LEZ ZEPPELIN, the New York City-based all-girl band has gained worldwide critical acclaim for the musicianship, passion and gender-bending audacity they bring to the music of Led Zeppelin.

Founded in 2004 by New York guitarist, Steph Paynes, It wasn’t long before the group’s reputation for playing Zeppelin’s music with a kind of passion and force beyond anyone’s expectations began to attract major interest from press and industry. In June, 2005, Chuck Klosterman wrote an article for SPIN magazine that featured Lez Zeppelin as a leading protagonist in a trend of all-female hard rock “tribute” bands. He referred to the group “the most powerful all-female band in rock history” and described the rise of bands like Lez Zeppelin as a “kind of multilayered cultural phenomenon.” The fortunes and notoriety of the group surged after this and Lez Zeppelin became provocative subject for the news media across the world. Stories about the group appeared in the Times of London, whose journalist called the band “the best new band I’ve seen all year, no question;” Reuters and CNN.com, which ran a front page feature that called the group so “electrifying” they are “driving club audiences to a frenzy.” The group also appeared as part of a major feature on CBS Good Morning, which ran nation-wide, as well as on many other local TV news spots in New York (ABC, WB) and across the country.

In April 2007, after extensive touring in the US and Europe the band released its first album, Lez Zeppelin, which was produced by Eddie Kramer, renowned for his work as recording engineer on several of Led’s albums – most notably, Led Zeppelin II, Physical Grafitti and The Song Remains the Same. In the wake of this release, the band was invited as the first “tribute band” to ever appear at a series of major rock festivals including the Download Festival (formerly Donnington Park) in the UK; Rock-Am-Ring and Rock-Im-Park in Germany; and at the Voodoo Festival in New Orleans. However, it was an announcement in February of 2008, that Lez Zeppelin would take the stage at the Bonnaroo Festival that sparked a worldwide media storm. Several major press organizations, including the Associated Press, Billboard, NME, the Chicago Sun Times and more, reported mistakenly that LED Zeppelin – in the wake of their historic reunion at the O2 in London — would headline the festival, an embarrassing gaff that had to then be corrected, turning the announcement of Lez Zeppelin’s appearance into headline news across the world. Lez Zeppelin became a much-anticipated highlight of the festival, headlining opening night with a blistering set for an audience of 20,000 people.

Throughout 2008, the group continued to tour heavily in the U.S. and in the late fall made its first visit to Japan to promote the release of the debut record, which had sold nearly 7,000 copies the first few months after release. In March 2009, Lez Zeppelin was invited to India by a major network media task force to headline The Concert for Mumbai, a benefit organized to buy ambulances, which were sorely lacking in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in Mumbai. Again, Lez Zeppelin held the unique distinction of being the first American group of its kind to take part in an event of this magnitude.

Following a three-month tour of the US, the band headed back into the studio to start on a second album, which would take the group back to where it all began – Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut. The band solicited the help of producers Perry Margouleff and William Wittman, who approached the project with two main musical intentions: to remain true to the sounds and textures of the “vinyl” version of the record and capture that ‘tight-but-loose’ intensity in the moment. Recording at Margouleff’s Pie Studio’s, a world class analog facility, the band employed all of the same vintage equipment used by Led in 1968 – from the ’50s era Les Paul and Telecaster, to the Supro amp, 60’s era compressor, Hammond organ and Fuzzbender stomp box — working fastidiously to recreate the incredibly complex layers of the album with a dedication that has never before been demonstrated by any band of this type in the history of the rock world.

Lez Zeppelin is set to launch a full-length tour of Europe, the United States and Japan in early 2011 to support LEZ ZEPPELIN I, and to continue to deliver a musical experience that not only exceeds expectations, but serves as the authentic female counterpart to one of the greatest rock groups of all time.

Lauded as an experimental and alternative band and one that’s never been married to a particular genre, Phantogram – comprised of lifelong friends Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel – have continued to change the zeitgeist for almost a decade by consistently challenging it with their signature blend of hard-hitting beats, guitar driven dark psychedelia and electronic pop. Since the arrival of 2010’s debut release, Eyelid Movies, the duo has amassed over a billion streams, achieved one platinum-certified single, two gold-certified singles, collaborated with legends such as Tom Morello, Billy Corgan, The Flaming Lips and Miley Cyrus, partnered with Big Boi of Outkast to form supergroup Big Grams, headlined sold out shows worldwide, become a festival staple and toured with artists including Arcade Fire, The xx, Muse, M83, alt-J and more.

With major campaigns for Apple TV+, Peloton and Apple Watch, and additional placement in multiple TV shows, the band’s reach has never been so wide

FANS WHO BOUGHT TICKETS SAY:

"Everything about the Phantogram show was awesome...the new songs, the energy, the lights, the encore! They really showed their love and appreciation for their fans."

"Phantogram rocked it. They packed the house and had awesome energy levels! Their sound is really their own and the vocals from both of artists were impressive."

"Unreal. Phantogram brought so much energy, had an incredible light setup, and played an incredible set."

Neil Forever performs the music of Neil Diamond. The 14 piece ensemble has been capturing the hearts of the nation and is being recognized for its Authentic Live Performance of the legendary artist. Audiences say that seeing the band live brings back those special memories and delivers an authentic and captivating performance.

Founded only recently in January of 2023, the band is already forging an exciting path and leaving in its wake excited and passionate fans, both old and young. Audiences at their performances are thrilled by the band's authentic renditions of classic Neil Diamond hits like Sweet Caroline, Forever in Blue Jeans, Coming to America, and Kentucky Women.

The band features a talented lineup of musicians, including founding member David Jacobson (lead vocals/guitar), John Cardoso (drums), Dylan Jacobson (guitar, keyboard, and music director), Anthony Raffa (keyboard, vocals), Ted Wyman (bass, vocals), Glen Gabberty (electric guitar), Eric Ziegelmeier (bongo, percussion), Jeanna Campo (lead vocals, harmony vocal section director, Chris Scarnato (bari sax, horns section director of 4), and Glen Gifford (trumpet).

Sum 41 never fit in. They didn’t give a shit or try to either. Instead, they came out of the gate swinging with a signature style punctuated by pop punk singalongs and hard-hitting heavy metal proficiency. As a result, they’ve cast an unmatched shadow over popular culture, tracing back to their turn-of-the-century domination of TRL up to a rapturous set at the inaugural When We Were Young Festival. Within the span of a year, Iggy Pop tapped them for a collaboration, and they paid a fiery tribute to Metallica for MTV Icon. Their music has surged through major franchises, ranging from Spider-Man to American Pie and Bring It On. They ignited a triptych of classic albums—the platinum-certified All Killer No Filler [2001], gold-certified Does This Look Infected? [2002], and gold-certified Chuck [2004]—and persisted in their second decade with just as much piss and vinegar on the likes of 13 Voices [2016] and Order In Decline [2019]. Slant hailed the latter as “a hell of fun ride,” while GQ applauded how “the band made it all the way back.” After selling 15 million albums worldwide, garnering two Juno Awards, a Kerrang! Award, and a handful of Alternative Press Music Awards, receiving a GRAMMY® nomination, and packing venues everywhere, they’re going out with a bang—and on their own terms.

Disregarding the rules, ignoring expectations, and following their instincts once again, the band—Deryck Whibley [vocals, guitar], Dave Baksh [guitar], Jason McCaslin [bass], Tom Thacker [guitar], and Frank Zummo [drums]—deliver a fittingly fiery final statement in the form of the double-LP, Heaven :x: Hell [Rise Records]. Heaven is 10 tracks of snarling high energy pop punk, while Hell consists of ten heavy metal anthems spiked with fret-burning solos, thrashing riffs, and fist-pumping hooks.

It’s big, it’s ballsy, and it’s their boldest and best body of work to date.

Since her breakthrough in 2020, acclaimed singer-songwriter Joy Oladokun has been hailed by Rolling Stone as "Nashville’s most low-key musical revolutionary" and celebrated for her uniquely vulnerable voice. Oladokun has released two highly acclaimed albums—2021’s in defense of my own happiness and 2023’s Proof of Life—both appearing on numerous best-of-the year lists. Oladokun's forthcoming project, Observations From a Crowded Room, due out October 18, marks a significant evolution in her career. This 15-track collection—comprised of 12 songs and 3 interludes—reflects her growth as an artist and producer, blending her pop-folk roots with electronic and psychedelic elements. Solely written and produced by Oladokun, the album represents a personal and artistic turning point, crafted during a period of introspection and questioning. A proud queer Black woman and daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Oladokun has graced prestigious stages like the White House for the Respect for Marriage Act signing ceremony, as well as national TV appearances including “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” She has also performed on “CBS Saturday Morning,” “TODAY,” PBS’ “Austin City Limits,” and NPR Music’s “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert.” Oladokun’s music has resonated across diverse platforms, from documentaries to popular TV series like “And Just Like That,” “CSI: Vegas” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Her song "i see america" was a finalist for the Recording Academy’s Special Merit Award for Best Song for Social Change. Widely respected by her peers, Oladokun has collaborated with artists such as Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Jason Isbell and Noah Kahan and has joined Morris, Isbell, Kahan, John Mayer, Tyler Childers, Hozier, My Morning Jacket, Pink Sweat$, Leon Bridges and Manchester Orchestra on the road.

From Mr. 305 to Mr. Worldwide, Armando Christian Perez, aka Pitbull, rose from the streets of Miami to exemplify the American Dream and achieve international success. His relentless work ethic transformed him into a Grammy®-winning global superstar, business entrepreneur, education ambassador and motivational speaker.

Pitbull has landed #1 hits in over 15 countries, sold over 80 million singles, has more than 84 million Facebook/Twitter/Instagram followers and over 13 billion views on YouTube. In addition to the United States, his sold-out world concert tours have taken him to North and South America, Europe and the Far East. He has also completed headlining tours in China and Japan. Along the way in his journey, he has co-headlined with Enrique Iglesias, toured with Britney Spears in the U.K. and Europe, and spoken to thousands as part of Tony Robbins’ motivational seminars.

In between concert dates, Pitbull is writing and recording his first full-length project as an independent artist. The title, Libertad 547, pays tribute to his late father’s successful effortsto bring 547 Cubans to the United States during the Mariel Boat lift in 1980. Slated for release in August on his label, Mr. 305 Records, Inc., Libertad 547 will feature new music, including the current single “No Lo Trates” by Pitbull, Daddy Yankee and Natti Natasha. With more than 70 million views on YouTube, additions to more than 430k global playlists on Spotify, and top 10 placement on playlists throughout Latin America since its release, “No Lo Trates”has become a summer essential.

Pitbull ushered in 2019 with his fifth annual New Year’s Eve event at Bayfront Park in Miami and wrapped another stellar year in 2018 that included scoring the film Gotti, starring John Travolta; having a featured song, “Ocean to Ocean,” on the Aquaman soundtrack; and opening the first iLov305 themed nightlife destination in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 2018, he released his tenth full-length album, Climate Change; completed a second co-headlining U.S. tour with Enrique Iglesias; and released his first-ever Greatest Hits, plus a new Spanish single.

Whether it’s his Voli 305 Vodka, which has its own signature cocktails at multiple Sugar Factory American Brasserie locations, or the fragrance line “Pitbull,” his influence has catapulted. His Las Vegas residency, “Time of Our Lives” at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, has now accomplished multiple consecutive runs that include new dates in spring 2019 at Zappos Theater. In January 2019, Pitbull celebrated the opening of iLov305, a restaurant and nightlife concept on Miami's famed Ocean Drive. Pitbull has signed on to the STX UglyDolls franchise, based on the ubiquitous pop culture Uglydoll characters. Pitbull will write and perform an original song for the UglyDolls movie, slated for release on May 3, and he lends his voice talent to one of the film’s key characters. Norwegian Cruise Line handpicked him as Godfather to Norwegian Escape, one of the most innovative cruise ships ever built. Globalization, his 24/7 commercial-free channel on Sirius XM (Ch.13), has become one of the platform’s fastest-growing channels following its 2015 launch.

Pitbull also serves as ambassador to the Sports Leadership Arts and Management (SLAM!) charter schools he has helped to establish. First opened in the Little Havana section of Miami where he spent some of his youth, SLAM! schools are now located in Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas. Always striving to implement its mission to bring relevant experiences to its students, the SLAM! Foundation launched a new initiative in 2019: The first student -run national radiobroadcast on SiriusXM (Ch. 145).

When a stage four lymphoma diagnosis forced him off the road and into the hospital, Chuck Prophet didn't know if he'd live long enough to see the end of the year, let alone get back on tour.

"I was going through a tunnel," he recalls. "It was dark. But I had music: music to play, music to listen to, music to get me out of my head. Music was my savior."

That much is plain to hear on Wake The Dead, Prophet's extraordinary new album. Recorded with band of brothers ¿Qiensave?, the collection explores the world of Cumbia music, which consumed and comforted Prophet during his illness and subsequent recovery. The songs are intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body, with arrangements that blur the lines between tradition and innovation. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a genre that traces its roots back to the jungles of South America.

Captured live in the studio, Wake The Dead resumes Prophet's streak of more than a dozen critically acclaimed solo albums stretching all the way back to 1990, when the California native first shifted focus from pioneering neo-psych band Green on Red to working under his own name. Since then, Prophet-who's now in full remission-has earned raves everywhere from Rolling Stone to NPR, landed songs in a slew of films and television shows, and seen his work covered by Bruce Springsteen, Solomon Burke, and Heart, among others.

