Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
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Widely regarded as one of the pioneers of generative music, Brian Eno has been creating ambient and generative music since the 1970s. His “Generative Music 1” and “Generative Music 2” software systems have been influential in the field.
Björk
Icelandic musician Björk has incorporated generative elements into her albums, such as “Biophilia” and “Vulnicura.” She collaborated with software developers and composers to create interactive and generative music apps for her audience.
Holly Herndon
Known for her experimental electronic music, Holly Herndon explores the intersection of human and artificial intelligence. She has used generative techniques to create immersive soundscapes and interactive performances.
Autechre
This pioneering electronic music duo, consisting of Rob Brown and Sean Booth, has been creating complex and abstract generative compositions throughout their career. Their music often combines intricate rhythms and evolving soundscapes.
Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai)
A German composer and visual artist, Alva Noto has embraced generative music as part of his creative process. His works often involve minimalistic and glitch aesthetics, with generative algorithms shaping the sonic output.
Ryoji Ikeda
Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda explores the realms of generative music and audiovisual installations. His works incorporate precise mathematical patterns and data-driven structures.
Mark Fell
Mark Fell is an experimental electronic musician who utilizes generative systems to create intricate rhythmic patterns and textures. His compositions often involve algorithmic processes and generative software.
Richard James (Aphex Twin)
Known for his innovative approach to electronic music, Aphex Twin has incorporated generative techniques into his compositions. His album “Selected Ambient Works Volume II” features generative elements and evolving textures.
Laraaji
Laraaji is an American musician and ambient artist who has utilized generative music techniques to create mesmerizing and meditative sonic landscapes. His music often incorporates improvisation and relaxation elements.
Tim Exile
Tim Exile is a British musician and innovator who has developed his own generative music software, such as “Flow Machine.” He uses these tools to create dynamic and interactive live performances.
In recent years, a fascinating musical phenomenon has emerged: generative music. This innovative form of composition and performance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create unique and ever-evolving musical compositions.
With the ability to compose, adapt, and respond in real-time, generative music offers a glimpse into the creative possibilities that arise when human ingenuity collaborates with AI algorithms. Let us explore this exciting intersection of technology and artistry and its impact on the music landscape.
The Essence of Generative Music:
Generative music refers to music that is continuously created and shaped by algorithms, often driven by machine learning techniques. Unlike traditional composition, which is fixed and pre-determined, generative music evolves in real-time, responding to various inputs such as user interactions, environmental factors, or random fluctuations.
Through a combination of predefined rules and the exploration of new patterns, generative music produces unique and unpredictable musical experiences.
The Power of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence plays a central role in generative music by enabling machines to analyze vast amounts of musical data, learn from patterns, and generate new musical sequences. Machine learning algorithms, such as recurrent neural networks and genetic algorithms, are trained on vast musical databases, absorbing the essence of various musical styles and structures.
This knowledge empowers AI systems to create music that emulates specific genres, artists, or moods, or even to produce entirely novel and groundbreaking compositions.
Endless Creativity and Collaborative Potential
One of the defining aspects of generative music is its ability to continuously evolve and adapt. By incorporating feedback loops and real-time interactions, generative music systems can respond to external cues, audience input, or even changes in the environment.
This fluidity and adaptability foster dynamic and ever-changing musical experiences, where no performance is the same.
Generative music also opens up exciting possibilities for collaboration between human composers and AI algorithms. Composers can use generative systems as creative tools, leveraging the machine’s ability to generate musical ideas, explore unconventional structures, or suggest novel chord progressions.
This collaboration between human intuition and machine-generated suggestions can push the boundaries of musical exploration and composition.
Expanding Musical Horizons
Generative music challenges traditional notions of authorship and creativity, blurring the lines between human and machine. It introduces new aesthetics and sonic landscapes that expand the listener’s musical horizons.
With generative music, the focus shifts from fixed compositions to the exploration of emergent patterns and sonic possibilities that continually unfold and surprise.
Applications and Impact
The impact of generative music extends beyond artistic expression. It has found applications in various fields, such as gaming, virtual reality, meditation, and ambient environments.
Generative music can create immersive soundscapes, adaptive soundtracks, or interactive musical experiences that respond to users’ actions, heightening engagement and enhancing the overall experience.
Moreover, generative music offers opportunities for therapeutic and therapeutic applications. Its ability to adapt and respond to individual needs allows for personalized and emotionally resonant musical experiences, supporting relaxation, focus, and emotional well-being.
