Unless you count last year’s rarities collection, it’s been three years since the Melbourne digital pop auteur Katie Dey released her last album, never falter hero girl. That streak is about to end. In just four weeks, Dey will drop her new LP universal will. There’s not a lot of info about the project on Bandcamp, Instagram, or her official website, but opening track “for you” is out now, and it’s a stunner.
The song rocks harder than Katie Dey tracks of yore, starting with heavy pounding drums and electric guitars, and it expands to a near-epic scope, shifting shape across five-plus minutes. Yet there’s a clear connective thread with her past work, especially in the lyrics, which string together vivid, sometimes disturbing images. I’m fond of the line “not a person just a bundle of data points.”
Listen below.
TRACKLIST: 01 “for you” 02 “shadow self” 03 “masterplan” 04 “fearless zone” 05 “emerging from debris” 06 “vacant lot / home” 07 “last night of the world” 08 “angel in the server room” 09 “unfathomable you / catherine wheel” 10 “universal will”
HAAi’sDIGITiSE makes a lot more sense once you stop treating it like a traditional follow-up album and start hearing it like a DJ making a record for the room she actually plays in.
That is the part I like here. HUMANiSE already gave HAAi a big conceptual canvas, full of questions around connection, digital pressure, found family, and the human pieces that technology still cannot recreate. DIGITiSE does not abandon that idea. It drags it back toward the system, the booth, the sweat, and the moment when theory has to survive contact with a crowd.
HAAi described the album as HUMANiSE’s “bigger, ravey sibling,” which is the right read. It is the next version of the same emotional architecture, just built for bodies first. She made the record with the specific intent of having music she could play in DJ sets, and that directness gives the album a different kind of charge.
Concept-heavy electronic albums tend to get precious.
The ideas become larger than the tracks. HAAi avoids that by putting the record back under pressure from the floor. If a breakdown dragged too long, she could feel it. If a groove needed tightening, the crowd told her before the copy did.
I covered the initial album details earlier this year in my piece on HAAi announcingDIGITiSE, but hearing the full project in context makes the intent clearer.
The Album Starts Where HUMANiSE Fades Out
The connection to HUMANiSE is literal. The final track of that album fades out with the choir, and DIGITiSE picks that thread up again on “RE-HUMANiSE,” featuring Kaiden Ford and ILA.
That kind of continuity can be a gimmick if there is no reason behind it, but it works here because HAAi’s larger idea is about connection under digital strain. The choir is not only a pretty texture. It is a human presence inside a record that keeps asking what community looks like when so much of life is mediated by screens, systems, and constant technological acceleration.
The difference is that DIGITiSE turns the question toward the club.
Where HUMANiSE seemed more concerned with what holds people together inside a fractured modern condition, DIGITiSE asks what happens when those people actually gather. The album is still thinking about AI, technology, division, and digital pressure, but the answer is less analytical this time. Put people in a room. Turn the music up. Let the crowd become its own argument.
That is probably why this record feels more immediate. It is not lighter, exactly. It just has less patience for abstraction. The album wants to move, and it wants the listener to understand movement as emotional evidence.
That has always been part of HAAi’s work. Even when her records get heady, they rarely lose the sense that dance music is at its best when it makes the body explain what the brain cannot.
The Collaborators Keep It From Closing In
DIGITiSE features new collaborators Echonomist, Skybreak, and Cantoalegre, the children’s choir from Medellin, Colombia, alongside returning voices Pat Alvarez, ILA, James Massiah, and Kaiden Ford.
That list is important because HAAi’s records rarely feel like solitary producer exercises. She tends to build her ideas with other people in the room, or at least with other voices shaping the music’s emotional behavior. That makes sense for an album dealing with connection. The record would feel thinner if HAAi were the only Voice illustrating that theme.
The title track, “DIGITiSE,” features Pat Alvarez and sits at the center of the record’s identity. HAAi calls it the album’s nucleus, and it sounds like it was designed to announce the shift from concept to floor. It nods to the club as a space of belonging, not just release.
