St. Vincent working on new Blondie LP with Johnny Marr, Sia, maybe Kanye, exploring the future of musical medicine with Peter Gabriel
Blondie are working on their 11th album, which will follow 2014’s Ghosts of Download, and they’re working on it with some pretty exciting artists. Exclaim points out that Blondie’s Chris Stein spoke to Charli XCX for her Beats 1 radio show The Candy Shop and revealed on the show that their album will include contributions from Charli, plus Sia, Johnny Marr and The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr. He also revealed that St. Vincent and John Congleton (who’s worked with St. Vincent, plus Swans, Cloud Nothings and more) are co-producing it.
There are also a few other possible collaborations too. Apparently the band have spoken to Kanye West on the phone and Debbie Harry has met up with him “once or twice,” and Debbie says she’d “love to have Ludacris” on the album too. Imagine that!
Most details on the album are still TBA, but this already sounds pretty exciting. Stay tuned for more.
Debbie Harry just appeared at the first of two Ivan Julian benefits in NYC, and Blondie’s Clem Burke is playing the upcoming Ramones tribute show this month (tickets). Blondie also have a few dates of their own, including Sweetlife Festival.
Speaking of St. Vincent, she’s teaming up with Peter Gabriel, Jon Hopkins and Finnish orchestral conductor/composer Esa-Pekka Salonen to help The Sync Project explore the future of musical medicine, as The Verge points out. According to the article, “The four musicians are joining the collaborative venture as advisors, roles that’ll necessitate working with the scientists researching music’s therapeutic properties and helping to raise the project’s awareness.” And here’s more about The Sync Project:
The product in question is wildly ambitious: musical treatment programs for medical conditions that match the efficacy of drug-based treatment without subjecting patients to the dangers and side effects of pharmacological programs. Ahtisaari cites treatment for Parkinson’s disease as an example. Users could contribute data from their streaming service of their choice and sensors from their phones or wearable devices that characterize their physical response to certain music. Collected in bulk, that data could inform more specific clinical trials testing the effects of various musical qualities on patient mobility. (The project is already conducting several small trials.) The final result would be a personalized playlist, one that aids movement and changes with the patient’s activity. “We’re building a biometric recommendation engine for music,” says Ahtisaari.
Watch a video about the project:
The Sync Project from The Sync Project on Vimeo.
