Tag: Forest Hills Stadium

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Erykah Badu and The Alchemist Team Up on Woozy and Mind-Bending “Witch Doctor”

In the 11 years since her last release and 16 since her last studio album, Erykah Badu has been busy, gathering not conclusions but rather, a series of existential insights through whirlwind touring, teaching, motherhood, doula work and the sort of deep reflection informed by living and raising children in a rapidly changing, increasingly dystopian world. During that same period, her cultural influence has only expanded: The five-time Grammy Award-winner with 20 nominations appeared on the cover of Vogue back in 2023. received the CDFA Fashion Icon Award in 2024 and Billboard‘s Icon Award last year. And she has done this while continuing to collaboration across generations with the like software Janelle Monáe, Tyler, the Creator, Flying Lotus, Robert Glasper, Teyana Taylor, Rapsody, and a lengthy list o others.

The Alchemist has firmly established a reputation for being one of hip-hop’s most prolific producers, releasing multiple efforts a year including, last year’s Alfredo 2 with Freddie Gibbs, the sequel to their Grammy Award 2020 album Alfredo; last year’s Life Is Beautiful with Larry June and 2 Chainz; this year’s Spiral Staircases with Larry June and Curren$y and LIQUID FORM. Continuing a remarkably prolific and productive period, The Alchemist and Erykah Badu teamed up for Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment.

Abi is Badu. Alan is The Alchemist. Released today through Control Freaq Records /YOUNG, the acclaimed duo’s collaboration finds Badu contemplating which parts of ourselves and our stories — love, innocence, dreams, memories, womanhood — are worth protecting before the world breaks apart and fragments. Meditative and fluid, the album’s material unfolds across four movements, charting the progression of the self through the prisms of of love, art and identity while inviting the listener to sit with difficult and complex feelings. Throughout the album’s runtime, passion blurs with desire, hope with grief — with each song revealing another facet of Badu’s universe. Or shall we call it the Baduverse?

The collaboration between the two acclaimed artist can trace its origins back to roughly 2023: Badu told her longtime creative partner Cold Cris that she always wanted to rap over Mobb Deep’s “The Realest,” a gritty, thumping yet soulful Alchemist production. The Alchemist — who had quietly been hoping to work with Badu for years — was introduced soon after, and their conversations grew into a full-fledged collaborative effort. The duo’s first studio session together in Los Angeles yielded the previously released “Next to You.” which laid the foundation for what would become an entirely new sonic language. Later, The Alchemist sent Baud a collection of instrumental beats, which she deconstructed and sculpted into tracks that felt uniquely hers, embellishing his warm, punchy samples with kalimba, immersive chord structures and drums. The’s album material sonically moves fluidly and effortlessly between soul, blues, funk, jazz and underground hip-hop and yet somehow belongs entirely to none of them.

Between 2024-2025, Badu and The Alchemist road-tested the album’s material live, performing in intimate, phone-free settings with Badu’s digital collective The Cannabinoids and The Alchemist on the MPC, fine tuning tracks along the way. The result is quite possibly the most forward-thinking batch of material of either artist’s career, an album that’s meant to live and evolve with you through space and time while inviting the lister to continually explore themselves, to have one more kiss, one more hit, one more dance, one more joke, all before the world blows.

“Witch Doctor,” Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment‘s latest single is a woozy and strutting blend of neo soul, soul jazz, hip-hop, voodoo and experimental pop within an expansive, endlessly mothering, kaleidoscopic production branch Badu’s imitable, jazz-like croon. Throughout the song Badu referencing witches having a deeper, more mystical connection with both their universe and their surroundings — unlike those cornball TV witches.

Directed by and starring Erykah Badu with a brief cameo by The Alchemist, with cinematography by Ayinde Anderson, the accompanying video for “Watch Doctor” is both a companion piece and a sort of continuing of the Dallas-born artists 2010 short film “Window Seat.” 16 years later, Badu returns to the same Dallas neighborhood with a new perspective, exploring what remains after the world as taken everything it can from an artist, and pointing towards the one thing it can never manufacture, characterize or possess: the very source itself.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Share Glitchy and Club Friendly “Level 5”

Wildly prolific Melbourne-based JOVM mainstays King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard — Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (harmonica, vocals, keys), Cook Craig (guitar, vocals), Joey Walker (guitar, vocals), Lucas Harwood (bass) and Michael Cavanaugh (drums) — have a long-held reputation for being restlessly creative and never standing still musically, exploring everything from prog-tinged thrash metal, primitive synth-rock, down-home jam rock and on recent releases feel-good symphonic rock.

