Latest news with #indie
CBC
a day ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Mac DeMarco's miraculous awakening, and 3 more songs you need to hear this week
Songs you need to hear is CBC Music's weekly list of hot new Canadian tracks. Scroll down to discover the songs our producers are loving right now. For even more new music, check out our SYNTH playlist on Youtube. Holy, Mac DeMarco Over an animated yet unadorned guitar riff, Mac DeMarco's voice quivers as he sings about a "miracle from above" on Holy: "Miracle/ Reveal yourself to me," he sings with his signature silvery twang. The indie singer-songwriter wrote and produced the lean track entirely on his own, and it serves as the second single from his forthcoming Aug. 22 album, Guitar. A simple bass line helps ground the melody, which is understated and gentle without feeling too sparse. In DeMarco's typical D.I.Y. fashion, he self-shot the track's accompanying music video, which transports listeners into the outdoors for a breezy walk: "I waded around in the ocean fully clothed for a couple hours and completely filled my boots with seawater," he shared. "There were some other shots on some rocks I kept trying too, but in the end, the clip of me falling in the garden and eating the apple was best." — Natalie Harmsen Good Buddy, Fontine Cover me up, spin me around, tell me you're not gonna leave. We're takin' it slow but I already know, you're a good buddy to me. With that joyful chorus Fontine is back, serving a grittier sound than the folk she introduced us to on her acclaimed 2023 debut EP, Yarrow Lover. Although Fontine is embracing a rock-star vibe this time around, ready to roll with a debut album set for Oct. 7, the centre of her songs are still heartfelt and vulnerable. Good Buddy, the forthcoming album's title track, is named after CB radio slang for "gay," and the queer artist from Winnipeg leans into the term, setting us up with a live-off-the-floor song filled with tiny, quiet moments of love. — Holly Gordon Annihilation, Tops There's always a sense of anxiety that floods in when thinking about the future, but that sentiment feels tenfold in this exact moment in time. Montreal indie-pop stalwart Tops has chosen to tackle this with "a mix of complacency and surrendering," as explained in a statement. That's not as dire as it sounds though; sometimes there's freedom in acknowledging "in the end, nothing is ever finished and you just gotta follow your heart." That is felt across their latest single, Annihilation, a slinky number that was built off the foundation of drummer Riley Fleck's fill-heavy rhythms. "Truth is I'm just barely getting by," sings Jane Penny, "When I lose control/ Will I surface and know/ That I've reached the end?" Complete with synths and a dramatic chorus breakdown, it's easy to get lost — and yes, surrender — to the song's undeniable grooves. — Melody Lau Rapture in Blue, Daniel Avery and Cécile Believe British producer and composer Daniel Avery announced his upcoming album Tremor last week, with the release of a new single featuring Cécile Believe. Rapture in Blue is buoyed by the Montreal (now L.A.-based) producer and singer's ethereal vocals that float over Avery's textural layers of slowed-down breakbeat and reverb. Clanging guitar comes in on the chorus as Cécile Believe reaches her upper register and glittering chords descend in the aftermath. It's a lush and effusive track that reveals more and more of its magic on repeat listens. This one's for the real yearners, as she sings in the second verse: "Every time you walk away/ A little piece of me goes/ A bittersweet, sticky feeling/ Only lovers can know." — Kelsey Adams
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
This is one of the most disturbing horror films I've seen in years
