2 Episode Barry Season 4

Favorite Records  I listened to a lot of music but these were in constant rotation.  Some are from last year but what is time and who cares?

Boris/Uniform - Bright New Disease (2023) Birds in Row  - Gris Klein (2022) Fleshwater - We Are Not Here to Be Loved (2022) Asunojokei - Islands (2022) Everything But the Girl - Fuse (2023) Night Owls - Versions (2022)

Honorable mention Boris - Feedbacker (2003) this was my introduction to Boris. This year is the 20 year  anniversary of its release. Roberto Carlos Lange shared it with me one day while at work. He said it was something he thought I would like. Blew my mind and I have been a fan  ever since.

Favorite Concerts The Cure - State Farm Arena - also saw The Cure at Riot Fest but this was better of the 2. I regret not going to Night 2 in Atlanta because they played Disintegration.  H20 - Riot Fest 2023 Set Fleshwater - Riot Fest 2023 Set Future Islands - Shakey Knees 2023 Set The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Shakey Knees 2023 Set Converge / Brutus - The Masquerade Drain / Drug Church - The Masquerade Donny Benet - Terminal West Idles - Re:Set 2023 Set

Favorite Food

MF Sushi - Atlanta - went twice and each time it was a special occasion.  Heirloom Market BBQ - Atlanta - best BBQ in my neck of the woods. The Aviary - Chicago - specialty cocktails with spectacular presentation.  Cafe Tola - Chicago - best empanadas i've ever had in my life.  Selva Negra - Miami - a solid contender for Nica food. Jaguar - Miami - great vibes, service and ceviche! No Hard Feelings - Chatanooga - great cocktails and vibes! 

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Zachary Lipez

(editor at large of Creem Magazine, writer, singer of Publicist UK)

Music I made a (very) long list on my wildly popular blog, Abundant Living. But, for kicks and with the understanding that maybe you don’t feel like reading (or subscribing to) my wildly popular blog, here’s some stuff I included and some stuff I forgot (with particular attention paid to albums I think might be of particular interest to JG friends/fans but which may have slipped through the radar) (meaning: I mainly put the stuff that wasn’t on too many other lists). Fatboi Sharif Decay (Backwoodz) Skech185 He Left Nothing for the Swim Back (Backwoodz) Zohra Murder In The Temple (American Dreams) The Native Cats The Way On Is The Way Off (Chapel)  Geese 3D Country (Partisan) Gold Dime No More Blue Skies (No-Gold) Algiers Shook (Matador) EXEK The Map and the Territory (Foreign) Skinhead Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (Closed Casket) Débruit & Alsarah Aljawal ا​ل​ج​و​ا​ل (Soundway) Fairytale Shooting Star (Toxic State) Among The Rocks and Roots Pariah (Cacophonous Revival)  Full of Hell, Nothing When No Birds Sang (Closed Casket) Uniform & Boris Bright New Disease (Sacred Bones) Sleaford Mods  UK Grim (Rough Trade) Money&King Act Unnaturally (self released) Blu Anxxiety Morbid Now, Morbid Later (Toxic State) Nana Benz du Togo  AGO (Komos) Citric Dummies Zen and the Arcade of Beating Your Ass (Feel It) Ghösh  Prismassive (Ramp Local) Peasdez  Fenomenologia Del Espiritu Agonico: De La Existencia Sordida Al Pendulo De La Nada (SPHC) Upper Wilds Jupiter (Thrill Jockey) Death Valley Girls Islands In The Sky (Suicide Squeeze) Raphael Rogiński Talán  Body Void Atrocity Machine (Prosthetic) Feeling Figures Migration Magic (Perennial) Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band  Dancing on the Edge (Sophomore Lounge) Nosaj from New Kingdom & steel tipped dove House of Disorder (Fused Arrow Records) mclusky unpopular parts of a pig / the digger you deep (self released) Advertisement Escorts (Feel It) King Vision Ultra  Shook World (hosted by Algiers) (PTP)

Live Shows that Stand Out In My Memory Moor Mother/Armand Hammer/The Caretaker/Raphael Roginski for the Unsound Fest at Lincoln Center (I covered this for The Quietus if yr interested) Sleaford Mods at Coachella (profiled them for CREEM) Lydia Lunch/Zohra at St.Vitus Lydia Lunch Retrovirus last American show ever (?) at TV Eye Various skinhead/nü oï bands at the Monarch/TV Eye etc. with Liberty & Justice being the standout Son Rompe Pera at TV Eye Chisel (the Ted Leo outfit, not the neo-bootboy band with the “the” in their name) at LPR

BOOKS My phone has pretty much eliminated my ability to read. I did read the first 100 pages of more books than I care to admit. I finally finished Mark Andrews’ Paint My Name In Black and Gold: The Rise of the Sisters of Mercy and I recommend it if, like me, you think The Sisters of Mercy are better than the Beatles (or whatever inane comparison annoys your friends the most). I also discovered Gene Wolfe and read the first book in the Book of the New Sun trilogy. Otherwise, it’s pretty much been just using Louise Glück poetry as inspiration to write terrible versions of Louise Glück poetry. 

TV Doom Patrol Pokerface Rick and Morty (idc idc idc idc) HasanAbi twitch stream  A ludicrous amount of Britbox mysteries and—passively, yes, but not without a fair amount of emotional investment—various Real Housewife shows/spinoffs

Movies Didn’t watch any new movies this year but I did have a lot of youtube videos playing in the background while I did other things, and sometimes those videos would be three hour long screeds about what was wrong with a number of movies I’d never heard of. So I feel like I got the gist. 

LIFE Converted to Islam and married Zohra in January. Both choices have proven to be rewarding as all hell. Cashing in my “as a Jew I…” argument card—while simultaneously being too new a Muslim to reasonably claim either special knowledge and/or marginalization status—has really fucked with my ability to be self-righteous online. But the love that Zohra and her family have shown me has more than made up for my newfound inability to really wipe the floor with a motherfucker in the instagram comments. In fact, I liked marrying Zohra so much that I did it again in December (first time was a religious ceremony, the second time was our rendering to Caesar etc). If you know me/us and weren’t invited to either that’s because essentially no one was. As my parents couldn’t attend (on account of being dead) I didn’t really see the point of a big party. That was perhaps selfish. We love you (probably) and will have some sort of to-do in 2024. 

Otherwise, I am still very much enjoying working for the new CREEM Magazine (please subscribe) and doing my newsletter (please subscribe). Musically, I lived vicariously through Zohra and the release of her first solo album. Murder In The Temple, with amazing production by Ben Greenberg and contributions by Lydia Lunch, is a synthesis of so many of Zohra’s obsessions. It’s unlike anything in the post-goth-dark-whatever sphere and I can’t express how proud I am of it and her. As for my music, I did some neat-o Scientists-esque stuff with Telematics (Sohrab Habibion, Robert Austin, and Alexis Fleisig) and Zohra and I did a Sheer Terror cover in the style of Tindersticks to commemorate Paul Bearer’s marriage. Also, I’m pretty sure my most successful band (Publicist UK) got dropped by our label (apparently taking eight years to finish a demo is a long time) so get at me if you have a low-to-mid tier label and want to put out an album of eight minute gothic metal songs with zero mosh parts, about an aging hipster loving his wife and cats and missing his dead mom and dad. C’mon, do it. You’d be printing money. 

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Jim Siegel

Vivid Oblivion

Records And Other Things I Liked In 2023

Lankum - False Lankum (Rough Trade)

Milford Graves with Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover - Children Of The Forest (Black Editions Archive)

Nakibembe Embaire Group (Nyege Nyege Tapes)

Henning Christiansen - Mediterranean Music-Water (Holidays)

Alain Goraguer - La Planete Sauvage (Expanded) (Decca)

Phill Niblock - Boston III (Alga Marghen)

Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Barker - The Heavenly Realms (Folklore Tapes)

Svitlana Nianio & Tom James Scott - Eye Of The Sea (Skire)

Half Mortal - Creature Of Christ (Hospital Productions)

Pharoah Sanders - Pharoah box (Luaka Bop)

Ragnar Johnson & Jessica Mayer - Spirit Cry Flutes And Bamboo Jews Harps From Papua New Guinea (Ideologic Organ)

PJ Harvey - I Inside The Old Year Dying (Partisan)

Jana Winderen - The Blue Beyond (Touch)

Rezzett - Meant Like This (The Trilogy Tapes)

Arsenije Jovanovic - Sailboat Galiola Nuria's Unfinished Logbook (Pentiments)

Only Voices Vol. 1 + 2 (DDS)

Wounded Son - Pain Is All I Have For You (Hospital Productions)

Various - Cease & Resist: Sonic Subversion & Anarcho Punk In The UK 1979-1986 (Optimo Music)

Umeko Ando - Upopo Sanke (Pingipung)

Philip Jeck & Chris Watson - Oxmardyke (Touch)

Lori Vambe - Space-Time Dreamtime: The Four Dimensional Music Of Lori Vambe (Strut)

Mozart Estate - Pop-Up! Ker-Ching! And The Possibilities Of Modern Shopping (West Midlands)

Sandwell District - Feed Forward box (The Point Of Departure)

Japan Blues - Japan Blues Meets The Dengie Hundred (DDS)

Various - A Web Of Braided Willow - The Folklore Of The Wickerman (Folklore Tapes)

Surgeon - Crash Recoil (Tresor)

Mark Glynne And Bart Zwier - Home Comfort (La Scie Doree)

Ariel Kalma - French Archives Vol. III 1964-89 (Black Sweat)

Marginal Consort - 06 06 16 (St Elisabeth Kirche, Berlin) (901 Editions)

Brendan Perry - Eye Of The Hunter / Live At The I.C.A (4AD)

The Complete Obscure Records Collection box (Dialogo)

Various - Avant Garde 21xCD Box (Deutsche Grammophon)

Bill Nace Live at Public Records, December 2023

The Elephant 6 Recording Co. Documentary

Squaring The Circle - The Story Of Hipgnosis 

Shame And Dignity with Stanley Schtinter and Sukhdev Sandhu at UnionDocs, NY November 2023

Godland, dir. Hlynur Palmason

Wawa Pretzel w/ Melted Cheese (Sandwich)

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Simon Karis

(CEO of Nice Music, recording artist)

Okay so fave releases of 2023

Absurd Cosmos Late Nite 'These Magic Clothes Don't Play Themselves' (Reseach Laboratories) Actress 'LXXXVIII' (Ninja Tune) Armand Hammer 'We Buy Diabetic Test Strips' (Fat Possum) Danny Brown 'Quaranta' (Warp) De-Bons-En-Pierre 'Card Short Of A Full Deck' (Dark Entries) Evian Christ 'Revanchist' (Warp) Eyes Of The Amaryllis 'Perceptible To Everyone' (Horn Of Plenty) Francis Plagne 'Into Closed Air' (Bison) Francis Plagne 'Udge' (Horn Of Plenty) Giuseppe Ielasi 'Down On Darkened Meetings' (Black Truffle) HHOST 'Windswept Italics' (Altered States Tapes) HHOST 'Veil' (Snail Editions) JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown 'Scaring The Hoes' (no label) Kassell Jaeger 'Shifted In Dreams' (Shelter Press) Khanate 'To Be Cruel' (Sacred Bones) Klein 'Doubt'/'Normani's Torment'/'STORM' (no label) L'Rain 'I Killed Your Dog' (Mexican Summer) Land's Air 'Land's Air' (Tone List) Locust 'The First Cause' (Mysteries Of The Deep) Low Flung 'The Wheel' (Snail Editions) Matt Harkin 'The Door Knocker' (no label) Nick Ashwood 'Inside The Body Of A Wave' (no label) Nuno Loureiro 'Lua Onus' (Super Pang) Patten 'Mirage FM' (555-5555) Pissed Jeans 'No Convenient Apocalypse' (Sub Pop) Princess Nokia 'I Love You But This Is Goodbye' (Arista) Red Wine & Sugar 'Turkish Coffee & Twice Baked Potatoes' (Chocolate Monk) Rezzett 'Meant Like This' (The Trilogy Tapes) Richard Youngs 'Modern Sorrow' (Black Truffle) Rory J S 'P' (no label) Rrose 'Please Touch' (Eaux) Solo Andata 'Slip Casting' (12k) WPH 'III' (no label) 100 Gecs '10,000 Gecs' (Dog Show/Atlantic)