“Ignition” with Echonomist pulls from “Go,” one of the key moments from HUMANiSE, but redirects that energy toward a dancefloor function. “I Wanna Feel Like Someone” with James Massiah pushes bass, frequency, and Motorik rhythm into a peak-time shape. “Talking Walls” with Skybreak and Cantoalegre brings back the choir thread while opening the album into a more communal, festival-sized emotional register. Talking Walls (feat. Skybreak and Cantoalegre) is a sonic journey through the sounds and influences that have opened up to her through DJ sets. The track showcases both HAAi and Skybreak’s sonic worlds and the addition of a choir – Cantoalegre Colombian children’s choir – is reminiscent of the choirs that appear on the previous album, a thread that brings deep emotion to the track.
“It’s one to hug your mates to at the festival
That last track feels especially tied to HAAi’s sense of scale. She has always known how to make dance music feel wide without losing its strange edges. The choir gives the track lift, but not in a cheap hands-in-the-air way. It adds a human layer to music that is otherwise built from machines, rhythm, and pressure.
The U.S. Dates Turn the Album Into a Weekender
The timing of the release is not subtle, and that is a good thing.
HAAi comes into DIGITiSE with U.S. dates that feel like a compressed statement of where she is right now. On October 16, she plays San Francisco at Cow Palace, supporting Dom Dolla B2B with DJ Seinfeld. On October 17, she heads to Miami for iii Points, then into the official afterparty at The Ground at Club Space, where she plays from 4:30 to 6 AM. On October 18, she goes straight into a 10-hour open-to-close set at Refuge in Brooklyn, running from 4 PM to 2 AM as the album release celebration.
That is a ridiculous run in the best way. It is also exactly the kind of stretch that makes sense for this album.
She also recently returned to BBC Radio 1 with her first Essential Mix since her award-winning 2018 Essential Mix debut, which adds another layer of momentum around the album’s release. For an artist whose reputation has always been tied closely to DJing, that timing helps frame DIGITiSE as more than a studio project.
The new label will focus on emerging artists and underground club music.
Photo credit: Mau P – Instagram
Mau P has announced the launch of Baddest Behaviour Records, a new record label dedicated to supporting emerging talent and connecting underground club music with wider audiences.
The label takes its name from the DJ and producer’s established Baddest Behaviour event series and Pacha Ibiza residency. The project marks an expansion of the concept into music releases, with an emphasis on artists and records that reflect his approach to club culture.
Speaking about the initiative, Mau P explained that the label was created to provide opportunities for artists who have been sharing their music with him: “This is for all the artists that have been sending me music, and I’m finally able to give them a platform, just like how other DJs and artists were supportive of me in the beginning.”
He also emphasized his intention to prioritize musical identity over current trends: “I’m not trying to follow what’s popping right now. I’m just trying to take it back to the core, this is for the culture.”
Since the release of ‘Drugs From Amsterdam’, the artist has developed an international presence through his productions, DJ performances, and the growth of Baddest Behaviour.
The new label builds on that foundation, providing a dedicated platform for artists working within underground electronic music while maintaining a connection to the event series.
Watch Mau P’s full statement below and follow Baddest Behaviour Records on Instagram here.
Out of the many daily puzzles available online, the New York Times’ Connections game is one of the trickiest. For those playing for the first time, the goal of Connections is to divide a block of 16 words into four common themes. Some of these – for example, grouping four types of fish – can be very straightforward, while others can be far more abstract. If you’ve found yourself stumped by the latter, we’ve put together Connections answers and hints for today (October 09) below.
If you already know how to play Connections, you can skip this paragraph to jump straight into today’s solution. But if this is your first time attempting the New York Times’ puzzle (or you just need a refresher), we suggest thinking outside of the box for your answers.
Some groups are deliberately deceptive – using a previous day’s puzzle as an example, you may think ‘Heart’, ‘Cell’, ‘Body’ and ‘Nucleus’ are all connected through biology. But you’d be wrong, as ‘Heart’ and ‘Nucleus’ were actually two of four “Nexus” words on the day we’ve used as an example. Think beyond what a word means literally, try to see subtle patterns, and your luck with Connections will improve drastically. That being said, some days are still fiendishly difficult – and if you’re still stuck, check below for the Connections answer for today.
