Even voorstellen - Shabazz Palaces "It’s a Style Sport”

23/10 (sub pop/konkurrent)
 “Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0rr4M73GQw

August 11th, 2026, ever-evolving rapper, producer, and musician Ishmael Butler has announced his return as Shabazz Palaces and forthcoming new album, It’s a Style Sport, out Friday, October 23rd worldwide from Sub Pop.

It’s a Style Sport is the eighth Shabazz Palaces studio album and first full-length offering since the release of sibling mini-albums 2023's Robed in Rareness and 2024's Exotic Birds of Prey.

The ten-track project is preceded by thumping meditation “Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet),”out today via a new visualizer from Jacob Kasar and edited by Leigh Riibe. The single finds Butler taking the role of an all-knowing narrator, telling the story of his own life and rise to excellence from a fantasy-fuelled third-person perspective, ending with a list of directives for a successful life. Butler deals out flair while staying grounded in what matters most: his own honor.

It’s a Style Sport is a bold, forthright, and heavy-hitting album. Throughout, Butler compiles what he’s learned from his storied, dense career into a playful, shimmering portal, again proving himself an artist of chameleonic ambition, fuelled by curiosity, courage, and a limitless imagination. 

It’s a Style Sport features guest appearances from Marquette Miller, Thaddeus "Thaddillac" Turner, Evan Flory-Barnes, Gerald "Tugboat" Turner, Kassa Overall and Carlos Overall. The album was produced by Shabazz Palaces and Erik Blood, recorded at Circular Ruin Studios in Brooklyn (NY), Lake View Studios and Hall of Justice in Seattle (WA), and Parkman Labs in Los Angeles (CA). It was mixed by Blood at Circular Ruin, and mastered by Warren Defever at Third Man Mastering in Detroit (MI).

Ishmael Butler has been consistently exploring the outer reaches of music for the last three and a half decades. In the early 90s, he helped pioneer jazz-infused hip-hop by founding Digable Planets, the Grammy Award-winning trio who released two landmark albums, toured with Sade, and are still playing live together today. Butler’s later creative rebirth as Shabazz Palaces began in earnest 15 years ago with the experimental, highly influential debut album, Black Up. Butler has continued to push boundaries over seven subsequent Shabazz Palaces albums, and his exemplary taste and verve has led to collaborations with Flying Lotus, Thundercat, George Clinton, Clipping, Battles, Oneohtrix Point Never, Animal Collective, plus his own son, Lil Tracy

Shabazz Palaces has toured with Radiohead, TV on the Radio, and Ms Lauryn Hill. Additionally, Butler’s ability to spot like-minded visionaries, both in music and the wider creative cosmos, has led to striking visual output alongside filmmakers Khalil Joseph (Beyoncé, FKA Twigs, Kendrick Lamar) and Hiro Murai (Atlanta, Widow's Bay), to incredible design work with Toronto artist/designer and his fellow Black Constellation member Nep Sidhu.

Shabazz Palaces
It’s a Style Sport

Tracklisting:
1. Ahh World (I Won The Alpha Bet)

2. Field Notes
3. Show Me Missouri In Mink
4. Jheri Curl Jump
5. Deadstock Dude
6. Tongue In Chic
7. Heliocentric Immortality Manifesto H.I.M.
8. Olivia According To Touch
9. Money Can’t Save Your Mind
10. From One Future To Another

Even voorstellen – The tallest man on earth – just beyond endless mountain
THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH ANNOUNCE  ‘JUST BEYOND ENDLESS MOUNTAIN’

NEW ALBUM OUT OCTOBER 9
LISTEN + WATCH VIDEO FOR
“DELIVER ME FROM TRYING”
The Tallest Man On Earth - "Deliver Me From Trying"

For nearly twenty years, Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson has played his way around the world as The  Tallest Man on Earth, carving out a singular place in contemporary folk  music. But his new album ‘Just Beyond Endless Mountain’ - out October 9thon Anti- Records with a stunning cover portrait by legendary photographer Anton Corbijn - quietly turns that perspective on its head. After returning to his native Dalarna in central Sweden a few years ago, Matsson found himself  listening to the music he had spent years trying to leave behind: the polskas, the old field recordings and the sounds of the local traditions that had surrounded him since childhood. The result is not a return to the past, but a step into new musical territory. Swedish folk music has reshaped his  melodies, his voice, and the way he writes songs.

