DudeAsInCool

A few weeks ago, we sent a reporter to the UK's new socially distanced music venue at the Virgin Money Unity Arena in Newcastle. That venue has now shut down following new local lockdown measures limiting gatherings after a spike in COVID-19 cases. That means concerts planned for the coming days -- including … More »View the full article

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition For A Limited Series, Movie Or Special (Original Dramatic Score) for their work on the HBO miniseries Watchmen. They won against the scores for Hollywood, Little Fires Everywhere, Mrs. America, and Unorthodox. More »View the full article

SAULT have just released a new album called UNTITLED (Rise). It's the mysterious UK group's fourth album in two years following 2019's 5 and 7 and this year's UNTITLED (Black Is), which came out in June. Like its spiritual predecessor, UNTITLED (Rise) is overwhelming and sprawling, though just a … More »View the full article

Enlarge / This MSI-built reference system is powered with a Tiger Lake i7-1185G7, the highest-end CPU in Intel's upcoming lineup. (credit: Jim Salter) We've been very interested in Intel's upcoming laptop CPUs, codenamed Tiger Lake, since the company's Architecture Day event in August. Tiger Lake's official launch event earlier this month didn't offer much red meat for anyone already up-to-date on the news—but today, we finally have our own hands-on test results to share. Much as Intel did during Tiger Lake's launch event, we're going to focus heavily on Intel versus AMD in our own tests and analysis. In our opinion, the current generation-on-generation within Intel's own lineup is fairly boring (yes, it's faster than its old parts). Instead, the real question is whether Intel finally has an answer to AMD's Renoir architecture—and the answer isn't as simple as "yes" or "no." Our reference system has the top-of-the-line Core i7-1185G7 CPU, tuned for a 28W default TDP—although that, too, gets complicated. For now, we'll just note that it's the fastest Tiger Lake CPU to be announced. However, assuming one i7-1185G7 system is much like the next would be a mistake. Read 31 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

New York trio Sunflower Bean released their last album, Twentytwo In Blue, back in 2018. Last year, they released the King Of The Dudes EP. And now, they're sharing a new one-off single, "Moment In The Sun." The song was actually written over two years ago, but the band considered it a sonic … More »View the full article

El Paso singer, songwriter, and producer René Kladzyk is about to release her new album True Romantic under the name Ziemba. We've already written about the title track and early singles “If I’m Being Honest” and “Harbor Me." And now she's sharing another new track … More »View the full article

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Taylor Swift shocked the world by spurning a traditional album rollout and surprise-dropping a full album called folklore this past summer, a collection of songs crafted on lockdown this year that leaned in an indie-folk direction. One of the most surprising aspects of the project was the involvement of the National's Aaron Dessner, … More »View the full article

Kanye West was temporarily suspended from Twitter following a wild series of tweets yesterday. No, it wasn't because he tweeted a video of himself pissing on a Grammy. Instead, Billboard reports, it was the doxxing that did it. In the midst of railing against recording contracts and the music industry, Kanye … More »View the full article

The Xperia 5 Mark II. It's named after Sony's camera line. [credit: Sony ] Sony's next flagship smartphone, a followup to the Xperia 1 II released earlier this year, is the Xperia 5 II. Like the previous phone, the 5 II is a top-tier flagship with a Snapdragon 865 SoC, but it comes with a smaller screen and finally bumps the display up to a faster refresh rate. The Xperia 5 II is named similarly to Sony's camera line, so it's pronounced "Xperia five mark two." The display is the main difference from the Xperia 1 II: a 6.1-inch, 2520×1080 OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The 1 II had a bigger, higher-res display, (a 6.5-inch, 3840×1644 display) but it was only 60Hz. The rest of the 5 II specs include a Snapdragon 865 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 4000mAh battery. There's a side fingerprint reader, a microSD slot, a headphone jack, IP68 water resistance, and stereo speakers. There are three 12MP cameras on the back for the main, telephoto, and wide angle lenses, along with a ToF sensor. The front camera is 8MP. Sony's press release actually has a release date for the US: "In the US, the Xperia 5 II will be available unlocked in black and comes equipped with Android 10. The Xperia 5 II will be available for pre-order for about $950 on September 29, 2020 and ships to customers on December 4, 2020." Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

Rico Nasty has released a hell of a lot of music since her Kenny Beats collab Anger Management in April 2019, but all in the form of one-off tracks. So it was exciting when, upon releasing her Dylan Brady-produced single "iPhone" last month, she announced an official album called … More »View the full article

Since 2017, HEALTH have been releasing a series of collaborative singles with other artists -- "HARD TO BE A GOD" with NOLIFE, "MASS GRAVE" with Soccer Mommy, "BODY/PRISON" with Perturbator, "INNOCENCE" with Youth Code, "HATE YOU" with JPEGMAFIA, "JUDGEMENT NIGHT" with Ghostmane, "More »View the full article

