jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 03/04/2022 - Fortnite Friday, DakhaBrakha Saw This Coming, Afrobeats, Morris Day, Nilüfer Yanya...

I played my viola for five minutes yesterday. Just so that my instrument knows it's OK. My viola was very out of tune; instruments feel. My viola is at home, under my bed. It's very important to me. It might get damaged, because rockets have been hitting the higher floors of buildings.
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Friday March 04, 2022
REDEF
Singer Julia Sanina of Ukrainian rock band the Hardkiss at Stereo Plaza, Kyiv, Oct. 21, 2016.
(Alexandr Gusev/LightRocket/Getty Images)
quote of the day
"I played my viola for five minutes yesterday. Just so that my instrument knows it's OK. My viola was very out of tune; instruments feel. My viola is at home, under my bed. It's very important to me. It might get damaged, because rockets have been hitting the higher floors of buildings."
- Uliana, 16-year-old member of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, currently staying in a shelter
rantnrave://
Fortnite Friday

It's Friday, the first Bandcamp Friday since Bandcamp was acquired by Fortnite maker Epic Games, and though the future of the best record store on the internet is very much a matter of speculation at this point (which means skepticism and sadness laced with a tinge of hope), Bandcamp remains, for now, exactly what Bandcamp has always been. And today, like the first Monday of most months, the site is waiving its share of revenues, which means almost every penny you spend goes directly to the artists and/or labels. Many of these new releases can be found there.

THE WORLD IS GOING TO RUIN YOU is the title—and the vibe—of the second album by Boston hardcore powerhouse VEIN.FM (formerly just Vein). Singer Anthony DiDio describes the album as "a boarded-up house that's much more expansive than you thought—this nightmarish world inside of a house." There's sonic catharsis inside, too... After several albums of "archive trolling" (nicely put, Giovanni Russonello) through "the unsavory history of American popular song," jazz singer and MacArthur fellow CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT flips the balance toward her own songwriting on GHOST SONG—while still making room for tunes by Kate Bush, Sting and Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill... In the seven years since he dropped his debut single, British rapper KOJEY RADICAL has collaborated with the likes of jazz group Sons of Kemet and actress/writer Michaela Coel, dabbled in documentary filmmaking, released a string of EPs and funded music education programs for kids from underrepresented communities. But he waited till today to drop his debut album, REASON TO SMILE, which mixes "bouncy grime, smooth R&B and skittering P-Funk"... PAINLESS is the second album from British singer/songwriter NILÜFER YANYA, whose songs sound "like someone's private stream-of-consciousness externalized in the legible grammar of well-crafted melodies"...Canadian songwriter Tamara Lindeman, aka the WEATHER STATION, follows up her much-talked-about 2021 climate disaster album, "Ignorance," with what's basically an album of leftovers. Accordingly, the Green New Deal is still very much on her mind on HOW IS THAT I SHOULD LOOK AT THE STARS, and if you can actually call this gorgeous ballad a leftover, you have tougher ears than I do... DOLLY PARTON's 48th (!) album is the soundtrack to RUN ROSE RUN, the novel she co-wrote with James Patterson about a country singer with a dark past, which comes out Monday. That means 12 Parton originals "delivered with Parton's weapons' grade grit and propulsion" and, if I'm reading my notes correctly, no input whatsoever from James Patterson (not unlike most of his books, if you are to believe his critics)... SATURDAY AFTERNOON KUNG FU THEATER is RZA's first solo album in 14 years. Technically it's also his fourth album under his BOBBY DIGITAL pseudonym, though he tells Cabbages' Gary Suarez, "Some people wanted me to come on some RZA, some said come on Bobby. And I was like, 'I got the power to do both'"... Lil Durk, Polo G, 21 Savage and Moneybagg Yo are among the guests on WHAT IT MEANS TO BE KING, the first KING VON album released since the Chicago drill rapper was shot to death in Atlanta in 2020.

And this demands a paragraph of its own. Quietus and writer Miloš Hroch have helpfully provided a list of 11 compilations available at Bandcamp whose purchase will aid Ukraine or Ukrainian artists.

Plus new music from STROMAE, DABABY & YOUNGBOY NEVER BROKE AGAIN, KAINA, BABYTRON, the COOL KIDS (released Thursday), YOUR OLD DROOG, BAND OF HORSES, BENEE, BOB MOSES, MELISSA ALDANA, SOMI, ILHAN ERSAHIN/DAVE HARRINGTON/KENNY WOLLESEN, MAYLEE TODD, CHARLOTTE ADIGÉRY & BOLIS PUPUL, CRUEL SANTINO, LEYA, KRISTINE LESCHPER, SCOTT HARDWARE, VLAD DOBROVOLSKI, SPRING SILVER, DIPLO, KREWELLA, PEACH PIT, SUGARAY RAYFORD, CERAMIC ANIMAL, JACK BARKSDALE, the NASHVILLAINS, CMAT, STEREOPHONICS, MIKE CAMPBELL & THE DIRTY KNOBS, MATISYAHU, BABEHOVEN, CY DUNE, SABATON, CROWBAR, WOUNDED TOUCH, OH HIROSHIMA, EL TEN ELEVEN, SUPERNOWHERE, GUIDED BY VOICES and MILES FRANCIS.

- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
the world is going to ruin you
The New York Times
DakhaBrakha, a Band From Kyiv, Saw a War Coming
By Laura van Straaten
"We can't make any music," the singer and cellist Nina Garenetska said. "This is our life now: An air raid siren goes off."
The Guardian
'It's become a movement': Afrobeats' steady path to world domination
By Christine Ochefu
West African artists such as Davido, Fireboy DML and Amaarae are ruling pop on their own terms, reflecting a new cultural pride - and western pop stars want in.
Los Angeles Times
What does Bandcamp's sale to Epic Games mean for independent music?
By Randall Roberts
Despite the companies' assurances, artists-rights activists nervously pondered the repercussions of the sale, which comes on the heels of criticisms of audio streaming leader Spotify over its affiliation with podcaster Joe Rogan and its payment rates to artists and songwriters.
The New Yorker
Valery Gergiev and the Nightmare of Music Under Putin
By Alex Ross
The conductor's close ties to the Russian regime were brushed aside for too long, but imposing a moral test on musicians is a hazardous path.
VAN Magazine
Can Anna Netrebko Reconcile the Political System She Lives in With the Apolitical Persona She Projects?
By Olivia Giovetti
The treachery of images.
Variety
With 'Yellowjackets' and 'Euphoria,' Music Supervisor Jen Malone Has Become a Television Tastemaker
By Lily Moayeri
It's late on a Friday afternoon and as the working week draws to a close, music supervisor Jen Malone is invigorated. The cause for celebration? An email she had been waiting for just arrived, marking the last clearance for a song to be used in the season finale of HBO's " Euphoria."
Star Tribune
Minneapolis music legend Morris Day says Prince's estate won't let him use 'the Time' anymore
By Jon Bream and Chris Riemenschneider
The estate says Day's announcement is "not entirely accurate."
The Independent
Nilüfer Yanya: 'It's a shame when you're at a festival and all you see is white guys'
By Annabel Nugent
The guitarist is stepping it up with second album 'Painless' but at the same time, trying to find her way back to who she was before she became the buzziest act in indie-rock. Not that she knows entirely who that is yet.
Love is the Message
‎Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture -- The Version, Dub pt.1
By Tim Lawrence and Jeremy Gilbert
In this week's episode Tim and Jeremy dive headlong into Dub. They discuss the changing meaning of the term, the difficulties in charting the history of the music, and explore the work of two of the pioneers of the sound, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and King Tubby. 
Music Industry Blog
Epic Games, Bandcamp, and fandom for the 'me' generation
By Mark Mulligan
Epic Games, Bandcamp, and TME, the music subsidiary of Tencent (40% owner of Epic Games), all have one thing in common: they are fandom machines. All of them enable their respective userbases to communicate their identities and tribes via fan products, from badges to Fortnite skins, through to t-shirts and vinyl.
errorzone
The New York Times
Cécile McLorin Salvant's Album Tackles a Newer Archive: Her Own
By Giovanni Russonello
The vocalist who dares to take on older music with unsavory history turns inward on "Ghost Song," her most revealing and rewarding album yet.
Time Magazine
Kacey Musgraves Is Putting Heartbreak in the Rear View
By Lucy Feldman
Kacey Musgraves isn't afraid to go there. She'll say the thing you might be thinking but would never voice out loud: sometimes marriage means insecurity; it's easier to get high than to talk through conflict; life would be better if we could go back to being kids.
The Guardian
Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar to headline resurgent Glastonbury
By Nadeem Badshah and Laura Snapes
As the festival returns from Covid-enforced hiatus, over half of the acts announced so far feature women.
The Cadence
Bandcamp Buyout Could Blow the Doors Open On Music Monetization
Every week offers a new possibility for musicians to make the rent.
them.
As a Trans Singer in the '50s, Jackie Shane Changed R&B Forever
By Samantha Riedel
The soul singer refused to live as anything other than herself.
Okayplayer
How RZA & DJ Scratch's Love of Marital Art Films Led to 'Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater'
By John Morrison
We spoke with RZA and DJ Scratch about their new album "Saturday Afternoon Kung Fu Theater" and the important role that martial arts cinema has played in their lives.
Passion of the Weiss
A Requiem for DOOM
By Son Raw
A year after the villain's passing, Son Raw is still thinking about how to think about DOOM, the artist and the human being.
Billboard
Virgin Music President Jacqueline Saturn on Navigating COVID, a Rebrand & the Distribution Craze
By Dan Rys
"This job is not for everyone, but it's for me."
Variety
Why A&R Needs a History Lesson, by Atlantic Records' Pete Ganbarg
By Pete Ganbarg
I've always believed that you can't set a path for the future without understanding the past. So I dusted off my dormant teaching degree from college and started a class for our crew at Atlantic Records: "This is Chuck Berry. These are the Everly Brothers. Have you ever really heard James Brown?"  And, it turns out they actually wanted to know this stuff. 
what we're into
Music of the day
"Hammer"
The Hardkiss
From "Perfection Is a Lie" (2017).
Video of the day
"The Hardkiss Live 2018, Palace of Sports, Kyiv"
The Hardiss
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