Fallin’ Free is the ultimate tribute to the music of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. From the early hits like “Breakdown” and “American Girl” to his solo masterpiece album “Wildflowers”, you will find yourself singing along to all these amazing songs.

This award winning band is made up from some of the top musicians in the Mid-Atlantic, whose members have toured the world from Europe to Japan and all across the USA. Their mission is to keep the music and spirit of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers alive and well for many years to come!

Widely considered a feminist icon, Grammy winner Ani DiFranco is the mother of the DIY movement, being one of the first artists to create her own record label in 1990. While she has been known as the “Little Folksinger,” her music has embraced punk, funk, hip hop, jazz, soul, electronica and even more distant sounds. Her collaborators have included everyone from Utah Phillips to legendary R&B saxophonist Maceo Parker to Prince. She has shared stages with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger, Kris Kristofferson, Bon Iver, Brand Carlile, Billy Bragg, Michael Franti, Chuck D., and many more. Her most recent albums include 2021’s Revolutionary Love and the July 2022 25th Anniversary Edition reissue of her iconic live album Living In Clip, both on her own label Righteous Babe Records. Her memoir No Walls and the Recurring Dream was released in May 2019 by Viking Books, and was a New York Times Top 10 best seller.

Rejecting the major label system has given her significant creative freedom. She has referenced her staunchly-held independence in song more than once, including in "The Million You Never Made" (Not a Pretty Girl), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" (Not So Soft), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" (Dilate), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label. After recording with Ani in 1999, Prince described the effects of her independence. "We jammed for four hours and she danced the whole time. We had to quit because she wore us out. After being with her, it dawned on me why she's like that – she's never had a ceiling over her."

Her lyrics are rhythmic and poetic, often autobiographical, and strongly political. “Trickle Down” discusses racism and gentrification, while “To The Teeth” speaks about the need for gun control, and “In or Out” questions society’s traditional sexuality labels. "Play God" has become a battle cry for reproductive rights while “Revolutionary Love” calls for compassion to be the center of social movements. Rolling Stone said of her in 2012, "The world needs more radicals like Ani DiFranco: wry, sexy, as committed to beauty and joy as revolution."

Over the years she's performed at countless benefit concerts, donated songs to many charity albums, and given time and energy to many progressive causes. She has learned from and demonstrated beside Gloria Steinem, Jesse Jackson and Dennis Kucinich. In 2004, she marched in the front row of the March for Women's Lives along with Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, and many others, later performing on the main stage. She has beaten the drum for voter registration and turnout with "Vote Dammit" tours in multiple presidential election years, including most recently in 2016. She's currently on the board of Roots of Music, an organization that provides at-risk youth with support and musical education in New Orleans, and the creative council of EMILY’s List, which helps elect pro-choice Democratic women to office.

As an iconic songwriter and social activist, she has been the inspiration for woman artists and entrepreneurs for over two decades. She has been featured on the covers of SPIN, Ms., Relix, High Times, and many others for her music and activism. She is the idol of empowered women who came of age in the 90s and continues to bring younger fans into her fold. From Alice Walker to Amy Schumer, Ani is respected by wordsmiths across milieux and generations. She blazed the trail for self-directed artist careers and has been cited by musicians from Prince to Bon Iver as an inspiration to release their own art outside of the major label system.

Ani has been the recipient of many honors and awards, including a Grammy for best album package (Evolve), the Woman of Courage Award from the National Organization for Women, the Gay/Lesbian American Music Award for Female Artist of the Year, and the Woody Guthrie Award. At the 2013 Winnipeg Folk Festival she received their prestigious Artistic Achievement Award, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Winnipeg. In 2017, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from A2IM (a nonprofit trade organization that represents independent record labels) and the Outstanding Achievement for Global Activism Award from A Global Friendship. In 2021 she was named a Champion for Justice by the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

From Mr. 305 to Mr. Worldwide, Armando Christian Perez, aka Pitbull, rose from the streets of Miami to exemplify the American Dream and achieve international success. His relentless work ethic transformed him into a Grammy®-winning global superstar, business entrepreneur, education ambassador and motivational speaker.

Pitbull has landed #1 hits in over 15 countries, sold over 80 million singles, has more than 84 million Facebook/Twitter/Instagram followers and over 13 billion views on YouTube. In addition to the United States, his sold-out world concert tours have taken him to North and South America, Europe and the Far East. He has also completed headlining tours in China and Japan. Along the way in his journey, he has co-headlined with Enrique Iglesias, toured with Britney Spears in the U.K. and Europe, and spoken to thousands as part of Tony Robbins’ motivational seminars.

In between concert dates, Pitbull is writing and recording his first full-length project as an independent artist. The title, Libertad 547, pays tribute to his late father’s successful effortsto bring 547 Cubans to the United States during the Mariel Boat lift in 1980. Slated for release in August on his label, Mr. 305 Records, Inc., Libertad 547 will feature new music, including the current single “No Lo Trates” by Pitbull, Daddy Yankee and Natti Natasha. With more than 70 million views on YouTube, additions to more than 430k global playlists on Spotify, and top 10 placement on playlists throughout Latin America since its release, “No Lo Trates”has become a summer essential.

Pitbull ushered in 2019 with his fifth annual New Year’s Eve event at Bayfront Park in Miami and wrapped another stellar year in 2018 that included scoring the film Gotti, starring John Travolta; having a featured song, “Ocean to Ocean,” on the Aquaman soundtrack; and opening the first iLov305 themed nightlife destination in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 2018, he released his tenth full-length album, Climate Change; completed a second co-headlining U.S. tour with Enrique Iglesias; and released his first-ever Greatest Hits, plus a new Spanish single.

Whether it’s his Voli 305 Vodka, which has its own signature cocktails at multiple Sugar Factory American Brasserie locations, or the fragrance line “Pitbull,” his influence has catapulted. His Las Vegas residency, “Time of Our Lives” at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, has now accomplished multiple consecutive runs that include new dates in spring 2019 at Zappos Theater. In January 2019, Pitbull celebrated the opening of iLov305, a restaurant and nightlife concept on Miami's famed Ocean Drive. Pitbull has signed on to the STX UglyDolls franchise, based on the ubiquitous pop culture Uglydoll characters. Pitbull will write and perform an original song for the UglyDolls movie, slated for release on May 3, and he lends his voice talent to one of the film’s key characters. Norwegian Cruise Line handpicked him as Godfather to Norwegian Escape, one of the most innovative cruise ships ever built. Globalization, his 24/7 commercial-free channel on Sirius XM (Ch.13), has become one of the platform’s fastest-growing channels following its 2015 launch.

Pitbull also serves as ambassador to the Sports Leadership Arts and Management (SLAM!) charter schools he has helped to establish. First opened in the Little Havana section of Miami where he spent some of his youth, SLAM! schools are now located in Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Texas. Always striving to implement its mission to bring relevant experiences to its students, the SLAM! Foundation launched a new initiative in 2019: The first student -run national radiobroadcast on SiriusXM (Ch. 145).

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

Although its nine songs revolve entirely around a single unifying idea, of life and personality forged from the revelatory moments of lived experience, to describe Los Angeles band Lo Moon’s third outing, I Wish You Way More Than Luck, as a concept album wouldn’t be entirely correct. Sonically bold and ambitious, fiercely literate and imagistic, the songs dance around their theme, not so much playing from track to track, as flowing through peaks and troughs of fervent emotion. It’s the singular work of a group of musicians whose confidence and abilities have not only scaled the heights of their ambitions but outstripped them. Luck has little to do with it.

From childhood and adolescence, all the way into adulthood, we fall headfirst into existence, as if there’s any other way, swept up in the currents of life with little time for reflection. Rarely contemplating the tapestry of events that prove formative, yet guided by them, constantly pushing onward, until fate or circumstance intervene.

Nestled deep in the beautiful Kootenay mountains of Western Canada lies the home of Moontricks, a duo whose timeless sound captures the essence of their rugged roots. Combining their love of folk, blues, and electronic music, Nathan Gurley and Sean Rodman are blazing their own trail, merging musical worlds previously unacquainted and capturing audiences along the way.

Since connecting in their rural hometown through a shared love of music, the pair’s chemistry was instantly apparent. With Gurley at the production helm and Rodman on songwriting and vocals, they’ve birthed an authentically raw and seductive sound infusing grassroots blues, wistful soul, and gritty, boot­ stomping bass. Their breakout organic hit “Home” has surpassed 1million streams and their music is frequently licensed for film and television.

Once a best­ kept secret in Canada's festival circuit, Moontricks is now taking their sound worldwide. Feeling just as at home on an electronic festival stage one weekend and a folk festival the next, their spirited live performances feature an assemblage of guitar, keys, banjo, and vocals atop stunning original productions. Their touring schedule has seen them play across North America and Australia with stops at major festivals like Lightning In A Bottle, Rainbow Serpent, and Shambhala Music Festival ­ where they’ve become fan favourites, playing every year since their debut in 2013.

From rural beginnings to global festival stages, this humble duo is now taking on the world. Dazzling audiences with their infectious vibe and unmistakable rhythm, Moontricks are clear proof that originality and passion can spark a creative odyssey.

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

It's been said that one of humanity's greatest attributes is our desire to remember. In light of the ancient world's epic tales of invasion, occupation, conquest, enslavement, domination, and all-out war, situating history against the equally violent passages of death metal music in such a thorough and reverent way had yet to be achieved until the birth of NILE.

Formed in 1993 by Sanders, bassist / vocalist Chief Spires, and drummer Pete Hammoura, then later augmented in 1996 by second guitarist Dallas Toler-Wade, NILE's symphonic arrangements unleashed a unique approach to their uncompromising technicality and Middle Eastern-tinged songwriting with their two EPs, Festivals Of Atonement (1995), Ramses Bringer Of War (1997), and their first full-length, 1998's Amongst The Catacombs Of Nephren-Ka. Rightfully earning themselves a world tour with Morbid Angel and a festival debut at Dynamo Open Air in 1999, NILE were quickly gaining an onslaught of new fans that revered them as one of metal's most devastating new bands. Once home (and with the assistance of drummer Derek Roddy after Hammoura tore his shoulder), Sanders and company began work assembling and arranging the song fragments and ideas that were fermenting while on the road. Every night was spent obsessively researching (the lyrics alone took a year to finalize!), composing, arranging and re-arranging before entering Soundlab Studios in Columbia, South Carolina with producer/engineer Bob Moore to record the result of their meticulous labor: the masterfully grandiose and cinematic Black Seeds Of Vengeance, Terrorizer Magazine's coveted "Album Of The Year" for the year 2000.

No band has ever committed themselves so deeply within a subject matter as has NILE, as demonstrated by the tracks "Ithyphallic," "What Can Safely Be Written," "The Essential Salts," and the ravaging "Papyrus Containing The Spell To Preserve Its Possessor Against Attacks From He Who Is In The Water." "Karl Sanders," observes Decibel Magazine, "plays with one foot on the Great Pyramid, the other on Sirius B, and every atom of his considerable technique harnessed in the service of the Other." Noted for their individuality, NILE inspire the exploration of new paradigms among their colleagues. " Ithyphallic is doomy, twisted, and warped, yet intricately crafted with brutal and intense clarity and pronunciation," writes Brave Words And Bloody Knuckles, "a scourge that proves NILE is one of the most important death metal bands today."

If history is fundamentally a record of human interaction and if possessing knowledge of the past can grant us the key to our future, the question begs to be asked: are we doomed to live out the same horrors, the same curses, the same trappings of greed as have so many civilizations before us? Come. Your personal history lesson awaits you.

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

Can you please update the artist profile for Natalie Jane with the attached photos and bio below? Thank you!

One of the most captivating vocal talents to emerge in recent years, Natalie Jane makes the most intimate emotions feel larger-than-life. Thanks to massive hits like “AVA” and “Seven”—both featured on her 2023 debut EP Where Am I? (Capitol Music Group/10K Projects)— the New Jersey-raised, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has amassed over 500 million combined global streams to date, all while selling out headline tours across the U.S. and Europe and taking the stage at major festivals like Lollapalooza. After reigning as one of the most viewed musical artists on TikTok in the U.S. last year and landing on GRAMMY.com’s list of “25 Rising Artists To Watch In 2024,” the 20-year-old pop sensation is gearing up to share a new body of work matching her powerhouse voice with both soulful sensitivity and unapologetic attitude—a dynamic she’s embodied since self-releasing her own music in high school.

With her fast-growing list of accolades including earning a nomination for the Social Star Award at the 2024 iHeart Radio Music Awards, Natalie’s latest output includes her summer 2024 single “Somebody to Someone (I Just Wanna Fall in Love)”: a heavy-hearted ballad that captures the infinitely relatable ache of longing for true love. Once again proving the tremendous resonance of her songwriting, teaser videos for the gorgeously soaring track surpassed 25 million combined views and inspired over 13,000 creations on TikTok, where Natalie’s down-to-earth presence and magnetic personality have built an extraordinarily close connection with her legion of fans.

Growing up in Woodcliff Lake, Natalie first discovered the phenomenal impact of her voice as a little girl thanks to the encouragement of her family, including an aunt who’s an opera singer. Along with singing in musicals and learning to play piano, she started writing her own songs at the young age of eight. Naming big-voiced singers like Bishop Briggs and Adele among her top inspirations, she later began heading into New York City to work with a producer who helped to sharpen her hypnotic approach to pop music. “All throughout high school I’d go into the city after school and spend countless hours in sessions,” she recalls. In 2021, Natalie delivered her debut single “Love is the Devil”—a slow-burning track written completely on her own. Within the next few months she made waves with independent releases like “Red Flag” and “Kind of Love,” and soon found herself balancing her school work with the demands of a fast-burgeoning music career. “I remember sitting in music-theory class the day I found out I got my first editorial playlist,” she says. “My teacher was frustrated with me and said, ‘Natalie, could you please focus?’ and I was like, ‘I really can’t.’”

