Author: Press Room

Grammy-winning jazz artist Cassandra Wilson has died aged 70. The Mississippi-born singer died in Jackson, MI on Tuesday morning (September 1). According to a statement from her manager to jazz radio station WBGO, Wilson died “peacefully at home, surrounded by family, close friends, and her manager”. No cause of death was given. Tributes have poured in for the singer across social media, with singer Jill Scott writing: “Soft warm sand. Deep purrs. Grand pourings. Passionate sincerity. Grace. Intensity. Wonderful Cassandra Wilson. Truly”. On Instagram, Jools Holland commented the news was “so sad to hear”, adding: “I send love and condolences…

Will Oasis hit the road next summer? That is potentially in the cards according to Noel Gallagher. The musician added to the rumors that there is a 2027 Oasis tour in the works during an appearance on talkSPORT’s Drive. When host Andy Goldstein asked about the tour rumors, Gallagher first downplayed the possibility, joking, “It’s Liam, isn’t it? He’s not into it. He’s not into Oasis anymore.” Goldstein replied that he heard Gallagher’s brother and bandmate recently quit social media. “Well, then there must be something happening,” Gallagher responded. “Well, let’s put it this way: there’s no football tournament on next…

UMusic Hotel will open on London’s Denmark Street. A partnership between Outernet London and UMusic Hospitality and Lifestyle, the hotel is expected to open between October 1 and December 31. They will take over the 55-bedroom former hotel Chateau Denmark, which closed its doors last August. It will be the first hotel in the UK from UMusic and the second hotel in Europe, with UMusic Hotel Madrid opened in 2022. Along with Outernet, which owns the venues Outernet Live and The Lower Third, the companies will “combine live performances, nightlife, hospitality and immersive entertainment within one connected cultural district”. The…

Katy Perry reflected on her public breakup from Orlando Bloom and growing relationship with Justin Trudeau in a new interview. The singer told People that she credits her Lifetimes Tour for connecting her to the former Canadian prime minister. Perry explained that “last year was really hard,” however the tour gave her the opportunity to find a new sense of self. “I learned how to step back into my purpose,” she said. “And I got the greatest gift from this tour: I got to meet the love of my life.”  She added of the tour, which kicked off in April…

Guiding Light singer Elise Cook is not German by blood or birth; they grew up in the UK before their family relocated to San Francisco and, later, Austin. Yet their cadence and intonation when singing in German are so even-keeled that it makes the band’s Texan roots seem like a punchline: Where’s the last place a band that sounds like this would hail from?Guiding Light introduced themselves as an anomaly of foreign swagger and freeform ideas with their 2024 self-titled EP, where Cook hollered over John Morales’ prickly guitar as if the quartet had been doing this for years. In…

“I think institutions like this are important in people’s lives because it adds a dignity and a gravity to what we do,” said the musician Alex Van Halen has been knighted as a member of the Order of the Netherlands Lion. The legendary drummer received the country’s highest civilian honor in Nijmegen, where he and his brother Eddie grew up before moving to Los Angeles in 1962. During the ceremony, the characteristically humble Van Halen said, “My cousin organized most of this, but I’m very grateful. I think institutions like this are important in people’s lives because it adds a dignity…

When Viv Albertine was 22 years old, she bought her first electric guitar with money from her recently deceased grandmother—more money than she had ever held in her hand before. The future guitarist of the Slits and the Flowers of Romance had never played a guitar, had never even seen another woman play one. Emboldened by early Sex Pistols shows and Patti Smith’s Horses, she chose to risk it all on a 1969 Les Paul Junior. “Just for a second, the impenetrable iron door that is convention has been pushed open a tiny crack,” Albertine wrote in her 2014 memoir,…

Friends don’t tell friends about Billy Strings, the songwriter. They rave, instead, about the guitarist who routes his acoustic through pedals that make him sound like Jimi or Iommi or Hammett or Hanneman, how it’s helped turn him into bluegrass’s first crossover star in decades. Depending on the particular breed of head they are, these zealots may also mention Doc Watson or Tony Rice or Tommy Emmanuel as evidence that it’s not all show, that the kid born William Apostol deserves the nickname an aunt gifted him long ago.But Strings’ life has been the stuff of hardscrabble country or hip-hop…

Lex Walton operates on the extremes of hope and despair; from the outside, it just seems like irony. She will reference cult director Vincent Gallo (as “Vinny Gallo”) and Owl City’s childlike 2009 hit “Fireflies” on the same EP. Her song titles, like “In This House, We Don’t Call the Cops; We Call Chosen Family” and “Preteen on Omegle Blues,” can be off-putting. Walton is prolific and, among a certain Brooklyn trans scene, ubiquitous—aside from appearing in lo-fi trans anthology series Castration Movie, she’s the bassist in Prairie Princess, and this summer, aided the band’s lead singer Emerson Borakove in…

On Tuesday, Miley Cyrus released an elusive trailer for her forthcoming 10th album, Bass Persuades. The promo simply featured her title as, “Miley,” and appeared to usher in a new era for the star, sans surname. The name change was reflected across Cyrus’ socials as well. In one Instagram post alongside a portrait of herself with a white rose in her mouth, she wrote: “Music takes hold of us. We feel it, sing it, sometimes dance to it, let it out and carry on. It is powerful, vulnerable, sweet and strong. Heart full, heartache, every part of life in between.…