Since 2014, Hrishikesh Hirway has been sitting down with musicians to talk about how they imagined and created their biggest hits on the Song Exploder podcast. Now, Hirway and Oscar-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville have turned the podcast into a docuseries that will premiere on Netflix next month. In the trailer released today (Sept. 17), Alicia Keys will break down “3 Hour Drive;” Lin-Manuel Miranda will talk about the birth of “Wait for It,” from the award-winning Broadway hit Hamilton; Ty Dolla $ign will discuss the inspiration behind “LA” and Michael Stipe will talk about the R.E.M. hit “Losing My Religion.” “‘Losing My Religion’ was kind of a mistake,” Stipe said in the trailer. “The fact that it became what it became is still puzzling to all of us.” The R.E.M. singer added with a smirk, “I don’t mind being famous. It’s not that bad.” Previous podcast guests have included Fleetwood Mac, Solange, Lorde, U2, Metallica and The Roots. Hirway, who’s a musician and composer himself, is blown away by the opportunity to take Song Exploder to a new level with video. “As a teenager, I used to sit in my room and listen to music while poring over the lyrics and liner notes and artwork until I could almost feel myself living in the world of the artist,” said in a statement. “It was the most incredible feeling, and with Song Exploder, I wanted to take that feeling and go even further. It’s been so exciting to turn it into a television show, because it’s provided a chance to immerse yourself in the music—and the ideas behind the music—in a deeper way than I ever imagined.” Song Exploder premieres on Netflix on Oct. 2. Watch the trailer below. View the full article

Enlarge / To call Sony's PlayStation 5 in-demand would be an understatement. PlayStation 5 pre-orders are open, but the situation is a bit of a disaster. When Sony announced pricing details for its next-generation game console on Wednesday—confirming that the standard PS5 would cost $499, while a Digital Edition without a disc drive would cost $399—it officially stated that preorders would begin on Thursday, September 17. The company did not specify when or where these orders would be available, however, merely saying that eager customers could pick the device up at "select retailers." The period since has been chaos. Major retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best Buy instead made the console available a few hours after Sony's game showcase on Wednesday. This naturally led to a rush of gamers flooding these storefronts in order to secure their own machine in time for its November 12 release date, which in turn resulted in broken links, site crashes, and extremely quick stock shortages. GameStop saw enough traffic for its site to trigger some sort of DDoS protection, while Best Buy's online store was intermittently inaccessible Thursday morning. Anecdotally, a couple of Ars writers were able to secure orders from Walmart shortly after the retailer set preorders live, but only after several cart refreshes, and only because they acted within the 30 minutes or so that the device was actually available. Amazon, meanwhile, set their preorders live late Wednesday around midnight ET, only for consoles to sell out within a similarly brief timeframe. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

After releasing numerous collaborations over the years, Health has curated those tracks into a new album, Disco4:: Part I. Not only does it offer previously recorded collaborations with Soccer Mommy, Perturbator and JPEGMAFIA, it introduces three new tracks with 100 gecs, The Soft Moon and Brothel. “In the past, each HEALTH LP has been accompanied by a corresponding remix record,” the band said in a statement. “This time, despite being called DISCO 4, in the interest of continuity, we offer you a collection of original collaborations with artists we admire. Also, FUCK 2020.” Along with the album announcement, the Los Angeles band also shared the new track “Cyberpunk 2.0 2.0.” Going along with the above sentiments, the Zev Deans-directed visual initially feels like some far-off futuristic time. But as you watch the constant surveillance with mask-wearing people walking across the screen, the visual starts to emulate the world we’re living in today. Disco4:: Part I follows Vol. 4:: Slaves of Fear, which released in early 2019, and a score for Grand Theft Auto Online: Arena War Official Soundtrack, which is the second time the band composed music for Rockstar Games. Watch Health’s new video for “Cyberpunk 2.0 2.0.” The tracklist for their upcoming album is below. Disco4:: Part I Tracklist: 1. HEALTH – “CYBERPUNK 2.0.2.0” 2. HEALTH, Perturbator – “BODY/PRISON” 3. HEALTH, 100 Gecs – “POWER FANTASY” 4. HEALTH, Ghostemane – “JUDGEMENT NIGHT” 5. HEALTH, Youth Code – “INNOCENCE” 6. HEALTH, Full of Hell – “FULL OF HEALTH” 7. HEALTH, The Soft Moon – “COLORS” 8. HEALTH, JPEGMAFIA – “HATE YOU” 9. HEALTH, Brothel – “D.F. LOOKS” 10. HEALTH, Soccer Mommy – “MASS GRAVE” 11. HEALTH, Xiu Xiu – “DELICIOUS APE” 12. HEALTH, NOLIFE – “HARD TO BE A GOD” Disco4:: Part I releases on Oct. 16 via Loma Vista Recordings. You can preorder the album and other Health merch here. View the full article