Generative music represents a groundbreaking convergence of art, technology, and human creativity. It pushes the boundaries of musical composition and performance, offering an ever-changing and immersive sonic journey.
By merging the capabilities of artificial intelligence with human intuition and expression, generative music opens up a new realm of musical exploration, inspiring both composers and listeners to embrace the unexpected and tap into the infinite possibilities of sound.
As we continue to harness the potential of AI in the realm of generative music, we embark on a thrilling journey where human and machine creativity harmoniously coexist, transforming the way we perceive, create, and experience music.
BOSTON, Mass. – An ode to Woody Guthrie, Okemah Rising, the new album from Boston-based punk rockers Dropkick Murphys, is a triumphant celebration of resilience and hope.
The album is a tribute to the band’s roots and the blue-collar spirit of their hometown, and it showcases their signature blend of punk rock, Celtic folk, and socially conscious lyrics.
From the opening track “Middle Finger,” which is a blistering call to arms against oppression, to the closing anthem “Until the Next Time,” which is a moving tribute to the band’s fans and the power of live music, “Okemah Rising” is an exhilarating ride.
The album features explosive guitar riffs, driving rhythms, and infectious sing-along choruses that are sure to get any crowd jumping.
Throughout the album, Dropkick Murphys tackle a range of issues, from the struggles of working-class families (“L-EE-B-O-Y”) to the fight for social justice (“The Bonny”) to the enduring power of friendship and community (“Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding”).
The band’s lyrics are thoughtful and incisive, and they are delivered with a raw and passionate energy that is impossible to ignore.
One of the standout tracks on the album is “Queen of Suffolk County,” which is a tribute to the band’s late friend and former tour manager, Billy Sullivan.
The song is a heart-wrenching ballad that showcases the band’s emotional depth and their ability to connect with their audience on a personal level.
Overall, “Okemah Rising” is a tour de force from one of the most important punk rock bands of our time. It is a powerful reminder of the power of music to inspire and unite people, and it is sure to be an instant classic in the Dropkick Murphys’ catalog.
If you are a fan of Woody Guthrie, punk rock, Celtic music, or socially conscious lyrics, then this album is a must-listen.
San Diego indie rock band, Drug Hunt, just dropped this slow-burning, bluesy proto-psych track, “Through The Night.”
Paired with haunting vocals and lyrics, the band belts out a sped-up, reverb-veined, crunchy retro rock jam in the final stretchs of the track.
The track marks a new and refined sound from the hardened proto-psychedelia they first astonished the scene with.
From band’s publicist:
Recorded at the infamous Big Fish studio in Southern California with engineer Jordan Andreen (Earthless, The Damned) and featuring Adrian Terrazas-Gonzalez (Mars Volta) on saxophone… “Through The Night” manages to capture a sunday drive stroll, a bank robbery, a high speed pursuit and climactic cliff dive in a 1970 Buick Skylark.
“Through The Night” is 3 part epic with three sequential ingredients; one part nocturnal psychedelia, one part frenetic desert rock, and a finishing dollop of manic blues.
This array of genre-bending hallucinations is nothing new for the band. In the past they have been referred to as “Tarantino-esque” in their ability to take source material and mold it to their own likings.
But what is different here is the ‘mise en place’ they’ve developed over the years. The music is mischievously raw, yet meticulously measured and tested.
The narrative is also broken into three distinct parts, and resembles the onset of an existential episode turning deeper and deeper against its narrator. Lyrically the song meanders down the dark alleyways of an urban hellscape; through creepy avenues of inner monologue we glimpse the reflection of our frail minds, “I saw you walking through the night, terror filled the darkness in your eyes… there are no colors in your mind”. In this state we are subjected to our own hindrances, traumas, and addictions.
South London indie outfit The Elegant Chasers dropped a dazzling debut album, Sentimental Dust, on Friday following a series of single releases in recent months.
The latest, and fourth, single from the album, is “Car Salesman Smile” is a menacing alt rock-driven track with a mean riff running like a vein of discontent throughout. A cool new music video is also produced by Loizou.
After switching careers during the pandemic, the multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter behind the moniker is South London native Maz Loizou, set out on a road trip writing songs “around a derelict London [character]”.
Loizou, a former – and disgrunted – television producer, set out to assemble his own customize recording studio at home.
His musical style incorporates sounds from the 1990s grunge, alt rock and Brit-Pop movements as well as 1980s new wave influences.