fave back catalogue listens that made sense in 2023 Armand Hammer & The Alchemist 'Haram' (Backwoodz Studioz) Beherit 'H418ov21.C' (Spinefarm) Bernard Parmegiani 'De Natura Sonorum' (INA-GRM) Bowery Electric 'Beat' (Kranky) Charalambides 'Exile' (Kranky) Def Leppard 'Hysteria' (Mercury) Elastica 'Elastica' (Deceptive/Geffen) Elucid 'I Told Bessie' (Backwoodz Studioz) Emptyset 'Demiurge' (Subtext) Emptyset 'Recur' (Raster-Noton) Hematic Sunsets 'Musik Aus Dem Aroma Club' (Klang Der Festung) Joey Beltram 'Classics' (R&S) Ka 'Languish Arts' (Iron Works) Kim Cascone 'Cathodeflower' (Ritornell) The Kinks 'Lola Vs Powerman And The Moneygoround Part One' (Reprise/Pye) Kreator 'Terrible Certainty' (Noise International) Lol Coxhill & Morgan Fisher 'Slow Music' (Pipe/Aguirre) Low 'Hey What' (Sub Pop) Marsfield 'The Towering Sky' (Faraway Press) Massive Attack 'Mezzanine' (Virgin) Matt Harkin 'Sanctuary 1, 2015-2016' (Hobbies Galore) Maurizio Bianchi 'Endometrio'  (no label/Dais) Moodymann 'Mahogany Brown' (Peacefrog) Moor Mother & billy woods 'Brass' (Backwoodz Studioz) Nearly God 'Nearly God'  (4th & Broadway) Nightcrawlers '2031 AD' (no label) Richard Youngs 'Beyond The Valley Of The Ultrahits' (Sonic Oyster) Rita Revell 'I Had A Very Bad Time!' (Happy Endin') Roc Marciano 'Reloaded' (Decon) Seine Trance-Parenz Fredi Alberti 'Klaenge Aus Dem Engelsraum (Die Verdunklung Der Sonne Und Des Mondes)' (Scribble Art) Simbiosi 'Elements' (Werkdiscs) Suede 'Dog Man Star' (Nude) Valerio Tricoli 'Say Goodbye To The Wind' (Shelter Press) 100 Gecs '1000 Gecs' (Dog Show)

fave melbourne/naarm restaurants in 2023

Khabbay (Indian/Pakistani, Carlton) Laksa Village (Malaysian/Chinese, Donvale) Cinger Biang Biang (Dolan/Uyghur/Chinese, Carlton) Lim Kopi (Malaysian, Naarm/Melbourne CBD) Raya (South East Asian desserts, Naarm/Melbourne CBD) Taste Hunan (Hunan/Sichuan/Chinese, Naarm/Melbourne, CBD) Laksa House (Malaysian, Naarm/Melbourne, CBD)

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Brendon Randall-Myers

(composer, Scarcity, Marateck, Glenn Branca Ensemble)

If 2022 was the Return of the Show and the Return of Travel, 2023 was about Building Stability (i.e. making my teaching studio a primary income source), Hunkering Down to Finish Two Albums, and Re-Learning How to Be a Human Being. I also played a bunch of cool shows with Dither (collabs w/ Carla Kilhlstedt, Lee Ranaldo/Brian Chase, Amirtha Kidambi, AJ Santillan, and Laurie Spiegel; playing Electric Counterpoint on GFA), a couple fun Scarcity shows (playing with Liturgy, improvising on graphic scores by Anthony Hawley) and did some performances with Whimbrels and Contemporaneous. 

These were albums I enjoyed (incessantly) at some point during 2023 that were mostly - but not exclusively - also released in 2023.

Agriculture - Agriculture Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips Arnold Dreyblatt - Resolve Big Brave - Nature Morte Blackbraid - Blackbraid II Bummer - Dead Horse Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You goat (JP) - Joy in Fear Goldfeather - Change JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown - SCARING THE HOES Jute Gyte - Unus Mundus Patet KEN Mode - VOID Killing Joke - Night Time Krallice - Mass Cathexis 2 - The Kinetic Infinite Model/Actriz - Dogsbody Modern Nature - How to Live  Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer Neil Young - Greatest Hits Oren Ambarchi - Shebang Pink Pantheress - Heaven knows The Prodigy - The Fat of the Land  Rid Of Me - Traveling  Slowspin - Talisman Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream Swans - The Beggar Trauma Bond - Winter’s Light  Tristan Kasten-Krause and Jessica Pavone - Images of One Victory Over the Sun - Dance You Monster To My Soft Song! Yaeji - With A Hammer

Here were some shows I attended:

Wolf Eyes + Raven Chacon @Union Pool Liturgy @TV Eye Gamelan Dharma Swara, Ridgewood Presbyterian Church Moor Mother @Merkin Hall Object Collection @The Brick Theater Spectral Wound @Saint Vitus Pyrrhon + Barrsheadahl @Saint Vitus The Smile @Forest Hills Stadium Krallice @Saint Vitus Mediaqueer @Windjammer Sarah Hennies + Tristan Kasten-Krause @Issue Project Room Peter and the Wolf @Guggenheim Model/Actriz @Music Hall of Williamsburg  

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Grace Bergere

(songwriter / singer / performer)

This year was full of firsts for me! 

Definitely the most musically eventful year of my life to date. I went on my first tour playing bass with my great friends in COP/OUT, supporting Days n' Daze (A band I'd been listening to for years as a young punk kid.)  I immediately realized touring is really all I want to do.  I also got to tour alongside Subhumans in Cop/Out. Meeting them and getting to know them was mind expanding.  They were all kind and humble thoughtful individuals, completely down to earth and engaged with everyone they spoke to. Every night across the midwest they brought the crowd to a cathartic screaming euphoric mess. Working with COP/OUT, whose message is so clear; to be good to each other, question everything even when it means swimming upstream with every bit of strength you have, filled me with hope.  Playing on that tour with them, and watching Subhumans every night reminded me the power of music to affect real social change which is something I believed to have been  lost in recent years.  I met my great friend Jessica Mills on that tour and we still talk all the time. 

I also started playing guitar in The Art Gray Noizz Quintet. One of my longtime favorite bands (that my very talented cool boyfriend happens to play bass in.) We went all across the West Coast, landing in Las Vegas. Playing with them has demanded I advance as a guitarist, stepping into Andrea Sicco's shoes. Andrea is a complete beast of a musician and all of his musical projects are awesome. Check out MOVIE MOVIE, his most recent project. 

I also joined Crazy And The Brains on second guitar. They’re a super fun high energy punk band. I love being around such positive fun loving musicians and watching them bounce around while I do my best to keep up. 

I recently finished recording my album at HOBO SOUND in Hoboken by James Frazee. The time and effort it took over the several years since I started, was at times grueling. But James never stopped caring or checked out. He helped me shape this album into something I am truly proud of, along with Richard Dev Greene, one of the first people to ever believe in my music. I am so grateful to both of them.

I started spending time with Victoria and Kay of Puzzled Panther. They quickly have become two of my best friends. It is so meaningful for me to have found such badass, driven young women to share a dream with. Puzzled Panther is raw and hypnotizing. They have a unique strong hold over their audience and every show of theirs I’ve been to has been fantastic.  Victoria has joined me a few times on a song at my shows, and every time I believe has been one of the strongest points in my set. 

I Met Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello (the first huge band I ever went to see as a young teenager.)  He will be releasing my upcoming single and video for “Come And Go”  on his label Casa Gogol Records in early 2024. 

I just played the biggest show I’ve ever played with my solo project that plays under my name.  We were on a bill with Gogol Bordello and JON SPENCER (Also one of my favorite artists.)  Being on that stage standing there in front of more people I’ve ever seen in an audience from that vantage point, I felt like every second of my life was leading to that moment. Each song brought me back to the time in my life when Id written it and it felt very much like watching my life projected in front of me. It was indescribably satisfying to be on that stage. Later, in the audience, I screamed along to Gogol and watched my mom dance to songs she'd heard me blasting through the house as a kid, and felt just as moved by them as I did as a young teenager the first time I saw them.

I am so grateful to be working with Eugene. He is kind and thoughtful in his feedback and hugely supportive of me and my dreams. 

I will be playing New Years Eve with the Art Gray Noizz Quintet before Kid Congo Powers and The Pink Monkey Birds !!

This last week I can honestly say, has been the best of my life to date. Like looking out over a valley after climbing for years.

BEST SHOWS

(other than the ones I was lucky enough to play at listed above) 

RICHARD DAWSON 

I got to see Richard Dawson three whole times!!! it was his first US appearance. He is a completely unique force. I’ve never seen such a captivated crowd. we all cried and screamed along with him. 

PIGS X 7 

One of those times he was playing with Pigs x7. They quickly became another favorite band of mine despite having severe technical difficulties. it was actually kind of a highlight because their front man just started joking around and had the entire audience laughing along with him and talking for about 10 minutes. I got to see them two other times that went perfectly. What a band.. 

JON SPENCER AND THE HIT MAKERS

I saw them at TV Eye. I had been able to squeeze myself into the DJ booth for their set. They hammered away into some kind of magical hypnosis that made me feel like I'd taken MDMA. (I had not.) I had to lean against a wall to keep my balance. They played with Licks, a badass 60s garage rock inspired band fronted by my friend Skunk. 

LYDIA LUNCH RETROVIRUS 

Also driving and hypnotic and loud as hell. I was left with a similar feeling of having been dosed with something at all of their shows…

JOSEPH KECKLER

The first time I saw Joseph perform was at TV eye with Lydia Lunch. He’s completely unique. He writes gorgeous songs that he sings in an incomprehensibly wide range, sometimes in languages that he has invented himself! His seamlessly mixes humor with honest beautiful songwriting.

SONGS I LISTENED TO A BILLION TIMES THIS YEAR. 

ART GRAY NOIZZ QUINTET- Lie Come True  JOSEPH KECKLER- The Ride JON SPENCER AND THE HIT MAKERS- Death Ray  GOGOL BORDELLO- Shot Of Solidaritine  PUZZLED PANTHER- Smoke And The Mirrors We Broke  PIGSX 7 - Reducer  ARCHERS OF LOAF- Banging On a Dead Drum 

OLDER HITS THAT WERE NEW TO ME

LAURIE ANDERSON- Poison  POISON GIRLS- Fear Of Freedom CULTURE SHOCK- Things To Do  CAPTAIN BEEFHEART- Tropical Hot Dog WARREN ZEVON- Desperados Under The Eves MINNIE RIPERTON- Les Fleurs  BOBBY GENTRY - Ode To Billy Joe TOWNES VAN ZANDT- Highway Kind

BOOKS 

Joseph Keckler-  Dragon at the edge of a flat world.  Mark Lanegan- Sing Backwards and Weep Miriam Toews- Fight Night

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Marc Urselli

producer / engineer / sound designer

I want to thank JG Thirlwell for inviting me to submit my 2023 Year in Review. I had never done one of these before and it's been a fun challenge to go through my calendar and social media to remember and realize how much I was able to pack into this year! Selecting and writing down all of these things also helped me further grasp and understand how tremendously privileged and lucky I am to be able to do what I love all year around, year after year, and to live my life to the fullest and according to my own wishes and my own design. I don't take this lightly and I don't take it for granted. I am very aware that it comes from hard work, limitless passion and unweavery dedication, not just luck and good fortune, but nevertheless I am grateful every single day for this life and for being healthy, being able to do all of this, and for all the people in my path who trust me, inspire me, support me, challenge me, and enlighten me!

STUDIO SESSIONS, ALBUMS & PRODUCTIONS When compiling this list, it really dawned on me how fortunate I am to be working with such incredible talents and how priviledged I am to be able to witness, participate and contribute to the creation of exceptional works such as the following:

Producing, Recording & Mixing sessions with David J of Bauhaus, Norwegian artist Ihsahn (of Emperor) & Toby Driver (of Kyao Dot), John Stanier (of Battles), Brian Chase (of Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Restless Spirit, Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles), John Cowsill (of the Cowsill Family and The Beach Boys touring band) and many others for my new RAMONES tribute album to come out next year on Magnetic Eye records

Producing, Recording and Mixing a cover of Soundgarden's song "4th of July" with my doom metal / throat singing project SteppenDoom for the Magnetic Eye album "Soundgarden (Redux) and featuring Matt Cameron of Soundgarden themselves on drums

seeing the release of Brian Carpenter's "Ghost Train Orchestra & Kronos Quartet - The Music of Moondog" album featuring Kronos Quartet (which I recorded at EastSide Sound) and many other amazing guest artists

Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering a live album by Brazilian artists Zé Ibarra, Dora Morelenbaum and Julia Mestre of Bala Desejo for Glasshaus Presents & Tower Records

Mixing new albums by Glenn Max Vanderwolf (produced by Dennis Martin), by Bloodmist (Toby Driver, Mario Diaz De Leon, Jeremiah Cymermann), and by Ikue Mori & Zeena Parkins at EastSide Sound fully utilizing the analog console and the analog outboard gear (something nowadays is more and more rare)

Recording & Mixing 6 new albums by John Zorn this year alone, which brings my total JZ count to over 120 albums, and which as of this year can finally be heard on streaming platforms as well!