The Aussie outfit’s remarkable 28th album Alien Metal follows on from 2023’s The Silver Cord — and grew out of last year’s “rave shows,” in which traditional instruments were abandoned, with the band gathering around an expansive modular synthesizer setup they named “Nathan,” each member making their own manipulations to create a mind-altering whole. And what initially began as an experiment soon became an obsession, inspiring what may arguably be one of the band’s most ambitious albums to date. “It completely rewired my brain,” Gizz’s Stu Mackenzie says, having discovered the possibilities of the Eiurorack synthesizer format on the recommendation of bandmate and self-confessed “techno head of the group” Joey Walker. “I was like, ‘I’m going to forget everything I know about music and relearn it all from scratch.”

The album was far from straightforward to make. Over the course of several years, the band scrapped countless recordings and abandoned entire creative directions while searching for the album’s identity. “We’ve never scrapped so much material as we have for this album,” Mackenzie says. “Entire albums, entire universes that were formulated, created, recorded, deleted and started again.”

The breakthrough finally arrived during a late night, improvisatory jam session that went over an hour. That spontaneous jam became the foundation for the entire record with every track on Alien Metal evolving from the same source performance. The result is a seamless, constantly shifting journey through techno, hardcore, house and jungle influences, filtered through King Gizzard’s unmistakable psychedelic lens. Pulsing rhythms, distorted textures and unexpected twists collide across material that’s at once futuristic and uniquely their own. “It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful,” says Mackenzie.

“Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places,” adds Joey Walker. “And it feels unique – it feels like us, still.”

Alien Metal‘s first single “Level 5” sees Mackenzie’s heavily vocodered vocals beneath a mind-bending bit of industrial techno featuring glistening and glitchy synth textures paired with skittering, machine gun staccato beats that showcases how hard the band’s material typically goes while arguably being the most club friendly song they’ve released to date.

Directed by Hayden Somerville, the accompanying video places the viewer in a dystopian hellscape in which a collection of scientists perform a weird experiment on a humanoid mutant to hilariously weird effect. Not to spoil things too much, but it involves an autopsy and a connection to a modular synthesizer.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: POND Returns with Bombastic, Anthemic “Skyworks”

Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — will be releasing their 11th album Terrestrials on Friday through their newly-minted Mangovision/Secretly Distribution. 

The writing and recording process for Terrestrials was subject to a simple set of rules: No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit.” Conceived from a place of deep reverence for a particular potent era of Oz rock, the JOVM mainstays’ 11th album reportedly mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that will hit an eternally poignant nerve for those familiar with the sound, time and place. And from there, the album evolved with the idea of “Goths at the pub” becoming the record’s stylistic north star — with 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the post-punk of Sisters Of Mercy, Magazine and the like. Throughout the album’s creative and recording process, they’d ask themselves “Would Goths like it? Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes, it was thrust into the mix. 

Like much of their catalog, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Thematically, the album touches upon extractive capitalism, power dynamics., inequality, Indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays. And as a result, the album’s material twitches with the desperation of people and their planet on the brink, but while betting on the beauty of both to prevail. 

The album will feature the prevoouisly released, album title track “Terrestrials,” the Sisters of Mercy-meets-Diesel and Dust-era Midnight Oil-like “Two Hands,” the achingly yaerning “Through The Heather,” and the album’s latest single, album opener “Skyworks.” “Skyworks” feautres what may argaubly be Terrestrials‘ most rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses within a song that channels a syntheis of Diesel and Dust-era Midnight Oil, pub rock and post punk.