About halfway through the record, driving guitar & propulsive drumming provide the backdrop for the new single out today, "Deliver Me from Trying", as distorted vocals reveal a message of longing to let go. "When I listened back to it, I thought, 'Yeah...  okay. Good job, Kristian. You didn't really know what you were doing there. 'Deliver Me from Trying—just let me stop trying. That line just appeared, and it wasn't until later that I realized what it meant. It says a lot about where I was at."
Filmed  in the Swedish countryside among the region’s beautiful flora and fauna.

Dalarna  is the place Swedes return to, again and again, to reconnect with their past,  for better and for worse. This is where Matsson grew up during the 1980s and  '90s, surrounded by fiddlers and folk dancers, timber cabins and flower-clad Midsummer poles. You learned the dances  in school, the music too, and every national holiday was celebrated with folk musicians, traditional dress, and the folk games that had been passed down for  generations. It is as if the landscape itself had internalized the nation's longing for some primordial refuge—a place to retreat whenever modernity had  gone too far and, in the process, taken its own people hostage.

Matsson, however, refused to be captured so easily. He started indie bands, hurled himself across the stage like Iggy Pop, and spent his winters snowboarding. His teenage love of unruly rock gave way to an obsession with American blues and folk music. Then came the breakthrough: extensive tours, festival stages, steadily growing audiences, increasingly ambitious recordings, the move to America, and the constant pendulum swing between performing alone and wanting a full band beside him, both onstage and in the studio. Twenty wild years have passed since he released his first EP.

But something changed when he finally stopped moving. A new chapter began. Dalarna became home in the truest sense. Matsson’s farm became his fortress, and the home studio, that had sometimes stood silent, once again became a place where inspiration could rush in—and where freedom opened new windows. He started a garden, bought shares in a few horses, and picked up an ATV to clear the snow from his driveway. And then he bought even more instruments. The fiddle — an instrument he'd had a complicated relationship with since childhood — found its way back into his life. He picked it up hesitantly but soon became obsessed. Now, he opens his concerts with a polska by Pål Olle of Östbjörka.

"Somewhere along the way I'd developed this immature aversion to the whole cultural inheritance I grew up with,” Matsson explains. “But now I live here again. I've read an incredible amount—not just about the music, but about how people actually lived in the old days. I think that's part of why this record feels more like me than anything I've made before. This album really comes from somewhere."

1. The Wildest of His Dreams

2. Colors
3. We Got The Pony
4. Scully, It’s Me
5. Just Beyond Endless Mountain
6. Overboda
7. Deliver Me From Trying
8. Times
9. The Forest Keeper
10. In The Silver Wire Up The Hill
11. The Village
    
    Watch/Listen to “Colors”: https://thetallestmanonearth.ffm.to/colors
    https://thetallestmanonearth.com/

Even voorstellen – Death valley girls – welcome to earth
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS “WELCOME TO EARTH” 09/10 (suicide squeeze/konkurrent)

“message from the venus flower” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zELcJwPHoZo

Death Valley Girls are a staple of the Southern California rock scene. The city's devastating wildfires provide heart wrenching inspiration for their new full-length, Welcome to Earth, after destroying lead singer Bonnie Bloomgarden's home in Altadena. The record is out October 9, 2026 via Suicide Squeeze Records. Today, the band share the lead single, "Message From the Venus Flower", alongside a video directed by punk legend Ian Svenonius. Over a funky, '80s inspired instrumental, Bloomgarden mourns the loss of her beloved dog while celebrating their spiritual connection. It finds boisterousness in tragedy.

