Monday Music News

Seattle-born but now Los Angeles-located band La Luz have announced their follow-up to 2015's Weirdo Shrine. Titled Floating Features, the album will be out in May on their longtime label Hardly Art. Today they've shared the album's lead single "Cicada," along with a telenovela-style video for the song directed by Ryan Daniel Brown. The dreamy surf-rock song becomes the perfect backdrop for a world of drama and intrigue. Floating Features is out May 11 via Hardly Art. [ Stereogum ]

Will Sheff's long-running project Okkervil River announced a new album called The Rainbow Rain is on its way. It's the band's ninth studio album and follows 2016's Away. The first single, "Don't Move Back To LA," has been unveiled. According to Sheff, the laid back slow-burner was inspired by his sadness after a stream of close friends moved to Los Angeles. The Rainbow Rain is out April 27 on ATO. [ BrooklynVegan ]

Chicago soul legend Mavis Staples released her latest album If All I Was Was Black late last year and today she's shared the video for the warm title track. Directed by Zac Manuel, the video sees Staples singing along in the diner while a previously held Confederate statue is being taken down to be replaced with one resembling a black woman, who witnesses its unveiling. Manuel explained his inspiration, saying: "Earlier this year, I watched as all the Confederate monuments came down in New Orleans, but the conversation never arose as to what would replace them. This video imagines a reality where we venerate people who are truly deserving of being immortalized in public spaces, a reality in which Black people can be proud to see themselves on pedestals in the air, cast in iron and stone." If All I Was Was Black was made in collaboration with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and is out now on Anti-. [ Rolling Stone ]

Danish quartet Iceage are back with their first song since 2014's brilliant Plowing Into the Field of Love. "Catch It" is a haunting, slow-chugging track, with frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt half mumbling, half moaning the hazy lyrics. The song comes with a video directed by Adam Hashemi and features a cameo from Twin Peaks actor David Dastmalchian. No news of a new album has been announced but a tour for the band has and the American leg kicks off in Seattle on May 10, interestingly, at the Nordic Museum in Ballard. [ Consequence of Sound ]

20-year-old Nashville musician Sophie Allison has recently been making waves with her Soccer Mommy project. Today she's shared the intimate third single from her forthcoming debut album Clean. Called "Still Clean," the song is an emotional, hushed story of abandonment. “It uses this idea of being ‘clean’ to explain the feeling of being stuck waiting for someone, hoping that they haven’t moved on from you," explains Allison. "When you are stuck in this place of waiting you kind of put your world — and your memory of them — on pause. But as the song shows, sometimes people keep moving while you’re standing still, and sometimes you’re the only one who’s left clean.” Clean is out March 2 via Fat Possum. Catch Sophie Allison at Barboza on Wednesday, April 4 with Madeline Kenney. [ Paste ]