At the start of 2022, Natalie made her first trip to L.A. as her following continued to grow exponentially. Although she gained acceptance to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, she ultimately decided to pursue her musical ambitions—a choice that paid off when she inked her deal with 10K Projects/Capitol Records that summer. The very same month as the signing, she made her major-label debut with “Mentally Cheating,” a thrillingly raw track that soon graced highly coveted playlists like Spotify’s Pop Sauce. Almost immediately after moving to L.A. in September 2022, Natalie premiered “Seven” (another heavily playlisted hit) and then returned with “AVA”—an irresistibly moody track that debuted on the official single charts in four countries across the globe, in addition to landing on seven flagship playlists and earning her four playlist covers.

Released in fall 2023, Where Am I? quickly drew raves from the likes of PopFiltr (who hailed the EP as “a musical diary of a young heart navigating a heartbreak, with Jane’s emotive voice and introspective lyrics painting a vivid narrative of love’s highs and lows”) and EUPHORIA. (who declared that “at the precipice of her inevitable superstardom, we’re watching her shape into one of the industry’s most potent voices in real time”). Since introducing the world to her confessional lyrics and boldly cinematic sound, Natalie has also turned out hits like “can i see you tonight?”—a wildly infectious but hard-hitting look at the insidious pull of a toxic relationship. “In general I want my music to be something for people to put on in the car when they’re feeling upset, and need some kind of outlet to scream along to,” says Natalie. “I want every song to be a therapy session.”

An immensely creative artist who’s painted almost her entire life, Natalie has made a point of staying hands-on in all aspects of her artistry—a feat that’s included designing the cover art for her intoxicating update of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and collaborating with her friends to dream up the track’s fantastically colorful video. Not only a reflection of her outsize creativity, that fierce commitment to fully realizing her vision has everything to do with her incredibly deep devotion to her fanbase. “I have a separate number I give out to fans, and we text all the time,” says Natalie. “I’ve gotten a lot of really touching messages about how my music has helped them through hard times, which is so rewarding. I just want them to all feel included and know that they’re a huge part of my journey, because they’re the main reason I’m doing all this.”

Few bands on their 22nd lap around the scene could claim to be in “just getting started” mode as much as punk stalwarts Silverstein.

The release of their tenth studio album, Misery Made Me, finds the group spring boarding off the heights they’ve reached over the past handful of years; their latest album (2020’s A Beautiful Place To Drown) adding 80 Million streams to a mind-numbing career total of 500 Million; it collecting a nomination for Rock Album Of The Year at the esteemed Juno Awards; and its most recent headliner selling out nearly every date in elite rooms.

In bringing Misery Made Me to life Silverstein have continued to build on their already-wide reaching impact. Immersing themselves in new technologies like TikTok, Discord, NFTs, the metaverse and Twitch (even holding public writing sessions with fans over the latter) during its formation, the band have confirmed their unique ability to adapt and connect in all cycles of their career.

Interestingly, amid all the positivity and connectivity injected into its creation there comes a dark set of themes underpinning the album, as its title might suggest. Inspired by the past two years, Misery Made Me is a depiction of Silverstein – and world at large’s – collective turmoil, frustration, and anxiety.

“I wanted to explore the meaning of ‘Misery’ as a main theme throughout the album,” says vocalist Shane Told. “Despite the mountains climbed and boulders pushed during recent years, we were confronted by the weight and misery of staying relatively in the same place for a long period of time. Finding peace in the reality of this misery became important. The record is about the acceptance of a new reality and adapting to it.”

Ultimately, Misery Made Me finds the band trying to navigate the ever-worsening challenges of our modern world – angst, doomscrolling, and disassociation. It’s a record that is a product of the moment in time in which it was created yet doesn’t feel like it will date itself anytime soon, as many of its topics of loneliness, anxiety and isolation are eternal human struggles.

Exemplified by the anthemic opener ‘Our Song’, Misery Made Me is part acceptance of the band’s personal miseries, and part declaration that they will not be buried by them. At the back end of the record lies ‘Live Like This’ (ft. nothing,nowhere.) and arguably its most bleak and haunting lyric: “I don’t want to die, but I can’t live like this.”

Singles ‘It’s Over’ and ‘Ultraviolet’ dive deeper into this feeling of desperation, describing the utter helplessness of losing control to anxiety.

“’It’s Over’ is about the spiral that leads to giving up,” shares guitarist Paul Marc Rousseau. “Those anxiety packed hours when you can’t feel anything but the low, steady crescendo of panic that eventually gets so intense your fingertips lose sensation. It’s hopeless to feel but pointless to endure. I didn’t learn anything from feeling that way. I just wanted it to stop.”

“’Ultraviolet’ is about feeling powerless and under the control of the chemicals in your brain,” he adds. “Ultraviolet light itself being invisible felt like the right way to describe this notion. To get lost in this unseeable thing. UV also causes physical damage to our skin, so it serves as a sort of ‘proof’ that something invisible like anxiety can hurt us.”

Filled with moments of relentless energy throwing back to their hardcore roots (‘Die Alone’ ft. Andrew Neufeld), to visionary moments of modern heavy (‘The Altar / Mary’), Misery Made Me fastens Silverstein’s status as torchbearers of the scene on all fronts.

It’s both intriguing and inspiring that a band – who could have merely rested on the impressive legacy they’ve already cemented – would continue to dig deep and find the inspiration to reach people in meaningful new ways. Misery Made Me is a campaign hinged on Silverstein’s reflection and gratitude for their roots, their honouring of their earliest fans, and their staunch desire to explore forward-thinking and adventurous ways to connect with new ones.

Misery Made Me is out May 6 via UNFD.

Chippewa Valley native and Master saxophonist Tom Luer joins us for a very special homecoming concert. Tom has toured with artists as varied as Queen Latifah, Gordon Goodwin, Wayne Bergeron, Lee Ritenour, and a cornucopia of other stars. In addition to his brilliant playing, Tom is widely recognized for his work in jazz education. He is the Director of Jazz at Cal Poly Ponoma and serves as the Jazz Program Director for the Shell Lake Arts Center in Wisconsin.

Join us as we share the stage with the Chippewa Valley's own Tom Luer!

David Gray has established himself as one of the UK’s leading artists both at home and overseas with a 25-year career marked by critical praise, numerous accolades and multi-platinum sales over the course of 10 album releases. The GRAMMY-nominated artist is known for his dynamic live shows and the energy behind his concerts exemplifies his deep and heartfelt music. David Gray’s latest studio album Mutineers, found the singer-songwriter steering into unfamiliar territory while cultivating a respectful relationship with his own history. The release was hailed by The Guardian, who declared that there is “a rare comfort in hearing an artist in pursuit of joy." In 2016, David released a greatest hits collection entitled The Best of that included a re-recorded 25^th Anniversary version of “Shine” and new tracks “Smoke Without Fire” and “Enter Lightly.” David promoted the album with a multi-city North American tour and a performance of his international hit “Babylon” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

In the years since their 1995 formation, Cursive developed into one of the most important groups to emerge from the late-’90s/early ‘00s moment when the lines between indie rock and post-hardcore began blurring into something altogether new. Albums like Domestica (2000) and The Ugly Organ (2003) became essential touchstones whose echoes can still be heard in new bands today. The pull of nostalgia can be strong over time, but Cursive’s work has often felt like a rejection of those comfort zones; the band has continually pushed themselves, with Kasher’s artistic restlessness steering them ahead. In fact, for Kasher, whose pointed observations always begin with looking inward first, it was an interrogation of this voracious creativity that planted the seeds of Devourer.

“I am obsessive about consuming the arts,” he explains. “Music, film, literature. I’ve come to recognize that I devour all of these art forms then, in turn, create my own versions of these things and spew them out onto the world. It’s positive; you’re part of an ecosystem. But I quickly recognized that the term, ‘Devourer,’ may also embody something gnarly, sinister.” Devourer delves into that darker space. The characters populating the album have bottomless capacities for consumption, whether it’s resources, material goods, art, or even each other. Then they are consumed by larger forces, whether it’s humanity, Earth, dreams, time, or life itself.

Fans have come to expect such heady topics from Cursive, but Devourer sets a new standard. The glibness of the First World toward the problems of others. The eternal struggle to stay on the straight and narrow. The eager acolytes exploited by their leaders. How anxiety can compound with age. How self-expression can warp into self-indulgence. The album being filled to the brim thematically and musically is unsurprising considering Kasher wrote an astounding 69 compositions after songwriting began in the fall of 2020. About 20 made it to the practice space, with a curated 13 ending up on the final album. Wrangling it all at Omaha’s ARC Studios was Marc Jacob Hudson (Against Me!, Thursday, Fireworks), who co-produced Devourer with the band. The album sounds urgent and fresh, the work of a band still experimenting, still hungering to find new creative heights.

Cursive is the core trio of Kasher, bassist Matt Maginn, and guitarist/vocalist Ted Stevens, alongside: keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Newbery; cellist Megan Siebe; and recording/touring drummer Pat Oakes and founding drummer Clint Schnase (who trade drumming duties across Devourer, but join forces on “Rookie”).

A singer, composer and actor, Lyle Lovett has broadened the definition of American music in a career that spans 14 albums. Coupled with his gift for storytelling, the Texas-based musician fuses elements of country, swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues in a convention-defying manner that breaks down barriers.

Whether touring as a 'Duo' or with his 'Acoustic Group' or his 'Large Band,' Lovett's live performances show not only the breadth of this Texas legend's deep talents, but also the diversity of his influences, making him one of the most compelling and captivating musicians in popular music.

Since his self-titled debut in 1986, Lyle Lovett has evolved into one of music's most vibrant and iconic performers. Among his many accolades, besides the four Grammy Awards, he was given the Americana Music Association's inaugural Trailblazer Award, and was named Texas State Musician.

His works, rich and eclectic, are some of the most beloved of any artist working today.

Faye Webster loves the feeling of a first take: writing a song, then heading to the studio with her band to track it live the very next day. When you listen to the Atlanta songwriter’s poised and plainspoken albums, you can hear why: she channels emotions that are so aching, they seem to be coming into existence at that very moment.

“One of my favorite things about songwriting is taking thoughts that people don’t really think are worthy, or might overlook, and highlighting them,” Webster says. “I like saying things that everybody thinks, but nobody’s saying”.

At any given moment, Webster might be making country-tinged indie rock flecked simultaneously by pedal steel guitar and modern R&B production and songwriting techniques–a bespoke sound which has won her ardent fans and turned her into something of a stealth superstar beloved by everyone from southern hip-hop heads and alt-rock tastemakers.

The title of Faye Webster's new album is inspired by her occasional compulsion to lose herself amongst concertgoers at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Craving company and distraction but also leaning into the anonymity of a bustling crowd, Webster often bought a ticket to a performance at the last possible second. “Going to the symphony was almost like therapy for me,” she says. “I was quite literally underdressed at the symphony because I would just decide at the last moment that that's what I wanted to do. I got to leave what I felt like was kind of a shitty time in my life and be in this different world for a minute.”

Molchat Doma (translated as “Houses Are Silent”), founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Dark yet danceable, and with a heavy dose of goth ethos, their music is reminiscent of the masters that predate them, but make no mistake: Molchat Doma creates a sound and meaning that is immediately recognizable as all their own.

The band is comprised of Egor Shkutko, who sings the Russian lyrics in his deep monotone, Roman Komogortsev on guitar, synths, and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synths.

Their second LP, Этажи (pronounced Etazhi, meaning “Floors”) was released in 2018. It has sold out more than 10000 copies and is currently on repressing due to outstanding demand. The song “Sudno” doesn’t leave the global top viral on Spotify since April 2020. Despite playing to packed clubs no matter whether it's in London, Warsaw, Helsinki, Belgrad, or Berlin, they are still flying under the radar in their native Belarus.

A singer, composer and actor, Lyle Lovett has broadened the definition of American music in a career that spans 14 albums. Coupled with his gift for storytelling, the Texas-based musician fuses elements of country, swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues in a convention-defying manner that breaks down barriers.

Whether touring as a 'Duo' or with his 'Acoustic Group' or his 'Large Band,' Lovett's live performances show not only the breadth of this Texas legend's deep talents, but also the diversity of his influences, making him one of the most compelling and captivating musicians in popular music.

Since his self-titled debut in 1986, Lyle Lovett has evolved into one of music's most vibrant and iconic performers. Among his many accolades, besides the four Grammy Awards, he was given the Americana Music Association's inaugural Trailblazer Award, and was named Texas State Musician.

His works, rich and eclectic, are some of the most beloved of any artist working today.

Gavin Adcock is a 25-year-old Georgia native born and raised in Watkinsville. Former Georgia Southern University football player, Gavin grew up working on his family cattle farm and dreamed of riding bulls in the PBR. He started writing songs in high school but it wasn’t until the spring of 2021, when he tore up his knee playing football, that he used his time healing to record and release his first original single. Since then, he has put all focus into his music and has released multiple singles that now have amassed almost 100 million streams collectively. His recent release, “A Cigarette”, hit 12 million streams in less than 2 months. As he continues to write and record new music, he is hitting the road touring throughout 2024 with headline dates and multiple major festival plays.