The song explores the complicated and uneasy history of Australia Day and the juxtaposition of public celebrations against the brural and painful history behind the day — and in turn, the country’s — origins. “The skyworks happen every year on the day Australia was invaded and claimed by the crown. They explode over the river in a gaudy display of drunkenness and patriotism, sponsored by the Lotto,” Nick Allbrook explains. “We love a flutter. The river is bejewelled with magical glittering lights, and loud bangs that remind some of canons and muskets. The river is ablaze, magic, filthy, like a Hieronymus Bosch picture, strewn with bottles and shit in the morning. It’s a confusing time for a confused people. Joe Ryan wrote the main chord progression for this one and then it grew in weird ways”

Directed by Stephanie Senior the accompanying video for “Skyworks” is a syltishly shot visual that employs the same colorful silhouettes reminiscent of the early iPod ad campaigns.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: POND Returns with Anthemic, Post Punk-Like “Two Hands”

Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — will be releasing their 11th album Terrestrials on June 19, 2026 through their newly-minted Mangovision/Secretly Distribution.

The writing and recording process for Terrestrials was subject to a simple set of rules: No fuzz pedal. No ballads. No “Pink Floyd shit.” Conceived from a place of deep reverence for a particular potent era of Oz rock, the JOVM mainstays’ 11th album reportedly mines the sound of open sky melancholia, heat haze sizzling on the plains and jangly pub backrooms that will hit an eternally poignant nerve for those familiar with the sound, time and place. And from there, the album evolved with the idea of “Goths at the pub” becoming the record’s stylistic north star — with 80s Australiana being acid-washed with the post-punk of Sisters Of Mercy, Magazine and the like. Throughout the album’s creative and recording process, they’d ask themselves “Would Goths like it? Could you have a beer to this?” If the answers were yes, it was thrust into the mix.

Like much of their catalog, Terrestrials is a record of people and place, of exploring the identity of each, as well as where and how they intersect and interact. Thematically, the album touches upon extractive capitalism, power dynamics., inequality, Indigenous incarceration, eccentric outcasts, fire and water, diesel and dust, unity and division, blood and bauxite, unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays. And as a result, the album’s material twitches with the desperation of people and their planet on the brink, but while betting on the beauty of both to prevail.

The album will feature the recently released, album title track “Terrestrials” and its second and latest single, “Two Hands.” The Sisters of Mercy-meets-Diesel and Dust-era Midnight Oil-like “Two Hands” is slick, shimmering and downright anthemic tune, but it throbs and twitches with anger familiar anger and despair over a society that values money above all — including this planet and our lives.

“This song is about when mining company Rio Tinto blew up Juukun Gorge in the Hammersley Range in Western Australia. They destroyed sacred rock shelters that were of the highest archaeological, cultural and spiritual significance,” POND’s Nicholas Allbrook explains. “The rock shelters contained a cultural sequence spanning 46,000 years that had been taken care of by the local Indigenous communities. I was wondering how the commentators around this country would’ve reacted if the shoe was on the other foot and someone had demolished the Vatican or Notre Dame or St. Paul’s because it was in the way of their corporate expansion. Anyway, its a little word of encouragement that you’ve got every right to be very fucking angry about this injustice.”

Directed by Sam Kristofski and the JOVM mainstays, the accompanying video will remind Americans of The Dukes of Hazard but set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape that nods at Mad Max. Allbrook continues, “The video was made by us and Sam Kristofski (with heaps of help from Tess Thompson, Kate Green and Christian Dillon). We filmed it in York and the Beverley Offroad Motorsports Association on one of the hottest days of the summer. Az was tough enough to wear full leathers the whole time. Endless thanks to him and Ry for fully embodying the soul of this video with their enduring passion for dust, rust, black cans, circlework and fucked up old motorcars.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: POND Shares Rousingly Anthemic Yet Existential “Terrestrials”

Today, Perth-based JOVM mainstays POND — currently, Nicholas Allbrook (lead vocals, guitar, keys, bass, flute, slide guitar and drums); singer/songwriter and producer Jay Watson (vocals, guitar, keys, drums, synths and bass), who’s also the creative mastermind of acclaimed JOVM mainstay outfit GUM and a touring member of acclaimed, Grammy Award-nominated JOVM mainstays Tame Impala; Joe Ryan (vocals, guitar, bass, 12 string guitar, slide guitar); Jamie Terry (keys, bass, synths, organs, guitar); and Jamie Ireland (drums, keys) — have shared a new single, “Terrestrials,” the first bit o new material from the Aussie outfit since 2024’s Stung!

