Month: March 2025

Gorillaz have had some lengthy gaps between albums before: 2017’s Humanz came out over six years after 2010’s The Fall. But, they’ve been dropping projects at a good, consistent clip lately, most recently releasing Cracker Island in 2023. Now, it looks like they have a follow-up just about ready to go and set to launch in 2025.

In a recent interview with French publication Les Inrockuptibles, Damon Albarn said (as Billboard notes, translated from French), “I’m finishing a new Gorillaz album. One opera and one new Gorillaz album seems like enough for 2025! Unless someone accuses me of taking my foot off the gas!”

Furthermore, Gorillaz visual artist Jamie Hewlett reportedly told a Gorillaz fan account on Instagram, “Yes, the new album is coming out this year.” The same post also claims Albarn said on a French podcast that he’ll be finished the album in six weeks.

Meanwhile, aside from a new Gorillaz album in 2023, Albarn also returned to Blur to drop the album The Ballad Of Darren. But, Albarn may ultimately be ready to put Blur behind him for good, as he said while performing at Coachella with the band in 2024, “In the spirit of clarity and truth, this is probably our last gig.”

Steven and Ian kill some time at the start chatting about the return of Tobias Jesso Jr. and Steven’s recent list of the best 21st century indie-rock albums, which generated some buzz online. But they devote most of the episode discussing a full slate of new releases this week. First up is Lucy Dacus, who is back with a big new release on a major label. But is the album a major achievement? After that, they do quick hits on new albums from Destroyer, Deafheaven, and Perfume Genius. Have any of these veteran acts put out new work that matches their best? They report, you decide!

In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the new release from indie-emo band Palmyra and Steven stumps for country singer Charley Crockett.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 232 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Dua Lipa and Troye Sivan go synthwave in “Physical,” their boisterous new dance anthem. The collaboration borrows a very ’80s aesthetic, with New Wave-inspired drums and synth bass, as they implore the listener to “keep on dancin’.” It’s a perfect synthesis of what the two pop stars do best — and a welcome lane swerve after Lipa’s past fixation on glittery disco-pop — evoking memories of the aerobics-obsessed decade that gave us leg warmers and neon spandex. The song wouldn’t be out of place in the workout show from The Substance.

In hyping the upcoming collaboration, which was released to honor the fifth anniversary of Dua Lipa’s second studio album Future Nostalgia, the English star wrote, “Thank you for the memories that I have to last me a lifetime ~ keeping me dancing all around the world. Grateful beyond words and thanking my lucky stars every day for music and the power that it has over me and the ability it has had time and time again to connect us all no matter where we are on this floating rock!!!!” Although the track was previously leaked by a fan (with Lipa’s blessing), that hasn’t stopped fans from clamoring for a — ahem — “physical” release. Consider that wish officially granted.

You can listen to Dua Lipa’s “Physical” with Troye Sivan above.

Over the past few weeks, Lil Nas X dropped a string of new singles at an alarming rate. After kicking things off in November with “Light Again” and “Need Dat Boy,” he went into overdrive earlier this month, dropping “Big Dummy,” “Swish,” “Right There,” and “Hotbox” in one week. After capping off the stream with the release of “Lean On My Body” last week, Nas has collected all eight tracks in one place: his new EP, Days Before Dreamboy.

The title appears to have two references in it. One is, of course, the name of his upcoming second studio album, Dreamboy, on which it was assumed all the above tracks would eventually appear. Now, we have no idea whether or not any of them will be on the album, or what the album will sound like. The other reference appears to be to Travis Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo, which preceded the Houston artist’s 2015 album Rodeo. The point of that project was to promote the then-upcoming debut album, which it did with a slew of songs that were eventually cut from the final tracklisting. Days Before Rodeo was reissued to streaming last year, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.

It looks like Lil Nas X is taking a different tack, putting out Days Before Dreamboy to streaming as an EP after previously releasing all its songs individually. We’ll have to see how this affects the eventual release of Dreamboy, the album, which is expected to drop sometime this year.

