Cindy Wilson of The B-52’s has announced a new solo album coming out this summer. Wilson’s Realms will be her second solo album. She released her first album Changes in 2016. Today she shares “Midnight” from Realms and she explained to Spin what it was like working on the album.

“Being in the B-52s has been a playful and creative endeavor. Doing the solo project with Suny Lyons has been too. I worked with Suny on a previous effort called Changes and enjoyed working with him, so I asked him to do the next one, Realms. I feel the techno vibe mixed with other elements is modern and unexpected, which is beautiful. I got to use my strong voice emotions with the tender, and I love it. The first song Midnight, goes through the realms of midnight. It’s an upbeat dance dream of love at a magical hour. Inviting the listener to come along. Let’s go!”

The B-52’s helped bring new wave music to the mainstream during the ’80s and became pioneers of the sound. Their playful spacey rock evolved over time and stuck one foot in pop without ever losing their core musical identity. Wilson also released two EPs; Sunrise in 2016 and Supernatural in 2017. “Midnight” lives somewhere in the worlds of techno and synth-pop and belongs in a club. 

Waajeed’s “Motor City Madness” is the first listen from his forthcoming Memoirs Of Hi-Tech Jazz album. Upbeat with bouncy synths, constant cymbal taps, foggy trombone and a groovy saxophone the civic love ode is jazz-infused house music. The producer gave an idea of what “Motor City Madness” looks like with the video filmed of him driving around his Detroit turf. The album officially drops on November 25th and the vinyl and digital versions can be pre-ordered now. 

Florian Schneider, a founder of pioneering German electronic group Kraftwerk, has died at age 73 after being ill with cancer. Schneider and Ralf Hütter formed Kraftwerk in 1970 and they would release influential albums like Autobahn, Radio-Activity, Trans- Europe Express, Computer World and Electric Cafe. Their music would become a major influence on pop, house, Detroit Techno and hip-hop. Kraftwerk inspired most of the synthpop bands of the ’80s like Depeche Mode, New York’s electro movement that included Afrika Bambaataa’s Soul Sonic Force, the Belleville three responsible for techno and more. The group was also sampled a lot and covered by artists from varied genres.  They took their love of technology and used it to create an image that styled them as robots on their album covers and in publicity photos. Schneider was always focused on new devices to make music with and the group had a customized vocoder in the ’70s and would create their own drum machines. The band was respected by artists of all genres and David Bowie’s “V-2 Schneider” from his Heroes album was dedicated to Schneider. The BBC Radio 4 broadcast the documentary Kraftwerk: Computer Love in 2018 and it was about the way the album changed people’s lives. Schneider left the band in 2008 and had his last live performance with them in 2006. In 2019, Kraftwerk was nominated for the 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class. 

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[youtube id=”ca1ajXa07qo”]Toro Y Moi presents the Soul Trash mixtape and short film. The feature has a psychedelic vibe and it shows him on tour as well as doing things like flying a remote-controlled toy plane. The music is free-flowing and has moments of hip-hop in the cloud of sound. Soul Trash follows his critically acclaimed Outer Peace album that came out earlier this year. He is currently nearing the end of his North American tour and there are still tickets available.