“Terrestrials” begins with a meditative and slow-burning intro, before quickly morphing into a bombastic rocker, anchored around fuzz and phased out guitars, glistening synths that showcases the band’s unerring knack for incredibly catchy hooks and rousingly anthemic choruses. Thematically, the song is a meditation on the great mystery and contradiction of humanity, a species capable of great love and great cruelty — often simultaneously.

“Gum wrote the music for this one and we recorded this in Mullumbimby with Julian Abbott at Nowave studio,” POND’s Nicholas Allbrook explains. “This song is about the weirdest of all the terrestrials, people. Hellbent on flying away from or killing our home soil, with a big appetite for destruction, guns, roses. We can love and connect and nurture and inflict unbearable cruelty. You all know this but, yeah, it’s kind of a great mystery isn’t it? It’s almost more supernatural than extraterrestrials. Which is probably why we wrote this song. There aren’t many of us who can forget for even a second about the unborn tomorrows and dead yesterdays but among them are, apparently, kids and people in love. My cousin Iz helped write this with our chats.” 

Directed by Jesse Taylor Smith, the accompanying video is a mix of live performance footage and trippy animation.

Along with the new single and video, POND announced that they will be opening for Djo — the musical project of producer, singer/songwriter, musician and actor, Joe Kerry, best known for his roles in Stranger Things and Fargo for a handful of East Coast dates, including a July 17, 2026 stop at Forest Hills Stadium. Tour dates are below. Tickets will go on sale Friday, March 20, 2026 at 10:00am local time.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Share Their Funkiest Jam to Date

Formed back in 2010, the acclaimed, genre-defying Aussie psych rock and JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard — Stu Mackenzie (vocals/guitar), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (harmonica/vocals/keyboards), Cook Craig (guitar/vocals), Joey Walker (guitar/vocals), Lucas Skinner (bass) and Michael Cavanagh (drums)– have developed and maintained a long-held reputation for being a restlessly experimental and prolific act that has released material that has seen them zip back and forth between psych rock, heavy metal, thrash metal, thrash punk, prog rock and Turkish pop.

In 2022, the Aussie JOVM mainstays have added two more albums to their rapidly growing catalog, Omnium Gatherum and Butterfly 3001. Continuing upon their wild prolificacy, the Gizz will be releasing three more new albums in October: Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava, which will drop first on October 7, 2022; Laminated Denim, which will drop on October 12, 2022, unconventionally a Wednesday; and lastly, Changes, their fifth album on October 28, 2022. Coincidentally, all of this will be happening when the Gizz will be embarking on a North American tour that will see the band playing some of their largest venues to date, including three shows at Red Rocks Amphitheater (two of which are currently sold-out) and Forest Hills Stadium on October 21, 2022. As always, all tour dates are below.

Limited stock of Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava will be available at their Greek Theater show in Berkeley, copies of Laminated Denim will be available at Red Rocks, and Changes can be obtained at the Orpheum in New Orleans. Additionally, bundles of all three albums can be pre-ordered through the band’s homepage: https://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com

With an outfit that’s so wildly prolific, things often move very quickly: Before Mackenzie and company had finished work on Omnium Gatherum, they’d started sketching out the next album. Album single “The Dripping Tap” had begun as a handful of ideas and riffs that had arisen at pre-pandemic soundcheck and demos recorded during lockdown. But for Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava, the band didn’t bring in any pre-written songs or ideas; instead, they planned to completely improvise the album’s material in the studio and on the spot. “All we had prepared as we walked into the studio were these seven song titles,” says Mackenzie. “I have a list on my phone of hundreds of possible song titles. I’ll never use most of them, but they’re words and phrases I feel could be digested into King Gizzard-world.”

Mackenzie selected seven titles from this exhaustive list that he felt “had a vibe” and then attached a beats-per-minute value to each one. Each song would also follow one of the seven modes of the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydina, Aeolian and Locrian. Over a week-long period, the band recorded hours and hours of jam, dedicating a day to each mode and BMP. “Naturally, each day’s jams had a different flavor, because each day was in a different scale and a different BPM,” Mackenzie says. “We’d walk into the studio, set everything up, get a rough tempo going and just jam. No preconceived ideas at all, no concepts, no songs. We’d jam for maybe 45 minutes, and then all swap instruments and start again.”