Bring Her Back offers cult rituals and Sally Hawkins plotting in cable-knit cardigans: it's hard to decide which is freakier. This Australian indie horror is strong meat – it takes quite a lot these days to earn an 18 certificate with 'injury detail' – and often batteringly violent. It's the opposite of a gateway horror for the trepidatious. It beckons in the brave. The directors, Danny and Michael Philippou, got famous with stunt videos on YouTube before their hit debut Talk to Me (2022) – the one with an embalmed hand as a spirit-conjuring device, ruining lives. You look at the characters in Bring Her Back, which is possibly even bleaker, and worry if a single one will make it out alive. Teenage siblings Andy (a mightily promising Briton, Billy Barratt, who won awards for the 2019 BBC drama Responsible Child) and his younger sister Piper (partially sighted newcomer Sora Wong, also amazing) are orphaned at the start, when they find their ailing father dead in their bathroom. The social services pair Piper with a foster mother called Laura (Hawkins, garishly dressed even at the funeral, and unnervingly overfamiliar). Laura is grieving after her own blind daughter drowned in their weird, triangular swimming pool. Andy refuses to be separated from his sister and moves in, too. It's instantly clear Laura wants rid of this third wheel – the only question is how. We learn to trust nothing she says or does. Another alleged child of hers called Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) prowls around the garden mutely, a feral urchin who keeps breaking his teeth on things and molesting the cat. He also tries to eat a kitchen knife, which doesn't go well and is impressively hard to watch. Whatever Laura has put in him – we know there's black magic afoot, from scratchy camcorder footage of occult rites – seems as diseased as it is demonic. The horror DNA here is a three-fold splicing of Stephen King's Pet Sematary, Ari Aster's Hereditary and Kate Hudson's chiller The Skeleton Key, a slice of supernatural body-swap hokum for which I have a real soft spot. Bring Her Back could have done with a twist or two, like that had, but this isn't to say it doesn't inflict shocks: there's no safe ground here once we grasp the resurrection agenda, and how single-mindedly Laura's devoted to it. Hawkins deepens tremendously. She makes this person comically dreadful, then manipulative, then dangerous; but what's waiting in the role is an abyss of desolation she really commits to. Laura's a villain who has brainwashed herself into thinking she's the heroine. That's genuinely tragic. The ways she tricks Piper into distrusting her brother are pure Iago tactics – it's a wrench to watch them paying off. All three of the young actors give a lot, too. You could get PTSD from the rain-drenched, howlingly sad Bring Her Back just as a viewer. It would be nice to hear the cast were treated to a relaxing beach holiday afterwards.
South China Morning Post
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
What does AI band The Velvet Sundown's rise mean for the future of music?
While few expect The Velvet Sundown to start picking up Grammy awards in the near future with its bland indie ballads, there are some who are beginning to wonder. Advertisement In the space of just six weeks, the band has pumped out three albums containing 13 songs each and had close to 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify as of July 22. But The Velvet Sundown – or rather, its makers – do not hide behind the fact that it has been relying on artificial intelligence to do so. 'Not quite human. Not quite machine. The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between,' it says on the band's social media accounts and its Spotify site. It is said to be a band of four, but the members have not been seen in public so far. Images of the group have evidently been created by AI. Advertisement Music by The Velvet Sundown started making the rounds across streaming platforms in early June. Combining rock, country and folk elements, most of the songs are interchangeable, mellow and tame – as long as you ignore lines like 'March for peace, not for pride' in the group's most played song, 'Dust on the Wind'.
New York Times
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Is She Jazz? Is She Pop? She's Laufey, and She's a Phenomenon.