A special concert which celebrates the music of ABBA in a respectful and enjoyable way, this production revives memories of when ABBA ruled the airwaves.

It is more than 40 years since ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest and they have filled our lives with music ever since.

Now it’s your chance to thank them for the music!

MANIA brings fans old and new, a memorable night not to be missed. If you’re looking for an excuse to party, reminisce or simply be entertained, then MANIA: the ABBA tribute is the show for you!

Dig out those platforms, dust down those flares, and join in with such classics as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Voulez Vous’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Winner Takes It All’, ‘Super Trouper’ and many, many more.

Donna The Buffalo is not just a band, rather one might say that Donna The Buffalo has become a lifestyle for its members and audiences. Since 1989, the roots rockers have played thousands of shows and countless festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Telluride, Austin City Limits Festival, Merle Fest, and Philadelphia Folk Festival.

They’ve opened for The Dead and have toured with Peter Rowan, Del McCoury, Los Lobos, Little Feat, Jim Lauderdale, Rusted Root, and Railroad Earth to name a few. They also toured with Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen to help raise awareness about increased corporate spending in politics.

Imminence began with a passion for metal music between vocalist and violinist Eddie Berg and guitarist Harald Barrett when they were just teenagers in High School. Back in 2010 our biggest dream was just to play our music live. With countless of hours in the local community rehearsal basement, we took one step at a time, always reaching for new heights. Right from the start we knew that this was what we wanted to do. All our hard-earned money went into taking that next step; recording in a studio; getting new equipment; making music videos; printing CDs. The list goes on.

There was never any doubt or obstacle that would stop us in our tracks. We produced our own music videos, booked our own tours, founded our own company and sacrificed everything to make this work. From the beginning there was an unyielding dedication to write music that was meaningful to us, and when we started to see that people out in the world resonated with our songs and lyrics, this feeling increased tenfold. It wasn't just about us anymore, we had something to say and there was someone listening.

Music has a way of conveying feelings and evoke emotions that goes above and beyond everything else. We found our voice in our music to share with the world and every day we are grateful that our message can give comfort, understanding and a sense of belonging to our constantly growing community of fans.

It's hard to grasp the impact that Imminence has had on our lives and so many others, but through you we have a better understanding. You give us purpose. You give our music purpose.

When we started our own webstore, we wanted to take full control over the products that we develop as a band. Our love for our craft should translate in every single thing that we do. That's why we only use high quality materials that are more durable and have less impact on the environment.

Imminence is Eddie Berg (vocals, violin), Harald Barrett and Alex Arnoldsson (guitar), Peter Hanström (drums) and Christian Höijer (bass).

After 15 years at the top of their game, The High Kings are still selling out venues around the world to an ever- growing army of loyal fans. Having already surpassed a million listeners on Spotify as well as 2 platinum albums in their time, The High Kings are celebrating 15 years together by releasing 15 brand new tracks to their fans as well as a 27 date tour of the USA with “The High Kings XV TOUR” as well as a Double header with ‘Gaelic Storm’

Widely regarded as the standard-bearer for their genre The High Kings continue to surprise and delight and “The High Kings XV TOUR” together with 15 newly reimagined tracks is just the beginning of their electrifying plans for 2023.

In their time together, ‘The High Kings’ have charted across the world and performed for hundreds of thousands of fans, as well as in many prestigious situations including for the Prime Minister of England ( 2011), Barak Obama( 2012) & George W Bush ( 2009 at the White house and at The Pentagon ( 2015)

Notable performances include Glastonbury, the Isle of Wight ( 3 times – headlining in 2015), They appeared in Time Square & also headlined the St Patrick’s Day concert in Trafalgar Square London (2015).

The High Kings continue to set the bar extremely high for Irish folk bands across the world and 2023 will be no different.

Speaking about “The High Kings XV TOUR of the USA 2023” the High Kings said: It’s been an amazing journey so far, and to be celebrating such a milestone with a huge Irish tour is amazing. We can’t wait to bring our brand new stage show, and our new music to our Irish fans – and we have a few surprises too!

As she watched friends skim stones on Brighton Beach, Paris Paloma felt energy shift. Like heat returning to numb fingertips, life felt like it was taking shape again after a long period of personal trauma. With a diaphanous sheath of lyrics in mind, she went to Bergen, Norway to work on new music. On the three days of the year that it didn’t rain in Europe’s wettest city, among the silvery lakes and mountain peaks, life grew ever brighter. “the warmth” was formed.

“I ate up all the light, it shone through my teeth, I tasted sunbeams emanating from me… it can’t hurt me… now the warmth is returning,” she sings in unfurling harmonies, spectral with full-bodied pop, a determined percussive march building like a personal artillery. This emotional arc would be core to Paris Paloma’s debut album, cacophony.

The Derbyshire-born musician gave the world “labour” in 2023. It was the first song she’d ever fully recorded in a proper studio – early releases like “narcissus” in 2020, 2021 EP cemeteries and socials, and 2023’s “notre dame” were produced in her own bedroom or others’. But early clips she posted with stolen lyrics of “labour” to TikTok had already garnered a curious audience. Its journal-like lyricism and incisive strain of compelling, dark folk-pop skewered the knots of women’s emotional labour, and it immediately became a rallying cry worldwide upon official release. The track broke over 100 million streams on Spotify, cracked the Official UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Chart, and soundtracked tens of thousands of TikToks. It spurred on sold-out shows around the UK, and Paris, armed with a compact slew of songs, travelled to the US and Australia for the festival circuit. “I matured because of ‘labour’,” Paris explains. “As a young artist you’re both protected and limited – you’re putting songs that are so intimate into a void. It’s made me more considerate about how vulnerable these songs are going to be.”

Such vulnerability can be difficult to confront, and all the more to articulate as art, “but I feel very held by my listeners,” Paris says. This symbiotic care between artist and listener is innate within Paris’s devoted fanbase. She’s cultivated a community both online and off: on TikTok, her 400K followers send her videos (of thoughts, song snippets, and tour moments) into six- figure views. Fan-made art and videos analysing her lyrics span social media. She’s also crowdsourced the voices of hundreds of fans for a new version of “labour” to be released. These are roots laid deep, as Paris gains wider recognition from NME to Billboard, as YouTube’s Trending Artist on the Rise and a Breakthrough Artist to Watch 2024 by Amazon.

A graduate of fine art from Goldsmiths University (her first tattoo was a tribute to female surrealist artist Ithell Colquhoun), Paris’s creative mediums have influenced each other since she first started writing songs at age 14. Her early releases’ visual identities are crafted from her own fantasy drawings. Now, cacophony is inspired by the creation that comes out of chaos – in 15 tracks, we’re shown Paris as an evocative lyricist who constellates human experiences of grief, love, patriarchy, and trauma with Greek mythology, fantasy, and the literary gothic. The album name is inspired by Stephen Fry’s Mythos, ruminating on the creation myth. “From this chaotic cosmic yawn, creation sprang forth,” Paris explains, “so this is a collection that makes sense of the overwhelming space of my mind where my anxiety, my OCD, and trauma processing lives.” Songwriting is a catharsis and coping mechanism, which she uses to articulate her struggles in real time. The sprawling metaphor of chaos to creation knits the album’s universe together.

“As I began to combine songs, I could see my struggles, the fantasy, the ‘hero’s journey’.” Paris found tracks incidentally informing each other, and so the album has been curated rather than conceptualised to find a natural rhythm akin to Greek theatre staging – or “a quest”, as Paris puts it. “I love linear storytelling, following the protagonist inflected by a journey. Looking back, I can track my own wellbeing, my growth.” Album opener “my mind (now)” and closer “yeti” are opposites: “We start with the turmoil, open up the chaos, scramble back to redemption and healing.” She describes her songwriting as undisciplined, but always begins with lyrics – a starting couplet or image to elucidate. Melody follows.

“My mind has not been silent since you,” she sings vaporously on “my mind (now)”. A haunting fugue draws you in: “What did I do wrong”, across skittering percussion and a glut of trumpets, lanced by crunching guitars and a piercing feral scream. She flexes her songwriting dichotomy, weaving the personal with haunting symbolism – a striking image of strawberry picking while someone else readies their cruelty. “boys, bugs, and men” draws on men’s sadistic behaviours, using natural world imagery to unspool the banalities of a patriarchy that hurts both genders.

“I love the feral, feminine aspects of my music,” says Paris. “Being unapologetically vulnerable feels wild – it's breaking down boundaries, a return to something primal.”

“bones on the beach” is a “turning point”. “I wrote it at a time when I was coming out of survival mode,” she explains. “It starts from exhaustion and wanting the world to stop asking things of you. And as it progresses, there’s a realisation – you will find peace in life when you start living and taking care of yourself.”

Three album tracks – “escape pod”, “last woman on earth”, “bones on the beach” – are her ‘apocalypse trio’. “When it felt like my world was ending,” she says. “last woman on earth” is an emotive, upward contour, about coping with and confronting the ways her voice has been taken away. She leans on dark metaphors to find light. “Women’s wishes for what happens after they die have been consistently dishonoured: from Anne Boleyn to Marilyn Monroe. It's the ultimate show of disrespect,” she says. “It becomes an uplifting point – it shows my growing belief in my own agency.”

“triassic love song” is an aching ode to external love returning to her life, imagery inspired by an archaeological discovery of two fossils of different animal species intertwined. “It’s a tender narrative marker. Love was becoming a healing force, but I was conscious of an end being nigh.”

She matches this with expansive productions – dramatic instrumentation, folk sensibilities, pop at its most cavernous. It makes sense for someone who first picked up a guitar at age 13, enamoured by Ed Sheeran, Bon Iver, and the eclectic sounds of her upbringing from the Motown and jazz her mother played. “my mind (now)” was especially fun to build. Paris recalls: “I didn’t want any structure that could be a ‘life raft’. It has to almost overwhelm you, then pull back. You're a tiny raft in the ocean, you're surely going to go under – but you don't.”

After building a song out on vocals and guitar, her notes app and songbook, she makes a playlist to convey the sonic palette. “as good a reason” was inspired by Alt-J and early Hozier;

“labour” from Glass Animals and Katarina Gimon’s compositions. “I don't know what genre I am. I don’t give it much thought. The second I do, I'll start limiting myself.”

The album spans the breadth of Paris’s vocal range. “my mind (now)” is the first time she’s screamed on record. On “his land” – a melancholic offering about isolation, inspired by the reduction of British public lands – she reaches her lowest tone. In the “last woman on earth” bridge, she belts her highest. “It was really hard to get up there. My songs, age 20, were mumbly and soft. In part it was a tone thing, and in part confidence. Now I write songs and push myself to grow toward it, as opposed to making everything sound the same.”

Worldbuilding is cinched by visual aesthetic – Paris gravitates towards the eerie feminine fashion of Bora Aksu and Simone Rocha, and is styled for stage by Leith Clark. If each song could have a music video, she would. The striking visual for “my mind (now)”, directed by Matt Grass, is darkly fantastical. “I want everyone to see my musical world as I do,” she says. Live performance is vital to her artistry, and Paris has sold out four headline London shows. At every gig, her lyrics are sung directly back at her. “One of the reasons you write is to feel heard,” she says. “It's an audience that wants to know more.” The intimacy of the music remains steadfast as stages get bigger. This summer, she’s keeping up opening for Maisie Peters and will embark on festival season, as well as a UK and European tour.

cacophony is “a stage backdrop”, against which all future music will be positioned. “I’ve chronically released singles and been quite nomadic. I’m excited to set the scene for my world.” She’s already working on the threads of her next album, a Paris Paloma tapestry in motion.

After 15 years at the top of their game, The High Kings are still selling out venues around the world to an ever- growing army of loyal fans. Having already surpassed a million listeners on Spotify as well as 2 platinum albums in their time, The High Kings are celebrating 15 years together by releasing 15 brand new tracks to their fans as well as a 27 date tour of the USA with “The High Kings XV TOUR” as well as a Double header with ‘Gaelic Storm’

Widely regarded as the standard-bearer for their genre The High Kings continue to surprise and delight and “The High Kings XV TOUR” together with 15 newly reimagined tracks is just the beginning of their electrifying plans for 2023.

In their time together, ‘The High Kings’ have charted across the world and performed for hundreds of thousands of fans, as well as in many prestigious situations including for the Prime Minister of England ( 2011), Barak Obama( 2012) & George W Bush ( 2009 at the White house and at The Pentagon ( 2015)

Notable performances include Glastonbury, the Isle of Wight ( 3 times – headlining in 2015), They appeared in Time Square & also headlined the St Patrick’s Day concert in Trafalgar Square London (2015).

The High Kings continue to set the bar extremely high for Irish folk bands across the world and 2023 will be no different.

Speaking about “The High Kings XV TOUR of the USA 2023” the High Kings said: It’s been an amazing journey so far, and to be celebrating such a milestone with a huge Irish tour is amazing. We can’t wait to bring our brand new stage show, and our new music to our Irish fans – and we have a few surprises too!

Despite coming up in Australia, indie rock band Last Dinosaurs are an international enterprise and have the track record to prove it. Brothers Lachlan and Sean Caskey, along with Michael Sloane, have played sold-out headlining shows and festivals across the US, UK, Europe, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and Australia. The success of studio albums In a Million Years, Wellness, Yumeno Garden, and From Mexico With Love have taken them around the world and back, playing notable festivals like Lollapalooza, Corona Capital, All Things Go Festival, and more alongside artists like Florence + the Machine, Bad Suns, Foals, Matt & Kim, Foster the People, Vacations, and more.

