Mortiis Has L.A. Goblin Up His TunesAlmost exactly a month ago, Norwegian black metal titans Emperor performed at the Wiltern and tore L.A. a new one. At the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles on a midweek spring evening, that band's former bassist Mortiis was co-headlining with Pacific Northwest band UADA.

A lot has happened in the 34 years since Mortiis, real name Håvard Ellefsen, left Emperor (he was in that band for a year between 1991-'92), most notably the fact that he fully took on the persona of a goblin for a while. In interviews, he would talk about how he lives in a cabin in the forest, surrounded by the howls of wolves and the wind. Strikingly, he wasn't seen without his goblin prosthetics for years. Much like Kiss, it was deep into his solo career before we got to see what he looked like under the pointy ears and pointier nose. He took the face off for a bit, and now he's back to the goblin look again.

Rubber aside, Mortiis has been through some stages, or "eras," over the years. Era I encompasses his early work--the one EP and six albums recorded in the '90s up to and including 1999's The Stargate. They were all recorded using synthesizers, and the artist described them as "dark dungeon music." Mostly instrumental, only The Stargate features vocals courtesy of Sarah Jezebel Deva.

At the Teragram, Mortiis was revisiting Era II, his dark wave/electropop period that essentially started and ended with the 2001 album The Smell of Rain. Mortiis's set leaned super-heavily on that album as a result. It's fascinating too; back in 2001, the album divided fans. The artist would divide them again when he entered into his industrial era III. Now though, The Smell of Rain is seen as a bit of a mini-classic, as it should be. The tunes are huge, Mortiis' vocals (a new thing at the time) were great, and the production is simultaneously pristine and gnarly.

Mortiis performed four songs at the Teragram that were not on The Smell of Rain, carefully picked out because they at least fit the era II mood. Two are from the brand new Ghosts of Europa (the title track, and "Tundra, Heart of Hell." "Demons are Back" is taken from 2016's era 0 album The Great Deceiver, as is "Doppleganger."

But again, Mortiis has cultivated a mood at these shows. Open-minded fans of black metal, of symphonic death metal, of goth, of industrial, of electropop and/or of dark wave should be able to enjoy the brilliance of these songs.

"Spirit in a Vacuum" and "Parasite God" were highlights, the crowd not knowing whether to mosh or sway as Mortiis simultaneously electrified and hypnotized all before him.

The openers (Jerome Reuter's Rome and Wraith Knight) were very different, but both betrayed a penchant for neo-folk and medieval pageantry. The former has a few lyrics that are problematic at the very least, while the latter's instrumental tunes seem to be influenced by era I Mortiis. As a result, there was a mood over the whole event that, refreshingly, Mortiis was the one to change. This old goblin provided heaps of joy, fun, and dance-friendly tunes.

Intense and melodic, Mortiis continues to do things entirely on his own terms.The post Mortiis Has L.A. Goblin Up His Tunes first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

T.J. Martell Foundation to honor Red Light Management founder Coran Capshaw with Lifetime Music Industry AwardCapshaw has built Red Light into what the company says is the world's largest independent artist management firm, with a roster that includes Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Chris Stapleton, and The Strokes.
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The Return of Cabaret Voltaire at the Bellwether, L.A.There was something in the water in the county of Yorkshire, England in the early-to-mid '70s. In 1975, proto-industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle formed in Hull. But two years prior, 68 miles south in Sheffield, Cabaret Voltaire was born.

So the story goes that founding member Chris Watson, inspired by Brian Eno, was experimenting with making "music without musical instruments." He was a telephone engineer, and that work informed his creativity too. Watson soon joined forces with Richard H. Kirk, and the pair were joined by Stephen Mallinder.

The rest is history. The Mix-Up album dropped in '79; the last Cabaret Voltaire album, BN9Drone, was released in April 2021, though by that point Kirk was the sole remaining member out of the original three. Five months later, in September 2021, Kirk passed away.