You can get Days Before Dreamboy here.

With her debut album Why Not More? just a month away from release, Coco Jones releases a romantic new single. “You” finds her waxing poetic about her paramour, and luxuriating in the feeling of falling in love. “I wanna be living with you, we go together,” she croons. “Like brand-new shoes in perfect weather / Lil’ mama fine and he a dime piece / Gotta be from Heaven, looking like my blessing.”

“You” is the fourth single from Why Not More?, following the 2024 releases of “Here We Go (Uh Oh)” and its Leon Thomas-featuring remix and “Most Beautiful Design” featuring London on da Track and Future, as well as the February release of “Taste,” which doubled as the album announcement. Coco also announced the dates for the album promo tour, which kicks off in May.

You can listen to Coco Jones’ new single “You” above.

Coco Jones Why Not More? Tour Dates

05/06 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore Philadelphia
05/07 – Washington, DC @ Echostage
05/09 – Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa
05/10 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
05/12 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place
05/13 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner
05/14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
05/16 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
05/18 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
05/19 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
05/21 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre
05/22 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
05/23 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Fillmore Minneapolis
05/25 – Denver, CO @ Cervantes’ Masterpiece
05/28 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
05/30 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
05/31 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
06/02 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades
06/04 – San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Ballroom
06/06 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Novo
06/07 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
06/10 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
06/11 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
06/13 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
06/14 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
06/15 – San Antonio, TX @ Aztec Theatre
06/17 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues
06/18 – New Orleans, LA @ Civic Theatre
06/20 – Birmingham, AL @ Iron City
06/21 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
06/24 – Richmond, VA @ The National
06/25 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore
06/26 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium

UK/European Dates

9/10 — Cologne, DE @ Live Music Hall
9/11 — Berlin, DE @ Huxley’s Neue Welt
9/12 — Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
9/14 — Amsterdam, NL @ Melkweg
9/17 — Paris, FR @ Élysée Montmartre
9/19 — London, UK @ Roundhouse

Why Not More? is due on 4/25 via Def Jam Recordings. You can find more info here.

Just about a month ago (give or take a day), Little Simz announced the forthcoming release of her sixth studio album Lotus with the single “Flood.” Today, the British rapper released the second single, the dreamily soulful “Free.”

Like plenty of Simz’s songs to date, the track’s an introspective look at the term “love,” with Simz taking on multiple meanings of the word past just the usual romantic context it’s most often used in. “I think that love is forgiving yourself,” she muses. “I think that love is offering your immediate help / I think that love is everything that we need in this world / I think the key is being honest and being yourself.”

Lotus arrives as Simz’s public profile is at its peak following collaborations with Coldplay and Sampha, as well as the three-year build from her last album, No Thank You.

Unfortunately, she’s also in the middle of a legal battle with former producer Inflo, whom she recently sued for $2.2 million (or £1.7 million) which he borrowed from her and never paid back. Maybe this explains the cancellation of her 2022 North American tour.

Listen to Little Simz’s new single “Free” up top.

Lotus is due on 5/9 via AWAL Recordings. You can find more info here.

Over the past few of his releases, Compton rapper YG has gotten more comfortable with the idea of vulnerability in his music. His latest release, though, takes things even further. Here’s where I must add a trigger warning for descriptions of child sexual abuse. Sorry.

In his confessional new song, “2004” featuring fellow Comptonite Buddy, YG admits that he was the victim of statutory rape at just 14 years old, at the hands of a girlfriend’s older relative, a woman twice his age.

Over the course of the song’s three verses, YG recounts his encounters with this older woman, admitting that as he got older, he knew such experiences weren’t normal. Unfortunately, at the time, the friends he told about his experience were also too young to understand the “f*cked up” dynamic, causing him to withdraw into himself and making it difficult for him to trust women. It’s a story we hear all too often, and yet, not often enough to change the perception of such stories when we do hear them — as demonstrated by YG’s friends’ reactions.

