April 10, 2013 – James Blake has at last released the follow-up to 2011's self-titled masterpiece. Overgrown is a beautifully complex album, and its titular track is an undeniable high point. As SPIN's own Brandon Soderberg wrote, the song "gives us our most sumptuous view yet: A slow smolder of a track built around chary piano chords and wordless vocal enunciations, it widens into a gorgeous swell of programmed strings, cymbals, and Blake's evocative plaint." He sings of time passing, and on the chorus coos, "I don't want to be a star / But a stone on the shore / A lone door framed in a wall / When everything is overgrown."Those themes emerge again in the music video above, directed by the truly inspired Nabil Elderkin (the man behind Foals' harrowing "Late Night," Frank Ocean's enigmatic "Pyramids," and Kanye West's epic "Mercy").

April 10, 2013 – Out in godforsaken San Bernardino County, California, is a place called Calico. On land mostly notable for being east of Los Angeles, under skies that seem to cling onto every last whit of the metropolis' pollution, this once-bustling beacon for silver mining has been all but abandoned. In 1881, four prospectors discovered some unlikely shine there and got filthy rich. Calico today, like so many seminal burgs before it, is a ghost town.This is not why the four rock'n'roll hopefuls sitting in front of me at a nearby Encino recording studio called their band Ghost Town, but the similarities in origin (hard work + dumb luck) and stakes (boom/bust) are too strong to ignore.

April 10, 2013 – Young Fathers put themselves on the map with January's TAPE ONE, an unusual amalgam of D.A.I.S.Y. raps, post-dubstep beatwork, and soulful art-rock that's been bubbling its way up to the surface ever since. The Edinburgh-based trio is making quick moves to build upon that sticky foundation and will be releasing TAPE TWO on June 11, also via Anticon Records. The new nine-track set kicks off with a gorgeous number called "I Heard," which you can now stream below. Building up from a simple percussive loop and some heartbroken falsetto, the song picks up swells of bass, shimmering synths, and pained harmonies before transitioning into a detail-packed rhyme that drifts through the scene like a warm breeze. When "I Heard" ends, it feels too soon.Young Fathers, TAPE TWO track list:1. "I Heard"2. "Come to Life"3. "Only Child"4. "Queen Is Dead"5. "Bones"6. "Freefalling"7. "Mr. Martyr"8.

April 10, 2013 – Louisiana quartet Brass Bed may have a slightly bleak outlook — "Your dream job, your dream girl, your dream you," reads the band's bio, "[are] really all just that: dreams" — but they do a great job of dressing up all that depression in some beautiful pop songcraft. Sure, they dabble in the noise from time to time, but so did Wilco. And last year we had the pleasure of debuting the boys' "A Bullet for You," from their 7-inch of the same name. Now Brass Bed are plotting their return with The Secret Will Keep You, a new full-length due April 23 on Crossbill Records. Below you'll find "Please Don't Go," a psych-kissed, organ-powered jangler with enough electricity to power your cell phone or laptop for the next 25 listens (please review your data plan before attempting).112242:song:Please Don't Go:

April 10, 2013 – Last year, Against Me! singer Tom Gabel came out as transgender and shared that he'd begun the process of becoming Laura Jane Grace. While the road to complete physical transformation is a long one, to her fans and to her family — which includes a wife, Heather, and two-year-old daughter Evelyn — Gabel was quickly accepted as a woman. There have been challenges along the way, but the rewards of Gabel's astounding bravery have gifted upon Grace an admirable show of support. In a new first-person piece for Cosmopolitan titled "My First Year as a Woman," she explains just how she made it through and what she has experienced while transitioning.In the piece, Grace explains that she first came out to Heather in early February.

April 9, 2013 – Based upon the strength of his latest mixtape, The Luca Brasi Story, unsung Young Money-Cash Money rapper Kevin Gates not only became one of SPIN's Best New Artists for the month of March, but ranked No. 6 in our Real Hottest MCs list. His song "IDGAF" made Brandon Soderberg's write-up of the impressive free full-length because "the rub is that he totally gives a fuck. That's the power of this tape. Here's a hard-assed, on-edge rapper who never hedges his sincerity."True to form, Gates unravels a series of gritty mini-narratives within the aforementioned song, and the brand new video for the track follows suit visually. While the New Orleans rhymer paints a vivid picture of his own — "In the neighborhood I grew up in, they call it the South Side / Everybody house overcrowded, forcing them to hang outside" — the camera captures a day in the life of a young man who's turned to crime.

April 9, 2013 – Well-loved independent folkie Sam Amidon will release his next album with the estimable Nonesuch Records, Brooklyn Vegan reports. According to the label's website, Bright Sunny South will be available May 14. The set was produced by Amidon with an assist from Thomas "Doveman" Bartlett (Iron & Wine, the National, Sharon Van Etten) and British engineer Jerry Boys (Buena Vista Social Club, R.E.M.). Jazz trumpeter Kenny Wheeler will appear, while Amidon plays banjo, fiddle, acoustic guitar, and piano.The Vermont-via-London musician explained in a statement, "There was an atmospheric quality to my last two records; those albums are like a garden of sounds, but this one is more of a journey, a winding path. The band comes rushing in and then they disappear.

April 9, 2013 – Nicki Minaj has shared a new video from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded — The Re-Up, her November album that was actually a reissue of her April album. Ivory-tickling that only really succeeds in tickling the funny bone. Although the American Idol judge has taken a noticeably freakier tack of late — letting the Barbz out for her French Montana feature and getting steamy with Lil Wayne for "High School" — this new visual finds the Pink One scaling back the sex in favor of solemnity. Sort of.The song is "Up in Flames" and the Grizz Lee-directed clip poses the rap game Barbie in various scenarios where she looks the most serious: in dark rooms, in the studio, in front of a piano, and in a church surrounded by candles, praying between lines about having a "dick" and flying around in a private jet. What was it that Jesus said?

April 9, 2013 – Daft Punk will be premiering their highly anticipated new album Random Access Memories a few days early at an obscure agricultural festival in rural Australia. This means that while a massive influx of hip kids are going to be busy bopping to the latest in futuristic French electro-house, a whole bunch of mulletted Oz-dwellers are going to be marveling at Mad Max-ready custom coupes during what's known as an "ute muster." There will also be an infant competition.As Pitchfork reports, the annual Wee Waa Show is going down from Friday, May 17 to Sunday, May 19 in Wee Waa, New South Wales. Everyone's favorite Parisian androids will be dropping the proverbial disco ball on opening night — the event will function as the "global launch party" for the forthcoming LP, due out May 21 via Columbia Records.

April 9, 2013 – The last time Rookie asked a grown man a question, Morrissey told those happy little tweens that "life is a very serious business for the simple reason that nobody dies laughing." You'd think the pop-culture font founded by 16-year-old fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson would give it a rest after learning such crushing truths about the business of living, but we're thankful they didn't as Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich have now stopped by to share their thoughts on owning up to your schoolyard crushes.The Atoms for Peace main brains are out promoting their new album Amok and its appending tour dates and DJ sets, but here did their best to earnestly reply to the earnestly crafted questions sent in from Rookie's mostly young, mostly female readership. Among the topics discussed?