So here we are in 2026. Cabaret Voltaire is Mallinder and Watson, through the latter struggles to travel so the touring lineup is Mallinder and friends. One of those friends is Tara Busch, aka opening act I Speak Machine, who performs Watson's parts with aplomb.

There were no songs performed from the first three albums at Cabaret Voltaire's Bellwether show (their return to Los Angeles after years away)--the set was weighted heavily towards 1983's The Crackdown and 1984's Micro-Phonies. CV kicked off with "24/24," "Animation," and 'Why Kill Time (When You Can Kill Yourself)" from the former, before diving further into the past with "The Set-Up" from 1978's Extended Play EP, and "Landslide" from 1981's Red Mecca.

"Crackdown" and then "Yashar" (the latter from 2X45) were set highlights, "Sex Money Freaks" betrays their early Berlin nightclub inspirations, and set closer "Do Right" was a crowd pleaser. Encores "Nag Nag Nag" and "Sensoria" proved to be the perfect way to end the night.

The Bellwether was packed for this one. CV seemed to bring out all of Los Angeles' beautiful freaks, from the goths to the cyberpunks and everyone in-between. They all will have left happy.

The post The Return of Cabaret Voltaire at the Bellwether, L.A. first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Sony Music Publishing wins Pop Publisher of the Year at 2026 BMI Awards… as Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Luther’ takes Song of the YearSMP landed the title for representing 24 of the previous year's most-performed songs.
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RIP Jack DouglasMC was saddened to learn of the passing of celebrated producer Jack Douglas. A note on social media from his family reads, "He passed away peacefully on Monday night. As many of you who follow him know, he produced great music, and lived a colorful life. We know that he touched many of your lives; we would love to hear more about that in the comments. He will be missed."

We look back on our 2017 interview, courtesy of writer Rob Putnam as part of his "Producers Sound Off" feature...

Jack DouglasClientele: John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith

In the ‘60s, Jack Douglas was a musician with a label deal in hand and stars in his eyes. Encouraged by the Isley Brothers, he was inspired to engineer and ultimately to mix and produce. The now legendary producer’s first taste of studio work came as a janitor at New York’s then-new Record Plant studios. As his repertoire expanded, he was tapped to engineer John Lennon’s Imagine and later to produce the former Beatle’s final album, the Grammy-winning Double Fantasy. Originally from New York, Douglas has worked in London and currently splits his time between L.A. and NYC.

What are some of the biggest challenges facing producers today?Convincing major labels that, after mixing dozens of singles and albums, I can mix a record. When I’m hired to produce, I include a mix in the price. I’ve been told many times “But you’re not a mixer.” I find that challenging and hard to understand. It’s caused a lot of homogenization in pop music. But finding work isn’t difficult. There’s tons of it, as long as you keep all of the avenues open and are willing to diversify. But that’s only speaking for myself. I bet a big problem for a lot of producers is finding work.

What’s an ideal client for you?There’s no such thing. They’re all different. I may work with a brilliant artist who’s a fall-down drunk. I may work with the nicest guy in the world, but he needs so much help with his music. Maybe John Lennon was the ideal client. He had more talent than he could ever imagine. He delineated between who was the artist and who was the producer. My job was to direct him and bring an objective opinion of his work. His job was to write and perform. It made working with him simple.

When does a producer become a co-writer?For years I co-wrote with Aerosmith and didn’t take the credit. I thought that it was the producer’s job to facilitate the song in any way: writing bits and bobs and pieces along the way. I did that for a few albums and then caught on that I was missing a big chunk of dough. You start to see my name as a writer around [1977’s] Draw the Line. But I don’t jump in to write unless I’m invited or I feel the need. Otherwise it’s an intrusion. I have to write a big chunk [of a song] before I ask for a percentage. Not words here, chords there. That’s a producer’s job.