“The music for ‘Car Salesman Smile’ was largely written during the Sentimental Dust album sessions,” Loizou says.
“The riff, bridge and chorus were conjured within a matter of minutes. I was looking for a 1970’s rock vibe along with influences from 1990’s bands like Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Faith No More and Terrorvision.”
Terrorvision’s “hit ‘Alice, What’s The Matter?’ inspired some of my rhythm guitar work. But for the vocals it was a line from a Therapy? track that stuck with me. The phrase ‘Car Salesman Smile’ was featured in their song ‘Hellbelly’…I penned down most of the lyrics for CSS a few years back, which was unusual for me in terms of songwriting approach,” Loizou explains
He adds that the song is essentially about a woman “being unfairly treated and how relationships can play out. Sadly, I have female friends who have these stories to tell. I felt compelled to write a song about it from someone on the outside looking in.”
Loizou explores how women are “taken advantage of by men (who appear to be genuine and charming).”
“My message [is]…don’t give up hope…you don’t deserve to be thrown on the scrapheap.
The first full-length release in six years for Austin indie rock band Shearwater, The Great Awakening, was co-produced with Dan Duszynski.
Here are some selected reviews of Shearwater’s newest album:
Sputnikmusic (90):
It’s a dark, gorgeous, twisted, spine-tingling experience that is able to pull off such a decelerated pace because it owns that pace entirely, injecting it with haunting rhythms and naturalistic beauty.
Uncut (80): Love and hope stay preciously rare yet infinitely possible, and this album’s guttering, guiding light.
Beats Per Minute (78):
Balancing stately pop ornamentation with more bombastically orchestrated moments, the album allows Meiburg to both indulge and scale back his dramaturgical impulses.
Mojo (60)
These opaque, often uneasy sounding songs conjure nature’s unpredictability and vulnerability as well as its beauty. PopMatters (60)
There are at least a handful of worthwhile inclusions here, and Shearwater’s overarching purpose is admirable. Regrettably, though, good intentions don’t necessarily equate to good execution. For the most part, The Great Awakening is a plodding creation whose occasionally fascinating nuances and continually astute insights are marred by persistent musical tedium and hollowness.
Snapchat has done a new deal with Live Nation to develop augmented-reality experiences for the app’s users at selected festivals, including Lollapalooza in the U.S. and Wireless in the U.K.
Open up your Snapchat camera at any of the eighteen events currently involved in this partnership and you’ll get a load of special stuff flying all over your screen that wouldn’t be there if you just used your eyes to engage with the event that is actually happening all around you.
Yeah, upon request, I will send you a recording of me tutting to enhance the experience further.
“We can leverage this huge userbase we have in a way that will make augmented reality the next phase of visual expression for artists”, says Ben Schwerin, Snap’s SVP Content & Partnerships.
“This really hasn’t been done before in a way that is part of the artist’s vision and helping it come to life”.
As well as Wireless, U.K. Snapchat users will be able to get in on all this at the Reading and Leeds festivals.
To help you picture what all this looks like, Snapchat and Live Nation have produced a video shot at Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas in which the event itself looks infinitely more exciting than anything that appears over the top of it on a phone screen.
You’re probably like a lot of us – so much music, so little time to seek out, organize, stream, like, save, etc. many of the best tracks released during March.
Even while March 2022 has arrived and passed like a blur, there were bunches and bunches of sick tracks dropped.
This playlist contains a lot of new and ‘revival’ post-punk indie/alt. The explosion in popularity of bands like Yard Act and Fontaines D.C., to name just a few, has resulted in a glowing river of new (from the old) post-punk sounds – mostly from relatively new, and unknown (but why?) bands from the U.K. and Ireland (where post-punk originally spawned 40 years ago from the ashes of the rather brief wave of popularity in punk rock).
Plus, there are a bunch of fresh tracks from well-known, veteran indie/alt artists as well as the buzz bands of the moment.
Also, don’t miss our still-popular Top 10 Indie Songs playlists – dropped every month of the year.
The post-pandemic creative bubble continues to burst and expand outwards (think big bang theory) as a sleuth of excellent new video singles flows non-stop into its own tributary, along with the best 2022 indie albums; audio singles, and special compilations.