In 2024, The Dinos continued enthralling audiences, launching a cryptic new story in a two-part release, KYORYU. Mimicking the duality of brothers Sean and Lachlan, they chose to each compose one half of the album, giving listeners a true yin and yang experience. Inspired by cyber-punk anime from their Japanese heritage, the brothers craft a space-age narrative around unfettered technological advances and unchecked human greed. The album served as the soundtrack for an accompanying manga comic book release, working with artists Em Niwa (KYO) and Chris Yee (RYU) to detail the dystopian future odyssey.

This year also marks the first vinyl reissue of Last Dinosaurs’ beloved 2018 album Yumeno Garden. Recorded in Japan, the album features live staples and fan favorites like “Eleven,” “Italo Disco,” and “Sense.” To celebrate the release, The Dinos are excited to announce new world tour dates and an alternate version recording featuring Indonesia’s indie rock darlings, Grrrl Gang, the first in a string of special collaborations to follow!

Forget everything you think you know about Franz Ferdinand. Always Ascending is nothing short of a rebirth. The album’s ten songs are a triumphant recasting of one of our favourite groups, bursting with fresh ideas and vigorous sonic experimentation.

“We wanted this to sound like nothing we made before,” said the band and after listening to the first moments of the title track it’s obvious that’s what they’ve accomplished.

There have been substitutions, but the team is playing stronger than ever. In case you missed the announcement last year, Nick McCarthy (guitar) left to raise his family and Julian Corrie, a much-loved figure in the Glasgow music scene, joined core members Alex Kapranos, Bob Hardy and Paul Thomson.

With reclusive producer Philippe Zdar (Cassius, Phoenix, ‪Beastie Boys), FF have taken a knife to their old canvas, creating an album that is so foreign in its familiarity it could only be current.

“Philippe is someone we’d wanted to work with for a long time.” said Alex “Last time we spoke, he was recording the Beastie Boys. I asked Laurence (Bell, Domino boss) and Cerne (Cannning, manager/svengali) to put us in touch and they said ‘Oh, he’s a bit of an enigma. No-one can trace him. Maybe he’s in Ibiza. Maybe Paris. We don’t know.’ Then I remembered I still had his number, so I texted him and said ‘I’ve always thought we could make a truly great LP together’ and he replied straight back and said ‘Yes! Let’s do it!’”

“We loved working with Philippe. He understands that what is essential is the emotion: the emotion that inspired the song and the emotion that the song inspires in you on hearing it. It’s all that matters. Everything comes from that: the sound, performance, tempo, instrumentation, how far you stand from the mic… everything.”

The LP was mixed at Philippe’s Motorbass studio in Paris, recorded in a couple of weeks at RAK and written over the preceding year somewhere in the west of Scotland.

“We all lived in the one place together. Us and the dog. It’s remote and that’s what we needed. We weren’t just writing an LP. We were creating a band. A sound. A universe. We started from zero: no expectations. It was liberating. From zero, we created this new universe to inhabit: nebulous at first, gradually taking form, until it felt like it had always existed.”

Other characters appear in this story. Dino Bardot (the greatest rockstar Glasgow ever produced) has joined the line-up since they started touring again and Sam Potter, late of Late Of The Pier, hung out with the band in the early stages of the LP.

“Sam’s an inspiring guy. We had great conversations. He knows how to take an idea and break it so you can see the better idea hidden within it.”

“We talked about the purity and naivety our earliest psychedelic experiences: when you imagined what drugs might do to your mind, before there was an opportunity to let them. How the imagined experience is way more powerful than anything actually triggered by a drug could be. Wouldn’t it be glorious to make music that made you feel like that?”

When asked what influences shaped the record, Hardy says “I don’t think we need to mention any,” while Thomson exclaims “Can't really think of any other than Tarka Daal and McEwans Export.” Kapranos does mention re-discovering Greek composer Yiannis Markopoulos’s interpretations of Cretan music on the Rizitika LP:

“Repetitive, trance-inducing, dynamic: my first extra-sensory experiences were from listening to this, before I could walk.”

“Listening to it again, I realized how it was always there. I don’t mean just in my period of experience, but for millennia. It’s ancient music you can trace back to the earliest of human experiences. We have always done this, but there is always a new way of making it. Markopoulos made it new in 1971. We made it new in 2017. The effect has always been the same. We are looking for something that allows us to ascend. To become lighter than our physical presence. To ascend from the emotion of every day. To ascend from what we understand. To ascend and know why we are ascending. To not know why we want to ascend. To be always ascending.”

Armed with this musical mission, the band put purpose to paper. Conceiving a songbook full of tightly scripted screeds and musical paradoxes, brought to vivid life through a confluence of the band’s gift for propulsive, melody-driven musicality and Zdar’s production dexterity.

“So many nights, I couldn't sleep because there were too many ideas flooding each other. Kapranos recalls “I felt like a decapitated gorgon, growing two heads where there had been one. That's why it was so great to work with Julian, Philippe and Sam. Each an extra head to the gorgon. An extra mind. An extra set of snakes spitting venom.”

These ambitious visions can be heard throughout Always Ascending: from the title track’s Penrose Stairs aural illusion constantly rising chord progression, to the “Trap Sabbath via Slackers” of 'Huck and Jim'; the barely-glimpsed backstory that could have been from a William Trevor story in ‘Lois Lane’, to the Tehching Hsieh-inspired 'Paper Cages', the five to the floor odd-count dance beat of ‘Lazy Boy’, to the heartbreaking ‘Slow Don’t Kill Me Slow’.

For all its philosophical conceits, however, it is a visceral experience. It’s intended to hit you in the heart before the brain. These are the sounds of the Parisian night, the exhilaration of an Italian car racing down the autobahn; a feeling of euphoria so pure it could only exist on a knife’s edge, occasionally gliding into euphoric heartcreak.

They wanted this record to sound like no other you’ve heard, never mind any other Franz Ferdinand record. Here it is. Stick it on. Think “What the fuck is that… I LOVE it!”

It’s Always Ascending and it’s out on Friday the 9^th of February.

Niko Moon has really clear memories. Music, cars, school. How much his parents loved each other, created a place where life was an adventure – and what you had was all you needed.

His dad, a drummer turned truck driver, loved old cars. As a boy, he remembers a Falcon, “red interior, and the carpet. The way it smelled.” He used to love to pile in with his dad, riding around, going to get donuts – and listening to music.

Like Prine, Moon’s finger is on simple things that really matter; easy joy and how to find it, loving where you are and finding ways to write about it so everyone – the really smart, the can’t be-bothered – can find their way to the bliss. It’s what Moon seeks to capture and sow in his songs.

Growing up an hour outside of Atlanta, back when it was country not exurbia, life moved at a different pace. People knew each other, took their time, shared a meal on Sunday with their family and pitched in when someone needed a hand.

Moon wanted to extract the essence of growing up in small-town Georgia. Banjo forward, swaggy back beat, guitars that tang as much as twang. Sonic tags, melodies that tumble and moments that embody all the warm welcome and friendliness that defined his life as a kid listening to his mama play Alison Krauss in her car, his debut album GOOD TIME creates an old school sort of country ethos that also drags a bit of Michael Franti, Prine, the Eagles and Outkast through songs that simmer, stir and sizzle in all the right places.

All of it turned out to be more than anyone could’ve bargained for. A musically curious kid, he remembers watching his dad practicing drums in the garage. “I got chills. I couldn’t comprehend how he was doing it,” he remembers. “I was so little, but he was in a touring regional country/rock band, had hair down to his waist. He gave it up, made the decision it was better for his family to just drive. I always respected him for that. You know, he was getting up at 4 a.m. to provide for his family.

That rhythm is shot through every track on GOOD TIME, a self-cultivated positivity starter kit. Whether the staccato/dobro punctuated laundry list of ‘can’ts’ that forms “GOOD AT LOVING YOU,” the double entendre “WAY BACK,” the slinky, finger-snapping “SMALL TOWN STATE OF MIND,” or the strummy philosophy of “WITHOUT SAYIN’ A WORD,” Moon recognizes you can’t have heart without the beat.

If the secret sauce is the alchemy, it’s been years in the slow-steeping. Not only did Moon produce Franti’s acclaimed Stay Human, Vol. 2, he’s been the secret weapon for Zac Brown for almost a decade. In love with music, the young kid caught up with the circus, “back at the Dixie Tavern on Wednesday nights, 200 people with the line wrapped around the bar and across the back. ‘Chicken Fried,’ ‘Toes,’ ‘Free,’ yes, but he would do Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Keith Whitley. And his picking, there’s always a hook built into the chord, even when he’s just playing G, C, D.”

Writing, traveling, seeing the world, Moon absorbed a precision and commitment to music that was exacting, even as it embodied simple pleasures. “Everyone in that band is so good. Spending 10 years watching them arrange and create was intense. Relentlessly authentic and refusing to adapt to other people’s ideas of what you should be was a real lesson.”

Ten years was also spent living the life.

Moon’s latest effort, COASTIN’, is available now.

From the bombastic and epic, to the folky and mystical, Get The Led Out (GTLO) have captured the essence of the recorded music of Led Zeppelin and brought it to the concert stage. The Philadelphia-based group consists of six veteran musicians intent on delivering Led Zeppelin live, like you’ve never heard before. Utilizing the multi-instrumentalists at their disposal, GTLO re-create the songs in all their depth and glory with the studio overdubs that Zeppelin themselves never performed. When you hear three guitars on the album…GTLO delivers three guitarists on stage. No wigs or fake English accents, GTLO brings what the audience wants…a high energy Zeppelin concert with an honest, heart-thumping intensity.

Dubbed by the media as "The American Led Zeppelin," Get The Led Out offers a strong focus on the early years. They also touch on the deeper cuts that were seldom, if ever heard in concert. GTLO also include a special “acoustic set” with Zep favorites such as “Tangerine” and "Hey Hey What Can I Do."

GTLO has amassed a strong national touring history, having performed at major club and PAC venues across the country. GTLO’s approach to their performance of this hallowed catalog is not unlike a classical performance. "Led Zeppelin are sort of the classical composers of the rock era," says lead vocalist Paul Sinclair. "I believe 100 years from now they will be looked at as the Bach or Beethoven of our time. As cliché as it sounds, their music is timeless."

A GTLO concert mimics the “light and shade” that are the embodiment of "The Mighty Zep." Whether it's the passion and fury with which they deliver the blues-soaked, groove-driven rock anthems, it's their attention to detail and nuance that makes a Get The Led Out performance a truly awe-inspiring event!

Get The Led Out include: Paul Sinclair - Lead Vocals, Harmonica; Paul Hammond - Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Mandolin, Theremin; Tommy Zamp - Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Vocals; Eddie Kurek - Keyboards, Guitar, Vocals, Percussion; Derek Smith - Drums, Percussion; and Seth Chrisman - Bass, Vocals

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Multi-platinum selling, Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Geoff Tate is best known for his 30-plus years as the creative and driving force behind the progressive metal band Queensryche. Since its inception with Geoff at the helm, Queensryche has sold over 20 million albums worldwide and has performed in upwards of fifty countries. Geoff is regarded as one of the most skilled vocalists in the genre with hundreds of modern, popular artists citing him and his former band as a major influence. Combining social consciousness and expertly crafted lyrics with high-energy, melodically complex music, Queensryche with Geoff Tate at the forefront became internationally recognized as the thinking man's rock band.

The band's first three albums -- their self-titled EP (1983), The Warning (1984) and Rage for Order (1986) -- all hit gold status selling over 500,000 units each. With the release of their landmark concept album Operation: Mindcrime (1988) -- which won critical and popular acclaim and comparisons to the Who's Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Wall -- Queensryche went on to bring their progressive music to sold-out audiences the world over. Following the album's platinum success, Queensryche released Empire, which quickly entered the Top Ten on the Billboard charts, eventually generating sales of more than three million copies. The album featured the hugely popular hit, "Silent Lucidity," which would be the band's first Top Ten single (#9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart). Geoff and the band would ultimately perform the Grammy nominated song live at the Grammy awards accompanied by a supporting orchestra. In all, Queensryche has been nominated for a Grammy four times and has had their music featured in three feature films. In 2006, the band released Operation: Mindcrime II, a scorching sequel to their original 1988 tale of "Rock, Revenge and Redemption." The band would soon hit the road performing both albums back-to-back in their entirety in an incredible theatrical presentation. The spectacle would be captured on Mindcrime at the Moore, a double CD/DVD release so popular that the DVD would debut at #1 on Billboard's Top Music DVD chart and eventually reach gold status. Shortly after the release of that hugely successful set, Queensryche would release another gem in 2007 titled, Sign of the Times: The Best of Queensryche, that featured 17 career-spanning tracks including seven Top 10 hits with a two-CD deluxe Collector's Edition that added fifteen rare and previously unreleased recordings. Later that year, the band found themselves on the fall leg of the highly acclaimed Heaven and Hell Tour with the late, great Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice along with other special guest, Alice Cooper. The year would culminate with the release of Take Cover, an adventurous 11-song collection of covers ranging from Black Sabbath to Broadway. In early 2009, Queensryche released American Soldier (via Atco/Rhino Records), a concept album inspired by the stories of military veterans that examines the consequences of war from the soldier's perspective... yet another effort that will solidify Geoff and the band in rock history. A truly memorable experience, the band met with, and performed for, troops in both the U.S. and the Middle East. In the year 2010, Queensryche would, once again, display their immense creativity by presenting the Queensryche Cabaret, which was heralded as "the first adults-only rock show." In 2011, the band would find themselves celebrating their 30th Anniversary in rock, marking the occasion with the release of Dedicated to Chaos (Roadrunner Records/Loud & Proud) and an extensive support tour. At the end of 2012, Geoff released his first solo album in over a decade titled, Kings & Thieves (InsideOut Music), that was quickly followed by the news of a 25th Anniversary Mindcrime Tour that would encompass the United States in 2013. Also that year, Geoff would release what would be his last album under the Queensryche name, Frequency Unknown (Cleopatra Records), an effort that would feature such guest musicians as Ty Tabor, K.K. Downing, Brad Gillis, Dave Meniketti and Chris Poland along with the members of his version of Queensryche at the time - Rudy Sarzo, Robert Sarzo, Simon Wright, Kelly Gray and Randy Gane. In 2014, it was announced that Geoff and his band mates would be embarking on their farewell tour as Queensryche, with a subsequent announcement stating that Queensryche with original lead singer Geoff Tate would be changing its name to "Operation: Mindcrime" in September for future tours and recordings. By the end of the year, Geoff began working on one of his most ambitious works to date, an entirely new concept album, titled The Key, that would be the first in a trilogy. Released in September of 2015 (Frontiers Music SRL), the debut album examined the question, "What would you do if you discovered the key to changing the way we view the world, the way we look at time, the way we travel, and could essentially change the human condition -- for better or for worse?" Next in the trilogy would be 2016's Resurrection, completed by 2017's The New Reality. All three albums were followed up with international tours that included extensive tours of the United States. Beginning in June of 2018, Geoff and the current line-up of Operation: Mindcrime, will be are hitting the road to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Operation: Mindcrime, performing the 1988 landmark concept album from beginning to end in its entirety... It's a show that Geoff loves to perform and fans love to see, only proving that good music never goes out of style. As always, Geoff looks forward to the musical journey that lies ahead.