What’s your strategy for putting an artist at ease?During pre-production, I like to discover what makes an artist tick long before we get into the studio so that I can facilitate his or her dream. When we do go in, we feel like we came together in the same car. I do pre-production with all of my artists. With a band like Aerosmith, it may last a month. Other artists come to me with a demo that’s worthy of release. I feel it out as I go.

What have been your favorite technical developments over the past few years?Good copies of older equipment. Companies are making great stuff—reproductions of Fairchilds that sound better than [the original] Fairchilds. And these don’t have to be rack-mounted. They can be virtual. They’ve taken the [original] idea and improved on it.

How do you establish a strong relationship with a mastering engineer?I have a 35-year relationship with everyone at Sterling [Sound], starting with George Marino and Greg Calbi. Aside from things done by Doug Sax or Bob Ludwig, Sterling’s done 80 percent of my mastering.

What are the best ways for artists to save money in the studio?Own your own studio. No matter how big or small. Otherwise, be prepared when you go in. But allow for improvisation. Don’t be so stiff that nothing’s going to change.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced in the studio?I put a lot of pressure on myself. I’m a nervous wreck before I start a project—it doesn’t matter who it is. I’m challenged every time I go into the studio. I try not to show it, but internally there’s a bit of stage fright. Once it gets going and I see that it’s on course, everything’s fine.

What does the future hold for major labels?To buy records cheaply that are already made and distribute them. This means whatever the record-buying public is into. They’re not going to take any chances. Major labels have lost their way. They’re only interested in pop, urban music, a little country and not much else. Fortunately, there are avenues for every kind of music. We don’t need the majors except to compete with artists in the mainstream genres.

Who are some of your dream clients?The Rolling Stones. My buddy Don Was produces for them and he does it well. My other dream client was Bob Dylan and I’ve worked with him [on Allen Ginsberg’s 1983 record, First Blues].

What’s the key to identifying talent?Originality. I don’t like chasing trends. Hearing something I’ve never heard before is what turns me on. It keeps me interested.

Photo, by Joanne.nathan, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The post RIP Jack Douglas first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Warner Music Group’s Armin Zerza adds COO role to his remit, just one year after joining as CFOZerza's new remit as COO will encompass corporate development, central marketing, business and market intelligence, and WMX
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Ranking the Neil Young Albums from His First DecadeAuthor Daniel de Visé walks on through the first 10 studio albums (and one live album) that make up Neil Young's first Decade (more or less). Where does Harvest rank against Rust Never Sleeps? And how do relatively underground releases like Zuma and On The Beach fit in? Let's take a Journey Through the Past.

A Song That Changed My Life: Friko on Frank Ocean, Cursive, Broken Social Scene and Kamasi WashingtonA Song or(four) that Changed My Life: Niko Kapetan: Frank Ocean’s “White Ferrari,” Bailey Minzenberger: Cursive’s “What Have I Done,” David Fuller: Broken Social Scene’s “Guilty Cubicles,” and Korgan Robb: Kamasi Washington’s “Truth.”

The Band Members: Niko Kapetan, lead vocals, guitar; Bailey Minzenberger, drums; David Fuller, bass guitar; Korgan Robb, guitar.

The Storytellers: Niko Kapetan, Bailey Minzenberger, David Fuller; bass, Korgan Robb.

The Songs: Stripped down and spectral, Frank Ocean’s layered vocal performance on his career-defining deep-cut “White Ferrari” rests above sparse soundscapes with a fragmented narrative that folds the listener into a free-flow state of winding introspection. Its experimental structure and haunting, minimalist production brought a unique form of alt-R&B to the mainstream, replacing the traditional quick-fix “hook” with lingering, emotional suspension.

Cursive's slow-burner “What Have I Done” utilizes still, echoing guitars that build toward a clamorous crescendo, where earnest vocals break and call out for an internal reckoning. The track’s unflinching way of presenting discontent and malaise serves as a poignant litmus test for the era, offering an additional tool within the post-hardcore arsenal — revealing how a voice can serve as a” cutter” just as much as a distorted, dissonant guitar chord.