On the single, Bonnie Bloomgarden shares: "After the fire, Tommy, my best friend and dog, was not the same. I didn’t bring her medicine when we evacuated cause I didn’t bring anything, even my phone or car. My landlord, who lived in the house in front, drove us to her friend's house, and it was weeks before we could go back. And when we could go back, everything was destroyed. I wasn’t sure if she was hurting because she wasn’t on her medicine, or if she was scared, or if she didn’t know why we left our home and was mad at me! Previously, we had done sessions with Animal Communicator Amy Wild, and they really helped. They had a session a month or so after the fire, and Tommy tried to tell me that her body didn’t matter, our connection was eternal, because we were eternal souls that reincarnate and meet up in many lifetimes, and moreover, we are always connected and together. The illusion of separation is a very earthly human concept. I told her I don’t care about our souls, I just wanted to know if her body was ok!! Less than a year later, she left her body. I was broken. I had officially lost everything to 2025. After lying in bed wallowing, I decided I needed to try some life. I went on our normal walk and passed by a flower, a butterfly pea (Venus flower.) As I stood there, the flower sent me a message like a lightning bolt to my brain! In an instant the flower shared with me what Tommy had been trying to explain! The flower explained it: IS Tommy. Everything I love is Tommy, because love isn’t just something you feel, share, or do; love is more like a dimension! anything that gives me the feeling I get when I think of Tommy IS her. Because love isn’t just something you feel, share, or do, love is more like a dimension! And you tap into it, or remember often most easily through a physical manifestation like Tommy!"

On the video, she elaborates: "Ian Svenonius is one of my favorite artists! His writing, music, taste, and ethos are genius! He’s a legend of innovation and is always evolving exponentially while still referencing essential splashes of the past with sincere reverence. Yet, somehow is always peak ultra modern! What he and Sandy Denton have created in the scene with the Rated Z Dancers is breathtaking. I can’t believe they agreed to make a video for us!!"

The road to Death Valley Girls’ Welcome to Earth begins in the ashes of California’s Eaton Fire. After losing her home in Altadena and soon after her beloved dog Tommy, lead singer and songwriter Bonnie Bloomgarden confronted questions that resisted easy answers: What survives catastrophe? What remains after loss? How do you rebuild a life when the things that once defined it are gone? The album that emerged from those questions is among the most intimate and searching works Death Valley Girls have ever made.

Throughout the band's body of work, they have treated music as both celebration and search party. Albums like Glow in the Dark, Darkness Rains, Under the Spell of Joy, and Islands in the Sky transformed their space rock sound into a vehicle for spiritual inquiry, finding flashes of transcendence amid everyday chaos. But Welcome to Earth feels distinct from its predecessors. It focuses less on escaping the world and more on understanding how to remain connected after devastation.

What emerged was not a psych-punk record about loss, exactly, but about connection: the invisible threads linking people, animals, memories, landscapes, and lives across time. The album's title functions as both a greeting and a reminder, a welcome from the natural world to a species that has largely forgotten its place within it. Again and again, the songs return to the possibility that separation may be humanity's most persistent illusion.

That idea of connection extends beyond the songs themselves. After the fire, Bloomgarden found herself held aloft by the musicians who now make up Death Valley Girls: drummer Bailey Chapman, guitarist Laena Myers, bassist Alana Amram, saxophonist Sarah Safaie, and keyboardist Gregg Foreman - who devastatingly passed away not long after. They carried her through grief, through the band's first tour after the loss, and a year for her to be ready to write again. Their presence shaped not only the spirit of Welcome to Earth, but its sound: a more expansive, communal energy that feels inseparable from the people who helped bring it into being. "I don't think this record could have been made with any other group of people," Bloomgarden shares. Tragically, the album also stands as the final Death Valley Girls recording to feature Gregg's contributions.

Yet for all its weighty questions, Welcome to Earth is remarkably joyful. "Plant Magic" turns renewal into a communal celebration. "Basic Witch," featuring Seth Bogart, transforms heartbreak into hard-won self-awareness. "Message From the Venus Flower" and "I Love You" reimagine grief as evidence of an enduring connection rather than an ending. Musically, the album remains unmistakably Death Valley Girls: exuberant, melodic, curious, and gloriously open-hearted. Girl-group harmonies drift through hazy psychedelic passages; voices gather into communal chants; choruses arrive with the buoyancy of a collective sing-along. That communal spirit echoes throughout the album's many voices: twenty-three guest singers appear across the record, including a children's chorus whose bright presence lends the songs a fresh sense of wonder. Longtime collaborator Laura "The Kid" Kelsey returns throughout the album, as well as Little Ghost who was equally central to the process, contributing backing vocals throughout the record, creating the album artwork, and remaining a constant creative presence both in the studio and on the road. Welcome to Earth also features acclaimed jazz vocalist and multi-Grammy-nominated artist Gretchen Parlato.