For Laufey, 2024 was a whirlwind year. 2025 may be even wilder. Last year, the indie singer-songwriter, who cannot be described without a flurry of hyphenated hybrids — Icelandic-Chinese, jazz-pop-classical, TikTok-trad — became a breakout star with a quirky pop style that draws equally from Taylor Swift and the romantic whimsy of midcentury musicals. She won a Grammy Award and attended the Met Gala in a rosé-colored princess gown and, in perhaps the ultimate orchestra-nerd Easter egg, a veil embroidered with a Bach fugue. In an interview this spring, as she prepared to release her third studio album, 'A Matter of Time,' Laufey, 26, was still practically glowing over those accomplishments. But seated at a control console at Electric Lady Studios in New York, where she recorded three of the album's 14 songs, she also cataloged the jitters and anxieties she felt being thrust into the machinery of fame. 'I wanted 2025 to be this year where I was less anxious,' she said, 'and instead of walking meekly onto the red carpets or meekly into relationships, I wanted to walk with confidence.' 'And I wanted to write a country song,' Laufey continued. She paused a beat. 'Country-ish,' she amended herself, and then pushed a button to play 'Clean Air' — a twangy starting-over ballad that she said was partly inspired by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris's 'Trio' albums from the 1980s and '90s. In just a few years, Laufey — her name is properly pronounced with a vowel unfamiliar to most English speakers, but she answers to LAY-vay — has become a phenomenon almost without comparison in contemporary pop. Even in an age of scrambled genres, she stands out as a master code-switcher who cites inspiration from Prokofiev and Chet Baker yet has racked up more than five billion streams with concise, witty earworms that paint a glamorous wonderland shaded with the second guessings of a Gen Z diarist. Despite ruffling some feathers among the conservative gatekeepers of jazz, she has cultivated a vast fan base online and this fall will embark on her first arena tour, including two nights at Madison Square Garden. And she has big fans. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Men I Trust Adds Live Grit to Gorgeous, Shimmering Dreampop Songs at Brooklyn Tour Launch: Concert Review
Canadian indie outfit Men I Trust seems beamed down from the heavens to be a headphones band. Lead singer and guitarist Emmanuelle Proulx's gentle vocals float along over a textured dreampop sound built alongside guitarist Jessy Caron and keyboardist Dragos Chiriac. The lyrics about romance and longing fit both modes the band operates in: The airy studio versions of their material, and the group's popular 'Forever Live Sessions' releases, which find the musicians huddled together and playing live. How is the group's sound translated to a live-with-audience show? Men I Trust launched the Equus North American Tour at Brooklyn's Lena Horne Bandshell on Friday night, and it's clear the band has perfected a third branch of their sound: a dynamic, road-ready live act. 2025 has been a prolific year for the group, as it included the release of its fifth and sixth studio albums, 'Equus Asinus' in March and 'Equus Caballus' in May. While the former was a slight stylistic diversion, relying more on acoustic sounds and the tempos notched down, the latter continued the unhurried but bouncy rhythm section on many of their best-known compositions. Supplemented by longtime touring bandmates Eric Maillet on drums and mononymic bassist Alexis, Men I Trust opened a career-spanning set with the bright, synth-heavy new song 'To Ease You.' One thing that separates the band from dreampop peers is the surprisingly swinging rhythm section, in which a structured bassline dances around a steady drumbeat. This heartbeat allows for propulsion even when the vibe is demure, and the opening chug of 'To Ease You' set the tone that even with hushed melodies, the set would keep moving. Perhaps the group's biggest live strength is their steadfast commitment to play in the pocket, with parts that best serve the song. Besides a guitar solo or two, the arrangements are locked in, eschewing showboating to blend seamlessly with each other. Their sound flowed on tracks like fan favorite 'Tailwhip,' with Maillet's driving but tasteful drum line creating structure for Alexis' muted, funk-influenced bass, with Chiriac's siren-inspired synth interplaying with the two guitarists, laying down pedal-distorted riffs under Proulx's fragile, gorgeous vocal line. It's a tricky balance, but the band (and the hard-working sound experts at the venue) let every well-balanced note shine through. Hearing the group's work recontextualized live also allows some of their influences to shine through even brighter. The guitars of 'Where I Sit' recall quirky '80s bands like Oingo Boingo, where 'Carried Away' is made more muscular live and sounds like a deconstruction of a forgotten grunge anthem. 'Serenade of Water' finds the group approaching trip hop, with a searching guitar line run through an expressive pedal, while 'Seven' feels like it could be a b-side to Eagles' 'The Long Run,' with a lick and rolling rhythm straight out of 1979. Despite all of these dips into the rock music songbook, all of the jams are unmistakably Men I Trust, synthesizing these ideas in tasteful ways to nudge their sound, not break it. Ending their encore by pogoing through the upbeat tracks 'Worn Down' and 'Billie Toppy,' the dancing crowd showed the power of a band turning up their amps and going large. While many Men I Trust songs began in the privacy of hushed bedrooms or small studios, the ace songwriting and Proulx's soulful vocals can touch thousands in a crowd. Best of Variety The Best Albums of the Decade
