Wednesday Music News

02/01/2017

Janice Headley

Last year's Six Degrees honoree Robyn Hitchcock releases his 21st album this Spring. Check out the first single below, titled "I Want To Tell You About What I Want." In an interview with NPR, Hitchcock explains, "The original title of the song was 'My Vision Of World Empathy.' Either we will eventually become extinct and be replaced by cats with articulated thumbs who have evolved the way apes slowly evolved into us, or we will become empathic and mildly telepathic — people like Donald Trump won’t happen because biologically no human will be born with that lack of empathy. We will become a species that isn’t capable of bullying because we can feel what we’re doing to other people. There is obviously some evolutionary step between the human and the angel that needs to take place. Maybe when we have enough suffering credits, our DNA will go, 'Right! Here we go! Homo angelicus — it can read your mind, it’s compassionate, it can levitate and it’s a great lover! It shares its fish sticks with you and flies you back in time to see The Velvet Underground!' That is what we need to become." The new self-titled album will be out April 21st on Yep Roc. [ Stereogum ]

Baltimore trio Future Islands have announced a new album, The Far Field -- check out the first single "Ran" below. The band worked on tracks from North Carolina and Baltimore, with John Congleton producing from Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles. And when it hits the streets on April 7th via 4AD Records, you can get it digitally, cassette, LP, CD, or "unique, first-of-its-kind miniature LP." The guys will be playing February 9th on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon -- we'll be sure to remind you with KEXP's TV Eye column. [ Under the Radar ]

Father John Misty has been relentlessly sharing new music these past few days -- hear the singles "Two Wildly Different Perspective" here and the title track "Pure Comedy" here. Today, he unveils the track "Ballad of the Dying Man," a folky, stripped-down number where he calls out "homophobes, hipsters, and the one percent." Pure Comedy will be in stores April 7th via Sub Pop Records. [ Consequence of Sound ]

Late last year, The Magnetic Fields announced their next album by sharing not one, but five new tracks (hear them here). Today, we've got another track to check out from the five-LP set, 50 Song Memoir -- stream "’83 Foxx And I" below in a video by Alex Basco Koch. (As the title states, the album features 50 songs, one for each year frontman Stephin Merritt has been alive.) 50 Song Memoir hits stores on March 3rd via Nonesuch. The band will play two nights in Seattle, Saturday, May 6th and Sunday, May 7th. [ Stereogum ]

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