The band ended each day with four-to five hours of new jams in the can. Mackenzie auditioned those jams after the sessions were done, stiching them together into the songs that would comprise their 21st — 21st! — album, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava, a mnemonic for the modes employed in the material’s composition and recording.

Having assembled full working compositions from those jam sessions, Mackenzie and company then began overdubbing flute, organ, percussion and extra guitar over the top. The lyrics were a group effort. “We had an editable Google Sheet that we were all working on,” says Mackenzie. “Most of the guys in the band wrote a lot of the lyrics, and it was my job to arrange it all and piece it together.” The end result off this wildly experimental creative process is reportedly one of the densest, most unpredictable statements from a band, whose work always rockets back and forth in unexpected angles — and accompanied by a wealth of subtext and theorems behind it.

Clocking in at a little over 10 minutes, “Ice V,” IDPLML’s latest single is centered around a tight, shuffling and relentless Afrobeat-like groove, wah wah-drenched guitars, fluttering flute, twinkling Rhodes paired with Mackenzie’s imitable delivery. While arguably being the grooviest track I’ve heard from the Gizz in some time, it also features some of the most infectious hooks as well.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Share Cinematic and Feverish Visual for Dance Floor Friendly “Burning”

After teasing their first new bit of music in over nine — nine! — years, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Karen O. (vocals), Nick Zinner (keys, guitar, drum machine, bass) and Brian Chase (drums) — announced their long-awaited and highly anticipated fifth album, Cool It Down last month. 

Cool It Down is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Secretly Canadian and features cover photography by Alex Prager. The eight-song album reportedly is an expert distillation of the band’s gifts and will impel the listener to move, cry and listen closely. 

“To all who have waited, our dear fans, thank you, our fever to tell has returned, and writing these songs came with its fair share of chills, tears, and euphoria when the pain lifts and truth is revealed, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O wrote in a statement to the band’s fans. “Don’t have to tell you how much we’ve been going through in the last nine years since our last record, because you’ve been going through it too, and we love you and we see you, and we hope you feel the feels from the music we’ve made. No shying away from the feels, or backing down from what’s been gripping all of us these days. So yes we’ve taken our time, happy to report when it’s ready it really does just flow out.”

“The record is called Cool It Down which is snagged from a lesser known Velvet Underground song. I told Alex Prager whose photo graces our record cover that her image speaks to sweeping themes in the music and sums up how I, Karen, feel existentially in these times! But there’s always more to the story. This is how our new story begins, we present to you with heads bowed and fists in the air ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’ featuring Perfume Genius.

Cool It Down‘s first single, the Dave Sitek-produced “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” featuring Perfume Genius is a slow-burning and cathartic power ballad centered around glistening and droning synths, Chase’s thunderous drumming, a distortion-driven guitar solo by Zinner, arena rock friendly hooks paired with the lush interplay between Karen O’s and Perfume Genius imitable vocals. Sonically “Spiting Off The Edge of the World” to my ears sounds like a slick yet subtle synthesis of Show Your Bones and It’s Blitz — and as a result, the song is simultaneously urgent yet an exercise in restraint. 

Lyrically, the song reflects on the current state of the environment, and the need for honesty about the damage we’re inflicting on the Earth. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiant,” Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O explains. “It’s galvanizing and there’s hope there.” 

The album’s second single., the Andrew Wyatt-produced “Burning” is a dance floor anthem built over a twinkling piano loop inspired by The Four Seasons’ “Beggin’” and features Zinner’s fiery guitar sprawl, thumping beats, Chase’s funky drum patterns pared with Karen O’s imitable croons and shouts. The song captures the Karen O being engulfed in the tumult and unrest of Los Angeles in 2020 — with fire and smoke bearing down on the city and everything its in path. Sonically, the song sounds like a subtle refinement of It’s Blitz!-era YYYs that nods at Fever to Tell.

