Wednesday Music News

Speedy Ortiz are releasing their third studio album, Twerp Verse, at the end of the month. Today, the Massachusettes band has shared the third song off the album, titled “Villain.” It comes with brightly-colored video by Elle Schneider that helps exemplify the lyrical content, with men in fish head costumes interjecting and bothering frontwoman Sadie Dupois as a number of different characters - a housewife, a woman waiting for the bus, a woman exercising, a woman at work - while they go about their day. The song follows previous timely singles, “Lean In When I Suffer” and “Lucky 88.” Twerp Verse is out April 27 on Carpark Records. Speedy Ortiz will be in Seattle on Wednesday, June 13 to play the Vera Project. [ Paste ]

Philadelphia indie band Hop Along have shared the video for lead single “How Simple,” from Bark Your Head Off, Dog. The album was released last week and is quickly becoming a favorite amongst critics. For the video, directed by Derrick Belcham, frontwoman Frances Quinlan dances exuberantly throughout her house with a simple spotlight on her. “This is my first time appearing in a music video; in which case I decided to do something that felt risky to me. I told myself that I’ve danced through my own house solo enough times to do an alright job of it in front of a camera,” Quinlan said in a statement. “All that being said, I’m still surprised that this piece came to be. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to do it. Derrick did an excellent job directing, he made it a lot easier for me to access that part of myself and made it all look dreamy in a way that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise.” Bark Your Head Off, Dog is out now on Saddle Creek. [ Stereogum ]

Empress Of is the project of Lorely Rodriguez, who released her debut album, Me, in 2015. Since then she’s released a number of singles and collaborated with producers like Blood Orange, DJDS, Darkstar, and Pional. Today, she’s unveiled two new songs, “Trust Me Baby” and “In Dreams” that are sung in both Spanish and English. No word on whether there’s a forthcoming album. [ SPIN ]

Norwegian experimental avant-garde artist Jenny Hval has announced a new EP titled The Long Sleep. As with all of her releases, it looks as though the EP is a concept record revolving around sleeping/dreaming. The lead single is titled “Spells,” and indeed has a lulling ambiance to it. Her last album, Blood Bitch, revolved around the concept of menstruation and vampires, while 2015’s Apocalypse, Girl dealt with human sexuality and gender. The Long Sleep is out May 25 on Sacred Bones and was recorded with longtime collaborator Håvard Volden and producer Lasse Marhaug. It features jazz musicians Kyrre Laastad on percussion, Anja Lauvdal on piano, Espen Reinertsen on saxophone, and Eivind Lønning on trumpet. Catch Jenny Hval at Ballard’s Nordic Museum on Thursday, May 10. [ Under the Radar ]