Simply calling Curtis Harding a “soul man” feels reductive. Harding’s voice conveys pain, pleasure, longing, tenderness, sadness and strength—a full gamut of emotions. Today his voice takes on an optimistic lilt in his new single “Hopeful”. Directed by photojournalist Lynsey Weatherspoon, the song’s accompanying black and white video was filmed in the West End of Atlanta and features footage of a John Lewis mural and recent Black Lives Matter protests.  “Working on the visuals for “Hopeful” was very cathartic because it gave me the chance to revisit and reflect on the activities from 2020,” Weatherspoon said. “Curtis' song really brings home what we're all feeling and how we can progress to the hope we have for our future. His energy is unmatched and he immersed himself into the process, which helped us create a powerful storyline for the video. Being able to really bring home the meaning of the song within several areas of Atlanta really made this project a success. I know “Hopeful” will be able to bring a sense of place in a world that we desire to love and peace to be spread abound.” “I wrote [“Hopeful”] some time ago but in theory it goes far beyond a time and place,” Harding explained.  “I’ve always tried to carry it (Hope) wherever I am. Darkness finds us all, hope allows us the fortitude to seek out the light. “

London based producer, pianist, bandleader and MC Alfa Mist today releases his acclaimed fourth full-length album Bring Backs, out now via ANTI-. Bring Backs marks Alfa’s first release for the label ANTI- and is also the most detailed exploration of his upbringing in musical form. The album’s nine tracks of groove-based intricacies, lyrical solipsism and meandering fragmentations are tied together by a remarkable poem written by Hilary Thomas expressing the sensuous realities of building community in a new country. Entirely written and produced by Alfa, the album was recorded in London with a core band of longtime collaborators including Jamie Leeming (guitar), Kaya Thomas-Dyke (bass and vocals) and Johnny Woodham (trumpet).

For Nandi Rose, writing a song is an act of transformation. As Half Waif, Rose pieces together the patchworks of our darkest and most vulnerable moments with a golden thread, crafting a majestic evocation of the human experience that permeates with a graceful strength. On new album Mythopoetics, the Hudson Valley-based artist breaks the familial patterns handed down to her, transforming this source of pain into something bearable, beautiful and celebratory. It is an essential reminder that we have the power to shape the stories we tell and the myths we make of our lives.  Half Waif’s previous albums The Caretaker (2020), Lavender (2018) and Probable Depths (2016), garnered acclaim for their compelling journeys through solitude, desire and the search for independence, blanketed under a spectacle of deeply-layered synth-pop. Her fifth full-length sees her stretch her creative muscles, as Rose pushes through the barriers of self-scrutiny and transports us into a world of mythic proportions. Charting territories of addiction, memory and loss, Mythopoetics is animated by the traces of what’s been left behind: the ghost of orange blossoms, the tail of a meteor across the sky, the taste of loneliness in a crust of bread. It is a kind of modern-day storybook where memory is spun into song and the self is explored and acknowledged with tender, nourishing care. To bring together the world of Mythopoetics, Rose once again collaborated with multi-instrumentalist, film composer and producer Zubin Hensler. The pair came together for a recording residency at Pulp Arts in Gainesville, Florida, with the intention of creating stripped-back recordings of old songs, solely focusing on Rose and her piano. However, the playground of the studio soon transformed the project into a texturally diverse and kaleidoscopic sonic universe.

Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band – aka Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman - are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch of releases on ANTI- Records and Flemish Eye have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. Their debut album Banned – coming out on June 25 - marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.

Renowned Composer Danny Elfman Announces New Album ‘big Mess’ Via Anti- / Epitaph His First Solo Album In Thirty-seven Years Coming Out June 11 After releasing a series of singles over the past few months, Danny Elfman is announcing his first solo album in thirty-seven years today, titled Big Mess. Multimedia artist Sarah Sitkin created the video for Elfman’s new single release “True”: watch it HERE. A slow burning track, “True” faces down hopelessness and despair head on. Elfman’s vocals are gritty and growling here, and his raw unfiltered delivery only adds to the emotionally charged atmosphere. “The video is an exploration of fractured identity, muffled through the lens of memory,” Sitkin revealed. “Danny is a central figure within the video, yet only in his reproduced likeness via prosthetics, masks and 3d printed body parts. I wanted to make a video that was gritty, unpolished and uncomfortable.” Clocking in at 18 tracks, the sprawling, ambitious double album finds the Grammy and Emmy Award-winning composer breaking bold new ground as both a writer and a performer, drawing on a dystopian palette of distorted electric guitars, industrial synthesizers and orchestra in an effort to exorcise the demons brought about by four years of creeping fascism and civil rot. He is joined on the album by drummer Josh Freese (Devo, Wheezer, The Vandals), bassist Stu Brooks (Dub Trio, Lady Gaga, Lauryn Hill), and guitarists Robin Finck (Nine Inch Nails, Guns N’ Roses) and Nili Brosh (Tony MacAlpine, Paul Gilbert).

Xenia Rubinos, the New York City artist who’s been revered for her bewildering voice and maze-like knack for melody, shares a new single and video ‘Cógelo Suave’ today. Animated by Stephen Smith, the video features a psychedelic conglomeration of coquis in a joyful and inquisitive visualization of the song. ‘It’s a gibberish spaceship ride, high speed chase, birds and stars whirring around your head at the end of a cartoon fight,’ Rubinos says about the track. Birthed from a bass line she would often play during sound check, the song responds to the question that so many lately find impossible to answer: “how are you?’’. After looping through an electric, chaos-containing melody, the song resolves on the repeated phrase ‘just work it out’, making it all seem possible. The track was recorded in the height of quarantine (Spring 2020), when the world was slipping into a deep kind of chaos, Xenia’s mom had an experience with covid, and it was generally hard to tell which way was up, the process of making the track provided a cloak of resilience. ‘The more I think about it, the more I realize that the world was totally burning down around us while we were producing this track and in the song I guess I’m saying ‘I’m fine. THIS IS FINE,’ says Xenia.