Eternal Summers

Wonders of Nature, which opened at the start of the year at the corner of Grand and Berry, has apparently closed for good.

This week: Australian supergroup Tropical Fuck Storm; a new compilation from UK group Pop Will Eat Itself; TUNS (Sloan / Inbreds / Super Friendz); BC Camplight and Eternal Summers’ singer goes solo.

Plus: Openers added to Tribulation tour, Movielife members Vinnie Caruana & Brandon Reilly are hitting the road together, as well as Mac DeMarco, Angel Olsen, Horse Feathers, and more tour news.

Plus: Ryan Adams plays the Rolling Stones, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison/Willie Nelson, Young Galaxy, Eternal Summers, Gold Dime, Built to Spill, Mercury Rev, Combo Chimbita, and more just-announced tours.

The new record marks a somewhat new direction for the band, at least on the first single “Forever Mine,” that is more purely pop than the muscular indie rock we knew on Gold and Stone or Correct Behavior. With jazzy chording, it’s more in line with early Phoenix or The Cardigans.

Toronto trio Tough Age released their third album, Shame, back in October of last year. It’s eight slices of slashing, hook-filled indie rock — shades of early REM at times — and they’ve just made a video for “Unclean”…

Following her unexpected death at the age of 46, tributes to The Cranberries’ singer have been coming in from fellow musicians, including Ted Leo, Amanda Palmer, Land of Talk, Michelle Branch, Nicole Atkins, Frank Turner, Holly Miranda, Wavves, Questlove, PAWS, Liz Phair, Duran Duran, and more.

Among the participants in the marches included many musicians, like Best Coast, members of The National, Haim, Amanda Palmer, Merrill Garbus of tUnE-YaRdS, Grimes, Michael Stipe, Tegan & Sara, Madonna, Janelle Monae, Regina Spektor, members of Wilco, Perfume Genius, Kim Gordon, Chelsea Wolfe, Britt Daniel of Spoon, Eleanor Friedberger, Torres, Mary Timony, Angel Olsen, Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak, Dan Deacon, and more.

The annual multi-venue Chicago festival Tomorrow Never Knows returns this year from January 13-17, and as usual there’s plenty of great stuff …

& Amanda Hatfield Every year is a good year for new music, but 2015 felt like the best one in a while. It was an especially great year for major label rap, after 2014 was an especially slow one, but it was good for plenty more than that too: folk, post-punk, indie pop, noise, art pop, punk, etc…