SHORT BIO:

"Geoff Tate celebrates the 30th Anniversary of one of the best-selling rock concept albums, Operation:Mindcrime - certified Platinum and named as one of the “100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums Of All Time”. Come again and follow Nikki through his journey of a corrupt society as he gets involved with a revolutionary group along with Father William, Dr. X and Sister Mary.

Geoff and his electric band will perform the album in its entirety, featuring the hits “Revolution Calling”, “I Don’t Believe In Love” and “Eyes Of A Stranger” along with a greatest hits set featuring “Jet City Woman” “Empire” and the forever signature “Silent Lucidity”.

The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again?

“Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday.

“Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through.

“Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years.

Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.

Warren Zeiders was just 21 years old when he released his debut single, "Ride the Lightning." Rooted in a platinum-selling mix of country storytelling, heartland twang, and larger-than-life rock & roll, "Ride the Lightning" was every bit as electrifying as its title, catapulting Zeiders then a collegiate star athlete, from the sports field to the stage.

That momentum continues with Pretty Little Poison. Delivered on the heels of his 717 Tapes releases and compilation album — a collection of stripped-back singles and EP songs that introduced his powerhouse voice and sharp songwriting — Pretty Little Poison repositions him as Nashville's newest headliner at just 24 years of age. He's amodern country artist for a generation of music fans who don't mind blurring the boundaries between different styles. "I was raised on country, rock, and Christian music," says the Pennsylvania native, who grew up in Hershey before relocating to Tennessee. "That music helped shape me into who I am. I needed this album to touch all of those bases, because if I'm going to create something, I have to believe in it."

Belief has always played a central role in Zeiders’ life. Sitting in the pews of his childhood church, he lifted his voice for the very first time, singing gospel hymns with the rest of the members. He was devoted to his faith, and that devotion also served him well on the lacrosse field, where Zeiders quickly became a star player. The sport taught him accountability, discipline, and an old-fashioned work ethic. It shaped him into a road warrior, too, years before he embarked upon his first tour as a musician. "I played lacrosse all year long for more than a decade," he remembers. "There were so many tournaments in different cities. So many different hotel rooms. It felt a lot like touring, and it taught me about travel, commitment, and hard work at a young age."

Years later, Zeiders found himself on the sidelines, having suffered too many concussions to continue playing lacrosse safely. Fortunately, a new passion was brewing: music. He began playing guitar in his bedroom, picking along to songs by Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton. One night, while out to dinner with his family, a local musician asked the room for song requests. "I asked her to play 'Beautiful Crazy' by Luke Combs, but she didn't know it," says Zeiders, who offered to play the tune himself. The crowd loved his performance. "I went onstage and had an out-of-body experience," he recalls. "In that moment, a lightbulb went off and I thought, 'This is something I should pursue.'"

Not long after, Zeiders recorded an acoustic cover of "Tennessee Whiskey." Overnight, the homemade video went viral on TikTok, where thousands of country lovers became his first fans. He continued releasing music on the platform during the months that followed, alternating between covers of his favorite artists and heartwarming, hook-driven songs that he wrote himself. The reaction was seismic, and things snowballed from there. Before Zeiders had played his first show in a brick-and-mortar venue, his Spotify streams, YouTube views, and social media stats had already climbed into the millions around the world. By the time he played his 100th show — a main stage performance at the Stagecoach Festival in April 2023, months before Pretty Little Poison's release — he'd racked up a staggering 1.4 billion TikTok views, and 1 billion audio streams.

If Zeiders built his audience the old-school way — by taking his music directly to the people, armed with nothing more than his acoustic guitar and gravelly voice — then Pretty Little Poison shows what he can do with an amplified band, two chart-topping producers (Ross Copperman and Bart Butler), and the best music of his songwriting career. The past two years have been a whirlwind period filled with milestones: his first national television appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show; his first national tour, which sold out in 72 hours; his debut performance on the Grand Ole Opry stage; and even his first Top 40 hit on the Billboard charts, all before he began recording the album. Maybe that's why Pretty Little Poison brims with such excitement and self-assurance. "A lot of this album is about a girl, and a lot of it is about me," says Zeiders, who fills the album with honest lyrics about life, love, and lessons learned. "I'm paying tribute to that classic country sound, but I'm keeping things modern, too. At the end of the day, I'm just putting my heart on my sleeve and putting myself onstage."

Zeiders' muscular brand of country music is as broad as his shoulders, which still bear the evidence of a longtime sports career. "God Only Knows" and "Comin' Down High" are southern rock anthems built for summertime parties and backwoods joyrides. Songs like "Painkiller" and "Love's A Leaving" explore the darkness of outlaw country. The bright choruses of "West Texas Weather" and "Some Whiskey" are showcases for his powerhouse vocals, while"Pretty Little Poison" — the album's title track and lead single — is country music at its most cinematic, pairing dusty western textures with a radio-ready refrain. "Inside Your Head," written by eight-time Grammy winner Chris Stapleton, makes room for the lap steel guitars and timeless twang of classic country. For Zeiders, whose viral cover of "Tennessee Whiskey" played such a crucial role in his own rise to success, featuring a Stapleton cut on Pretty Little Poison feels a whole lot like fate. He worked with a number of other songwriters, too, co-writing songs with Eric Paslay, Randy Montana, Ryan Beaver, Lee Thomas Miller, Benjy Davis, Austin Taylor Smith, Jarred Keim, and others.

Zeiders' push into mainstream culture has been nothing short of meteoric. Few young artists can announce a headline show at Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium (this Oct 4, ’23) before the release of their major-label debut. Even fewer can generate the genuine excitement that Zeiders summoned with 717 Tapes tracks and magnified with Pretty Little Poison's four advance songs: "Coming Down High," "Inside Your Head," "West Texas Weather," and the title track. Pretty Little Poison is his coming of age, and despite the rapid growth of his music career, Zeiders remains true to his all-American roots.

Warren Zeiders was just 21 years old when he released his debut single, "Ride the Lightning." Rooted in a platinum-selling mix of country storytelling, heartland twang, and larger-than-life rock & roll, "Ride the Lightning" was every bit as electrifying as its title, catapulting Zeiders then a collegiate star athlete, from the sports field to the stage.

That momentum continues with Pretty Little Poison. Delivered on the heels of his 717 Tapes releases and compilation album — a collection of stripped-back singles and EP songs that introduced his powerhouse voice and sharp songwriting — Pretty Little Poison repositions him as Nashville's newest headliner at just 24 years of age. He's amodern country artist for a generation of music fans who don't mind blurring the boundaries between different styles. "I was raised on country, rock, and Christian music," says the Pennsylvania native, who grew up in Hershey before relocating to Tennessee. "That music helped shape me into who I am. I needed this album to touch all of those bases, because if I'm going to create something, I have to believe in it."

Belief has always played a central role in Zeiders’ life. Sitting in the pews of his childhood church, he lifted his voice for the very first time, singing gospel hymns with the rest of the members. He was devoted to his faith, and that devotion also served him well on the lacrosse field, where Zeiders quickly became a star player. The sport taught him accountability, discipline, and an old-fashioned work ethic. It shaped him into a road warrior, too, years before he embarked upon his first tour as a musician. "I played lacrosse all year long for more than a decade," he remembers. "There were so many tournaments in different cities. So many different hotel rooms. It felt a lot like touring, and it taught me about travel, commitment, and hard work at a young age."

Years later, Zeiders found himself on the sidelines, having suffered too many concussions to continue playing lacrosse safely. Fortunately, a new passion was brewing: music. He began playing guitar in his bedroom, picking along to songs by Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton. One night, while out to dinner with his family, a local musician asked the room for song requests. "I asked her to play 'Beautiful Crazy' by Luke Combs, but she didn't know it," says Zeiders, who offered to play the tune himself. The crowd loved his performance. "I went onstage and had an out-of-body experience," he recalls. "In that moment, a lightbulb went off and I thought, 'This is something I should pursue.'"

Not long after, Zeiders recorded an acoustic cover of "Tennessee Whiskey." Overnight, the homemade video went viral on TikTok, where thousands of country lovers became his first fans. He continued releasing music on the platform during the months that followed, alternating between covers of his favorite artists and heartwarming, hook-driven songs that he wrote himself. The reaction was seismic, and things snowballed from there. Before Zeiders had played his first show in a brick-and-mortar venue, his Spotify streams, YouTube views, and social media stats had already climbed into the millions around the world. By the time he played his 100th show — a main stage performance at the Stagecoach Festival in April 2023, months before Pretty Little Poison's release — he'd racked up a staggering 1.4 billion TikTok views, and 1 billion audio streams.

If Zeiders built his audience the old-school way — by taking his music directly to the people, armed with nothing more than his acoustic guitar and gravelly voice — then Pretty Little Poison shows what he can do with an amplified band, two chart-topping producers (Ross Copperman and Bart Butler), and the best music of his songwriting career. The past two years have been a whirlwind period filled with milestones: his first national television appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show; his first national tour, which sold out in 72 hours; his debut performance on the Grand Ole Opry stage; and even his first Top 40 hit on the Billboard charts, all before he began recording the album. Maybe that's why Pretty Little Poison brims with such excitement and self-assurance. "A lot of this album is about a girl, and a lot of it is about me," says Zeiders, who fills the album with honest lyrics about life, love, and lessons learned. "I'm paying tribute to that classic country sound, but I'm keeping things modern, too. At the end of the day, I'm just putting my heart on my sleeve and putting myself onstage."

Zeiders' muscular brand of country music is as broad as his shoulders, which still bear the evidence of a longtime sports career. "God Only Knows" and "Comin' Down High" are southern rock anthems built for summertime parties and backwoods joyrides. Songs like "Painkiller" and "Love's A Leaving" explore the darkness of outlaw country. The bright choruses of "West Texas Weather" and "Some Whiskey" are showcases for his powerhouse vocals, while"Pretty Little Poison" — the album's title track and lead single — is country music at its most cinematic, pairing dusty western textures with a radio-ready refrain. "Inside Your Head," written by eight-time Grammy winner Chris Stapleton, makes room for the lap steel guitars and timeless twang of classic country. For Zeiders, whose viral cover of "Tennessee Whiskey" played such a crucial role in his own rise to success, featuring a Stapleton cut on Pretty Little Poison feels a whole lot like fate. He worked with a number of other songwriters, too, co-writing songs with Eric Paslay, Randy Montana, Ryan Beaver, Lee Thomas Miller, Benjy Davis, Austin Taylor Smith, Jarred Keim, and others.

Zeiders' push into mainstream culture has been nothing short of meteoric. Few young artists can announce a headline show at Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium (this Oct 4, ’23) before the release of their major-label debut. Even fewer can generate the genuine excitement that Zeiders summoned with 717 Tapes tracks and magnified with Pretty Little Poison's four advance songs: "Coming Down High," "Inside Your Head," "West Texas Weather," and the title track. Pretty Little Poison is his coming of age, and despite the rapid growth of his music career, Zeiders remains true to his all-American roots.

The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again?

“Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday.

“Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through.

“Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years.

Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.

A hugely talented singer-songwriter hailing from Luton, London whose profile has risen meteorically in the last year alongside a string of releases mixing Folk, Americana and Pop.

Hugely inspired by a broad range of music he listened to growing up, Myles cites the likes of Green Day, Ben Howard, Labrinth and UK Rap as some of his many influences. Myles cut his teeth with open mic nights and support slots before he released any of his own music and spent time in between classes in the studio honing his craft.

He is an artist who found solace in music to overcome and navigate the complexities of life and situations he couldn't make sense of. Now he is carrying that torch with the mantra 'It's okay to feel, helping the same people who may not have the vocabulary to explain things in their own terms, fostering a community of fans who aren't afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves. As Myles calls it - “Group Therapy.”

