British export Dev Hynes released his fourth album as Blood Orange, Negro Swan, today and boy does it rule. Quietly boasting features from A$AP Rocky, Tei Shi, Puff Daddy, Steve Lacy and Janet Mock, whose narration pops up throughout, Dev describes it as: “an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, and an honest look at the corners of black existence and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of colour”.
Atop his signature 80s synths, Dev’s soulful vocals venture back through both childhood and modern traumas, delving into different coping mechanisms. “The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of hope,” he details in a press release, “and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness.” It’s the short, sweet, hip-shaker of an album track, Out of Your League with The Internet’s Steve Lacy, that opens today’s BEST NEW MUSIC PLAYLIST.
Over to France now for The Blaze’s FACES, which, as whenever they tease a new track, leaves us waiting in anticipation for the cinematic and likely award-winning accompanying music video. We got the elusive duo drunk at Primavera and they spilled their master plans. Read all about that here.
Supergroup klaxon! As though they had some kind of plan to break the hearts of the entire world, Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker have joined forces on a three-track project they’re calling Boygenius. Our fave song, added to the playlist, natch, is called Me & My Dog. There will be tears. Let’s lighten the mood now, with news that Long Island musical theatre kids turned prodigiously-talented rockstar brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario — aka The Lemon Twigs — have released a new album. Except, it’s not just an album… it’s a rock musical. Go to School is a coming-of-age story about Shane, a pure of heart chimpanzee raised as a human boy, and The Fire is the climax of the whole thing.
Back in the regular old music world: Rudekid, FTSE and Jaykae served up a sweet garage tune, reminiscent of 3 of a Kind’s Babycakes, called Honey Dew; dream team Riton & Kah-Lo are carnival-ready with Up & Down; Wiley got Boasty with Dutch producer Mucky; Kojey Radical and Juls are far from Normal, in a good way; and Sheffield rockers Bring Me the Horizon have returned with MANTRA.
Then there’s new stuff from Yoko Ono, Rooney, audiobooks, JPEGMAFIA, Helena Deland and biggest-band-in-the-world-rn BTS, the Korean idols who just released a deluxe edition of their recent Love Yourself album with a bonus feature from Nicki Minaj. Fun!
