Month: March 2025

MusicHarbor Brings Music News to App

Apps
Jason Tate

MacStories details the release of the latest version of MusicHarbor:

My favorite new section of MusicHarbor is News, which pulls articles about the artists you follow from a dozen sources. It’s an excellent set of publications that includes chorus.fm, NPR Music, Pitchfork, and others. If there are any feeds among those listed that you don’t like, though, you can turn individual publications off, so they won’t appear in the app.

If you follow a lot of artists like I do, you’ll appreciate that you can also search for artists by name or using keywords found in the headlines of articles. The app includes a row of profile pictures of the artists you follow for whom the app has found news, which is a nice visual shortcut to those stories, too.

Hey, that’s us. Cool feature.

I launch MusicHarbor every Friday morning to make sure I haven’t missed any new releases from artists I follow.

Vancouver’s Neptoon Records Discovers Rare Beatles Recording

The Beatles
Jason Tate

CBC:

Last week, late at night, when Rob Frith was wrapping up a work session at a friend’s studio, he decided to throw on one last tape for a listen.

It was labelled “Beatles 60s demos” and had been sitting around Neptoon Records, one of Vancouver’s most well-known record shops, unplayed. Frith, who owns the shop, had never listened to it, but had brought the recording to his friend’s studio that night, knowing he had the right player for the tape. 

”I thought it was just a reel-to-reel tape that somebody had put bootleg things on,” Frith said.

But when the tape played, the quality of the sound was clear and bright.

Apple Music Opening Catalog to DJs

Jason Tate

Michael Burkhardt, writing at 9to5Mac:

In a statement today, Apple announced that it would be integrating the Apple Music catalog with a number of popular tools, allowing for DJs to create mixes with Apple’s robust catalog. Users will also be able to explore a new DJ with Apple Music page starting today.

With these changes, Apple Music subscribers will be able to mix their own sets using the Apple Music catalog. This integration will be available in some of the leading DJ software and hardware platforms, including AlphaTheta, Serato, Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, RANE DJ, and Algoriddim’s djay Pro software.

Daniel Nigro Announces Partnership with UMG

Jason Tate

Daniel Nigro has announced a label partnership with UMG:

Universal Music Group has announced a partnership with Daniel Nigro, the producer best known for his work with Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan, with the record company partnering with Nigro through his record label Amusement Records.

Nigro has become one of the most lauded producers in pop music, thanks to his famed partnerships with Roan and Rodrigo. Nigro produced both of Rodrigo’s albums, Sour and Guts, as well as Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and singles “Good Luck, Babe!” and “The Giver.” He’s also worked with Caroline Polachek, Sky Ferreira and Conan Gray. Back in February, he won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year; he was nominated for the award the year prior as well.

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Sublime Working With Travis Barker and John Feldmann

Travis Barker
Jason Tate

Sublime are working on a new album with Travis Barker and John Feldmann. From the recent Rolling Stone interview:

Nowell, 29, just spent a week in the studio with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and producer John Feldmann to write songs for the project. “Dude, those guys are awesome,” says Nowell, who plans to start recording with Wilson and Gaugh soon. “Travis is an old-school fan and scholar of the Sublime catalog… They feel like family members now too, man. There was that feeling from everyone that what we’re doing here is something generational and special on an emotional, spiritual, familial level.” (“This is going to be really special,” Barker added in a statement. “Bradley comes through his son Jakob… Chills every day in the studio when he sings and plays guitar.”)

Nowell, who also records alt-pop under the band name Jakobs Castle, isn’t interested in modernizing Sublime’s sound. “The goal is not to create something that is, like, ‘This is what Sublime would be today in 2025,’” he says. “No, just more of a solid respect and homage to the works of Sublime.”