New Music Lockdown 3: FKA Twigs, Janelle Monáe, The Breeders, Korn and more

As we unwillingly become used to lockdown, most of us are regularly looking for juicy tidbits to pass the time online, so here's another selection that should be well worth a look. Dive in.

Sea Change Goes Online

Sea Change Festival, run from Totnes record shop Drift and usually based in Devon across a weekend in August, will be running a virtual edition this weekend. The five year old event, which has garnered a reputation for imaginative, independent curation, offers two days of live sets from Billy Bragg, Midlake, Metronomy, The Breeders, dame of folk, Shirley Collins, extraordinary Texan synthesizer psychedelic sorts, Dallas Acid, and others. There’s also much else on offer, such as author David Keenan’s “autonomic tarot”, Jon Savage talking about Joy Division, a documentary film about cult Byrd Gene Clark, and an avant-garde stage featuring the likes of rated experimentalists Qasim Naqvi and Daniel Thorne. As with so much lately, details are currently sketchy but check into seachangefestival.co.uk later in the week.

FKA Twigs: Soundtrack 7

The Manchester International Festival has been using their website (mif.co.uk) and YouTube channel to present a mass of material during lockdown. Much of it isn’t musical, but this Friday at 7.30 PM, they’re showing a film vanguard alt-pop act FKA Twigs shot during a  residency in Old Granada Studios back in 2015. She and a group of collaborators put together a series of dance-based performances over ten days, set to music from her early EPs (including the songs “Ultraviolet” and “How’s That”). These were then performed them only five times. She describes the whole thing as “flesh, sweat, feeling, muscle, and a live movement, no air brushing, no frills”.

Below: Watch the trailer for FKA Twigs' Soundtrack 7

PlayOn Fest

The major labels are starting to find their feet now and this weekend Warners streams a three day showcase that they’re calling PlayOn (at playonfest.com). Starting at 5.00 PM UK-time (Midday, Eastern Standard Time), it will feature everything from a fan-only album launch show from last autumn, played inside an art installation by Californian metallers Korn (pictured left), to the Flaming Lips live at Sydney Opera House. Given how much at-home material we’re currently seeing, some of these full gig sets should be refreshingly loud and energized. Among those playing are Coldplay, Green Day, Panic! At The Disco, Alt-J, Cardi B, Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, Paramore, and Clean Bandit but theartsdesk is looking forward especially to Janelle Monáe, Royal Blood and, of course, Slipknot. Funds raised go to the WHO.

Below: Watch the trailer for PlayOn Fest

Royal Albert Hall

Go to the websites of most major venues and you’ll find they’ve not changed much since before this crisis began, featuring advertisements for forthcoming gigs… albeit, obviously, not that immediately forthcoming. However, the Royal Albert Hall (royalalberthall.com), right since the start, been actively organizing events to be streamed via their site. These have included Rufus Wainright and Alfie Boe but, while some streaming entities went large at the start, then quietened right down later, RAH maintains an eclectic schedule which, over the next couple of weeks, includes KT Tunstall, indie-folker This Is The Kit and maverrick Pianist Ashley Henry, as well as London piano showman Arthur Lea presenting Jazz For Kids.

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