When pianist Scott Bradlee started the time-twisting musical collective from a basement apartment in Queens, NY, an online, “viral” success story was born —one that quickly led to sold out shows across North America and Europe in the Summer of 2014.

The touring act received rave reviews from industry publications and world-renowned artists alike. In the years that followed, “PMJ” built a reputation as the “Saturday Night Live of Singers” by introducing audiences to dozens of exceptional musical artists —many of whom had been previously overlooked by the modern record industry — and turning them into bonafide stars.

Ten years and two billion views on their YouTube channel later, a Postmodern Jukebox show has become something of an annual musical tradition for hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans all over the world — fans that often show up dressed to the nines in their vintage best, eager to immerse themselves in the experience.

The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again?

“Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday.

“Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through.

“Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years.

Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.

The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again?

“Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday.

“Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through.

“Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years.

Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.

Don’t believe everything you see on TV: Olly Murs has been away.

For sure, the singer, songwriter and solid-gold pop star has been all over our screens in recent weeks and months. He’s been front and centre as host of ITV’s Starstruck, helping the public make real their musical dreams, with wing-persons assistance from the likes of Shania Twain, Ronan Keating and Beverley Knight.

Then, he returned to the big swivelly chair on The Voice. Appearing alongside fellow coaches Anne-Marie, Sir Tom Jones and will.i.am in the current run, this is his fifth consecutive season on the hit talent show.

But in the artist world – the world that forged him, where he burnished the creative credentials that makes him an invaluable part of those musical shows – Murs has been off the radar for over four years. For a musician who had four Number One singles and four Number One albums in a near-back-to-back run after bursting onto the scene with his double-platinum self-titled debut in 2010, that’s a big gap.

But as he matter-of-factly admits, after the release of 2018’s sixth album You Know I Know (a double that was half greatest hits, half new tracks) he needed a rest. And a reset. The result is Olly Murs’ most consistent, most ambitious, punchiest, poppiest – and, in places, proudly soppiest – album yet.

It’s the Essex-machine at his happiest, too. How do we know? The clue’s in the title: Marry Me. The answer? Hint: she said yes. But before we get to that…

“I won’t lie,” Murs begins. “I was against doing the hits album. That's why I made it a double album – the songs you know, the songs that I know. Because I just wasn't ready for a hits album at that point in my career.”

As it happened, he then needed time to rebuild himself, personally and professionally. Firstly, after the 2019 You Know I Know tour, this keen footballer needed knee surgery. Secondly, he decided it was time to work with a fresh team, leaving Sony to sign a new record deal with EMI/Universal.

“It was just a weird time for me,” he reflects. “I was still single, personal life was a little bit all over the place… Work life was good, overall, but with that album campaign, my heart wasn't really in it. But my heart's in it now.”

That cardiac boost came from multiple directions. Firstly, Murs’ ears lit up when he was sent a work-in-progress track by songwriter David Stewart. 'Die Of A Broken Heart' needed a second verse, and a proper vocal, but he could hear that this was a smash-in-waiting.

“I went to David’s studio in West London and we got into the writing together. That was really the start and the spearhead of everything. It gave me a direction of where the album could go.”

'Die Of A Broken Heart' would become the first track on the album, and the first single. From the opening notes, you can hear why – this is an instant ear-worm, a one-listen-and-you’re-hooked pop-reggae outlier. As Murs describes it: “It has that steel drum at the intro, which just gets in your head straight away. It has a very Gotye, ‘Somebody I Used to Know’ feel to it, with a touch of The Police – and just a coolness to it. That really excited me.”

So much so that Murs decided to dive deep and commit. Forging an instant connection with Stewart, and with the producer and multi-instrumentalist’s songwriting partner Jessica Agombar, Murs ripped up entirely the creative process that had previously worked brilliantly for him.

“I've done all my albums with lots of producers over the years, predominantly Steve Robson, Claude Kelly, Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, guys I've had great relationships and success with. But David just had a BTS hit with their song ‘Dynamite’, stuff with Jonas Brothers, DNCE, more stuff with BTS, and he'd just done the new Shania Twain record…”

So he jumped in, committing to writing and recording the album solely with David Stewart and Jessica Agombar. “I've never done this before. It felt weird writing with the same people constantly. But I loved the routine, and the consistency. We just kept writing good songs.

“They are in the mix right now,” he continues. “They just had a great vibe and an enthusiasm, and a hunger. They’ve just had a Billboard number one, a number one in over 100 countries. That enthusiasm and energy that I got from them, that was it. That was the start.”

The start, but no starting pistol: Murs was determined not to race to the finish. Even though, again, that was something that had paid dividends in the past.

“Previous albums, I've done them in 12 weeks, 10 weeks, sometimes eight weeks, nonstop, jumping from studio to studio, benefiting from that injection of enthusiasm from someone new, that new producer, that new room – new lunch menu!"

But to craft the tight set of 11 songs that would become Marry Me, he took the best part of two years, working a week here, and a week there.

“And we had space,” he adds. “That’s the best thing about this album: we were patient. We didn't waste time. We took our time. And when it felt good, we finished the song. When it didn't feel good, we moved on. There was no pressure.”

Murs met his partner in 2019, another big change. This life-changing jolt is reflected in another new song. ‘I Found Her’ is a big tune with big energy and a big, soaring synth line.

“I was hearing Eighties-sounding songs in the charts like what The Weeknd was doing,” remembers this keen student of pop music. “That's where that big energy you’re describing came from, all dramatic and Eighties-like. We wrote the song based on my partner – or any woman. She's at the centre of the earth, and all these superheroes are trying to get to her. But if the world ends, at least – at last – I've found her.

“We wanted that bounce in the chorus, and that Jagger or Bowie strut, me with my chest out – I can imagine me in a sequinned onesie,” he hoots, as if storyboarding a video for what is surely a nailed-on single. “Yeah, we had fun writing that one.”

Also bringing the good-time party vibes is ‘Dancing on Cars’, a tune with an exuberant ‘Pull Up To The Bumper’ feel. And if you’re gonna tap into anyone’s funky vibe, Grace Jones is the one, right?

“This is the only one I didn't write. David said, ‘look, I wrote this fucking banger and I think it would work perfectly on the album.’ It's got that, again, modern funk feel – but my granddad would love to dance to it because it's got that old ’70s funk in it, with brass. It just ticks all the boxes. And I like the idea of me dancing on a car!” he hoots, scripting yet another surely inevitable iconic video moment.

Then, after the dancing and the partying, the romance. Rounding out Marry Me is ‘Let Me Just Say’. The album’s closing track is the only ballad, and offers not just a showcase for Murs’ effortlessly classy voice but also for his deepest emotions.

“It was probably the last song we wrote on the album, and you can probably tell at that point I was engaged,” he acknowledges. “So it's almost a story, really – the whole album is the two years leading up to me proposing. This is the final song on the album, and it's written as if the lights are down low, we’re on the dancefloor for our wedding, looking at each other…”

...and, fade to marital bliss. “That's the most open I’ve ever written,” Murs admits, clearly high on being able to honour and immortalise his bride-to-be in this way. “That's genuine love. But as for ‘Marry Me’ itself,” he adds of the finger-snapping, hip-shaking, dance floor-ready title track, “that's more my cheeky side. I’m saying: I think it's time you married me, really!’”

It’s sure to have them dancing – if not proposing – in the aisles next year, when Olly Murs gets back on tour. Last time round he sold 180,000 tickets for UK arenas in 2019. He’s determined to go bigger, better, louder next time in a show that will, he thinks, open with another new track. The Greatest Showman-esque ‘The Best Night of Your Life’ features strings by the legendary Mike Batt (who also appears on two other tracks), and the larky lyrics reference songs by other great showmen he rates, notably Elton John and Robbie Williams. "I can already see me on stage doing that one," nods this natural-born stage performer.

Allison Russell — poet, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist, and co-founder of Our Native Daughters and Birds of Chicago — embarks upon her next chapter in The Returner, a body-shaking, mind-expanding, soulful expression of Black liberation, Black love, of Black self-respect. Written and co-produced by Allison along with dim star (her partner JT Nero and Drew Lindsay), The Returner was recorded over Solstice week in December 2022 at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, CA. It features Russell's "Rainbow Coalition" band of all female musicians along with special guest appearances from the legendary Wendy & Lisa, Brandi Carlile, Brandy Clark, and Hozier.

Alan Jackson is one of the most successful and respected singer-songwriters in music. He is in the elite company of Paul McCartney and John Lennon among songwriters who’ve written more than 20 songs that they’ve recorded and taken to the top of the charts. Jackson is one of the 10 best-selling artists since the inception of SoundScan, ranking alongside the likes of Eminem and Metallica. His current single, “You Go Your Way,” is from his chart-topping album, Thirty Miles West, which was released June 5.

Jackson has sold nearly 60 million albums worldwide, topped the country singles charts 35 times, and scored more than 50 Top-10 hits. He has written or co-written 24 of his 35 #1 hit singles. Jackson is a 18-time ACM Award winner, a 16-time CMA Award recipient, and a two-time Grammy-winning artist whose songwriting has earned him the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award and an induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as a 2011 Songwriter/Artist inductee.

Alan Jackson is one of the most successful and respected singer-songwriters in music. He is in the elite company of Paul McCartney and John Lennon among songwriters who’ve written more than 20 songs that they’ve recorded and taken to the top of the charts. Jackson is one of the 10 best-selling artists since the inception of SoundScan, ranking alongside the likes of Eminem and Metallica. His current single, “You Go Your Way,” is from his chart-topping album, Thirty Miles West, which was released June 5.

Jackson has sold nearly 60 million albums worldwide, topped the country singles charts 35 times, and scored more than 50 Top-10 hits. He has written or co-written 24 of his 35 #1 hit singles. Jackson is a 18-time ACM Award winner, a 16-time CMA Award recipient, and a two-time Grammy-winning artist whose songwriting has earned him the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award and an induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as a 2011 Songwriter/Artist inductee.

Alan Jackson is one of the most successful and respected singer-songwriters in music. He is in the elite company of Paul McCartney and John Lennon among songwriters who’ve written more than 20 songs that they’ve recorded and taken to the top of the charts. Jackson is one of the 10 best-selling artists since the inception of SoundScan, ranking alongside the likes of Eminem and Metallica. His current single, “You Go Your Way,” is from his chart-topping album, Thirty Miles West, which was released June 5.

Jackson has sold nearly 60 million albums worldwide, topped the country singles charts 35 times, and scored more than 50 Top-10 hits. He has written or co-written 24 of his 35 #1 hit singles. Jackson is a 18-time ACM Award winner, a 16-time CMA Award recipient, and a two-time Grammy-winning artist whose songwriting has earned him the prestigious ASCAP Founders Award and an induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as a 2011 Songwriter/Artist inductee.

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Riley Green has been compelling Country music fans to raise a drink, shed a tear, and, above all, celebrate where they are from, since his self-titled EP in 2018 debuted with Big Machine Label Group. His songs like the No. 1 PLATINUM hit “There Was This Girl,” the 2X-PLATINUM-certified heart-tugger “I Wish Grandpas Never Died,” and his chart-topping collab with Thomas Rhett, “Half of Me,” have made the Academy of Country Music’s 2020 New Male Artist of the Year synonymous with what Country music does best: making listeners feel something with his no-gimmick, relatable writing and classic feel.

A huge 2023 for the avid sports fan, former athlete (Jacksonville State University quarterback) and outdoorsman, Green secured his third No. 1 single “Different ‘Round Here (Ft. Luke Combs),” played to an average of 65,000 fans each night as direct support on massive tours for Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen and released his latest full-length studio album Ain’t My Last Rodeo. The Dann Huff-produced album features his current Top 25-and-climbing single “Damn Good Day To Leave,” and gave a deeper look into the life of good ol’ boy who still lives in his hometown of Jacksonville, AL.

Currently riding a wave of massive success that grows stronger each day, 2024 has been a rocket for Green. He released his Way Out Here EP, which included two solo writes that had critics and fans alike gushing (the poignant “Jesus Saves” and the sultry “Worst Way,” which sparked a frenzy on the internet), the humorous tune “Rather Be,” as well as the wildly viral “you look like you love me” with Ella Langley, which has also taken social media by storm. He played for the biggest Country crowd in UK history (on his first trip across the pond no less), headlined his own (largely sold out) amphitheater tour, hosted his own festival, became one of only three Country artists to grace the cover of Cigar & Spirits and has become one of the most buzzed-about artists in Nashville. With another project on its way this fall, it’s clear, “there’s no slowing down for Riley Green” (Pollstar). See tour dates and learn more at RileyGreenMusic.com.

Over the past four decades — give or take a decade break — the illustrious and critically acclaimed Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD) have sold over 40 million records worldwide, establishing them as electronic synthesiser pioneers and one of Britain’s best-loved pop groups. Their 13 long players include benchmark-raising classics Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (1980), Organisation (1980), Architecture & Morality (1981), and Dazzle Ships (1983). OMD conquered the United States, and yielded the 1986 hit, "If You Leave" from the Pretty In Pink Soundtrack. They have also achieved 12 top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart, as well as three top 20 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Following the recent celebration of their 40th anniversary, OMD returned last year with their first new studio album since 2017's highly praised The Punishment Of Luxury, a record entitled Bauhaus Staircase (released via White Noise through The Orchard). The record is regarded as OMD's most explicitly political record and the crowning achievement of their desire to be both Stockhausen and Abba - born from the impetus to kickstart new explorations during lockdown when, as Andy McCluskey admits: "I rediscovered the creative power of total boredom."