Recording and Producing a new album by Marco Cappelli's Italian-inspired band IDR at EastSide Sound in NYC and then going to Rome, Italy to overdub trombone and vocals with famed contemporary Neapolitan singer Raiz

Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering 2 new albums by incognito jazz / blues artist Russell Orr with legendary Brian Marsella & Brian Mitchell on keys, respectively

Recording, Mixing, and Mastering two new albums by Jessica Pavone and her trio

Producing, Recording, Mixing and Mastering a "We Are the World"-type track for NYC Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs with a song composed by Captain Beefheart / Jeff Buckley's guitarist Gary Lucas and 10 other musicians from various parts of the world playing their local instruments and singing in their mother's tongue

Recording and Mixing the new album by Italian singer/songwriter Beppe Voltarelli, produced by Simone Giuliani, which took second place in Italy's Premio Tenco

Recording a new film score by composer Billy Martin (of Medeski, Martin & Wood) and arranged by Simon Hanes (of Tredici Bacci)

Producing, Recording, Mixing, and Mastering contemporary classical music sessions commissioned by Miller Theater and Columbia University with artists such as Laura Barger & Julia Den Boer, Miguel Zenon, Matt Mitchell & Miles Okazaki, Russell Greenberg & Vicky Chow

Recording new albums by contemporary classical/jazz musicians such as Miles Okazaki, Brian Drye, Anna Webber & Matt Mitchell and others Recording new albums by amazing Latin Jazz artists such as Gili Lopes, Homan Alvarez, Rodrigo Recabarren, Benjamin Furman

seeing the HBO release of John Lurie’s “Painting with John” new season where all the music was recorded & mixed by me and seeing my face briefly on TV

recording in an old church in Italy with Adriano Viterbini and Vincenzo Vasi for a project that will come out sometimes next year hopefully 

SOUND DESIGN GIGS & LIVE SOUND MIXING GIGS Similarly to the list above, I am eternally greatful for the fact that all these wonderfully talented people trust me with designing, mixing and amplifying their sound so that the rest of the world can truly and fully experience their art in the most complete, sonically articulated, detailed and full spectrum way there is! Some of these highlights include:

Mixing a 90-piece orchestra + 90-piece choir playing the score to Stanley Kubrick "2001: A Space Odyssey" live-to-picture  conducted by Brad Lubman in the Auditorio Nacional of Mexico City to a sold-out crowd of 10'000 people 

Mixing the Grammy Award Premiere Ceremony in Los Angeles and being there to amplify and mix the immensely talented house band led by Cheche Alara and the performances by musicians such as Samara Joy, Anoushka Shankar, Arooj Aftab and more…

Mixing the Robbie Robertson tribute concert & memorial organized by Martin Scorsese at Village Studios in Los Angeles with artists such as Jackson Browne, Jason Isbell, Rocco DeLuca, Citizen Cope, Angela McCluskey, Blake Mills and Jim Keltner

Mixing the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony concert at the White House with artists such as Dionne Warwick, Samara Joy, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, St. Vincent and others.

Sound Designing and Mixing the world premiere of "Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine" at the DNO Dutch National Opera House in Amsterdam, a beautiful performance/concert/opera directed by Peter Sellars, composed by Tyshawn Sorey and performed by Tyshawn Sorey and ICE International Contemporary Ensemble with soprano Julia Bullock

One of my sound design pieces inspired by Icelandic nature sounds and folklore was presented at the "Le Son 7" Art Gallery in Madrid between the 3rd and the 13th of May 2023, after it was presented the year before in London and will be presented in January 2024 in New York

mixing 12 shows by John Zorn in 2 days at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville TN

mixing more shows by John Zorn to celebrate his 70th birthday in places like Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Miller Theater in New York, Reggio Emilia and Modena in Italy, Philharmonie in Paris, November Music Festival in Den Bosch Netherlands and Mexico City

Mixing Brian Carpenter's Ghost Train Orchestra live at Roulette with special guests David Byrne, Karen Mantler, Joan As Policewoman AND doing so right after I mixed another matinee gig earlier in the day with the New York Choral Society

working sound for the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with musical guests Lizzo and David Byrne

Mixing Claudia Acuna at Lincoln Center

mixing Idina Menzel's performance in Trafalgar Square in London for Gay Pride 2023

playing keys (something I almost never ever do!) for Japanese electronic artist Coppé's first-ever performance in Italy

mixing my first ever K-pop gig in Times Square NY

teaching Mixing Workshops at SAE in Mexico City and MOB Studios in Rome, Italy

RECORDS In no particular order, here are some of my favorite records of 2023 that I was not involved with but I wish I had been ;-)

Anohni and the Johnsons "My Back Was a Bridge for you to Cross"

Lil Yachty "Let's Start Here"

Boygenius "The Record"

Ryuichi Sakamoto "12"

Jaimie Branch "Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))"

Arooj Aftab / Vijay Iyer / Shahzad Ismaily "Love in Exile"

Peter Gabriel "I/O"

Hania Rani "Ghosts"

Meshell Ndegeocello "The Omnichord Real Book"

Bill Frisell "Four" - Ambrose Akinmusire, Bill Frisell, Herlin Riley "Owl song"

Porcupine Tree "Closure / Continuation"

Dr. John "The Brightest Smile in Town"

Spencer Zahn "Statues II"

Meshuggah "Chaosphere 25th anniversary 2023 Remastered edition"

Ennio Morricone "Segreto Songbook 1962-1973"

Sin Fang, Kjartan Holm "Angakok"

MUSIC SHOWS It's always hard for me to recount the shows I've seen because I usually see about 300-500 shows every year. LPR (Le Poisson Rouge) definitely shines through as my favorite venue and the one I've visited most often! Here are some of the highlights of 2023:

Spotlights, Imperial Triumphant, Puzzled Panthers at Saint Vitus

"La Splendida", a heavy metal opera by Laurent David & Kilter at Culture Lab LIC

Exotech 3 times, at Public Records, Mark Morris Dance Theater and at LPR

Tredici Bacci at least 2-3 times, one of which at Sultan Room

John Cale at Paradiso, Amsterdam

Plini at Melkweg, Amsterdam

Mary Halvorson Quintet at Bimhuis, Amsterdam

Thurston Moore at OCCII, Amsterdam

Jeff Goldblum at Town Hall

Xylorius White at LPR

Hal Willner's Amarcord tribute concert at Roulette

Snarky Puppy at Beacon Theater

Tim Bernardes at LPR

Groa at Taste of Iceland showcase at Pianos

JG Thirlwell & Mivos Quartet at National Sawdust

Bloodywood at Irving Plaza

Hermeto Pascoal twice, at Pioneer Works and LPR

Sexmob at Fotografiska

Grace Jones at Hammerstein Ballroom

Lisa Fisher at Blue Note

Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry / Blondie, London

Laurie Anderson & SexMob Let X=X at Barbican in London and BAM in Brooklyn - The Cult at MEDIMEX festival in Taranto, Italy - Tom Morello at MEDIMEX festival in Taranto, Italy

Emperor at Kings Theater

Ibrahim Malouff at Drom - Elan Mehler & Dave Douglas at Fotografiska

The Misfits at Prudential Center - Oumou Sangare at Brooklyn Bandshell

Red Fang at Gramercy Theater

The Eagles & Steely Dan at MSG - Tammy Faye Starlight at Joe's Pub

Julian Lage at Village Vanguard - Mdou Moctar at Summerstage

Makaya McCraven at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

Fatoumata Diawara at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

Sisters of Mercy at Cinzella Festival, in Grottaglie Italy

SunRa Arkestra at Locus Festival, in Locorotondo Italy

Robert Plant at Locus Festival, in Bari Italy

Mr. Bungle at Terminal 5

Melvins, Boris and all the other amazing bands at Desert Fest at Knockdown Center

Front Line Assembly at LPR

Peter Gabriel at MSG

Empire State Bastard at LPR & St Vitus

Cavalera Conspiracy at Irving Plaza

Swans at Music Hall of Williamsburg - Steven Bernstein w/ Millennial Territory at Dizzy's

Nick Cave & Jonny Greenwood  3 times, twice at Beacon Theater and once at Kings Theater

The Mission at LPR - Titan to Tychons at NuBlu

Dresden Dolls at Bowery Ballroom

Robert Glasper's Art Blakey tribute at Blue Note - Puzzled Panthers at Bowery Electric

Ghost Train Orchestra at Roulette

Arthur Brown in London

The Mongol Khan theater production at the Coliseum in London 

8 Bit Big Band at Sony Hall

Bud Spencer Blues Explosion at Monk in Rome Italy

plus all the amazing artists I can't recall individually that I have seen at Winter Jazz Festival, Long Play Festival and Big Ears Festival

BOOKS I am sadly a slow reader and my pile of books on my bedside table is always bigger than the time awake I have when I finally do get to bed, but here are some I have read, or started to read or am planning on starting to read:

Kid Congo Powers "Some New Kind Of Kick"

Nick Cave & Seán O'Hagan "Faith, Hope and Carnage"

Warren Ellis "Nina Simone's Gum"

Rick Rubin "The Creative Act: A Way of Being"

Quincy Jones "12 Notes: On Life and Creativity"

Quincy Trouple "Miles & Me"

MUSEUMS I try to visit museums in every city I go to, whether I am on tour, working, traveling for pleasure or whatever the reason is… Art is my passion, my love and a way of life…

Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain

Fundcaio Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain

The Salvador Dali Theater and Museum, Figueres, Spain

Salvador Dalí House / Fundació Gala, Cadaqués, Port Lligat, Spain

Park Gúell, Barcelona, Spain

Moco Museum, Barcelona, Spain

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Vermeer Exhibit, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Moco Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Art on Paper, New York

Frieze, New York

Karl Lagerfled "A Line of Beauty", Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Yayoi Kusama "Infinity Mirror Rooms", Tate Modern, London, UK

Frida Kahlo & Diego Riviera House & Studio, Mexico City

Palacio De Bellas Artes, Mexico City

Museo Jumex, Mexico City

Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporanea, Mexico City

Paul Gugelmann "Poetic Machines", Aarau, Switzerland

MOVIES There are soooo many movies I still want to / need to see… I love movies but I prioritize work and live music in my life and I will only watch movies on planes, on (very very) rainy days or those rare times when I don't have a concert on my calendar, so here are a few of those rainy/non-concert films, in no particular order:

Killers of the Flower Moon (for the story, the acting and the soundtrack)

Equalizer 3 (because aside from its Hollywood-ish story and ending, it's a realistic look at how organized crime works in Italy)

Little Richard: I am Everything (for his story, his character, his music and his courage!)

Psychedelicized: The Electric Circus Stroy (for the amazing portrait of a time that's past but that changed NYC forever!)

American Symphony (for the amazing story, talent, spirit and courage of Jon Batiste)

32 Sounds (because my life is about sound…)

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (because Leonard was an amazing artist and songwriter and singer and so many friends are in this movie)

Oppenheimer (because that history is so complex and so divided as the country in which it took place)

TRAVEL Travel is the richess of life! I travel SO MUCH that I am on a plane AT LEAST once a month and usually it is to an international location… This year was no different, so I've decided to only list 12 trips for this section:

January: Ringing in the year in a medieval tower in Barcelona and spending the first 4 days of the new year trying all the tapas bars, restaurants, food stands this beautiful city has to offer and seing the Sagrada Familia cathedral for the 3rd time in my life

February: Living in Amsterdam for 3 weeks visiting all the musuems, all the music venues and all the while working at the Dutch National Opera with some amazing folks (see list above)

March: Snowboarding the Swiss and the French alps

April: Visiting Knoxville Tennessee for Big Ears (easily the best independent music festival in the US!!!) for the 2nd time in 2 years, and hopefully the beginning of many more visits in the future!

May: Spending time in sunny Los Angeles and plotting a way to spend more time there and make music

June: Visiting London twice in one month to work and see amazing music shows, theater shows and art exhibits

July: coming back from London on July 6th only to realize that strangely there is no travel for the rest of this month! So weird and unusual!

August: Spending the month in Puglia, Southern Italy eating good food, kitesurfing in the Adriatic and Ionium sea, seeing tons of concerts and playing one myself!

September: arriving in Mexico City and getting my very own police escort motorcade to make it in time from the airport to the theater

October: On tour with John Zorn in Italy, France and the Netherlands

November: Flying to Los Angeles with a 36 hour notice for a concert I was hired for in secrecy having been told "we need a mixing engineer who can mix music for a room full of musicians" and showing up for the Robbie Robertson tribute orgnaized by Martin Scorsese with people like Joni Mitchell and Leonardo DiCaprio in attendance

December: DC-to-DF aka flying to Washgington DC to work at the White House and then flying straight to Mexico City I've finished the year with travel to my motherland of Switzerland, my fatherland of Italy and my second home of London UK!