Connections hints for October 09
If you’re still trying to solve October 09’s Connections yourself, here are all of the words in play today and some hints on what each group is.
POWER
GUITAR
CONDITIONER
VOLUME
BLOWOUT
KISS
SWEEP
HIGHLIGHTS
SCORES
QUOTES
INPUT
STATS
CHANNEL
ROMP
RECAP
ROUT
With that in mind, here are four hints for October 09
Yellow: walkover
Green: buttons on a TV remote
Blue: things shown during a sporting programme
Purple: words that come after “air”
Connections groups for October 09
If you’re still trying to piece everything together, here are all four of today’s groups.
Yellow: decisive victory
Green: controlled by a TV remote
Blue: features of a sports show
Purple: air __
Connections answers for October 09
Finally, here are the answers for Connections #1216 on Friday, October 09.
Green: controlled by a TV remote (channel, input, power, volume)
Blue: features of a sports show (highlights, recap, scores, stats)
Purple: air __ (conditioner, guitar, kiss, quotes)
You can check back for up-to-date hints and answers for each day’s Connections puzzle. If you get stuck elsewhere, we’ve also got answers for several other daily games – including Wordle, Framed, and Globle.
Awards shows are, by their nature, a competitive format, but when the Country Music Association reached a milestone with its 50th annual awards in 2016, the organization projected a spirit of unity with an intricate single that debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated Oct. 8, 2016.
“Forever Country” brought together 30 former CMA award-winners in a four-minute mash-up of three classic songs: John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” Billed as Artists of Then, Now & Forever, the individual acts recorded their parts separately, cutting their vocals with producer Shane McAnally (Lady A, Kacey Musgraves) in Nashville when it fit their schedules. Video director Joseph Kahn captured most of the visual content in front of a green screen over three days during the CMA Music Festival that June.
Brad Paisley and Miranda Lambert were the first two recorded, with the likes of George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Blake Shelton, Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood adding their voices as the project developed. Randy Travis, who was three years removed from a stroke, appears only in the video.
MCA Nashville released “Forever Country” on Sept. 16, 2016, and the video premiered four days later on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars ahead of its two-week reign on the chart.
In addition to topping the multimetric Hot Country Songs, the single led both Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales, while also rising to No. 32 on Country Airplay. On the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, it hit No. 21.
The following spring, the CMA clip earned the video of the year award from the rival Academy of Country Music.
ABC airs the 60th CMA Awards on Nov. 18 from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” cowriter Bill Danoff marveled to Billboard in 2017 about “Forever Country. “When I saw it,” he said, “Brad Paisley, who’s from West Virginia, singing my song … beautiful.”
A redesigned Apple Music wordmark has started appearing across Apple’s latest software betas, offering the strongest indication yet that the company is preparing to refresh the streaming service’s branding.
The updated logo was spotted in iOS 27.2 beta 3 and macOS 27.2 beta 3. The redesign keeps Apple’s familiar logo but gives the word “music” a noticeably bolder appearance, switching from the previous thinner typography to a heavier, lowercase typeface.
While the change may seem subtle, it gives Apple Music a considerably different visual identity after years of relatively consistent branding.
The New Logo Has Already Appeared Elsewhere
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Apple has used the redesigned wordmark.
The logo appeared in September when Apple announced Apple Music Hall, its new live music venue at London’s Battersea Power Station. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether the branding was created specifically for the venue.
Apple has since used the design in additional promotional materials, and its appearance within upcoming versions of iOS and macOS now suggests the new look is intended for Apple Music more broadly.
The change comes during a busy period for Apple’s music division. In September, the company officially opened Apple Music Hall, expanding the Apple Music brand further into live entertainment.
There is one important caveat: Applehas not formally announced a company-wide Apple Music rebrand or confirmed when the new logo will appear everywhere.
For now, its inclusion in Apple’s latest software betas offers the clearest indication that a wider rollout is coming.
Sometimes a new era doesn’t need a complete makeover — just a much bolder font.
South London indie trio, mary in the junkyard have released their new single, “jane,” via AMF Records.
