María Volonte recorded "La Vidala para mi Sombra" at the special request of Christian Scholze for "Portrait," an album Network Medien was bringing out to introduce María's music to European audiences. Later we crossed paths with Argentine dancer and choreographer Matías Tripodi in the South of France. Matías confessed his desire to dance the Vidala and we recorded it then and there in a land far from Argentina but every bit as lonely and beautiful.
Ben Watt Releases 6-Track Mini-Album Storm Shelter Featuring A Cover of
Sharon Van Etten's "Comeback Kid"
Stripped-Back Piano-Vocal Companion Piece To His Acclaimed 2020 Album Storm Damage To Benefit
UK Homlessness Charity, Shelter
Watch The Video For "That’s The Way Love Is"
by Filmmaker Rahim Moledina
Today, Wednesday, April 28, Ben Watt surprise-releases Storm Shelter, a 6-track companion piece to his acclaimed 2020 studio album Storm Damage. The mini-album contains four Watt compositions and covers of Ten City’s house classic "That’s The Way Love Is" and Sharon Van Etten's "Comeback Kid."
Award-winning London film-maker Rahim Moledina who wrote and directed videos for Watt’s songs "Hendra" and "Sunlight Follows the Night" has made a new film to accompany "That's The Way Love Is."
The mini-album, recorded during rehearsals for the Storm Damage Tour in January 2020, is a stripped-back piano-and-vocals set that was due for release during Watt’s world tour last year, before it was held up by pandemic-related postponements and the ultimate cancellation of all his shows.
"In an ideal world the recordings would have come out last year mid-tour," says Watt, "but instead they close a chapter on a year of lockdown. For a while I thought about abandoning them, but listening again I thought their unadorned spirit seemed to speak to something of the strength in adversity we have all looked for recently."
With a year of shows ahead of him Watt was forced to pull the plug on his Storm Damage Tour the night before his London date at Queen Elizabeth Hall on March 14 2020. Dates in Europe, North America, Japan and Australia soon followed suit as COVID-19 caused widespread disruption.
In addition to the two covers, Storm Shelter includes new versions of three songs - "Balanced on a Wire," "Summer Ghosts" and "Sunlight Follows the Night" - from Storm Damage, and one - "Winter’s Eve" - from Watt’s 2016 album, Fever Dream.
All the songs were recorded in one day at RAK Studios in London and are engineered and mixed by Bruno Ellingham.
Watt is donating an advance on royalty proceeds to UK homelessness charity, Shelter. "I have spent much of this year publicly campaigning to save my local reservoir in north London from decades of neglect," he says. "Aside from the ecological crisis, there is a human crisis of displaced residents from waterside redevelopment and shoreline rough-sleeping. I wanted to help shine a light on this too."
Storm Shelter is released digitally on Unmade Road under exclusive license to Virgin Music Label & Artist Services on April 28. Limited edition vinyl and CD versions are planned for later in the year.
Last week, Austin-based musician Danny Goldenreleased his new EP Changes, the followup to Golden’s 2018 full-length Old Love. Today, Danny released the video for the EP’s single “Cigarettes and Sunburn” — “the song is about love cut short by time and circumstance,” says Golden. “It’s about the promise of new love and the mystery of what could have been. The song and video explore the pain of loss, which, like a sunburn, lingers until it slowly fades away.”
Explore the creative music of singer, songwriter, and
musician Michael Riser. Riser’s music is a mixture of classic rock, poprock and
country. Riser does not just stay in his music lane for writing lyric's, which
is a good thing because we get to hear a variety of beautifully written songs.
“‘ANTI’ is a song I wish we never had to make. Unfortunately it was also the easiest to make,” he says. “Firstly, I think [the number of reported incidences] was always higher than what has been reported in the past because culturally and historically, we don't snitch. Hateful rhetoric is such an everyday occurrence for Asian-Americans. Sadly, it's become normalized in our community. As such, we have a tendency to (try and) shrug it off, put our heads down, and keep it moving. That said, I think the skyrocketing numbers in the past year are a direct result of the former president using phrases like ‘The China Virus’ and ‘Kung-Flu’ with reckless abandon, thereby sanctioning racist behavior and the scapegoating of Asians in the COVID era.”
“Our previous president’s anti-Asian sentiments has given a lot of his supporters free range to vilify and victimize us,” adds Cutso.
Hoping that this song will effect a change that extends beyond the music industry, Lyrics Born and Cutso will donate all proceeds raised from the sale of the single to Stop AAPI Hate (https://stopaapihate.org/), the national coalition addressing anti-Asian racism across the U.S. “This organization is integral in tracking and keeping log of all anti-Asian incidents being reported to activate resources that help bring awareness to our plight as members of the Asian/AAPI community,” explains Cutso.
“We have to speak out and not put our heads down and ignore abuse when it happens,” says Lyrics Born. “I hope ‘ANTI’ will provide some relief and respite for people like us who have faced this kind of treatment since we've been in this country. I also hope it will open the eyes of many non-Asians who may not know this is happening on the regular and build solidarity with other people of color.”
“People think Asians are background music,” he concludes. “We're just not respected in the way I demand to be. That's changing now. We have much more presence in pop culture and on social media than in the past, and our voices have more resonance.”
Tentree is a clothing company that supports the planet by helping to plant trees. Tentree also works with other brands doing amazing things in sustainability and they are planting trees together.
Chicago Fashion Week powered by FashionBar LLC. kicks off The Designer Reveal scheduled for April 10th 2021 4:00PM. Fashion week is scheduled from April 18th to April 25th 2021. This year is very special as we've been on COVID19 rules and restrictions for over 16 months here in Chicago Illinois with our last fashion week was produced on October 2019 and now we're back!!
FashionBar LLC.
MUISC FILM FASHION BLOG
Bonnaroo revealed the 2021 Lineup, featuring Foo Fighters, Lizzo, Tyler, The Creator, Tame Impala, Megan Thee Stallion, Lana Del Rey, Lil Baby, My Morning Jacket, Run The Jewels and many more!
Gary Louris releases his latest song off his new solo album Jump For Joy, which releases June 4 via Sham/Thirty Tigers. The catchy, bouncy new single is accompanied by a music video Louris made himself. It was featured this morning at American Songwriter, who praised the “universally resonant track” and called the new album “an intimate reconnection with the artist who does it all.”
“‘Almost Home’ started out as a jingle idea for a phone company, it was just the catchy chorus,” says Louris. “When the client didn’t use it, I wrote the verses and then it was a real song, and I’m glad they passed on it. It’s a story of travel and longing.”
Watch the video right here and explore garylourismusic.com