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DJ Food aka Kevin Foakes

Music: Kosmischer Laufer - Volume 5 LP (UCR) Soia, Julien Sénélas, Jérôme Vassereau - In C for 11 Oscillators and 53 Forms LP (unjenesaisquoi) Cate Brooks - Tapeworks DL (Cafe Kaput) Memorials - Music For Film: Tramps! LP (State 51 Conspiracy) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse… LP (Album of the year) Brian Eno - The Lighthouse radio station (Sonos) (most listened to) Niholoxica - Source of Denial LP (Crammed Discs) SareemOne - Olivine Window Coast Contra - Breathe & Stop Freestyle/Never Freestyle/Scenario Freestyle Move78 - Grains LP Heiroglyphic Being - The Moon Dance LP (Apnea) Raj Pannu - Past Crimes EP 12" (To Pikap Records) Gordon Chapman-Fox - The Nine Travellers LP (Castles In Space Subscription Library)

Gigs / Events: Beyond The Streets exhibition @Saatchi gallery, London Sunroof / Finlay Shakespeare @iklectik, London The Light Surgeons - The Consensual Hallucination @iklectik, London Memorials at the State 51 Summer Psych party @State 51, London FogFest2 @iklectik, London JG Thirlwell & Ensemble @Bush Hall, London Machina Bristronica, Bristol Visiting Peel Acres with Eilon Paz for Dust & Grooves Nihiloxia @the Jazz Cafe, London

Design / Packaging: Yves Malone - A Hello To A Goodbye LP (Castles In Space) Drumetrics - Phuzzle (Drumetrics) Waclaw Zimpel - Train Spotter LP (State 51) David Boulter - Factory 3" CD (Clay Pipe Music) Fluctuosa - Wetware EP 12" (Analogical Force) Fluxus - Orbit & Shine LP (Castles In Space) Floating Points - Birth4000 12" (Ninja Tune) Cate Brooks - Easel Studies LP + badge (Clay Pipe Music) Brian Eno - Top Boy OST CD (Beatink)

Books / Magazines / Comics: Medical Grade Music - Steve Davis & Kavis Torabi (White Rabbit) Doctor Strange - Fall Sunrise - Tradd & Heather Moore (Marvel) Tales To Enlighten - The New Testament - Matt King and James Edward Clark Pop - Milton Glaser (Phaidon) Kevin O'Neill Apex Edition (2000AD) Mark Stafford - Salmonella Smorgasbord (Soaring Penguin Press) Savage Impressions - Bruce Lichen (Independent Project Records) Hexagon Bridge - Richard Blake (Image) Monica - Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics) Acid Valley - Luke Insect Petrol Head - Rob Williams & Pye Parr (Image) Lawless - Dan Abnett & Phil Winslade (Rebellion) Giant Robot Hellboy - Mignola/Fegredo (Dark Horse) Facelss & The Family - Matt Lesniewski (Oni Press)

Films: Barbie Squaring The Circle : The Story of Hipgnosis

[astrangetorpedo]

Boy Power: The Women of Boygenius on the Joys of Nourishing a Supergroup Without the Superegos

By Chris Willman

The three singer-songwriters who make up Boygenius are musing about what they did and didn’t intend to accomplish when they went into the studio to make “The Record.” The six Grammy nominations they just collectively reeled in for their first full-length album together? Not actually part of the master plan. Neither was establishing themselves as role models for a much-needed sense of community across a swath of young America.

“We didn’t set out to be like, ‘And we symbolize friendship!’” bandmate Julien Baker points out, musing about the benevolent qualities that have been attributed to the group. “We just were like, ‘Let’s make a good record.’”

Fair enough. But have we mentioned that Variety‘s Group of the Year does, in fact, symbolize friendship — to the point that the band has virtually become an iconic representation of trifold intimacy? Sharing the bond the trio developed in the studio and on the road has been a key part of the appeal for the band’s avid fan base. It’s a conclusion that band member Lucy Dacus was not avoiding when she recently told Teen Vogue that “being affectionate onstage has been really fun and sweet, and it exhibits behavior that I think is healthy and good.” They even wrote about their growing closeness in meta album tracks like “Leonard Cohen.” “True Blue,” their signature loyalty ballad, may or may not be about the group itself, it’s hard to escape the feeling that a line like “It feels good to be known so well” somehow applies not just to the trio’s interpersonal relationships but to the generally progressive, empathetic, LGBTQ-friendly, folk-rocking audience at a Boygenius show.

No wonder Boygenius seemed to consistently have the longest merch lines of 2023 (at least this side of Taylor Swift’s), with fans seeking ways to fly their colors. In what can still register as a man’s world, suddenly, it kind of felt like everybody wanted to be a boy.

A concert by the trio has its rituals. The band members describe a private rite that occurs early in a set, right after they’ve opened the show with a handful of their hardest-charging songs, like “Satanist” (another friendship song, once you get past the irreverent title) and “$20,” and are transitioning into something more reflective. “We have a little moment where we look at each other during ‘True Blue’ every show,” Dacus reveals, looking across the table at bandmate Phoebe Bridgers, “and sometimes I’ll wink at you and be like, ‘Here’s the time where we check in.’ And sometimes I feel like we can see when each of us feel crazy.”

Bridgers agrees, saying, “Or we have a weird day, and we have to look at each other and just be like, ‘Oh, my God, this day is still trudging on,’” suggesting that there are hidden cues and codes being passed around while Dacus’ soft voice is tucking an audience of thousands into a warm, communal bath.

But there’s a more public-facing ritual at the end of the show, when the members basically pile on each other in some form or another. It can look like sheer, rough horseplay, but given that everyone in the group identifies as queer, these full-body collisions also been described in reviews or fan comments as “Sapphic” moments. How would they characterize them? “It’s Sapphic horseplay!” says Bridgers, grinning, and maybe not entirely kidding. “That is exactly what it is.”

“With the horseplay,” says Dacus, taking that term and running with it, “sometimes we kiss. Sometimes we spin around. Sometimes we throw things at the audience. Sometimes we crowd-surf. Sometimes we pick up Julien or bow to her. It’s never really planned. Sometimes our tits are out.”

Bridgers remembers what felt like a signal change moment at a London show in the summer: “Someone got on her friend’s shoulders and flashed me in Gunnersbury Park. It was right after we took our shirts off the first time” at their prior show. “I was like, ‘This is so sick'” — the good kind of sick — “‘that someone feels safe enough to do this.’”

Dacus agrees. “Yeah, it doesn’t feel violent or violating in that particular circumstance. Like, if someone walked by and flashed us right now, I’d be like, Uhhhh. But, yeah, there’s something about what the show culminates in, where it does feel very safe and celebratory.”

Where we are right now is the outdoor patio of a Studio City coffeehouse, where the only things being flashed are Baker’s easing-into-autumn sweater, or slightly more provocative items like the “I Love Cuntry Music” trucker hat that Dacus has just doffed, or the Viagra Boys cap that Bridgers keeps on, maybe to deflect any possible attention that passers-by might otherwise give to her tell-tale platinum hair. The few passersby wouldn’t guess that this is a group about to play a long-sold-out headline show at the Hollywood Bowl for its 2023 tour finale, or to do “Saturday Night Live” a week and a half after that. They’re laid-back and still capable of surprising and delighting each other in conversation, and not at all giving off any America’s Greatest Current Rock Band vibes, although they’ve earned the right to some attitude, with an album that much of the indie-rock crowd and not a few critics would agree is the year’s best.

“Phoebe was the one that was like, ‘This is gonna be big,’” Dacus says. “I had aspirations; you had plans,” she says, looking at Bridgers. “You were like, ‘We’re gonna do it!’”

“We had talked about the Hollywood Bowl in the kitchen of Shangri-La, remember that?” Bridgers says, referring to the Malibu studio owned by Rick Rubin, where they cut “The Record.”

“But I didn’t have any context,” Baker says, noting that neither she nor Dacus had ever set foot in America’s most iconic venue, having grown up around Memphis and Richmond, Va., respectively, versus the Pasadena stomping grounds that’d given Bridgers lifelong access to some bigger dreams. “Our last show” — in Los Angeles, at the end of their debut 2018 tour — “we played the Wiltern, and I was tearful backstage,” Baker says, as she remembers exulting: “‘I’m so proud of us! All my dreams have come true!’ Like I’d topped out.”

The Bowl, and Madison Square Garden just before it, were milestones even for Bridgers, the most visible solo artist of the three prior to this year. She’d topped out herself locally, maybe, at the Greek. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the Cahuenga Pass: “The Record” immediately established Bridgers, Baker and Dacus as equals in every way, even in the eyes of fans who might previously have favored or just been more immersed in one solo career or another. There was magic to how evenly gifted and well matched they were as frontwomen, as songwriters, as harmonizers. They truly put the super back in “supergroup” … and took the ego out of superego, in a manner of speaking.

Strength in numbers: What a concept! Why didn’t anyone ever try it before? Well, there’ve been a few tries at bringing existing titans together over the years, and hoping they wouldn’t clash. There was Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Asia, and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band and … um … Well, let’s let the geniuses here come up with some slightly more contemporary analogues.

“You could look at Broken Social Scene and New Pornographers,” Baker says, but as soon as she starts dissecting the dynamics of those groups, it’s clear there aren’t really any recent antecedents that compare.

“I bet a lot of people try it, with a pretense that falls apart once they start to make it,” Dacus says, and then affirms why they’ve been able to come up with a successful joint project where others before them have bailed. “This collaboration is as important to each of us, if not more important, than our solo work,” she says. “And I bet a lot of supergroups are, even internally, thinking of it as a side project or a momentary thing.”

Bridgers agrees. “Yeah, because you’re going to make a third of what you’d earn making your own thing. So you’re like, ‘It’s my side thing — I’ll devote six months to it.’ But we put as much attention into it as if we were making our own records. The album took us so long to make, and we worked on it relentlessly. It was pretty serious from day one.”

Baker says, “It’s sick that the band has an identity that’s more than the sum of its parts.” (This maxim may be the closest Boygenius will ever come to a cliché, but they, and you, have got to embrace one that is this mathematically inescapable.)

When it came to the material they brought to the table, far from coming up with tunes that felt like discards from their solo releases, “The Record” ended up being chock-full of extremely personal and introspective songs. But it also included some of the most inherently commercial songs any of them have done, apart or together. You may recall that Bridgers had to be kind of coerced into making “Kyoto” a banger; in each other’s company, there was no such reticence.

“Definitely with ‘Not Strong Enough,’” Bridgers says, “I was like, ‘It’d be fun to have a radio song.’” (And, as it turns out, a Grammy song; it’s up for record of the year.) “With the songs that we were gravitating toward, we knew ‘True Blue’” — a Dacus-led ballad — “was gonna be such an indie smash, and fucking ‘Satanist’” — conceived by Baker — “goes so hard. ‘Strong Enough’ was the one we finished last, and I was like, ‘Let’s each write and sing a verse, because this could be the single.’” It didn’t feel like a sellout. “A lot of stuff that would feel contrived, solo, doesn’t feel contrived with these guys, because it’s just all in the spirit of fun and being together. And, yeah, it’s the first time I’ve ever been like, ‘Damn, people are gonna sing along to this part!’”

That delirious spirit stands in healthy contrast to the sad-core image some people might have slapped onto one or all of the band members. But it’s hardly all about the mirth. At the Bowl, as on every other night in the latter parts of the tour, Bridgers asked the audience to put away all phones for the album’s devastating final track, “Letter to an Old Poet,” as she walked the semicircular platform separating the front two seating areas. She says, “Every once in a while I see a phone and I fume, but mostly they’re great and they put their phones away. And because most of the show has been looking through people’s phones and not at their faces, suddenly they become a roomful of people, and it’s insanely powerful to me.”

Why that number in particular, for shutting down cameras? Is it just one of a dozen possible moments to make that request, or is there something in particular about this one’s wounded and angry spirit…

“I play plenty of heavy songs,” Bridges says, “but that one feels too dark to not be having a communal experience.”

“Isn’t that the only time that you’ve cried while doing a vocal take — during that song?” Dacus asks.

“Yeah. I had a couple years where I had a hard time crying,” Bridgers affirms. “I’m over it now, thank God. Now I cry all the time. But ‘Letter to an Old Poet’ is one of the only times I’ve cried onstage.”

“Lucky,” Dacus says. “I hate crying onstage. It happens. I hate that shit.”

These asides about tears might give a Boygenius novice the wrong impression about the band. Even their softer songs tend to have a barb in them, and others, like the screamfests “$20” or “Satanist,” are undeniably hard-ass. A cutting irreverence is the hallmark that makes the sentimental moments honest and disarming.

