by Philip Moss and Joseph Purcell

Gorillaz – Hollywood

Alternative music’s busiest man, Damon Albarn, returns this week with the sixth studio album, The Now Now, from Gorillaz.

The album’s track listing noticeably features fewer special guests than previous Gorillaz records, but Hollywood sees Albarn combine with Chicago House pioneer, Jamie Principle, and returning collaborator, Snoop Dogg.

Gorillaz will play festivals throughout Europe over the summer, before heading over to the US in October for an arena tour. The Now Now is out today on Parlophone records.

Mitski – Nobody

In 20016, Mitski released Puberty 2, which was a massive hit that found her receiving wide spread critical acclaim- including high placings on both Rolling Stone and Pitchfork’s end of year lists.

Mitski recorded the upcoming album, Be The Cowboy, with her longtime producer, Patrick Hyland, and took inspiration from “the image of someone alone on a stage, singing solo with a single spotlight trained on them in an otherwise dark room. We also made the music swell louder than the main vocals and left in vocal errors like when my voice breaks in Nobody, right when the band goes quiet, all for a similar effect,” she said in her press release.

Be The Cowboy is out 17th August via Dead Oceans.

Underworld & Iggy Pop – I’ll See Big

Following on from last month’s surprise collaboration, electronic godfathers, Underworld, and the irrepressible Iggy Pop are at it again, with new track, I’ll See Big. After initial suggestions were that Bells & Circles was a one off, the surfacing of a second track has taken many by surprise, and it turns out that both singles are simply the precursor to a full EP from the respective legendary artists, titled Teatime Dub Encounters.

As well as announcing more details of the collaboration, Iggy Pop this week gave some context to the meeting of the two musical institutions that caught many off guard. It transpires that during Underworld’s supervision of the Trainspotting 2 soundtrack, they got together with Iggy Pop with a view to recording music for that project. However, it didn’t work out and, instead, the results of those meetings will form the make up of the upcoming EP.

Speaking to the Underworld website, Rick Smith explained, “Iggy was staying at The Savoy and graciously said ‘yeah you know we can meet and talk about something’ because we both felt a strong connection to Trainspotting and to Danny. I turned up thinking I’ve got one chance here to convince this gentleman that we should work together. So, I turned up with basically half my studio, hired a hotel room, set up and sat waiting.”

While Iggy Pop stated, “When you are confronted with somebody who has a whole bloody studio there in the hotel room, a Skyped director who has won the Oscar recently and a fucking microphone in front of you and 30 finished pieces of very polished music, you don’t want to be the wimp that goes ‘uh uhhh’, so my mind was racing.”

However they got together, this promises to be a fascinating musical relationship, that fuses the world of punk and electronica, and, with the results that have surfaced so far,Teatime Dub Encounters promises to be one of the summer’s most intriguing releases.

Silverbacks – Dunkirk

Yes, we know we pushed this one last week too, but this new video for Silverbacks’ single, Dunkirk, is so good we just had to share it again!

So far, only Irish dates have been announced, but be sure to catch them if you can at one of the following shows:  6th-7th July -BARE Festival, Carlow; 19th-23rd July -Quays Festival, Dublin; 3rd-6th August -Castlepalooza, Laois; 6th August -Workman’s Club, Dublin