“Back when I was 19 living in the East Village, one night a roommate dragged me out of the apartment for an impromptu drink across the street,” Karen O writes. “I left a votive candle burning on a plastic yaffa block which, in my absence set flame to my room. Within an hour and-a half of having one drink down the block, firefighters had come and gone extinguishing the fire. I came home to find that a natural disaster had occurred (to my room) and most of my stuff, lost in the flames. All electronic goods were melted and demolished like my laptop, cameras etc. but oddly enough the items that held the most sentimental value remained intact like sketchbooks, a favorite sweater with hearts across the chest, and photographs. I had photos of my parents in their youth where the fire burnt around the two of them as if there was some intangible force field protecting them, many photos like that, mysteriously leaving the beloved subjects untouched.”

If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life. ‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how. Nick and I nodded to Frankie Valli’s ‘Begging’, with the line ‘oooh lay your red hand on me baby.’ We’ve cut a rug to many a soulful sixties bangers in our day, it was in our DNA by the time we wrote ‘Burning’.”

Directed by the band’s longtime collaborator Cody Critcheloe a.k.a. Ssion, the accompanying video is cinematically shot fever dream that nods at 60s B movies, West Side Story and Los Angeles low-rider culture before ending with the video’s protagonist staring at a raging conflagration.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

After teasing their first new bit of music in over nine — nine! — years, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Karen O. (vocals), Nick Zinner (keys, guitar, drum machine, bass) and Brian Chase (drums) — announced their long-awaited and highly anticipated fifth album, Cool It Down last month.

Cool It Down is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Secretly Canadian and features cover photography by Alex Prager. The eight-song album reportedly is an expert distillation of the band’s gifts and will impel the listener to move, cry and listen closely. 

“To all who have waited, our dear fans, thank you, our fever to tell has returned, and writing these songs came with its fair share of chills, tears, and euphoria when the pain lifts and truth is revealed, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O wrote in a statement to the band’s fans. “Don’t have to tell you how much we’ve been going through in the last nine years since our last record, because you’ve been going through it too, and we love you and we see you, and we hope you feel the feels from the music we’ve made. No shying away from the feels, or backing down from what’s been gripping all of us these days. So yes we’ve taken our time, happy to report when it’s ready it really does just flow out.”

“The record is called Cool It Down which is snagged from a lesser known Velvet Underground song. I told Alex Prager whose photo graces our record cover that her image speaks to sweeping themes in the music and sums up how I, Karen, feel existentially in these times! But there’s always more to the story. This is how our new story begins, we present to you with heads bowed and fists in the air ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’ featuring Perfume Genius.

Cool It Down‘s first single, the Dave Sitek-produced “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” featuring Perfume Genius is a slow-burning and cathartic power ballad centered around glistening and droning synths, Chase’s thunderous drumming, a distortion-driven guitar solo by Zinner, arena rock friendly hooks paired with the lush interplay between Karen O’s and Perfume Genius imitable vocals. Sonically “Spiting Off The Edge of the World” to my ears sounds like a slick yet subtle synthesis of Show Your Bones and It’s Blitz — and as a result, the song is simultaneously urgent yet an exercise in restraint. 

Lyrically, the song reflects on the current state of the environment, and the need for honesty about the damage we’re inflicting on the Earth. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiant,” Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O explains. “It’s galvanizing and there’s hope there.” 

The album’s second single., the Andrew Wyatt-produced “Burning” is a dance floor anthem built over a twinkling piano loop inspired by The Four Seasons’ “Beggin'” and features Zinner’s fiery guitar sprawl, thumping beats, Chase’s funky drum patterns pared with Karen O’s imitable croons and shouts. The song captures the Karen O being engulfed in the tumult and unrest of Los Angeles in 2020 — with fire and smoke bearing down on the city and everything its in path. Sonically, the song sounds like a subtle refinement of It’s Blitz!-era YYYs that nods at Fever to Tell.

“Back when I was 19 living in the East Village, one night a roommate dragged me out of the apartment for an impromptu drink across the street,” Karen O writes. “I left a votive candle burning on a plastic yaffa block which, in my absence set flame to my room. Within an hour and-a half of having one drink down the block, firefighters had come and gone extinguishing the fire. I came home to find that a natural disaster had occurred (to my room) and most of my stuff, lost in the flames. All electronic goods were melted and demolished like my laptop, cameras etc. but oddly enough the items that held the most sentimental value remained intact like sketchbooks, a favorite sweater with hearts across the chest, and photographs. I had photos of my parents in their youth where the fire burnt around the two of them as if there was some intangible force field protecting them, many photos like that, mysteriously leaving the beloved subjects untouched.”