Their irreverence comes through in their choice of stage or TV outfits too: At the Bowl, they dressed up as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (with Dave Grohl sitting in briefly on drums as a zombie priest). “If you think of a three-person costume,” Baker explains, “what’s three things? We were like, ‘We could be the Trinity.’” Maybe it’s just as simple as that — numbers as Halloween destiny. But the band members don’t demur when the suggestion comes up that maybe it also had something to do with the phrase that is repeated over and over again in the bridge of “Not Strong Enough”: “Always an angel, never a god.” They switched up that equation, if just for one night, getting deistic at the Bowl.

Less than two weeks later, for “SNL,” they dressed up as the Beatles in their Ed Sullivan-era early prime. The Trinity? The Fab Four? Screw CSNY and all the rest; these women know a real supergroup when they see one.

When “SNL” came around, it was clear they would only be emulating the Beatles and not, like, the Who. There was definitely not going to be any attempt on the show to repeat Bridgers’ guitar-smashing solo appearance of 2021. “Hey, I tried,” she says about not quite fully breaking her ax on that occasion; the guitar took a licking, but almost kept on ticking, a resilience she was amused, not annoyed, by.

This year, the group has been more about melting hearts than heating up flame wars — whether that’s been in their more nakedly revealing songs or taking up causes like dressing in drag in Nashville to support the trans community under political attack there, or inviting Indigenous groups to provide invocations before select tour dates.

When the band receives its Group of the Year award at Variety‘s Hitmakers event, Joan Baez will be presenting the honor to the trio. That may seem like an odd pairing if you’re only considering Boygenius’ more irreverent moments, but an utterly apropos matchup if you are keeping in mind the band’s deeply earnest side and, especially, the social conscience that flares up around their performances. As it happens, the group has also performed at Baez’s Bread and Roses benefits in the Bay area.

“Oh my God,” says Dacus. “Sometimes I have to remember how important she is, because in our experience of her, she’s just been super-kind, and complimenting us, and then it’s like, ‘You’re Joan Baez! You made music joyfully political for a whole generation of people!’ Sometimes we lament how people in media are asked to basically be politicians now…”

“Because politicians aren’t being politicians,” Bridgers interjects — “they’re being fucking TV stars.”

“But she set this example of, because you’re a human, you have to stand for things,” Dacus continues. “So, it’s not because we’re musicians that we care about these causes, it’s because we’re people, and we would be caring about them if we all had office jobs. A lot of people are afraid to do that, and she wasn’t, and it’s a great example for us. We are not very afraid to say what we believe. … Just as a person, I hope to be like her.”

Bridgers notes that Baez, in her initial heyday as America’s folkie sweetheart, “was losing opportunities because she was radical — and then that ended up being the fuel for her whole career. How radical she was was then rewarded.” She sums up Baez’s appeal in a nutshell: “Woody Guthrie was screeching this, and I’m gonna sing it.” (They crack up, with Bridgers noting that no offense to anyone living or dead was intended: “We’re big Woody fans.”)

Baker has thoughts about how they earn the right to be what might be perceived as political, whether it’s something as seemingly un-divisive as having Indigenous people do Land Acknowledgements introductions before their sets, or speaking up on trans or reproductive choice issues.

“Giving them something of ourselves in the songs is like an endearment practice, where we’re like, ‘You will trust us because you have an emotional connection to something we’ve said that resonates with you.’ So when we are in drag at the Nashville show [just after the state enacted anti-drag laws], kids are trusting our judgment, because we’ve gone to the trouble of sharing something difficult or even painful for us to communicate. Then it’s worth it for them to enter that conversation, because we’ve set the stakes of like what’s important to communicate, even if involves conflict or pain.”

The songs themselves aren’t always, if ever, aimed at the fans, though. Sometimes the target audience for the material is, well, Boygenius.

“We write songs to each other as a communication method,” Baker says.

Bridgers doesn’t think it should be mistaken for oversharing. “We have plenty of stuff that’s sacred and not shown to anybody other than each other. I think there’s this weird misconception sometimes that we don’t have a private relationship, because so much of it this year has been monetized in our performance.” And yet, Dacus says, their music is as transparently interpersonal as it sounds. “Some friendships over years don’t get to enough of a level of intimacy to share the types of fears and desires and hopes that we are saying.”

“We hang out,” declares Baker, as if this might not be a matter-of-fact thing for a working rock group. (It doesn’t go without saying.)

How long will the hang last?

In October, the band put out a four-song EP called “The Rest,” a sequel or companion piece to “The Record.” The title does have an air of at least temporary finality to it, as if the cupboard is bare. Says Bridgers, “It’s funny that it’s called ‘The Rest,’ because we absolutely do have more songs that we didn’t put out.”

But where do they go from here? In 2023, did the side hustle so overtake the main hustle that they should keep Boygenius going into 2024, when they could certainly sell out sheds or maybe even arenas they didn’t come near this year? They’ve already broken with supergroup form so much; would it be a terrible thing if they were to further break it to the point of unexpectedly doing an immediate, sequential band album? Or do they revert to their solo corners? Fans might wish there could be a multiverse in which the band never pauses, on one track, and individual careers proceed apace on another.

Conventional wisdom would suggest they will not let solo albums go unmade just for the sake of rocking more venues. But you will not get a definitive answer here.

“I don’t know,” says Bridgers. “It’s incredible to me that we have kept the ethos behind the band the whole way, which is: it just has to be fun. We’ve done a lot of shit, but there’s also shit we said no to, stuff that felt like it was like pushing a boundary as far as travel or labor and stuff that sounds like we might push ourselves into not having fun. So that gets to continue forward, after this album cycle. I think we just are gonna do whatever is fun, and remain each other to each other. These guys are as involved in what I do as they are in Boygenius. We show each other ideas, and…”

“We need each other’s brains,” Dacus says.

So is it possible to specifically say that solo albums are what’s next, or do they want to leave a bit of mystery?

The attempt to pin it down leaves them unusually cagey. “It’s a mystery,” Bridgers says.

Dacus: “I’ll just say I’m not thinking about it.”

Bridgers: “Oh, yeah. It’s a mystery to us.”

Dacus, having the final noncommittal word: “If it’s a mystery to you, it’s a mystery to us too.”

Hard to tell whether there might be any real indecision here, or whether they just don’t want to lay out all their cards for the outside world, or whether they might be having a difficult time reconciling themselves to a near-future in which they might be Zoom advisors to one another instead of daily physical confidantes.

In the immediate meanwhile, there is Grammy season, and a slew of awards to be won, or not won. Bridgers has some experience there, with her multiple nominations in 2021. “It was still very deeply fucking COVID when I was nominated, and I was pretty like traumatized last time, and like the only way I felt it was on the phone. To find out in a room full of people and be celebrating, it’s already way more fun.” Dacus says being collectively recognized is “triple the joy, right? Much easier to feel happy for them” than for herself, she says. “Much easier to feel.”

Is there a line from any of their songs that could maybe encapsulate how they’re feeling right now, between the six Grammy noms, the “SNL” appearance and the impending end-of-year accolades? At that question, they start to laugh.

“Give me your funny ones,” someone says.

Then Dacus says, “Ohhh, I have a cute one.”

“Which one?” the others ask, curious to get an earnest answer after all.

Quoting one of her own lyrics, Dacus lowers her voice, as if it’s suddenly occurred to her that it’s a secret that she’s sharing. “‘I never thought you’d happen to me,’” she says.

(x) photos by Jingyu Lin

[popmusicu]

Hatsune Miku: The First Virtual Pop Diva

To begin, I must explain what VOCALOID is. It is a voice synthesis software application, capable of singing, developed by Yamaha Corporation. It allows users to generate a song simply by writing the lyrics and melody. Depending on which VOCALOID is used, the voice of the song will vary. In 2004, Crypton Future Media released their first Vocaloid with the software VOCALOID01, called Meiko.

Although Meiko, and later Kaito (2006), did not achieve great success, Crypton Future Media, in 2007, launched Hatsune Miku through the VOCALOID2 software (an update to the first version). Her name translates to "First Sound of the Future." Hatsune Miku was the first virtual vocal character and remains the most famous to this day.

She quickly went viral on a Japanese video-sharing platform (Nico Nico Douga), where users listened to the songs and created collaborative content. Starting from the original song, other users on the platform would create illustrations, 2D and 3D animations, and remixes, demonstrating the various possibilities of using the software for multimedia content creation.

After this initial success, various projects involving Hatsune Miku began, one of the most important being the release of her own video game, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (2009) a rhythm game released by Sega for the PlayStation Portable, featuring songs such as 'World is Mine' and 'Levan Polka. That same year, Hatsune Miku made her first guest appearance at a concert (Animelo Summer Live), where she was projected on a 2D screen.

A few months later, on August 31, the “Miku FES'09 (Natsu)” took place, where Hatsune Miku performed as the first hologram singer. On March 9, 2010, Miku's first solo live performance titled “Miku no Hi Kanshasai 39's Giving Day” took place, becoming one of her most viral and visited concerts on the internet to this day.

Although the title of this blog is "Hatsune Miku: The First Virtual Pop Diva," her music varies in terms of musical genres. This is due to what I explained earlier: Anyone can use the Hatsune Miku software and can use her voice to create the music they desire. Therefore, she is not only the first virtual singer and the first hologram singer, Hatsune Miku is a massification tool for music creation.

Antonia Pastene Arias

[beautifulpersonpeach]

This is an opinion piece. Many will not agree with me, so I have laid out some facts. Scooter’s wife divorces him and his biggest clients leave him by the end of 2022. As if the pandemic wasn’t hard enough, hey Scooter? Karma?

2017

-On May 21, 2017, BTS won the Billboard award for Top Social Artist, beating out Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, and Shawn Mendes. Beiber and Grande at that time were both signed to Scooter Braun’s agency. Everyone took notice.

Except Justin that is, lol.

2018

-Here he is in August 26, 2018 answering fans questions about Jungkook and BTS. He had listened to one song - FIRE.

https://youtu.be/aDHRFWrM08g?si=_0ql84of_Z6R1lVw

2020

-Jan 14, 2020 Justin announces he has been diagnosed with Lyme Disease

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/justin-bieber-lyme-disease

-July 23, 2020 Justin announces tour dates - previously delayed because of Covid pandemic

https://www.cp24.com/entertainment-news/justin-bieber-announces-2021-dates-for-rescheduled-tour-1.5036378b

2021

-April 13, 2021 The Redemption of Justin Bieber. Justin has struggled. With addiction, depression, anxiety and the law. He has been isolated from his peers and elevated to celebrity superstar status before reaching adulthood. In the western world that’s a recipe for disaster. Whether you like his music or not, there’s no denying Justin Bieber has talent. The numbers speak for themselves.

https://www.gq.com/story/justin-bieber-cover-profile-may-2021

-May 6, 2021 covid pandemic causes Justin to cancel tours until 2022

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/05/06/justin-bieber-postpones-canadian-summer-tour-dates-until-2022/

-April 2, 2021 Scooter sells Ithaca Holdings to Hybe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/hybe-ma-ithaca-idUSL4N2LV13C

(Interesting that 11 days later that month the redemption of Justin Bieber article in GQ is published)

-And a month later, June 25, 2021, Scooter flies to South Korea to meet his new company, the vast potential of new, polite, trainees, various established groups under the Hybe umbrella and world superstars, the BTS members. I have to sigh here, the author of this article can’t even be bothered to include each member’s name. Just a general Scooter says “they’re great”. Because he couldn’t care less? He had his wonder boy Justin, and potentially a whole new generation of talented people to work with should the need arise in the future. I believe the members of BTS individually or as a group weren’t his priority at the time. I remember that period when fans were asking if a collaboration with Justin Bieber would be possible in the future. BTS handled these questions very delicately.

https://www.koreaboo.com/news/scooter-braun-experience-meeting-bts/

And during the epidemic, all is quiet except for the BTS members who work continuously through this period, appearing virtually on several shows aimed at the western audience.