Emotive artistry thrives within the sparse textures of Broken Social Scene’s ambient lo-fi instrumental “Guilty Cubicles.” Crafted with a soothing guitar set alongside a meditative rhythm, the track creates a hypnotic lull where audiophiles swim within a slipstream of nocturnal nostalgia. The melancholic mood-piece served as a foundational atmospheric statement for the indie underground, proving that moving storytelling could emerge purely through texture, repetition and sonic drift.Where Fuller found weight through minimalism, Robb discovered it through scale and accumulation. Kamasi Washington’s massive, complex jazz composition “Truth,” commissioned by the Whitney Museum and built around a two-chord vamp, improvisationally expands outward, creating an immense music mural. The climactic track, where five distinct melodies of the preceding movements converge into a Harmony of Difference, showcases how interweaving melodic lyrical threads can layer and converge to create a sonic suite of collective transcendence.

Though emerging from vastly different musical lineages and stylistic forms, each track constructs an immersive emotional world through texture, tonal depth, and atmospheric composition — a philosophy that closely mirrors Friko’s own approach to creating music.

The Background: Arising from Chicago’s Hallogallo DIY underground — a scene named after a track by the motorik Krautrock band Neu! and galvanized by a handmade fanzine of the same name — Friko began taking shape just prior to the 2020 lockdown. Originally formed by vocalist and guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger, the band fine-tuned their expansive, indie-rock songwriting, ultimately demoing and self-recording what would become their breakout release, We’ve Been, Where We Go From Here.

As the world reopened and live music returned, Friko expanded into a quartet with the addition of bassist David Fuller and guitarist Korgan Robb, allowing the band’s cinematic tendencies to fully emerge, widening in scope and emotional depth. With the recent release of their sophomore album Something Woth Waiting For, the band further deepens these creative throughlines, pushing their expansive songwriting further by leaning into the power of patience. By treating atmosphere as architecture, Friko’s new music creates emotional  spaces where memory, abstraction, and nostalgic longing are held.

The Story: To understand Friko is to understand the emotional spaces they build from the music that shaped them.

Across four distinct listening experiences —ranging from deep-alt R&B to expansive jazz murals — a shared sonic language emerges. It is a language built on intense immersion. Each of these tracks arrives with its own sense of being.

Niko Kapetan’s entry point arrived in high school while driving late at night through the Midwestern highways between Chicago and Champaign-Urbana. In the maze of vast cornfields, Frank Ocean’s “White Ferrari” revealed its full weight. “I like the way the song stitched together,” Niko says. “The hip-hop and rap elements mixed with the indie elements... that’s what impacted me at first.” Beyond the genre-bending, it was the structural freedom that stuck. “I wanted to make music that wasn’t just a song in the classic sense. I wanted to lean into that sense of rambling vocals and the idea that a song could be very abstract.”

While Niko found power in fragmented narratives, Bailey Minzenberger found it in the heavy pull of emotional memory. Hearing Cursive’s “What Have I Done” in middle school, the song’s existential themes hit with premature, profound gravity.

“I’m holistically a big fan of melancholic music,” Minzenberger explains. “A piece of music doesn't necessarily have to be sad to feel melancholic. For me, melancholy is just feeling every edge of an emotion.” The track’s slow-burning arc and lead singer Tim Kasher’s frayed delivery provided an unintentional outline for Friko’s own cathartic crescendos. “The lyric ‘I spent the best years of my life waiting on the best years of my life’ is so potent. It captures that feeling of always chasing something just out of reach.”

For David Fuller, the formative moment was Broken Social Scene’s “Guilty Cubicles”— a three-minute ambient instrumental that appeared almost by accident while studying film. “It taught me that a band can be so much more than just a band with one sound; they can do anything they want,” Fuller says. That realization expanded to how he hears space today as a sonic open field. “It blew this whole door open. It’s a meditative song that has grown with me, or I’ve grown around it.”