What makes Welcome to Earth so moving is its refusal to separate the cosmic from the deeply personal. Bloomgarden searches for meaning everywhere, following those threads wherever they lead. The result is Death Valley Girls' most intimate album, but also their most expansive: a record that looks directly at loss and somehow emerges more open to wonder. In the end, Welcome to Earth proposes a radical idea disguised as a danceable rock-and-roll record. It suggests that healing begins not when grief disappears, but when we recognize how deeply connected we have always been.

Welcome to Earth tracklist:

1. Welcome To Earth
2. Basic Witch
3. Plant Magic
4. Sing For Yourself
5. Message From the Venus Flower
6. I Love You
7. Fire and Brimstone
8. Life So Far
9. How Losing Everything in the Fire Taught Me to Love Myself

Festival van de Vrijheid Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, 08 > 17.10.2026

FESTIVAL VAN DE VRIJHEID
Een organisatie van Bruxelles Laïque ASBL
08 > 17.10.2026
Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles

Van 8 tot 17 oktober 2026 neemt het Festival van de Vrijheid – georganiseerd door Bruxelles Laïque vzw – zijn intrek in het Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles voor tien dagen vol concerten, theater, documentairefilm, debatten en tentoonstellingen. In een context die wordt gekenmerkt door oorlogen, aantastingen van vrijheden en toenemende ongelijkheid, bevraagt deze nieuwe editie wat verbijstert en verlamt, maar ook het verzet, de stemmen die zich laten horen en de creaties die samenlevingen opnieuw in beweging brengen. Het is binnen deze spanning, tussen Verbijstering en opstanden, dat de programmatie van 2026 vorm krijgt.

Door de overvloed aan schokkende informatie is het risico groot dat we eraan gewend raken, ons machteloos voelen of niet meer weten hoe we moeten reageren. Verbijstering verwijst naar dat moment waarop de schok uiteindelijk verlamt. De geschiedenis toont echter aan dat periodes van angst en terugtrekking ook aanleiding geven tot collectieve bewegingen, stemmen die zich laten horen, ongehoorzaamheid en artistieke of burgerinitiatieven die weigeren zich bij het onvermijdelijke neer te leggen. Zonder doemdenken of naïviteit bevraagt het Festival van de Vrijheid wat verontrust en blokkeert, en brengt het tegelijk verhalen, ervaringen en vormen van verzet onder de aandacht die het vermogen om te handelen, te denken en te creëren teruggeven.

Om dieper op deze thema’s in te gaan, stelt het Festival een vijftiental ontmoetingen en debatten voor die de contouren en pijlers van onze democratieën bevragen. Welke obstakels wegen op de persvrijheid? Hoe kunnen autoritaire ontsporingen binnen de politie aan de kaak worden gesteld of hoe kunnen we het hoofd bieden aan de masculinistische backlash? Er zal ook afstand worden genomen om meer ethische en filosofische vragen te stellen: draagt het democratische systeem zelf de belemmeringen in zich waarop het geacht wordt een antwoord te bieden? Is het werkelijk zo onredelijk om affectiviteit in politieke termen te benaderen? Andere ontmoetingen zullen zich richten op de opstanden zelf, in hun vormen van directe actie, verhalen of pacifisme. Trouw aan zijn geest wil het Festival van de Vrijheid het publiek vooral uitnodigen om in actie te komen, via verschillende sessies rond mobilisatie, of het nu gaat om onderwijs, het recht op solidariteit, de sociale strijd tegen de georganiseerde misdaad, de ontmanteling van sociale rechten of een wereld zonder oorlog. Onder de namen die al zijn aangekondigd: filosoof Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, journaliste Florence Aubenas en de Iraanse antropologe Chowra Makaremi.

Wat theater betreft, nemen drie voorstellingen de intieme ervaring als uitgangspunt om de geschiedenis, normen en politieke omwentelingen te bevragen. In SAMAR vertelt Samar Kokash over de gevangenschap, ballingschap en wederopbouw van een Syrische kunstenares en moeder. Met L’Infiltré verbindt Océan zijn transitieparcours met een reflectie over mannelijkheid, witheid en overdracht. Dressing Room, van Bissane Al-Charif, Hala Omran en Waël Ali, geeft het woord aan vrouwen in de menopauze in een voorstelling die getuigenissen, zang en humor combineert.