In the video, YG delivers the tale to his therapist, while Buddy comes in to sing the hook. Some of the scenes are re-enacted in flashbacks illustrating the traumatic experience. You can watch the video above.

The road to d4vd‘s debut album Withered has seen the singer wonder “Where’d It Go Wrong,” lament “My House Is Not A Home,” and boast “There Goes My Baby.” After asking for “One More Dance” and narrowly avoiding “Crashing” with Kali Uchis, d4vd now pushes his paramour for a commitment with “What Are You Waiting For.”

An upbeat pop-rock anthem, “What Are You Waiting For” documents d4vd developing a crush, then beckoning them to make a damn move, because he’s been standing here — and “it’s never been so clear.” The shimmery rock recalls the late-90s heyday of indie and garage bands, as d4vd makes his play for mainstream dominance after laying the foundation for a star-crossed career with “Here With Me” and “Romantic Homicide.”

In the announcement for Withered, d4vd wrote: “Thank you all eternally for waiting on me. This album means SO much to me you have no idea the blood sweat and tears that came with trying to create this project over the past 2 years. Constantly starting over and over and over until there was nothing left on this audio landscape of a canvas than thoughts, melodies, and emotions that were unequivocally me.”

Listen to d4vd’s “What Are You Waiting For” above.

Withered is out on 4/25 via Darkroom / Interscope Records. You can find more info here.

Tyler The Creator and Nardwuar have reunited once again for the latest installment of their seemingly never-ending series of interviews, and as usual, the latest is a goldmine of Tyler quotes. One clip currently making the rounds online sees Tyler addressing fan backlash to his “That Guy” freestyle over Kendrick Lamar’s GNX standout “Hey Now.” (You can watch that here.)

In short, Tyler would like it if non-hip-hop heads kept out of hip-hop discourse online. Here’s how he put it:

I saw someone say, “How Tyler just gonna take Kendrick’s song right after it comes out, and do the same flow over the same beat.” And I’m like, “Damn, that’s somebody else who did not grow up listening to rap or hip-hop.” ‘Cause if you grew up listening to rap or hip-hop, you know that’s normal… You should have to do a survey and show your ID before you could say sh*t on the internet — ’cause folks be saying dumb sh*t.

He also gave a parting shot: “And I gassed that ‘Hey Now’ sh*t, that sh*t stupid,” he boasted. “Stop playing with him.”

Tyler has never shied away from speaking his mind, from telling fans to stop asking “weird” questions to warning them that chanting song titles at his shows is pretty much pointless.

You can watch Tyler’s full interview with Nardwuar above.

Lil Tecca might got him one. His new single, “Dark Thoughts,” is part of the wave of songs I predicted a couple of years ago that would take over contemporary hip-hop. It, and songs like it, harnesses mid-2000s sonic aesthetics — mainly from the oeuvre of The Neptunes, a la “Beautiful” by Snoop Dogg — and pairs them with modern, sing-song deliveries and ad-libs for a style that’s fun, bouncy, and sets certain rappers apart from the druggy, street rap wave that we’ve seen crest in recent years.

Tecca, who we last heard from in 2023 with the very contemporary Tec, sounds like the future on “Dark Thoughts” (which, when you think about what the ‘Tunes were doing back then, is kind of impressive). Although the title might bring to mind the sort of depressive emo or dissociative rage that has been making millennials shake their heads and tut-tut “the kids” since Rolling Loud this year, instead, it refers to what online communities have been calling “intrusive thoughts.”

In this case, the thoughts come from a female companion who’s sparked Tecca’s interest. The catch is, she’s got a man. “Deep Thoughts” is Tecca flexing on said man, warning his romantic rival of his girlfriend’s bad intentions (and Tecca’s). “Know my bitch so bad, you spend your cash on a bitch you never had.” he brags.

Meanwhile, the song sees Tecca growing into a different kind of artist, and making something that can bridge that pesky generational gap.

Watch Lil Tecca’s “Dark Thoughts” video above.