Australian songwriter Gordi continues to preview her delayed sophomore record Our Two Skins with the fervent single “Volcanic.” Written in a time where she was grappling with her identity amid a Christian family and Australia’s same-sex marriage vote, “Volcanic” sonically represents an intense swell of emotions.

Reflecting the quietly intricate cadence of her formerly-released singles, “Volcanic” gently murmurs with urgency. An exhalation of synth tones hums under Gordi’s rich delivery. “I have these moments where I panic / When I shut down and go manic / So eruptive and destructive like within I am volcanic,” she sings.

In a statement, Gordi detailed the inspiration behind the single, saying it’s about the drama surrounding her experience with anxiety:

“It speaks to a rush of anxiety – about why, about what is real and what is not, about the drama of it, about the vortex of it. When it surges you can feel paralysed and out of control at the same time – ‘shut down’ and ‘manic.’ Its self-destructive nature can be so crippling. I wanted the song to feel like a wave of anxiety. The tempo never changes but the piano solo starts at half-time and rushes until it is double the speed, though the beat never changes. And then suddenly; it’s over.”

About the record as a whole, Gordi said the idea of transparency woven through the album: “A big theme of the record is: there’s nothing to hide behind. We didn’t have all the bells and whistles. You’re just standing there, with your hands in your pockets going: this is me. This is it. This is all I have.”

Watch Gordi’s “Volcano” video above.

Our Two Skins is out 6/26 via Jagjaguwar. Pre-order it here.

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Alabama Shakes vocalist Brittany Howard recently pivoted towards solo music with her soulful record Jaime. Now, Howard is bringing her musical influence to the airwaves: The singer has partnered with Sonos to create a curated station of music that inspires her.

Titled The Encyclopedia Of Brittany, the new Sonos Radio station begins streaming today (May 5). It features commentary by Howard along with an eclectic mix of music that is prompted by her own influences and obsessions. Howard says her Sonos station includes a wide range of music that has inspired her from childhood up until now:

“The Encyclopedia of Brittany is a collection of songs that weaves in and out of my personal education of music and how one goes about making it. There are beloved songs from my earliest memories of childhood to things I’ve just recently discovered. One song can be so drastically different from the next, because all that is necessary to make this list is a song that made me think, ‘wait, what is this?’ at one point in my life. I’m excited to share this with you and I hope you find something new here that can inspire you as well.”

Just ahead of the new station’s launch, Howard announced her curated project on social media.

Along with Howard’s Sonos station, the streaming service also announced that Thom Yorke will have his own curated station. The service is also passing the aux cord to other musicians like Phoebe Bridgers, Jamila Woods, Khruangbin, Soccer Mommy, Vagabon, Whitney, and more with guest DJ opportunities.

The Encyclopedia of Brittany is available now via Sonos. Learn more about Sonos Radio here.

Lil Dicky has gone from barely accepted punchline of hip-hop to cornering the market on comedy television acclaim thanks to his semi-autobiographical FX show Dave. Based loosely on his own life and experiences maneuvering on the outskirts of rap stardom, Dave became a sensation after its fifth episode, “Hype Man,” revealed the show’s emotional center and willingness to tackle serious topics alongside its dick jokes and awkward, fish-out-of-water scenarios involving Dicky’s encounters with cooler, more established rappers.

Dicky himself — or Dave, as he has stated he actually prefers to be called — posted a long caption on Instagram reflecting on the show’s success and his personal philosophy, which might well be equated to “shoot your shot.” While he acknowledges in the post that privilege has played a part in his rise to stardom, so too has his boldness — to succeed or to fail, you first have to try, which is what he clearly wants to impress on his followers, who he thanks for believing in him from the beginning.

“This picture was captured of me during the first shoot day of season one,” he reveals. “If I look overwhelmed, it’s because I was.
I had never written a script before. I actually downloaded the screenwriting software for the first time to write this season. I had never acted before. Never executive produced before. Never done anything beyond make rap songs and videos.”

However, he continues, “A lot of people believed in me. Many of you did from the start of my career. I could tell that it wasn’t just about my music, you guys actually liked and believed in ME. As a person.” The takeaway, he writes, “Let me be a prime example when I say that things are totally possible in life. I had no legitimate reason to believe I could be a successful rapper. But I believed, and then I became that. I had no real reason to believe I could make a great tv show without any experience. But I believed, and I believe we achieved that.”

Read Lil Dicky’s full caption in the embed above.

For a musician who is used to being on the road and otherwise staying busy with their hectic careers, this quarantine era can be a period of restlessness for some. Artists are finding ways to stay occupied, though, and for St. Vincent, that involves performing from her home.

Yesterday, she hopped on Instagram to share a quick cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Dancing Days.” The Houses Of The Holy track is originally a guitar-driven rocker, but St. Vincent’s take is a stripped-down acoustic affair. She downplayed the whole thing, writing in the video description, “The moderately-played, half-remembered partial-cover of Led Zepplin’s ‘Dancing Days’ that the world has been clamoring for FOR YEARS at long last.”

This isn’t St. Vincent’s first cover in recent days. Back in January, she joined Foo Fighters and a bunch of other artists for a Grammys tribute concert in honor of Prince. That show was broadcast a couple weeks ago, and St. Vincent offered a funky rendition of “Controversy.” Also this year, St. Vincent launched a line of comfort-focused athletic clothes for women, and she launched her Shower Sessions podcast, in which she interviews artists in a bathroom.