Het Festival viert de vrijheden ook met muziek, met een gedurfde en diverse programmatie. Abd Al Malik opent het festival met Gibraltar, Identités réconciliées, een voorstelling die slam, rap, zang, dans en beeldende kunst samenbrengt. Yuston XIII ontvouwt een universum tussen schaduw, licht, poëzie en geraas. Keziah Jones laat zijn blufunk horen, op het kruispunt van blues, funk en zijn Nigeriaanse roots, terwijl ascendant vierge popproducties, razende ritmes en teksten combineert die nu eens apocalyptisch, dan weer verbindend zijn. Imany brengt een concert waarin haar unieke stem soul, folk en pop vermengt in een universum dat tegelijk intiem en krachtig is. De avond met Blu Samu en 2L zet twee artiesten met een eigenzinnige schrijfstijl in de kijker, die van rap een ruimte voor expressie, vrijheid en heruitvinding maken. Marcel Khalifé keert terug naar Promises of the Storm, zijn vertolking van de gedichten van Mahmoud Darwish, gedragen door de oud, en Altın Gün laat psychedelische grooves, Anatolische funk en Turkse volkstradities met elkaar in dialoog gaan. Het Festival wordt afgesloten met een dubbele roots-affiche met Sister Carol, een boegbeeld van bewuste reggae en dancehall, en Cimarons, pioniers van de Britse reggae uit de Jamaicaanse diaspora.

Een ander belangrijk luik van het festival, de documentairefilmcompetitie, brengt dit jaar
een twintigtal films samen. Verschillende vertoningen gaan gepaard met ontmoetingen met filmmakers en protagonisten, om de reflecties ook na de film voort te zetten. Oorlog en de gevolgen ervan lopen als een rode draad door een groot deel van de programmatie: in Gaza blijft een clown ondanks de bombardementen optreden voor kinderen; in Bagdad proberen inwoners hun collectieve geheugen te reconstrueren aan de hand van de geschiedenis van de zoo en zijn leeuwen; in Oekraïne gaat het over de uitputting die wordt veroorzaakt door de voortdurende blootstelling aan oorlogsbeelden op sociale media. Andere verhalen belichten meer intieme of ondergrondse vormen van verzet: de clandestiene leeskring van jonge Afghaanse vrouwen in Kabul, migratietrajecten vanuit Kameroen of het Europese niet-onthaal. De programmatie staat ook stil bij hedendaagse ideologische ontsporingen, van complotdenken en extreemrechts binnen de wellnesswereld tot politieke repressie in Rusland. Net als bij de vorige edities probeert de selectie van 2026 een gevoelige cartografie te schetsen van de strijd en veerkracht van onze tijd, tussen ballingschap, gender, koloniaal geheugen en bedreigde talen.

Twee tentoonstellingen vervolledigen de programmatie. Met The Nemesis Machine stelt de Britse kunstenaar Stanza zich een cybernetische stad voor die in realtime reageert op gegevens uit haar omgeving. Deze immersieve installatie, opgebouwd uit elektronische componenten, sensoren en beelden van bezoekers, bevraagt slimme steden, surveillance, artificiële intelligentie en onze toenemende afhankelijkheid van geconnecteerde technologieën. Tussen fascinatie en bezorgdheid bevraagt ze de grenzen van vrijheid in een wereld die door data wordt bestuurd. Met Critical Minerals – Geography of Energy onderzoekt de Italiaanse fotograaf Davide Monteleone de geopolitieke, sociale en ecologische gevolgen van de energietransitie. Hij toont de landschappen, mijnen en gemeenschappen die centraal staan in de ontginning van mineralen die onmisbaar zijn voor groene technologieën, en nodigt zo uit om na te denken over de menselijke en ecologische kost van onze energietoekomst.

Politiek. Artistiek. Feestelijk. Subversief. Zoals elk jaar brengt het Festival van de Vrijheid alle vormen van expressie samen om weerstand te bieden, te getuigen en mensen samen te brengen.

PRAKTISCHE INFORMATIE
Festival van de Vrijheid
08 > 17.10.2026
Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Émile Jacqmainlaan 111-115
1000 Brussel

www.festivaldeslibertes.be