2022

-March 13, 2022 Hybe’s gross profit from of PTD concert one night show in theaters is a Blockbuster Hit! $32.6 million in revenue earned from 3711 cinemas.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bts-permission-to-dance-on-stage-seoul-llive-viewing-gross-1235203444/

-June 8, 2022 Justin postpones North American tour dates (Look at the scheduled list of dates)

https://www.sportskeeda.com/pop-culture/why-justin-bieber-postponing-north-american-tour-dates-singer-says-sickness-getting-worse

-September 4, 2022 BTS’s PTD tour reportedly earns $ 230.7 million in concert revenue

-September 15, 2022 Scooter to pay $20 million in divorce settlement but gets to keep private jet

https://people.com/music/scooter-braun-ordered-pay-ex-wife-20-million-divorce-settlement-keeps-private-jet/

2023

-January 24, 2023 Justin sells his music catelog

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/24/media/justin-bieber-music-catalog-sale/index.html

-January 25, 2023 Scooter becomes sole CEO of Hybe America

https://variety.com/2023/music/news/scooter-braun-hybe-ceo-bts-1235500913/

- February 9, 2023 Scooter buys Quality control music

https://www.thefader.com/2023/02/09/scooter-braun-quality-control-music-hybe-deal

-February 10, 2023 Hybe buys 14.8% stock in SM entertainment

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/media/south-korea-hybe-sm-entertainment-deal-intl-hnk/index.html

-Feb 23, 2023 Justin cancels remaining tour dates

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/02/28/justin-bieber-cancels-justice-world-tour/11368719002/

-March 5, 2023 Hybe to raise up to $769 million to purchase shares in SM Entertainment

https://www.kedglobal.com/mergers-acquisitions/newsView/ked202303050002

-March 24, 2023 Hybe sells shares in SM Entertainment

https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/hybe-sm-entertainment-k-pop-1235563480/

-March 26, 2023 Records are broken worldwide with Jimin’s album release FACE on March 24, 2023

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbenjamin/2023/03/26/bts-jimin-sells-over-1-million-copies-of-face-solo-album-worldwide-for-record-breaking-24-hours-in-korea/

-August 23, 2023 ABANDON SHIP!! Is everyone leaving Scooter?

https://www.koco.com/article/scooter-brauns-artist-roster-what-we-know/44894780

Everything I have ever read about Scooter, I don’t respect him enough to write his proper name, is that he puts himself first. Previous clients do not speak highly of his management. Taylor Swift for example.

Interesting fact, Taylor Swift, Halsey (Boy with Luv collaboration with BTS) and Camilla Cabello (Shawn Mendes is her ex) gave a great performance of “Shake it off” at the American Music Awards in Nov 2019.

Perhaps when Justin’s health issues became too grave to hide from the public or Justin himself refused to be held to his contract, (and perhaps Justin sold his catalog to cover his costs/penalties of canceling his tour) Scooter had an empty sandbox with no one to play with.

And, having lost his main source of income and having a keen head for business, (vulture capitalist) he had already set his sights on a new revenue stream. Of the seven BTS members, one in particular had released songs by Justin Bieber, proving he had what it took to be successful in the western market.

Jungkook has been a Bieber fan since he debuted with BTS. He ticks all the boxes needed for the western market, doesn’t he? Masculine build, tattoos, piercings, outstanding vocal ability and dance skills/technique and is a member of the greatest musical group in history?

No wonder Scooter went to the White House with BTS. Had to be sure to be there at the Grammys too. Front and center as though he was responsible for their success.

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/hybe-is-raising-380m-to-fund-more-music-acquisitions-in-the-us-report/

Confusing isn’t it?

1) Hybe buys Ithaca holdings April 2021

-$ 1 billion + reportedly

2) Justin Bieber Tour is canceled several times, and he pulls out of remaining tour dates February 2023

- $ unknown

3) Scooter buys Quality Control music one month after being named CEO of Hybe America February 2023

-$ 300 million

4) Hybe buys 14.8 % stock in SM entertainment February 2023

-$ 334.5 million

5) Hybe sells stock in SM entertainment for

+ $ 191.8 million March 2023

Well thank goodness for BTS. In 2022, their PTD tour earned:

+ $ 230.7 million concert revenue for PTD Tour

+ $ 32.6 million from PTD theater showing, limited engagement, in 3711 cinemas

Someone had to keep the lights on in that new building and families of the employees fed.

Which brings us back to Jeon Jungkook, Bieber admirer, a man who most definitely fits the “western audience appeal”, possessing talent beyond what we in the west have seen in many years.

And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉

Oh Scooter, it isn’t fun when someone beats you at your own game, is it?

When in doubt as to what is going on in an organization, follow the $$$.

I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time.

In my opinion.

***

Now, @westcoastgal1,

I commend the effort you've put into this ask and I can tell you're trying to build a case for your theory(-ies), but I'm not sure what exactly that theory is.

Is it that "I firmly believe the budget allowed for BTS’s chapter 2 “solo period” was capped due HYBE’s financial acquisitions at the same time." ?

Is it that Scooter is broke and HYBE shifted financial resources from BTS to support him and their SM acquisition? Didn't HYBE tap capital markets precisely to raise proceeds for that purpose though? Or is it that Scooter is looking for a windfall in BTS now that his old roster of artists have abandoned ship?

But then, what is the implication here?

"And then there’s his equally talented, gifted dancer “Bro” Jimin who broke all the records right before him but does not bow down to those who whisper behind his back, lol.

And by coincidence, their music videos, promotional materials for their solo albums and many of their conversations seem to hinting at something 😉"

Is it that Jimin wasn't willing to play Scooter's balls like JK did apparently? But he had no issues accepting the Fast & Furious gig? And if so, what's the takeaway here? How does this tie in to the similarities in their concept pics styling, etc, so far?

You've already put quite some effort into building out this timeline so I hate to ask you to do more work, but I'm afraid the dots aren't quite connecting for me just yet. If you'd like to send me a follow up ask succinctly explaining what you mean, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, all I can say is this looks like a variation of the same fan theories I've seen people come up with to explain Jimin's solo rollout relative to Jungkook's. The fact there's so much discourse around it indicates something else to me, but I'll let the dead horse be.

[pretty-idol-hell]

I finally finished watching the YumeYume Virtual Live!

It was pretty good! Even though they used 3D character models and it wasn't exactly, "live", it was interesting that they structured it much more like a real concert.

Specifically, they performed the full versions of each song without any Making Dramas or even Cyalume Change sometimes for that matter. So it would be a good reference to have if you were thinking of learning the dances to any of the songs.

It also included a few unique performances. Specifically:

The return of the Mirei/Shion rivalry! Ending in Marble Make Up Ahahah with Mirei and Shion

Tondemo Summer Adventure with Amari in the place of Fuwari (yes, she got to ride the watermelon!)

Make it! with everyone (Amari, Yui, Dressing Pafe, SoLaMi Smile)

Something I didn't fully realize initially about the newest Dressing Pafe song, My Way Star, when I saw it in episode 04 was that... The reason it sounds different is because it's basically a Dorothy center song. About TIME, considering how popular the character is. I guess this is the closest thing we'll ever get to the twins performing solo haha. Now can we have Reona center!!?

Also, it was crazy to hear Amari vocals on something upbeat. Her voice is BEAUTIFUL!!! (As is Rin's ahhhh. Rippi is one of the best singers in the original Love Live IMHO.)

But yeah. I think that was worth watching. Now to check if the merch is still available ahhh!

[cleverhottubmiracle]

This January, Gracie Abrams announced a new opening act for a string of European tour dates: bedroom-pop singer Dora Jar, who would warm up crowds at venues like London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. While it would mark a momentous occasion in the career of any budding indie-pop artist, some of Abrams’s followers were so disappointed in the choice that they sought vigilante justice online. “Many fans, including myself, are baffled by the recent announcement that Dora Jar will be the opening act,” read a Change.org petition started by one fan. “We are perplexed as we do not recognize her, and with less than two weeks till the tour, it’s virtually impossible to familiarize ourselves with her slowpaced songs.” Abrams swiftly defended her choice, boldly reaching into the hornet’s nest of stan culture and setting off a weeklong news cycle. “Just hearing about this absolute ridiculousness,” she commented on Stereogum’s Instagram. “So wildly uncool and bizarre.… I couldn’t be luckier or prouder to share a stage with this talented wonder.” Five years ago, this level of scrutiny over the opening act of the European leg of a pop tour might have been unfathomable. But since live music returned to full capacity in the wake of the pandemic, these shows have experienced a paradigm shift that has redefined the opening slot. Young fans, now more energized by concert-going than ever, are applying the same enthusiasm — and criticism — to openers that was once reserved for the headliners. In turn, the opening slot has become an essential platform for rising musicians, with the capacity to help launch them from a state of light buzz to a new stratosphere of pop stardom. “The tours themselves have become newsworthy in a way where, even if you’re not there, you’re aware of what is happening,” says Avery McTaggart, one of the founders of the music-management agency TBA. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.” Like most things in the post-COVID pop universe, all roads lead to the Eras Tour. It is no coincidence that, after releasing five studio albums with middling success since 2015, Sabrina Carpenter’s breakout moment with Short n’ Sweet arrived in the wake of opening for Taylor Swift. Carpenter did more than just show up and punch a time card. She created regular viral moments by singing city-specific, innuendo-laden outros to her song “Nonsense” each night. She and Swift also used the Eras Tour to bolster the public narrative of their friendship, sharing the stage for special duets and creating a constellation of warm and fuzzy “moments.” “I will cherish this taybrina era (and all the eras) till the end of time,” Carpenter wrote on Instagram last March. Just a few weeks later, she unleashed “Espresso,” the defining pop single of the summer. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.”In the minds of pop audiences who approach fandom like detective work, Swift’s choice to bring Carpenter on tour could even be interpreted as a subliminal chess move against Olivia Rodrigo. (Rodrigo and Carpenter share an ex, and Swift and Rodrigo have been at odds over songwriting credits in the past.) In today’s golden age of opening acts, Rodrigo has been equally as influential as Swift. For her 2024 Guts World Tour, she picked openers like alt-rock legends The Breeders as well as her friend Chappell Roan, who had been toiling in the industry for the better part of a decade. The buzz around Roan’s flamboyant pop anthems and drag-inspired live show was already outgrowing the rooms she was playing, like the 1,100-person Showbox in Seattle. Rodrigo’s tour put her in front of 15,000 fans nightly. “There was a scarcity in Chappell tickets, and there was a scarcity in Olivia tickets…so there was this frenzy,” says Nick Bobetsky, who managed Roan until late last year. “Everyone in those rooms felt like they were a part of something special.” Days after her tour run ended, Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!” which became her first Billboard Hot 100 hit. “The tour was incredibly impactful to catapult awareness,” Bobetsky says. “But we worked it: We had a content person out there, so we were doing show recaps, building that world out there. We really just amplified it every day. I don’t think the Guts Tour was the make-or-break moment, but it was a really important part of the puzzle.” By the end of her six-week run of dates with Rodrigo, Roan’s monthly Spotify listeners had nearly doubled, to just over 3 million. By August, she had over 40 million. The opening-act renaissance has not been strictly limited to blue-chip pop tours. Last year, the drone-pop artist Ethel Cain was riding the wave of her breakout record, Preacher’s Daughter. She had already been on her own headlining tour, but she booked some shows opening for Mitski. “Even just doing a handful of dates can create the same effect in terms of fan excitement and engagement on both sides,” says McTaggart, who manages Cain. “The influence that a headliner has with who they are, who they want to be associated with — it’s received at the shows themselves, but that’s really only half the story. Simply the announcement of who a headlining artist is really interested in, both musically and personally, is important.” Especially when it’s coming from a famously hands-on artist. For her eight London shows last year, Swift had a different opening lineup each night. “The fans feel that deep connection with the headliner, to the point where they’re like, ‘If Taylor loves this artist enough to put them on a show, I think I’ll love them, too,’” Bobetsky says. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.”Influence and world-building were certainly on Dua Lipa’s mind in 2021 and 2022 as she pro - moted her disco-reviving Future Nostalgia album. She had already reached a new echelon of commercial impact with songs like “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now,” and she also set about building softer but equally powerful forms of pop-cultural prowess. In late 2021, Dua announced Service95, a newsletter and podcast network in which she shared book recommendations and interviews, establishing her as not just a performer but a person communicating a set of tastes. Around this time, she also added Caroline Polachek — the former Chairlift frontwoman and solo artist on the more avant-garde fringes of the pop world — to her 2022 tour. Polachek, who was in her mid-thirties, was in between album cycles for 2019’s Pang and 2023’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, and her biggest headlining show back then was around 5,000 people. She was not the obvious choice for an artist of Lipa’s magnitude. “I would infer that asking Caroline to open was a reflection of her taste, and not just a shrewd business move to sell tickets,” says Mookie Singerman, Polachek’s manager of 11 years. “Caroline was a big live draw herself, but I also think she does represent a level of cool in the broader culture.” The artists did have a connection: Singerman is part of TaP Music, the management company that represented Lipa until the beginning of the tour. But as a Top 40 diva reaching out to a Pitchfork darling, Lipa was able to amp up her hipster appeal — and help pave the way for Polachek’s own transition to a capital-P pop act with Desire. “Caroline was riding that line in between indie pop and more mainstream pop, and opening for Dua was a very good way to lean more into this big pop world,” Singerman says.If you pay attention to the blizzard of headlines around the habits of Gen Z, it’s easy to assume that young people are so antisocial and focused on digital interactions that the very enterprise of live music could come under existential threat. In fact, there is a greater premium on in-person experience, and live music has become even more central to fandom than in previous generations. “What I really notice with these TikTok artists, or younger crowds, is when they come to a show, they’re lined up before the opener starts,” says Patrick Coman, a marketing manager at music agency Red Light. “They want to be there for the entire experience.” (And perhaps get their money’s worth as ticket prices spike — according to trade publication Pollstar, the average ticket for the top 100 tours of 2024 cost $135.92.)“During the pandemic and coming out of it, the only marketing ideas labels tended to have were TikTok-related,” Singerman adds. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.” Of course, another tenet of show business holds true: All press is good press. If Gracie Abrams fans weren’t familiar with Dora Jar before the tour announcement dustup, they certainly are now — and they’ve been given ample motivation to study up before the shows. “That’s the most amount of press and attention that I think an opening act could possibly ever get, even if it’s couched in this negative attention,” Singerman says. “I think it serves Dora Jar’s purposes really well.”Header image, top row, from left: Swift, Carpenter, and Lipa. Second row: Rodrigo, Abrams, and Tate McRae, who tapped Zara Larsson to open much of her 2025 North American tour. Third row: Roan, Jar, Larsson, and Polachek. Bottom row: Griff and Rachel Chinouriri, who have both opened for Carpenter on her latest tour. Source link