The trio is made up of vocalist, guitarist, and chief prop-maker Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and cellist Saya Barbaglia, and drummer David Addison.
Alongside their raw musical talent, they’re known for their unorthodox, tactile approach to art.
At a recent show at London’s ICA, they famously hovered a giant spectral moth, complete with papier-mâché bones, over the stage… a whimsical and excellent use of free will!
The track plays like a lullaby, beautifully simple and sweet. Clari’s voice is heartbreakingly melancholic, softly delivered over warm, melodic guitar strumming. “jane” isn’t trying to be avant-garde or experimental. It’s indie in its purest form.
There’s something earnest about doing one thing and doing it incredibly well, and mary in the junkyard have their sound down to a T.
The song feels like the kind of timeless indie classic that’ll be passed down through generations.
Record Store Day Black Friday—an extension of the annual celebration of independent music shops that has since turned into a bloated, navel-gazing mess hurting the exact stores it claims to support—is returning on November 27. RSD was founded in 2008 as a way to help drive customers to then-struggling indie retailers (and entice vinyl-loving cranks like myself), but in recent years has become a clearinghouse for increasingly ridiculous rarities; some notable stores have even refusedto participate over profitability and distribution concerns. While the 2027 edition likely won’t solve the well-documented issues the event continues to face, there are still gems worth braving a horde of Sombr fans to purchase. Below, the Pitchfork staff has compiled a list of the best ones amid the nuclear-gradecringe:
In March, Slayyyter unleashed WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, which topped our list of the best albums of the year so far. Now, the sleazy star is announcing its brother album, Wor$t Man In America, out in December.
The nine-track LP contains all new songs including the recent singles “brand new chanel$” and “crank 2.” Some “act as direct inversions, while others revisit familiar ideas from an entirely new angle,” according to press materials. On Tuesday (Oct. 6), Slayyyter will support Turnstile at University Of Kansas’ Day On The Hill, and then she’ll come to Brazil for Zig Festival this weekend.
She recently featured on Turnstile’s star-studded Never Enough: Versions alongside Elton John, Hayley Williams, Blood Orange, Alex G, Dying Fetus, Julien Baker, and more. She contributed her own gnarly rendition of “Birds,” and gave it a live debut in Atlanta last month. See the tracklist for Wor$t Man In America below.
GHENGAR’s debut album REBIRTH just dropped and is the clearest statement yet of where the project is headed. Across eight tracks, David Crow pulls heavy bass music closer to metal while using horror, video games, humor, and his own vocals to build something considerably more personal than a straightforward collection of festival weapons.
The album follows a transformation that has played out publicly throughout 2026. Sets at Tomorrowland, Lost Lands, Bass Canyon, ILLFest, EDC Las Vegas, and a sold-out headline appearance at SILO Dallas have given Crow space to test increasingly aggressive material while reshaping GHENGAR around a heavier creative identity.
Where Metal, Horror and Gaming Collide
What separates REBIRTH from a conventional tearout album is how deeply its outside influences affect the music itself.
“LAVENDER CITY,” a collaboration with Usaybflow, reaches directly into Pokémon lore, twisting the atmosphere of Lavender Town into a chaotic mixture of riddim, tearout, and game-inspired sound design. “TACTICAL NUKE” takes a similar approach to Call of Duty Zombies, combining chanting, distorted bass, metal vocals, and recognizable samples from the franchise inside a track designed for large-scale bass sets.
Horror becomes equally central. “DEAD LINE” with BERNZIKIAL begins with the sound of a ringing phone and Ghostface’s infamous question before GHENGAR’s own scream-singing drives the song into punishing dubstep. “AUTOPSY BUFFET,” created with Chassi, combines spoken word, guitar, metallic textures, and aggressive electronic production in one of the earliest records to signal this new direction.
The strongest evidence of GHENGAR’s evolution, however, may be Crow’s increased presence behind the microphone. He performs screams and growls throughout the record while also introducing his singing voice to the project. “DEMONS” brings distorted guitar and live vocals directly into the center of the production, while closing title track “REBIRTH” places melodic singing against visceral screams before eventually dissolving into piano, atmospheric effects, and horror-inflected narration.
