Latest news with #ANTI
Scoop
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
The Beths Announce New Album 'Straight Line Was A Lie' & Release New Single 'No Joy'
The Beths — the Auckland based quartet of vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck — announce their new album, Straight Line Was A Lie —their first for their new label ANTI —out August 29th, and share the new single/video, 'No Joy.' The Beths know the futility of straight lines. Existential vertigo serves as the primary theme on the indie heroes' fourth album. The Beths posit that the only way round is through; that even after going through difficult, transformative experiences, you can still feel as though you've ended up in the same place. It's a bewildering thing, realising that life and personal growth are cyclical and continual. That a chapter doesn't always end with peace and acceptance. That the approach is simply continuing to try, to show up. 'Linear progression is an illusion,' Stokes explains. 'What life really is is maintenance. But you can find meaning in the maintenance.' The path from The Beths' critically celebrated and year-end-list-topping 2022 album Expert In A Dying Field to Straight Line Was A Lie was anything but straightforward. For the first time, Stokes was struggling to write new songs beyond fragments she'd recorded on her phone. She'd recently started taking an SSRI, which on one hand made her feel like she could 'fix' everything broken in her life, from her mental and physical health to fraught family dynamics. At the same time, writing wasn't coming as easily as it had before. ' I was kind of dealing with a new brain, and I feel like I write very instinctually,' she says. ' It was kind of like my instincts were just a little different, they weren't as panicky.' While Stokes felt a huge relief from taking an SSRI, she articulates the emotional trade-offs on today's single, 'No Joy,' which thunders in with Deck's vigorous percussion and drops another classic Beths soundbite: 'This year's gonna kill me/ Gonna kill me.' Ironically, though, the stress Stokes sings about can't touch her, thanks to her pharmaceutical regimen. She wants the feeling back. " It's about anhedonia, which, paradoxically, was there both in the worst parts of depression, and then also when I was feeling pretty numb on my SSRI,' Stokes says. ' It wasn't that I was sad, I was feeling pretty good. It was just that I didn't like the things that I liked. I wasn't getting joy from them. It's very literal.' In writing Straight Line Was A Lie, Stokes and Pearce broke down the typical Beths writing process. For inspiration, they read Stephen King's On Writing, How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, and Working by Robert A. Caro. Liz broke out a Remington typewriter (a birthday gift from Beths bassist Benjamin Sinclair) every morning for a month, writing 10 pages' worth of material — mostly streams of consciousness. The resulting stack of paper was the primary fodder for an extended writing retreat to Los Angeles between tours, where Stokes and Pearce also leaned heavily into LA's singular creative atmosphere, went to shows, watched Criterion classics from Kurosawa, and listened to Drive-By Truckers, The Go-Go's, and Olivia Rodrigo. Opening themselves up to a wave of creative input, plus Stokes' free-flowing writing routine, proved therapeutic. ' Writing so much down forced me to look at stuff that I didn't want to look at,' Stokes says. ' In the past, in my memories. Things I normally don't like to think about or I'm scared to revisit, I'm putting them down on paper and thinking about them, addressing them.' Already a celebrated lyricist, Stokes has long impressed fans and critics with wryly knowing song titles like 'Future Me Hates Me' and 'Expert In A Dying Field' — catchy, instant-classic turns of phrase that capture the personal and ladder up to the universal. But Stokes' intentional deconstruction and rebuilding of her relationship to writing, however, has resulted in a complete renewal. Her songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability, making Straight Line Was A Lie the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date. Following Liz Stokes's recent, sold–out solo show at Largo in Los Angeles with special guests Roz Hernandez, Courtney Barnett and Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords), The Beths announced a world tour across North America, the UK and Europe this fall. They'll headline some of their biggest venues to date, including The Wiltern in Los Angeles, The Fillmore in San Francisco, The Salt Shed in Chicago, Brooklyn Paramount in New York City, Union Transfer in Philadelphia, 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and more. A full list of dates is below, and tickets are now available here.
Scoop
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Andy Shauf's Foxwarren New Album, 2, Out Now Via ANTI-
Canadian quintet Foxwarren – Andy Shauf, Avery and Darryl Kissick, Dallas Bryson, and Colin Nealis their new album, 2, out now via ANTI-. Alongside the album they release the new single/video 'Deadhead'. Following 'Yvonne,' praised by AV Club as 'an understated kind of gorgeous,' 'Deadhead' sees Foxwarren on a quest for levity. The song seamlessly moves from an MF Doom -like pitch-shifted sample to a line-dance guitar lick to honeyed country-rock harmonies of the titular band all in three minutes. There are darting flutes, mangled electronics, and meticulous snippets of rhythm, all expertly placed to illustrate the song's emotional tumult. 'I won't stop dancing,' as Shauf sings, is exactly the feeling the song evokes. 'Deadhead' exemplifies the unique approach Foxwarren took in creating 2. After touring their lauded 2018 self-titled debut, the band dropped the familiar band-in-a-room routine. Instead, in their own home studios across four provinces, all five members would upload song ideas, melodic phrases, or rhythmic bits to a shared folder. In Toronto, Shauf would then plug these into a sampler and construct songs from the fragments supplied by his bandmates, leaning into classic hip-hop techniques and musique concrète alike as unlikely lodestars. Foxwarren would convene at weekly online meetings, offering long-distance suggestions about which way a song might shift. The result is mesmerizing and uncanny, an album that traces two sides of a relationship through 37 minutes of collage art that aspires to 'sound best blasting out your car window,' as put by Shauf. By himself, Shauf has already had a stellar career, his reputation built by the sweet melodies and uniquely imaginative and precise storytelling found on 2016's The Party through to 2023's Norm. Foxwarren, especially here, is a crucial part of that ongoing process, but 2 represents something even more significant—five friends now nearing the end of their second decade making music together, pushing against what they've learned how to do in order to venture somewhere new. It is the sound of friends who trust each other, cutting themselves loose from their past and their preconceptions to have some fun with a sampler and the very idea of songs.