Korgan Robb also found his throughline of pure instrumentalism in the expansive convergence of jazz. Kamasi Washington’s “Truth,” a thirteen-minute epic composition built on a simple two-chord vamp, showed him how five movements could interweave into one final song on Washington’s Harmony of Difference.

“I was really into bebop and trying to learn how to play jazz, and then this song comes along with a string section, horn section, and two drummers,” Robb recalls. “It helped me focus on what I love about jazz — how those layers are built. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.”

This same commitment to layering — the idea of stacking distinct emotional threads of varying until they accumulate into a complete world — is the philosophy that anchors Friko’s current work on Something Worth Waiting For. The new tracks draw elements from each band member’s emotive archive, creating a unified soundscape where Kapetan’s abstraction, Minzenberger’s catharsis, Fuller’s submerged textures, and Robb’s improvisational phrasing overlap into a singular atmospheric soundscape.

“On this record, we were exploring patience — not being afraid to sit in something,” Minzenberger summarizes. “Things don’t need to change constantly; it’s okay to just inhabit a moment. We’re pushing ourselves to sit in that space, just like the songs that changed us.”

Photo Credit: Adam PowellThe post A Song That Changed My Life: Friko on Frank Ocean, Cursive, Broken Social Scene and Kamasi Washington first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Dua Lipa sues Samsung for $15M over unauthorized use of her image on TV boxesElectronics giant is accused of using Dua Lipa's photo on TV packaging without her permission
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FanLabel Launches FanLabel SongPicks AppAccording to news out of FanLabel this week, the company, "a music gamification and prediction market entertainment company that turns real-world music performance data into interactive fan experiences, today announced the official launch of FanLabel SongPicks, its paid-entry, skill-based, music-contest app that lets fans use their music knowledge to compete for cash prizes. The company has been a leader in promoting a responsible, fair approach to the development of prediction markets, and was one of the few music-related companies to submit comment to the most recent Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) solicitation."

A company statement continues, "FanLabel SongPicks, builds on the company’s FanLabel Classic app, which lets music fans compete in free fantasy-sports-style music challenges. With FanLabel SongPicks, players can put their music knowledge to the test by ranking songs, predicting streaming trends, and competing on leaderboards. The app currently features two main contest modes: Ranker, where fans rank a selection of songs from most to least streamed, and Best of Five, where players pick the top-performing song from a group."

“We’re thrilled to build off of our free 'FanLabel Classic' experience with 'SongPicks' and bring a pay-to-play, skill-based, gamified music experience to music fans, giving them the chance to win cash prizes,” Jeff Sloan, Founder & CEO of FanLabel, told MC. “The introduction of 'SongPicks' in combination with our soon to be launched prediction market application 'MusicMarkets' expands the FanLabel suite of gamified music-centric experiential offerings and further positions FanLabel as a leader in the space.”

“Our team is very proud to have FanLabel SongPicks officially out in the world,” Sloan said. “We believe that the SongPicks experience will provide music enthusiasts with a new way to engage in their love of music while at the same time benefiting the industry by driving music discovery, consumption, and an entirely new way to generate monetization.”

“As the music industry continues its evolution from passive consumption to interactive, data-driven engagement, platforms like FanLabel are unlocking a new layer of participation for fans and new monetization pathways for rightsholders,” said Bill Campbell, Music Industry Advisor to FanLabel. “What’s particularly compelling here is the combination of fully licensed content, objective data inputs, and a skill-based framework — that’s the foundation for building something scalable, defensible, and regulatorily sound. FanLabel SongPicks is an early example of how music, gaming mechanics, and predictive analytics can converge into a legitimate new category for artists and their fans.” 