Predominantly written, recorded, and mixed by both McCluskey and Paul Humphreys (who has recently become a second-time father), Bauhaus Staircase’s other main external influence was David Watts, mainly known as a rock producer who helmed Sheffield band The Reytons’ recent No 1 album and mixed two tracks on the new OMD record. With Bauhaus Staircase, OMD have created a landmark album worthy of their finest work, showing a duo who are still perfectly in sync 45 years after their first gig at legendary Liverpool club Eric’s. "I’m very happy with what we’ve done on this record," McCluskey summarizes. "I’m comfortable if this is OMD’s last statement."

In celebration of their new LP, OMD have also returned to the stage, headlining North America in the Fall of 2024.

"We are so excited to be able to tour again with a brand new album to showcase,” says Andy McCluskey. “It's been six years since we learned new songs for live performances. The songs from Bauhaus Staircase will fit beautifully into our setlist - we just have to choose which five to play, as we have to treat people to the hits as well!"

Over the past four decades — give or take a decade break — the illustrious and critically acclaimed Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD) have sold over 40 million records worldwide, establishing them as electronic synthesiser pioneers and one of Britain’s best-loved pop groups. Their 13 long players include benchmark-raising classics Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (1980), Organisation (1980), Architecture & Morality (1981), and Dazzle Ships (1983). OMD conquered the United States, and yielded the 1986 hit, "If You Leave" from the Pretty In Pink Soundtrack. They have also achieved 12 top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart, as well as three top 20 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Following the recent celebration of their 40th anniversary, OMD returned last year with their first new studio album since 2017's highly praised The Punishment Of Luxury, a record entitled Bauhaus Staircase (released via White Noise through The Orchard). The record is regarded as OMD's most explicitly political record and the crowning achievement of their desire to be both Stockhausen and Abba - born from the impetus to kickstart new explorations during lockdown when, as Andy McCluskey admits: "I rediscovered the creative power of total boredom."

Predominantly written, recorded, and mixed by both McCluskey and Paul Humphreys (who has recently become a second-time father), Bauhaus Staircase’s other main external influence was David Watts, mainly known as a rock producer who helmed Sheffield band The Reytons’ recent No 1 album and mixed two tracks on the new OMD record. With Bauhaus Staircase, OMD have created a landmark album worthy of their finest work, showing a duo who are still perfectly in sync 45 years after their first gig at legendary Liverpool club Eric’s. "I’m very happy with what we’ve done on this record," McCluskey summarizes. "I’m comfortable if this is OMD’s last statement."

In celebration of their new LP, OMD have also returned to the stage, headlining North America in the Fall of 2024.

"We are so excited to be able to tour again with a brand new album to showcase,” says Andy McCluskey. “It's been six years since we learned new songs for live performances. The songs from Bauhaus Staircase will fit beautifully into our setlist - we just have to choose which five to play, as we have to treat people to the hits as well!"

PLATINUM-selling Thomas Rhett leads the pack as one of country music’s elite new artists with the fastest rising single of his career, the Top 5 GOLD certified upbeat breakup anthem “Crash And Burn” from his upcoming sophomore release TANGLED UP out Sept. 25 (The Valory Music Co.). As "one of country music's most successful – and divisive – new artists" (The Guardian), the new music follows his debut album IT GOES LIKE THIS, which spawned three consecutive No. one hits, making him Billboard’s first male country artist to do so from a debut album in over two decades. The CMA and ACM “New Artist of the Year” nominee initially garnered attention as a gifted songwriter with credits including hits by Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean and Lee Brice. It is his “high-energy all the way” (El Paso Times) live show that has “the audience dancing all the way up in the rafters of the stadium” (Billboard) that continues to catch the attention of critics out on the road. For tour dates and more visit, thomasrhett.com.

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

“This whole album is me, who I am and how I want to be seen as an artist,” says Dua Lipa. “I want people to really get to know me, so the album is everything that has happened in my life so far, and every song tells a different story.”

She may be young, but Lipa has plenty of stories to tell. The London-born child of Kosovar parents, she has already been nominated for awards by the BBC and MTV Europe, and was a finalist for the prestigious “Critics’ Choice” prize at the Brit Awards. She also won Best New Artist at the NME Awards, and two European Border Breakers Awards—she was one of only ten global recipients of the EBBA—including the night’s biggest prize, the “Public Choice” award, voted on by fans.

Her strong presence onstage (indicated by her European Festival Award for Best Newcomer of the Year) immediately separates her from so many emerging pop acts. But with 3.5 million in global sales, it’s her singles that have rapidly established her as a rising star—"Be the One" reached the Top Ten in a dozen European territories, "Hotter Than Hell" hit the Top Twenty in the UK, and “Blow Your Mind (Mwah)” climbed into Billboard’s Top 25 in the US. All of this, mind you, before putting out her first album.

Now, with the release of Dua Lipa, she reveals the full range of her ambitions—not just the dance-floor fire of her singles, but also a more introspective side. “I’ve been describing it as ‘dark pop’ because people have only heard the pop moments, but there are some really dark, singer-songwriter parts that I’m excited about,” she says.

Before Lipa was born, her father was a pop star in his native Kosovo; growing up, she absorbed the music of his favorite artists—Radiohead, Oasis, Stereophonics, Sting. Meanwhile, she was still a regular pop-obsessed kid, singing along to Destiny’s Child and S Club 7 (“stuff that you’d listen with your friends”) and especially Nelly and Pink. Those singers stood out, she says, for their “coolness and honesty—it was pop music, but there was something real about it.”

She attended the Sylvia Young Theater School until she was 11, when she and her family moved back to Kosovo, a country which she considers much more complex than its war-torn image. “Kosovo is changing and evolving so much,” she says. “It’s still very poor, there’s lot of places that are really run-down, but every time I go back there’s something new and better happening. There’s so much talent there, and people are starting to find out about it.”

Encouraged by a teacher who would make her perform Alicia Keys and Toni Braxton hits in school, Lipa began to think about singing—which had always been her “playground dream”—more seriously, and convinced her parents to let her move back to London when she was 15. Living with friends, she made it through high school, but failed her first year of A Levels as partying took priority over attendance.

Too ashamed to tell her friends (“I felt so bad, I just wanted to cover it up”), Lipa applied the same tenacity that has propelled her career ever since: She found an intensive one-year study program, got straight As, and was accepted into four universities. Though she wanted to prove that she could meet these academic challenges, her commitment to her music and her vision never wavered.

“I always told myself never to have a plan B - I feel like that's also one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing now, because I have never thought about doing anything else.”

Lipa was working in a restaurant, recording covers and posting them on social media, trying to find a way into the music business, when she was noticed on the street by a modeling agency. “Some of my friends were doing it,” she says. “But I was never put up for any good jobs, just random salons and whatever. And they said ‘If you want to do this properly, you need to lose a lot of weight.’ I tried to do it at first, but it made me very unhappy and caused me a lot of issues, a lot of body confidence problems. Modeling sounds so glamorous, but it really wasn’t a successful thing for me.”

"Every woman should have the privilege to love their body and feel sexy just the way they are,” she continues. “Being able to spread that message and to support all my girls who need to be told they’re fucking hot and that they don’t need to change for anyone inspires me and makes me feel I am exactly where I need to be.”

One thing the agency did accomplish, though, was securing Lipa an audition for a commercial for The X Factor—and when her voice appeared in the ad, she eventually drew the attention of a management team working with Lana Del Rey. She signed a deal that allowed her to quit the restaurant and go from working on demos in her spare moments to focusing on recording.

“I always had a really clear idea of what I liked and what I didn’t, which made the process easier,” she says. During her years in Kosovo, she became a huge hip-hop fan; a Method Man/Redman show was her first concert. “I wanted to bring in my love for hip-hop and find some middle ground,’ she says. “Lyrically, the songs have more of a flow—especially ‘Bad Together’ and ‘Last Dance,’ where it’s really fast-paced, like I’m singing a rap but I have a pop chorus. That was always the goal.”

Lipa says that “Hotter Than Hell,” written before she got signed, was the first time she felt in command of her songwriting, but points to “Garden of Eden” as a turning point. “It kind of wrote itself,” she says. “All I had to do was set it off and be open and honest, and the story just happened.”

While recording Dua Lipa in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, she was rapidly learning the fearlessness and confidence necessary to write great songs. She says that more personal songs like “Genesis” and “No Goodbyes” indicate where her life is right now.

Lipa recently concluded her first tour, opening for Troye Sivan in the US and headlining dates of her own in the UK. Other than a brief panic attack during her very first show (“luckily people found it endearing, but I was terrified,” she says), performing live quickly became comfortable territory. “I can really be creative and let loose onstage,” she says. “Be really free, just go for it and enjoy it, and get lost in what I’m doing.” The critics instantly took notice: NPR said that she “hypnotized” on stage, while Idolator called her “completely badass” and SPIN raved “she’s headliner material—catch her while you can.”

Perhaps the most emotional experience in Dua Lipa’s young career was her triumphant return to Kosovo for a concert last summer. The appearance drew an astonishing 18,000 fans, and the singer needed a police escort to get from her family’s residence to the venue. “It was the craziest moment of my life,” she says. “Just so insane and so much fun.”

She used the proceeds from the homecoming show to create the Sunny Hill Foundation, named for the neighborhood where her parents reside. “We’re going to give to different charities every month for the youth of Kosovo,” she says. “I just want to do my part, because they’ve done so much for me there.”

This kind of hands-on involvement carries over to Lipa’s relationship with her fans, including close communication on social media and collaborations with her followers on merchandise design. A small group of dedicated Twitter followers rapidly grew into a community too big to keep up with as much as she would like. “We talk about all kinds of things on Twitter, though it’s getting harder now to reply to everything,” she says. “They can tell my moods from my tweets—they ask if I’m feeling OK.

The songs on Dua Lipa announce the arrival of a new force in pop—irresistible on the dance floor, thoughtful under closer inspection, constantly discovering creative possibilities. “I’ve grown a lot as a writer,” Lipa says. “It used to take me a really long time to write a song, but now it’s easier to be more open and say what I’m thinking without having to filter or hide from the people I’m in the room with. Just learning who I am and being able to tell a story.”

Imperial Recordings is excited to announce the release of José González ‘s new record, Vestiges & Claws. The album, his first in seven years, is out on February 17 and was produced by González in his home as well as Svenska Grammofonstudion, both in Gothenburg, Sweden. It consists of years’ worth of musical sketches that in other hands might naturally sprawl wildly in sound and style, but on Vestiges & Claws González has created a collection of songs that cohere just about perfectly, ensuring his position as one of the most important artists of his generation.

“It was no doubt a conscious decision to work without a producer,” said González. “I didn’t want this to be too polished, or too ‘in your face.’ Most of all, it’s fun to be in complete control of the artistic aspect. Also, I was inspired by and picked up a lot of tricks from the producers I have worked with in the past. I like to use distortion and let things be a little overdriven, which gives things a warmer sound. Sometimes people complain that my music is too muddled, but I really do not want a modern crisp sound. I’d much rather aim somewhere between Shuggie Otis and Simon & Garfunkel.”

The result is an album that is less purist, less strict. One can find traces of inspired protest songs and eccentric folk rock on Vestiges & Claws: staccato grooves and rhythms, frustration and optimism. It’s a collection that is simultaneously confident, free and uncertain.

González said, “I started out thinking that I wanted to continue in the same minimalistic style as on my two previous records, but once I started the actual recordings I soon realized that most of the songs turned out better with added guitars and a more beat-like percussion, and with more backing vocals.”

González has been far from idle in the seven years since the release of his last solo record, In Our Nature. Besides making two Junip albums and touring the world both solo and with the band, González has been active in the studio in various contexts. One project in 2013 was José’s input to the The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty soundtrack, directed by and starring Ben Stiller. Besides previously released José and Junip songs, the film also contains exclusively written material as well as an interpretation of John Lennon’s “#9 Dream.” Earlier this autumn, the AIDS awareness group, Red Hot Organization, released the compilation Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell, where González and guests play a very groovy, sax-laden version of Russell’s “This Is How We Walk On The Moon.” During this time, his song “Far Away” won the “Best Song in A Game” at the Spike Video Awards and Rolling Stone named Junip’s “In Every Direction” a Top 50 single of 2010.

Vestiges & Claws is, however, the first album where he has chosen to include exclusively original material, largely revolving around ideas of civilization, humanism and solidarity.

“I think that might be where there is some sort of common thread on this new record: The zoomed out eye on humanity on a small pale blue dot in a cold, sparse and unfriendly space. The amazing fact that we are here at all, an aim to encourage us to understand ourselves and to make the best of the one life we know we have — after birth and before death. And also, I’ve been okay with using rhymes this time,” González said with a smile. He added, “In general I think that the lyrics are clearer this time. And a little less self-pitying.”

Where Veneer and In Our Nature, might have sounded sparse and barren in parts, Vestiges & Clawshas an altogether new feeling to it, at once warmer and darker than before. He talks about how he’s found inspiration in sprawling 70′s Brazilian productions, American folk rock and West African desert blues this time. And how he’s decided to waive the principle of having everything on the album reproducible in a live context.

González summed it up, “I’ve focused more on the role of being a producer this time around. I’ve spent more time thinking of what’s best for the song and the recording.”

A deep, artful thinker whose singular approach to song writing and sonics sets him worlds apart, José González is in a class by himself. He has a voice. He has a sound. He has a point of view.Vestiges & Claws – musically gorgeous, strikingly profound in lyric — has a unique and quietly visceral power that is as an outstanding addition to what is now an impressive body of work. The album is, without question, the most highly anticipated of his career.