Rakyat Post
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Rakyat Post
Rihanna Finally Releases A Song Titled ‘'Friend Of Mine'' But It's Not What Fans Expected
Subscribe to our FREE Barbadian singer and businesswomen Rihanna has not released music for almost nine years. To put the gap years into perspective, her last album ANTI was released in 2016! Her fans have been asking for her to drop new songs. However, she has always kept them waiting while she focused on her cosmetics line, Fenty Beauty, her lingerie and activewear band, Savage x Fenty, and growing her family. She last announced the makings of her upcoming album R9, a fan-given nickname for her ninth studio album, in 2020, and there was not much news since. Imagine her fans' excitement when she dropped a new song and a music video for the upcoming Smurfs movie. Many were expecting another hit song or a dancey track from the queen but the song 'Friend Of Mine'' was as catchy but a little different from Rihanna's sound, so-to-speak. In the whole song, Rihanna sings one line ''feel like a friend of mine'' repeatedly. Since the movie is aimed at young children and families, it's understandable that RiRi has to keep the song simple, memorable, and PG. However, this drew amused comments from her adult fans who have waited for her to drop a new track after all these years. A YouTube user jokingly wrote, 'yall want music, yall ain't say what kind'' while another person believes the singer was just dropping by the studio for a visit when she was called in to record a line. Someone else thanked Rihanna for the ''voice note'' in the song while another user admitted they knew they were being trolled when they saw Rihanna smiling in the beginning of the video. Nevertheless, the reception to the song was positive with some praising the song for being versatile. It's not the first time Rihanna recorded a song for a kids movie. She previously sang ' Share your thoughts with us via TRP's . Get more stories like this to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter.
News24
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News24
Rihanna shows off her growing belly at the Cannes Film Festival
Rihanna showcased stunning maternity fashion at the Cannes Film Festival and MET Gala while embracing her latest pregnancy with A$AP Rocky. The singer-businesswoman continues balancing her career, motherhood, and ventures like FENTY following her last album, ANTI, in 2016. A proud mom to two, Rihanna cherishes parenthood and praises A$AP as a supportive partner, noting their relationship has flourished since it began in 2019. Barbadian singer-songwriter and businesswoman Rihanna has once again proven that she is the queen of maternity fashion after she showed off her growing belly in a gorgeous blue dress at the Cannes Film Festival. The mom of two attended the event with her long-term partner and the children's father, rapper A$AP Rocky, at the premiere of his new movie, Highest 2 Lowest. A few days later, she stepped out in a sexy black two-piece while dining with A$AP at Palm Beach in Cannes, France. AFP The 37-year-old shocked her millions of fans when she unveiled her baby bump on the Met Gala red carpet earlier this month. She embraced the gala's theme, 'Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,' opting for a custom Marc Jacobs suit dress featuring a cropped blazer, a pinstriped skirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. While the look perfectly interpreted black dandyism, the show's real star was her baby bump, which was proudly showcased in the figure-hugging dress. Getty Needless to say, there has been endless chatter surrounding her latest pregnancy, particularly among fans who have been waiting anxiously for her to make new music. The singer's last album, ANTI, was released in 2016. While she continued to release singles and perform, she shared that she was taking a break from making albums to focus on her other business ventures, which include her highly successful beauty brand FENTY and her joint fashion venture with German brand Puma. In May 2022, she welcomed her first child, RZA Athelston Mayers. On 1 August the following year, Rihanna and A$AP's second child, Riot Rose Mayers, was born. The Umbrella hitmaker frequently discusses motherhood and shared in a Los Angeles Times interview that she had always wanted to be a mother. 'The only thing that I knew I wanted [10 to 15 years ago], or that I could imagine, was motherhood,' she said. 'I didn't know how it would come, but it is the best part of my journey so far. Everything else was a surprise.' She also previously opened up about the stress of juggling her highly successful career and parenthood while keeping negative feelings of not doing enough at bay. Rihanna and A$AP officially started dating in 2019 when the Covid-19 pandemic first hit; she revealed in a previous interview that the lockdown partly contributed to how fast their relationship moved. Despite the speed, she describes their romance as great and praises him for being a good father and support system.
NZ Herald
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Listener's Songs of the Week New tracks by the Beths, Ladi6 and more
Well, that's a worrying song title for Auckland indie guitar pop wonders the Beths (pictured above by Frances Carter), especially as this single is the first release after signing to Los Angeles label ANTI, which, as an offshoot of Epitaph Records, has roots in 1990s Californian skate-punk. But it's actually a quieter, gentler Beths. The 'metal' of the title is about the need for iron in the blood in a song of physiological lyrical