For more information, visit fanlabel.com.The post FanLabel Launches FanLabel SongPicks App first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

From Tencent Music’s 250K song takedowns to Sony and WMG’s calendar Q1 results… it’s MBW’s weekly round-upThe biggest headlines from the past few days...
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Warner Music Group generated $1.73B in calendar Q1 2026; subscription streaming revenues rose 12.7% YoYWarner Music Group published its calendar Q1 results today (May 7)
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NEP at Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NCWeb: robertlesterfolsom.comContact: dshaw@baselinemusic.comPlayers: Nep, vocals; Tyler Pons, drums; Sophia Damiani, bass; Jake Sonderman, guitar

Grab your slide rules: Albert Einstein almost had it right, but the real equation on display at Cat’s Cradle was E = NEP².

That proof arrived in the form of NEP (yes, that’s really her name)—a shadow-boxing indie-pop artist who brought a cocktail of swagger, nervous laughter, and Daytona Beach daydreams to the adoring Back Room crowd.

NEP burst onto the stage with a quick four-song salvo: “Daytona,” “Fender,” “Lovelace,” and “Milktown,” followed by the brisk pop flash of “Rocket Ship.” None of it calmed the room. If anything, the next stretch detonated the place: “Teddy,” “Biketoberfest,” “All Around Beauty,” and “Soundtrack” spilled out in a sugar rush of jangling guitars and nervous giggles.

The crowd surged toward the stage in what became a kind of musical cyclone. The quartet itself looked almost comically small against the swell of bodies pressed forward—NEP, her guitarist, and drummer hovering around the five-foot mark, while the bass player stood like a benevolent giant beside them.

Add NEP’s constant giggle—somewhere between nervous energy and mischievous charm—and the whole affair began to resemble a cinematic “escape from the kids’ table at Thanksgiving.”

The guitar work was simple and unadorned—almost stubbornly so—but it carried a kind of innocence that fit the material. The grooves were uncomplicated, the structures tidy, and the melodies had the breezy, slightly sunburned feel of songs written somewhere between a dorm room and a beach parking lot.

At times, the silliness threatened to overwhelm the music. There were genuinely lovely musical moments that got sliced apart by NEP’s constant asides and laughter. The vibe in the room became so beach-soaked you could almost smell the Coppertone and feel sand under your feet. The sugary, slightly smug Hello Kitty delivery sometimes obscured the delicate little juxtapositions the band—competent if understated—was putting together.

Mid-set, the groove settled into something like autopilot before reanimating with “I Close My Eyes,” “Florida Girl,” and the crowd favorite “Pup.” Without a dominant soloist or any real instrumental grandstanding, the evening became less about virtuosity and more about atmosphere: a blend of sonic melancholy and occasional Beach Blanket Bingo chaos.

The songwriting itself showed care. Songs were thoughtfully paced and clearly diaristic. There may not yet be an obvious hit single lurking in the catalog, but a certain gravitational pull—something about Daytona, about leaving and remembering—kept the set moving forward.

That Florida lineage occasionally bubbled at the surface. The warm embers of Tom Petty and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers flickered here and there, and the ghost of Southern guitar traditions that ultimately fed into The Allman Brothers Band hovered around the edges of the sound.

Elsewhere you could hear faint splashes of quirky new-wave DNA—moments that hinted at the playful pop instincts of Bow Wow Wow and the bright theatricality later embraced by Culture Club—another clue to the mixing bowl of beach culture, pop instinct, and youthful irreverence that NEP seems to inhabit. The post NEP at Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC first appeared on Music Connection Magazine.

Sony in advanced talks to buy Blackstone’s Recognition Music for up to $4B, reports BloombergThe acquisition would be made through Sony's music rights-buying JV with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, the news outlet reported
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From Wine to Diamonds, Every Major Consumer Industry Protects You From Fakes. Why Doesn’t Music?Music supervisor and Catalog founder Frederic Schindler argues it's time for standardized 'Music Facts' labels – modeled on food nutrition panels – to make the origin of every track in the supply chain visible to consumers.
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