[norajworld]

This January, Gracie Abrams announced a new opening act for a string of European tour dates: bedroom-pop singer Dora Jar, who would warm up crowds at venues like London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. While it would mark a momentous occasion in the career of any budding indie-pop artist, some of Abrams’s followers were so disappointed in the choice that they sought vigilante justice online. “Many fans, including myself, are baffled by the recent announcement that Dora Jar will be the opening act,” read a Change.org petition started by one fan. “We are perplexed as we do not recognize her, and with less than two weeks till the tour, it’s virtually impossible to familiarize ourselves with her slowpaced songs.” Abrams swiftly defended her choice, boldly reaching into the hornet’s nest of stan culture and setting off a weeklong news cycle. “Just hearing about this absolute ridiculousness,” she commented on Stereogum’s Instagram. “So wildly uncool and bizarre.… I couldn’t be luckier or prouder to share a stage with this talented wonder.” Five years ago, this level of scrutiny over the opening act of the European leg of a pop tour might have been unfathomable. But since live music returned to full capacity in the wake of the pandemic, these shows have experienced a paradigm shift that has redefined the opening slot. Young fans, now more energized by concert-going than ever, are applying the same enthusiasm — and criticism — to openers that was once reserved for the headliners. In turn, the opening slot has become an essential platform for rising musicians, with the capacity to help launch them from a state of light buzz to a new stratosphere of pop stardom. “The tours themselves have become newsworthy in a way where, even if you’re not there, you’re aware of what is happening,” says Avery McTaggart, one of the founders of the music-management agency TBA. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.” Like most things in the post-COVID pop universe, all roads lead to the Eras Tour. It is no coincidence that, after releasing five studio albums with middling success since 2015, Sabrina Carpenter’s breakout moment with Short n’ Sweet arrived in the wake of opening for Taylor Swift. Carpenter did more than just show up and punch a time card. She created regular viral moments by singing city-specific, innuendo-laden outros to her song “Nonsense” each night. She and Swift also used the Eras Tour to bolster the public narrative of their friendship, sharing the stage for special duets and creating a constellation of warm and fuzzy “moments.” “I will cherish this taybrina era (and all the eras) till the end of time,” Carpenter wrote on Instagram last March. Just a few weeks later, she unleashed “Espresso,” the defining pop single of the summer. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.”In the minds of pop audiences who approach fandom like detective work, Swift’s choice to bring Carpenter on tour could even be interpreted as a subliminal chess move against Olivia Rodrigo. (Rodrigo and Carpenter share an ex, and Swift and Rodrigo have been at odds over songwriting credits in the past.) In today’s golden age of opening acts, Rodrigo has been equally as influential as Swift. For her 2024 Guts World Tour, she picked openers like alt-rock legends The Breeders as well as her friend Chappell Roan, who had been toiling in the industry for the better part of a decade. The buzz around Roan’s flamboyant pop anthems and drag-inspired live show was already outgrowing the rooms she was playing, like the 1,100-person Showbox in Seattle. Rodrigo’s tour put her in front of 15,000 fans nightly. “There was a scarcity in Chappell tickets, and there was a scarcity in Olivia tickets…so there was this frenzy,” says Nick Bobetsky, who managed Roan until late last year. “Everyone in those rooms felt like they were a part of something special.” Days after her tour run ended, Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!” which became her first Billboard Hot 100 hit. “The tour was incredibly impactful to catapult awareness,” Bobetsky says. “But we worked it: We had a content person out there, so we were doing show recaps, building that world out there. We really just amplified it every day. I don’t think the Guts Tour was the make-or-break moment, but it was a really important part of the puzzle.” By the end of her six-week run of dates with Rodrigo, Roan’s monthly Spotify listeners had nearly doubled, to just over 3 million. By August, she had over 40 million. The opening-act renaissance has not been strictly limited to blue-chip pop tours. Last year, the drone-pop artist Ethel Cain was riding the wave of her breakout record, Preacher’s Daughter. She had already been on her own headlining tour, but she booked some shows opening for Mitski. “Even just doing a handful of dates can create the same effect in terms of fan excitement and engagement on both sides,” says McTaggart, who manages Cain. “The influence that a headliner has with who they are, who they want to be associated with — it’s received at the shows themselves, but that’s really only half the story. Simply the announcement of who a headlining artist is really interested in, both musically and personally, is important.” Especially when it’s coming from a famously hands-on artist. For her eight London shows last year, Swift had a different opening lineup each night. “The fans feel that deep connection with the headliner, to the point where they’re like, ‘If Taylor loves this artist enough to put them on a show, I think I’ll love them, too,’” Bobetsky says. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.”Influence and world-building were certainly on Dua Lipa’s mind in 2021 and 2022 as she pro - moted her disco-reviving Future Nostalgia album. She had already reached a new echelon of commercial impact with songs like “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now,” and she also set about building softer but equally powerful forms of pop-cultural prowess. In late 2021, Dua announced Service95, a newsletter and podcast network in which she shared book recommendations and interviews, establishing her as not just a performer but a person communicating a set of tastes. Around this time, she also added Caroline Polachek — the former Chairlift frontwoman and solo artist on the more avant-garde fringes of the pop world — to her 2022 tour. Polachek, who was in her mid-thirties, was in between album cycles for 2019’s Pang and 2023’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, and her biggest headlining show back then was around 5,000 people. She was not the obvious choice for an artist of Lipa’s magnitude. “I would infer that asking Caroline to open was a reflection of her taste, and not just a shrewd business move to sell tickets,” says Mookie Singerman, Polachek’s manager of 11 years. “Caroline was a big live draw herself, but I also think she does represent a level of cool in the broader culture.” The artists did have a connection: Singerman is part of TaP Music, the management company that represented Lipa until the beginning of the tour. But as a Top 40 diva reaching out to a Pitchfork darling, Lipa was able to amp up her hipster appeal — and help pave the way for Polachek’s own transition to a capital-P pop act with Desire. “Caroline was riding that line in between indie pop and more mainstream pop, and opening for Dua was a very good way to lean more into this big pop world,” Singerman says.If you pay attention to the blizzard of headlines around the habits of Gen Z, it’s easy to assume that young people are so antisocial and focused on digital interactions that the very enterprise of live music could come under existential threat. In fact, there is a greater premium on in-person experience, and live music has become even more central to fandom than in previous generations. “What I really notice with these TikTok artists, or younger crowds, is when they come to a show, they’re lined up before the opener starts,” says Patrick Coman, a marketing manager at music agency Red Light. “They want to be there for the entire experience.” (And perhaps get their money’s worth as ticket prices spike — according to trade publication Pollstar, the average ticket for the top 100 tours of 2024 cost $135.92.)“During the pandemic and coming out of it, the only marketing ideas labels tended to have were TikTok-related,” Singerman adds. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.” Of course, another tenet of show business holds true: All press is good press. If Gracie Abrams fans weren’t familiar with Dora Jar before the tour announcement dustup, they certainly are now — and they’ve been given ample motivation to study up before the shows. “That’s the most amount of press and attention that I think an opening act could possibly ever get, even if it’s couched in this negative attention,” Singerman says. “I think it serves Dora Jar’s purposes really well.”Header image, top row, from left: Swift, Carpenter, and Lipa. Second row: Rodrigo, Abrams, and Tate McRae, who tapped Zara Larsson to open much of her 2025 North American tour. Third row: Roan, Jar, Larsson, and Polachek. Bottom row: Griff and Rachel Chinouriri, who have both opened for Carpenter on her latest tour. Source link

[stardust-medium5]

【Stardust Original】 《回声空间站/Echoic Space Station No. 13》

────────────── ⋆⋅ ⋅⋆ ──────────────

Planning : 金蓝

Music：怀归

Composing/Tuning：海格p

Mixing：磷元素

Illustration：YUXI

PV：面包烤过才好吃了

Guitar：Exi-Ted

Bass：空想

Drum：celest天狗

Vocals : Stardust Infinity

[chilimili212]