Watch St. Vincent perform “Dancing Days” above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Danny Trejo has lived a fascinating life. A few sentences from his Wikipedia:

“While serving in San Quentin, he became a champion boxer in that prison’s lightweight and welterweight divisions”

“In 2011, he recalled that he had been sober for 42 years”

“While Trejo was working as a youth drug counselor, a teenage patient asked for his assistance dealing with cocaine problems on the set of Runaway Train (1985)”

“In August 2019, Trejo witnessed a car colliding at an intersection with an SUV and helped extract a five-year-old trapped in a child safety seat inside the overturned SUV”

“Trejo is known for his distinctive appearance”

I don’t have to describe his “distinctive appearance” for you to know what he looks like — it’s Danny Trejo; there’s no one else like him. (Did I mention that he’s the founder of Trejo’s Tacos and appeared in the music video for Mobb Depp’s “Got It Twisted”?)

And now his life story has been turned into a sure-to-be-enlightening documentary.

Inmate #1: The Rise Of Danny Trejo, directed by Brett Harvey, chronicles Trejo’s “early life of drugs, armed robbery, and hard prison time, to the red carpets of Hollywood blockbusters and helping troubled addicts,” with the Machete star giving “a firsthand account of one of the greatest transformations of human character ever put to film.”

I hope he spends three hours talking about playing El Jefe in xXx, and another two hours on Anaconda. Inmate #1 (watch the trailer above) will be available on digital on July 7.

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Just nine months removed from the release of his most recent full-length album, So Much Fun, Young Thug remains as productive as ever. After contributing guest verses to projects from the likes of A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, Lil Uzi Vert, and Travis Scott, he’s returned with a new full-length project of his own — this time, a collaborative mixtape with R&B singer Chris Brown called Slime & B.

Consisting of 13 tracks, Slime & B appears to split time evenly between the two principal artists, with appearances from frequent collaborators of both such as E-40, Future, Gunna, Lil Duke, Shad Da God, Too Short, and more. It features production from Murda Beatz, OG Parker, RJ Lamont, Tariq Beats, T-Minus, Turbo, and Wheezy. The mixtape’s release falls on Chris Brown’s 31st birthday.

While the tape marks the first full-length collaboration between Young Thug and Brown, it’s one of a handful of collaborative releases from the younger Thugger, who released Super Slimey with Future in 2017, the compilation album Slime Language with his own YSL Records in 2018, and was rumored to be working on a joint album with late Chicago artist Juice WRLD at the time of Juice’s death. There is also a sequel to Super Slimey featuring Lil Baby and Gunna in the works as well.

Listen to Slime & B above.

Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Over the past year or so, LeBron James has gotten really into tacos, and more specifically, eating them on Tuesdays. This past fall, in fact, he even tried to trademark the phrase “Taco Tuesday,” but that attempt was not successful; “Taco Tuesday” was a firmly established thing long before LeBron James started saying it on social media. While he may not have legal ownership of the phrase, he’s the king of it in the Migos universe: The hip-hop group have released a new song called “Taco Tuesday,” and it features a LeBron sample.

The track, which only runs for about 90 seconds, begins with one of LeBron’s famous “Taco Tuuueeesday” exclamations. Today, of course, is the absolute perfect day for this song to come out: In addition to it being a Tuesday, it is also May 5, aka Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexican culture.

The track is full of thematically appropriate lyrics. Quavo says on the chorus, “Taco Tuesday, I got the cheese, she tastin’ the Kool-Aid.” Meanwhile, Takeoff says on his verse, “My name Jose / It’s a long line at the doorway / We servin’ tacos, get ’em with the nachos / F*ckin’ with a bad vibe, and she go both ways.”

Listen to “Taco Tuesday” above.

It’s well established by now that many of Jared Leto’s scenes from Suicide Squad were cut, because, as the edgelord Joker, he “brought so much to the table in every scene that it was probably more about filtering all of the insanity” (according to Leto), or “it just didn’t make sense” (according to Margot Robbie). Whatever the case may be, director David Ayer denied “inaccurate” reports that he cut the Oscar winner’s screentime because he was “unhappy” about his performance – in fact, his “heart breaks” for Leto.

Responding to a Snyder Cut follower on Twitter, who wrote that Leto’s Joker “was too creepy for compassion, and his look didn’t convince everyone like Batfleck did, appearances matter,” Ayer tweeted, “For sure character creation is a tightrope. I took inspiration from the current DC comics. I find it incredible it’s still such a topic 5 years later. My heart breaks for Jared – he did magnificent work. Most of it remains unseen.”

Who cares about the Snyder Cut? I want to see the Joker cut of Suicide Squad. It looks the way drinking a Mountain Dew mixed with Red Bull tastes — exxxtreme.

Don’t expect to see Leto in The Suicide Squad, though. “No one but me and a few others know all the characters in the movie, but if the Joker isn’t in the film, I don’t think it would be strange as he isn’t a part of the Suicide Squad in the comics,” director James Gunn explained. That gives Leto lots of time to silently meditate in the desert.

(Via Comic Book Movie)