If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life. ‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how. Nick and I nodded to Frankie Valli’s ‘Begging’, with the line ‘oooh lay your red hand on me baby.’ We’ve cut a rug to many a soulful sixties bangers in our day, it was in our DNA by the time we wrote ‘Burning’.”

The trio are in a middle of a handful of summer and fall dates that includes a highly anticipated October 1, 2022 stop at Forest Hills Stadium. Check out the remaining tour dates below. 

Tour Dates

September 18: Riot Fest @ Chicago, IL

October 1: Forest Hills Stadium @ New York, NY [Special Guest TBA, The Linda Linda]

October 6: Hollywood Bowl @ Los Angeles, CA [Japanese Breakfast, The Linda Lindas]

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Yeah Yeah Yeahs Team Up with Perfume Genius on an Urgent Power Ballad

After teasing their first new bit of music in over nine — nine! — years, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Karen O. (vocals), Nick Zinner (keys, guitar, drum machine, bass) and Brian Chase (drums) — recently announced their long-awaited and highly anticipated fifth album, Cool It Down.

The forthcoming album is slated for a September 30, 2022 release through Secretly Canadian and features cover photography by Alex Prager. The eight-song album reportedly is an expert distillation of the band’s gifts and will impel the listener to move, cry and listen closely.

“To all who have waited, our dear fans, thank you, our fever to tell has returned, and writing these songs came with its fair share of chills, tears, and euphoria when the pain lifts and truth is revealed, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O writes in a statement to the band’s fans. “Don’t have to tell you how much we’ve been going through in the last nine years since our last record, because you’ve been going through it too, and we love you and we see you, and we hope you feel the feels from the music we’ve made. No shying away from the feels, or backing down from what’s been gripping all of us these days. So yes we’ve taken our time, happy to report when it’s ready it really does just flow out.”

“The record is called Cool It Down which is snagged from a lesser known Velvet Underground song. I told Alex Prager whose photo graces our record cover that her image speaks to sweeping themes in the music and sums up how I, Karen, feel existentially in these times! But there’s always more to the story. This is how our new story begins, we present to you with heads bowed and fists in the air ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’ featuring Perfume Genius.

Cool It Down‘s first single, the Dave Sitek-produced “Spitting Off the Edge of the World,” featuring Perfume Genius is a slow-burning and cathartic power ballad centered around glistening and droning synths, Chase’s thunderous drumming, a distortion-driven guitar solo by Zinner, arena rock friendly hooks paired with the lush interplay between Karen O’s and Perfume Genius imitable vocals. Sonically “Spiting Off The Edge” to my ears sounds like a slick yet subtle synthesis of Show Your Bones and It’s Blitz — and as a result, the song is simultaneously urgent yet an exercise in restraint.

Lyrically, the song reflects on the current state of the environment, and the need for honesty about the damage we’re inflicting on the Earth. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiant,” Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O explains. “It’s galvanizing and there’s hope there.”

The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s longtime collaborator Cody Critcheloe a.k.a. Ssion, who designed the cover art for Fever To Tell, and who also directed Perfume Genius’ “Queen” directed the accompanying video which stars Perfume Genius as an avenging angel limo driver to Karen O’s desert rebel queen.

“A note on this video, it’s a dream collaboration with one of our favorite artists of the 21st century Cody Critcheloe who did the artwork for our first record back in 2003 and has been making visionary music videos for the last decade,” Karen O notes. “The time to collaborate again came with ‘Spitting,’ the shoot in Kansas City was dream-like, the dreams you have after eating something really greasy right before bed; bizarre, poetic, and intense. Perfume Genius was incredibly gracious to roll in the very cold mud as my co pilot and steal scene after scene with his surreal charm.  We trusted Cody implicitly, he surpassed expectations and gave us our November Rain. YYY’s spirit is alive and well through the eyes of Cody Critcheloe. Custom Yeahs limo was largely his handiwork, fueled on love.”