This January, Gracie Abrams announced a new opening act for a string of European tour dates: bedroom-pop singer Dora Jar, who would warm up crowds at venues like London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. While it would mark a momentous occasion in the career of any budding indie-pop artist, some of Abrams’s followers were so disappointed in the choice that they sought vigilante justice online. “Many fans, including myself, are baffled by the recent announcement that Dora Jar will be the opening act,” read a Change.org petition started by one fan. “We are perplexed as we do not recognize her, and with less than two weeks till the tour, it’s virtually impossible to familiarize ourselves with her slowpaced songs.” Abrams swiftly defended her choice, boldly reaching into the hornet’s nest of stan culture and setting off a weeklong news cycle. “Just hearing about this absolute ridiculousness,” she commented on Stereogum’s Instagram. “So wildly uncool and bizarre.… I couldn’t be luckier or prouder to share a stage with this talented wonder.” Five years ago, this level of scrutiny over the opening act of the European leg of a pop tour might have been unfathomable. But since live music returned to full capacity in the wake of the pandemic, these shows have experienced a paradigm shift that has redefined the opening slot. Young fans, now more energized by concert-going than ever, are applying the same enthusiasm — and criticism — to openers that was once reserved for the headliners. In turn, the opening slot has become an essential platform for rising musicians, with the capacity to help launch them from a state of light buzz to a new stratosphere of pop stardom. “The tours themselves have become newsworthy in a way where, even if you’re not there, you’re aware of what is happening,” says Avery McTaggart, one of the founders of the music-management agency TBA. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.” Like most things in the post-COVID pop universe, all roads lead to the Eras Tour. It is no coincidence that, after releasing five studio albums with middling success since 2015, Sabrina Carpenter’s breakout moment with Short n’ Sweet arrived in the wake of opening for Taylor Swift. Carpenter did more than just show up and punch a time card. She created regular viral moments by singing city-specific, innuendo-laden outros to her song “Nonsense” each night. She and Swift also used the Eras Tour to bolster the public narrative of their friendship, sharing the stage for special duets and creating a constellation of warm and fuzzy “moments.” “I will cherish this taybrina era (and all the eras) till the end of time,” Carpenter wrote on Instagram last March. Just a few weeks later, she unleashed “Espresso,” the defining pop single of the summer. “These opening slots have become much more impactful, because the tours themselves are repeatedly covered, newsworthy events.”In the minds of pop audiences who approach fandom like detective work, Swift’s choice to bring Carpenter on tour could even be interpreted as a subliminal chess move against Olivia Rodrigo. (Rodrigo and Carpenter share an ex, and Swift and Rodrigo have been at odds over songwriting credits in the past.) In today’s golden age of opening acts, Rodrigo has been equally as influential as Swift. For her 2024 Guts World Tour, she picked openers like alt-rock legends The Breeders as well as her friend Chappell Roan, who had been toiling in the industry for the better part of a decade. The buzz around Roan’s flamboyant pop anthems and drag-inspired live show was already outgrowing the rooms she was playing, like the 1,100-person Showbox in Seattle. Rodrigo’s tour put her in front of 15,000 fans nightly. “There was a scarcity in Chappell tickets, and there was a scarcity in Olivia tickets…so there was this frenzy,” says Nick Bobetsky, who managed Roan until late last year. “Everyone in those rooms felt like they were a part of something special.” Days after her tour run ended, Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!” which became her first Billboard Hot 100 hit. “The tour was incredibly impactful to catapult awareness,” Bobetsky says. “But we worked it: We had a content person out there, so we were doing show recaps, building that world out there. We really just amplified it every day. I don’t think the Guts Tour was the make-or-break moment, but it was a really important part of the puzzle.” By the end of her six-week run of dates with Rodrigo, Roan’s monthly Spotify listeners had nearly doubled, to just over 3 million. By August, she had over 40 million. The opening-act renaissance has not been strictly limited to blue-chip pop tours. Last year, the drone-pop artist Ethel Cain was riding the wave of her breakout record, Preacher’s Daughter. She had already been on her own headlining tour, but she booked some shows opening for Mitski. “Even just doing a handful of dates can create the same effect in terms of fan excitement and engagement on both sides,” says McTaggart, who manages Cain. “The influence that a headliner has with who they are, who they want to be associated with — it’s received at the shows themselves, but that’s really only half the story. Simply the announcement of who a headlining artist is really interested in, both musically and personally, is important.” Especially when it’s coming from a famously hands-on artist. For her eight London shows last year, Swift had a different opening lineup each night. “The fans feel that deep connection with the headliner, to the point where they’re like, ‘If Taylor loves this artist enough to put them on a show, I think I’ll love them, too,’” Bobetsky says. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.”Influence and world-building were certainly on Dua Lipa’s mind in 2021 and 2022 as she pro - moted her disco-reviving Future Nostalgia album. She had already reached a new echelon of commercial impact with songs like “Levitating” and “Don’t Start Now,” and she also set about building softer but equally powerful forms of pop-cultural prowess. In late 2021, Dua announced Service95, a newsletter and podcast network in which she shared book recommendations and interviews, establishing her as not just a performer but a person communicating a set of tastes. Around this time, she also added Caroline Polachek — the former Chairlift frontwoman and solo artist on the more avant-garde fringes of the pop world — to her 2022 tour. Polachek, who was in her mid-thirties, was in between album cycles for 2019’s Pang and 2023’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You, and her biggest headlining show back then was around 5,000 people. She was not the obvious choice for an artist of Lipa’s magnitude. “I would infer that asking Caroline to open was a reflection of her taste, and not just a shrewd business move to sell tickets,” says Mookie Singerman, Polachek’s manager of 11 years. “Caroline was a big live draw herself, but I also think she does represent a level of cool in the broader culture.” The artists did have a connection: Singerman is part of TaP Music, the management company that represented Lipa until the beginning of the tour. But as a Top 40 diva reaching out to a Pitchfork darling, Lipa was able to amp up her hipster appeal — and help pave the way for Polachek’s own transition to a capital-P pop act with Desire. “Caroline was riding that line in between indie pop and more mainstream pop, and opening for Dua was a very good way to lean more into this big pop world,” Singerman says.If you pay attention to the blizzard of headlines around the habits of Gen Z, it’s easy to assume that young people are so antisocial and focused on digital interactions that the very enterprise of live music could come under existential threat. In fact, there is a greater premium on in-person experience, and live music has become even more central to fandom than in previous generations. “What I really notice with these TikTok artists, or younger crowds, is when they come to a show, they’re lined up before the opener starts,” says Patrick Coman, a marketing manager at music agency Red Light. “They want to be there for the entire experience.” (And perhaps get their money’s worth as ticket prices spike — according to trade publication Pollstar, the average ticket for the top 100 tours of 2024 cost $135.92.)“During the pandemic and coming out of it, the only marketing ideas labels tended to have were TikTok-related,” Singerman adds. “The reality is that real-life engagement with fans, whether it’s through support tours or on billboards, is still the most effective way to build an artist.” Of course, another tenet of show business holds true: All press is good press. If Gracie Abrams fans weren’t familiar with Dora Jar before the tour announcement dustup, they certainly are now — and they’ve been given ample motivation to study up before the shows. “That’s the most amount of press and attention that I think an opening act could possibly ever get, even if it’s couched in this negative attention,” Singerman says. “I think it serves Dora Jar’s purposes really well.”Header image, top row, from left: Swift, Carpenter, and Lipa. Second row: Rodrigo, Abrams, and Tate McRae, who tapped Zara Larsson to open much of her 2025 North American tour. Third row: Roan, Jar, Larsson, and Polachek. Bottom row: Griff and Rachel Chinouriri, who have both opened for Carpenter on her latest tour. Source link

[ledvideo]

How does outdoor LED screens turn "crowded" into "immersed carnival"

"Last summer, I waited for the red light at the intersection of Shibuya, Tokyo. When I looked up, I saw the LED screens in the entire building playing virtual waves, accompanied by sound effects, and I felt like I was going to be flooded in the next second." - This is not a science fiction movie, but an outdoor LED screen is redefining our experience of participating in large-scale events.

These "giant building blocks that can shine" have long been no longer cold machines for broadcasting advertisements in the mall. They are like a group of visual magicians who are good at "mind reading". They are using these five methods to make all those standing in squares, stadiums, and music festivals willing to give up their attention. Introduce you to concert LED screen: price, features, functions and cases.

The "top brand of atmosphere" that lasts more than fireworks

At the New Year's Eve scene at 3 a.m., fireworks are fleeting, but LED screens can continue to create romance. A music festival uses a 270-degree surround screen to create a special effect of "Galaxy Falling". Fans reach out to catch the stars falling on the screen. This "interactive atmosphere" allows the memory of the event to last longer. After all, humans’ instinct for chasing dynamic light and shadow has been engraved in DNA when they dance around a bonfire.

The traffic magnet that makes passersby also become "temporary audience"

The naked-eye 3D advertising screen on the Bund in Shanghai is always crowded with passers-by taking photos - this is exactly the "unexpected gain" that the organizer wants to see the most. The outdoor LED screen comes with "visual hegemony", which can forcibly turn passers-by into event communicators. When your circle of friends is flooded with a cool screen, the online exposure of this event has completed a viral fission. How much does a 3D billboard cost?

Secret weapon to save the audience of "mountain top"

In a stadium with a capacity of 100,000 people, the audience who spend the cheapest tickets sitting in the last row often cannot even see the singer clearly. But now, a 400-square-meter LED home screen can allow people in every corner to see the sequins in the corner of the lead singer's eyes. Smarter organizers will set up split screens in different areas, such as displaying real-time data in the fan area and inserting warm reminders in the family area. This "focused feeding" strategy can make everyone feel cared for.

Advertisers’ favorite "scenario-based routine"

Beer brands play air-conditioning advertisements on the music festival screen, and the next second you pay for it in front of the stall - this kind of "what you see is what you get" consumption impulse can be triggered accurately by outdoor LED screens. Compared to small screens on mobile phones, the sensory stimulation brought by giant screens can temporarily remove the psychological defense, which is why pop-up stores always like to use LED walls to create "Internet celebrity check-in points". Provide you with a complete guide to outdoor LED display prices, purchase and application guides.

The "extreme challenge field" of the technician

At a certain electronic music festival in 2024, the organizer played a ruthless thing with the LED floor tiles screen: When the DJ cut the song, the entire ground glowed with the rhythm like piano keys, and the audience triggered different sound effects every step. This cross-border experiment of "technology + creativity" forces the LED industry to continuously upgrade waterproofing, heat dissipation and rapid assembly technology. After all, no one wants to collectively black-face the screen when holding an event in a heavy rain. Take you 8 minutes to understand the working principle of LED interactive floor tiles screen.

Business affairs hidden in pixels

When we are talking about outdoor LED screens, we are essentially discussing how to redistribute the attention of the crowd with light and shadow. From 8K resolution to AI intelligent brightness adjustment, these technological upgrades ultimately point to the same goal: to make everyone standing in front of the screen feel that they are an indispensable part of this carnival.

Next time you stand in the square and look at the screen, you might as well pay attention to your feet - those people who unconsciously move forward in order to see the picture clearly, those arms that raise their mobile phones to record videos, and the pupils that are shining brightly by the light and shadow, are all proving one thing: in this era of increasingly precious offline experience, the screen that can create "collective amaze" is the best social currency.

Thank you for watching. I hope we can solve your problems. Sostron is a professional LED display manufacturer. We provide all kinds of displays, display leasing and display solutions around the world. If you want to know: Bogota Commercial District: LED digital signage renovation project. Please click read.

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[spillianrevels]

July 13! Carsie Blanton in Concert: Creative Revolution

Join us for Carsie Blanton in Concert: Creative Revolution          Saturday, July 13 • 5 to 9 PM Oh, friends, do we have a glorious special reveling rebellion brilliant creative treat for you coming this summer! We are extremely proud to announce that singer/songwriter and activist Carsie Blanton is coming to join us for an intimate house concert and celebration of the Virtual Food Hub being…

[independentartistbuzz]

ALOK & AVA MAX PROVIDE COLLABORATION OF THE SUMMER CONTESTANT WITH “CAR KEYS”

Brazilian music superstar and philanthropist Alok, known for chart-topping collaborations with the likes of James Arthur, John Legend, Tove Lo, Ella Eyre and Ellie Goulding has teamed up with global pop sensation Ava Max, known for monster hits like “Sweet But Psycho” with over 2 billion streams, for their new single, “Car Keys.” With a combined monthly listenership of over 50 million on Spotify alone, along with an all-star songwriting team of collaborators and Tiesto’s iconic “Ayla” sample leading the way, “Car Keys” is a contestant for Summer hit of 2023 and is available now on all DSPs and streaming services HERE, with an official music video filmed internationally in Hamburg, Germany and Sao Paulo, Brazil on the way.

LISTEN TO CAR KEYS HERE

The most-listened-to Brazilian artist in the world on Spotify and #1 DJ in Latin America is ending his Spring with this new single following an action packed few months highlighted most recently by a performance at EDC Las Vegas and virtually accepting a charity award from Cannes Film Festival in the same night, his massive Infinite Experience concert, and exclusive Tomorrowland radio show launch. The collaboration “Car Keys” features Tiesto’s iconic “Ayla” sample and was produced by top producer Cirkut (The Weeknd, Maroon 5, Rihanna) and written by another superstar in UK singer-songwriter Raye, who just recently won the prestigious Ivor Novello songwriter award for Best Contemporary Song for having written “Escapism.” All songwriters of “Car Keys” have over 40 billion streams combined on Spotify.

“Ava is someone I’ve wanted to work with for a long time and I couldn’t be happier with the experience and the result. I can’t wait for the world to hear it!” - Alok

Known for his massive international performances, especially in his home country of Brazil, Alok has been continuing to build his new and now infamous Infinite Experience brand, which is a globe-traveling experimental concert project aimed to create a deeper connection through mind-blowing visual experiences and appearances by special guests timed to key moments in his audio-sensory vision. Following his massive Infinite Experience show in Brazil earlier this month, Alok also announced the launch of his Infinite Experience radio show on Tomorrowland Radio. In line with his aim to take Brazilian music to the world, his Infinite Experience radio show airs on One World Radio every first Friday of the month between 21:00 and 22:00 CET, where he brings the Tomorrowland Brasil atmosphere to the airwaves.

Known globally as a climate change activist fighting for indigenous peoples, just after his colossal performance at one of the world’s biggest dance music festivals, EDC Las Vegas, Alok was honored virtually with a prestigious award from the Better World Fund Gala during the Cannes Film Festival for his charity work with his Alok Institute in conjunction with the Amazônia Fund Alliance program for the Brazilian Federation of UNESCO. In 2022, he launched his “The Future Is Ancestral” philanthropic project, with a remarkable inaugural event that brought his climate change initiatives and partnership to the United Nations’ Global Compact to  kickoff New York’s Climate Change Week with a series of panels and a historic, first-ever performance on the rooftop of the United Nations headquarters.

“It has been a great experience collaborating with Alok on ‘Car Keys.’ The process of cutting the record and shooting a video while on tour was a blast, and I’m excited for the world to finally hear it!” - Ava Max

Ava Max has emerged as a pop powerhouse with billions of streams, a procession of multi platinum certifications, countless sold out shows, and Billboard Hot 100 success. With her unapologetic attitude and jaw-dropping vocals, Ava vaulted to the forefront of pop culture with “Sweet But Psycho,” which is now quadruple platinum and held a spot in the Top 10 on the Hot 100 for three weeks.  In 2020, she released her platinum-certified full-length debut, Heaven & Hell, which boasted the double-platinum “Kings & Queens,” platinum-certified “So Am I,” and gold-certified “Salt.” She has had blockbuster collaborations with the likes of David Guetta, Alan Walker, Pablo Alborán, and Jason Derulo. Ava also linked up with Tiësto for “The Motto” which not only crashed the Top 5 of the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs Chart, but it also picked up a platinum certification.

Her body of work has led Forbes to place her among its coveted “30 Under 30” for 2021, and win “Best Push Artist” at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Ava Max has continued her tremendous success in 2023 with the release of her impressive sophomore LP, Diamonds and Dancefloors in January. One of the lead singles on the album, “Maybe You’re The Problem” reeled in hundreds of millions of streams. Her next single from the project, “Million Dollar Baby” arrived to widespread critical acclaim.