Even “BODIES,” created alongside K1N, avoids an obvious approach. Instead of simply flipping Drowning Pool’s 2001 anthem, GHENGAR performs the vocals himself and reconstructs it around bass house, showing that the heavier identity of the album is not restricted to one tempo or production formula.
Crow has described “REBIRTH” as GHENGAR in its truest form, combining metal, monsters, gaming, vocals, and crushing electronic production without attempting to separate those influences into neat categories.
This album will move directly into its next phase later in October when GHENGAR begins the “REBIRTH” North American Tour in Philadelphia. The run continues through March 2027 with support from All The Reason, Calcium, HVDES, Prosecute, yvm3, and Usaybflow across select dates, giving the album’s increasingly theatrical world a much larger stage.
By Connor Phillips
Raised in upstate New York, I was always a big fan of music but never really listened to electronic music. Within the first month of attending Florida State University and meeting some new friends, I was introduced to the rave scene. After seeing Ekali at my first show, I was instantly hooked. Since then, I have dived into every subgenre of electronic music, picked up DJing, and mixed for clubs and different entertainment events in Tallahassee.
Once graduating with degrees in marketing and hospitality, I was hired for a sales position. However, I recently decided to leave my sales job to pursue my dream of working in the music industry. Currently, I run Magnetic Magazine’s Melodic Techno Charts, along with my role as a PR and marketing specialist for different artists and labels.
Some of my favorite artists are REZZ, Kyle Watson, TOBEHONEST, San Pacho, Josh Baker, HUGEL, ARTBAT, Vintage Culture, Ganja White Night, CamelPhat, Green Velvet, Jungle, Milky Chance, Paco Versailles, Franc Moody, and RÜFUS DU SOL. My favorite festivals are Hulaween (by far), EDC Orlando, and all the different venues during Miami Music Week.
Outside of music, I love sports (especially hockey, soccer, tennis, basketball, and spike ball), going to the movies, working out, sushi, Chick-fil-A, food in general, and hanging with my dog Maui and my cat Loki. Feel free to reach out to me via my email or on IG, I love expanding my network of friends and business opportunities!
The limited 180g pressing forms part of Akbal Music’s 20th Anniversary pressing series.
Photo credit: Barac – Instagram
Akbal Music presents Barac’s‘I Close My Eyes In Order To See’, a vinyl release from the Romanian artist as part of the label’s anniversary program.
The release is being presented exclusively as a limited 180g audiophile vinyl edition, continuing the label’s focus on physical releases and analog formats for its 20 Years Anniversary Pressing series.
Barac brings his minimal and rominimal approach to the release, which Akbal Music positions as a meeting point between its history and the next phase of the label.
Listen to ‘I Close My Eyes In Order To See’ below and download your copy here.
Turnstile made their debut on Saturday Night Live last night (October 3), performing ‘Birds’ and a medley of ‘I Care’ and ‘Dull’. Check out footage below.
The Baltimore band served as musical guests on the second episode of the US sketch show’s 52nd season, which was hosted by Dakota Johnson.
For their first performance, Brendan Yates and co. tore through ‘Birds’, one of the heavier tracks from their fourth album ‘Never Enough’.
Watch it below:
Later in the episode, Turnstile returned to perform two songs back-to-back, opening with the dreamier ‘I Care’ before crashing into ‘Dull’.
Check out the performance here:
The appearance came just one night after Turnstile performed at Austin City Limits in Texas, and it capped a huge period for the band following the release of ‘Never Enough’ in June last year. ‘Birds’ won Best Metal Performance at the Grammys in February, while ‘Never Enough’ took home Best Rock Album.
Following those Grammy wins, Turnstile spoke out against what they described as “heightened state violence” around the world.
“We’re existing in a time of heightened state violence,” they said. “We are watching people be pushed out of their homes here in America, in Palestine, in Sudan, in Iran, everywhere, as if they don’t belong to them. As if we don’t belong to each other.”
Later, speaking to NME at the BRIT Awards, Yates said it was important for artists to use their platforms, adding: “Artists serve as a mirror to reflect what’s happening in the world.”