In This Installment:
Wet Leg – Isle of Wright, England – “Angelica” PUP – Toronto, Ontario – “Matilda” Sadurn – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – “Golden Arm” Magdalena Bay – Miami, Florida – “Dreamcatching” Denzel Curry Ft. Slowthai – Miami, Florida – “Zatoichi”
Wet Leg – “Angelica” 5
It’s hard not to like Wet Leg. There is something about their dedication to indie rock and to not taking themselves too seriously which has caught on in the ‘wider-realm’ (if you will). This recent video for “Angelica” has racked up more than a half million views on this official YouTube version alone in just two weeks. And that’s because it’s dope. The band’s self-titled album is set to drop April 8th on Domino Records.
Last month Philadelphia indie rock band Sadurn announced their debut album, Radiator, set to drop in May via Run For Cover.
The new band, led by Genevieve DeGroot, shared a lead single, “Snake,” followed up with this chill wavy track, “Golden Arm.”
DeGroot says about the song and the accompanying video:
“I wrote this song at the same time as ‘snake’ while doing a work exchange on a homestead in North Carolina. It kind of all came out at once, which feels like this lucky occasion when you’re writing songs. I didn’t think much of it in its initial form, it felt like more of a poem than a story.”
“But playing it with the band for the first time, and then later adding the synth and the slide guitar and coming up with the harmonies when we made the recordings, all those layers really brought it into a different special realm. The video came about very serendipitously when Amelia and I were on a road trip back in the Fall with another friend. We found this amazing camping spot and decided to shoot a video on Amelia’s camcorder – the landscape there really felt like it fit with the song.
Radiator drops May 6th via Run For Cover.
Cover/feature photo above by Kevin PG Perry
PUP – “Matilda” 4
Indie veterans PUP have unveiled a new music flick for the track “Matilda” off of The Unravelling of PupTheBand.
Jeff Cubbison puts it best; calling the video “crafted in a more old school vein, tracing the touching journey of a cool-ass guitar through multiple owners. It’s a heart-on-your-sleeve story from a kick-ass, heart-on-your-sleeve kinda band. The director credit goes to Jefferson Dutton.
Magdalena Bay – “Dreamcatching”
The DIY video gods aren’t so DIY anymore which will allow Magdalena Bay to increase their artistic approach like on the latest video clip, “Dreamcatching,” “a spectacular, eye-popping animated odyssey that needs to be seen to be believed. If there’s any justice, then this should have the VMA for Video of the Year in the bag,” writes Impose.
Denzel Curry Ft. Slowthai – “Zatoichi”
Denzel Curry has dropped yet another music video single from the upcoming album Melt My Eyes See Your Future . The previously-dropped “Walkin” was a grandiose experiment in the sub-sub-genre space western style, while “Zatoichi” stands as “an ode to old-school samurai flicks.”
“The kaleidoscopic, psychedelic unraveling during Slowthai’s amen break-filled verse is the stuff of cinematic magic,” writes Jeff Cubbison for Impose magazine.
There is more DIY indie and alt. rock/pop/folk music than ever before. Everyone pretty much already knows that.
Still, for some folks, they like to have fellow music lovers do some sorting and selecting among a non-stop flow of gigabytes containing new DIY tracks and albums.
That’s where truly-indie blogs (like ours we hope) still have a place in the culture of indie and alt. rock. While blogs, like ours, have taken a huge hit in recent years – thanks largely to Spotify and social media – there is still a hankering ‘out there’ for carefully-selected homegrown indie music – across the ‘indie spectrum’ that includes indie rock; indie pop; indie folk, etc., and alt. rock; post-punk; new wave; psych rock; alt. country; dream pop; etc. Pretty much anything that sounds good and falls under the ‘indie/alt’ umbrella, to put it another way.
In This Installment:
z3th3r – Oakland, California – “Goodbye” Patches – Enid, Oklahoma – “A Nice Day to Orbit Saturn” Loops & Loops – Broxn, New York – “Not Yet” Ice of Neptune – Larisa, Greece – “Solitude” Poploader – Regensburg, Germany – “Books of Love”
z3th3r – “Goodbye”
OAKLAND, California – Bay Area producer Zachary Greer, aka z3th3r, together with vocalist Ulenni Okandlouvu, creates indie love on the new track, “Goodbye.”
About the song, Greer writes: “Ulenni says it’s "a prayer for loved ones to endure and stay strong in tough times, remembering that the journey of life always comes with ups and downs." Weaving dizzying guitar riffs through a lofi dysphoric soundscape, the sonic palate of the track is a reflection of the bittersweet notion of saying goodbye.”
Okandlovu is a professional artist from Matopo Hills, Zimbabwe and lead vocalist for the music duo Bantu Spaceships. Greer dabbles in indie rock, lo-fi, experimental with interest in field recordings, heavy 808 beats and guitar elements. The duo’s musical influences include Obongjayar, CKay, Four Tet, Bonobo, Tobi Nwigwe, and Flying Lotus.
ENID, Oklahoma – The indie-rock/post-punk trio Patches first met in the online world early last year. The band’s music is harmonic, pop infused rock with experimental noise since our inception, and the three members switch instrumental roles on the fly.
Patches’ new single, “A Nice Day to Orbit Saturn,” fulfills their new sound with “equal parts melody-oriented pop and scathing, distortion heavy feedback that quickly builds into layered guitar play,” says vocalist and bassist Nick Robilliard.
“Lyrically, it is a bitter, first person narrative of an astronaut in a futuristic setting who has resigned himself to being stranded on one of Saturns moons. Clean harmonies obscure some of the dread.”
The track is the band’s third song to be presented on their new album Tales We Heard From the Fields.
With backgrounds in REM style jangle pop, minimalistic art rock bands like Wire, and the bombast of outfits like Jesus Lizard, each member of Patches brings something unique to the band. The other two members are Evan Seurkamp (vocals, guitar) and Melodica Aaron Griffin (guitar, drums).
The trio’s major musical influences include original post-punk heroes like Wire, The Cure, Guided by Voices, Kitchens of Distinction, Gang of Four, and REM.
Loops & Loops began as a musical project of Bronx-based producer/musician Peter Bogolub formed as a way to deal with the quarantine.
As a result, Bogolub ended up experimenting mostly with lo-fi. After a few short months, he had recorded over 60 songs and had released two albums under his Loops & Loops moniker.
Initially, he recorded under the name The Sems and released shoegaze/dream pop style of music under that moniker for many years.
Elements of shoegaze and dream pop as well as indie and indie-folk are clear on singles like “Not Yet”.
Some of the material is purely instrumental, fitting for the background of movies and montages. Others are more introspective with vocals reminiscent of Elliot Smith and Yo La Tengo. Good stuff.
Ice of Neptune: “Solitude”
Based in the town of Larisa, Greece, the band members of the alt progressive rock band Ice of Neptune, belt out a captivating sound on their new single, “Solitude.”
The band members are vocalist Pierlorenzo Molinari; guitarist and keyboards Timoleon Adamopoulos; bassist Federico Giardini; and drums Alessandro Bissa.
The song, according to the band is “a story tale through modern man’s eyes during the decades and the social facts that happened.”
Molinari (ex-Kezia/ex-Blackmail of Murder) and Adamopoulos (Forbidden Lore) founded the band originally in 2010.
Poploader – “Books of Love”
The ‘revival’ music of German indie rockers Poploader is quite a kick.
Take this latest single and video, “Books of Love.” We don’t usually go for ‘cutesy’ type of indie rock/pop but this is such an original and impossibly-catchy track. This is one of the first new songs from the band in 20 years.
At the end of the nineties, the young trio spent many hours and days together in stinking rehearsals, backstage rooms, and live show after live show.
Fast-forward to the year 2018. The band members meet up for a beer, reminiscence of the past, and decide to record some new tracks together. “Books of Love” is one of the results and it proves the band can still rock as does its predecessor, and equally as catchy, the 2020 single, “Summerboy Blues.”
The member’s musical influences demonstrate exceptional taste: The Kinks, Oasis, The Kooks, and DMA’s via The Cure, and David Bowie.
Fans of English indie guitar pop can look forward to more catchy songs with a lot of optimism, a pinch of retro, and great recognition value.
Mark Lanegan (57) was the lead vocalist for the indie rock band Screaming Trees.
He was easily one of the central figures in the Seattle grunge rock scene for many years. Lanegan also recorded for Queens of the Stone Age and was well regarded by many fellow musicians.
Lanegan was hospitalized for Covid-19 earlier this month but passed away on Tuesday due to complications caused by the effects of Covid on his body.
To honor and raise more awareness of Black History Month we put together a playlist of black artists and bands who’ve galvanized change.
Not just a voice in song or lyric, but in speaking out about racism, in their own way, and of course who made a big impact on society, politics, and culture with their music, and their words.
There is no shortage of black musicians, singers, and songwriters who have addressed racism and injustice in one way or another through the years – mostly through the words of their songs of course.
