News Round-Up: Taylor Swift, Mercury Prize and more

Taylor Swift performs live at the O2 Arena in London on February 2nd, 2014 (Photo: Alex Elms for Live4ever Media)

Taylor Swift performs live at the O2 Arena in London (Photo: Alex Elms for Live4ever Media)

You’re in the right place if you’ve missed any of the week’s top news stories – here Live4ever’s News Round-Up presents a recap of the biggest and best headlines we featured during the last seven days…

Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, themselves collaborators via Big Red Machine, have contributed heavily to the new Taylor Swift album which was released last week.

“Most of the things I had planned this summer didn’t end up happening, but there is something I hadn’t planned on that DID happen,” Swift has said when announcing the record. “And that thing is my 8th studio album, folklore.”

The 1975 and director Ben Ditto have joined forces with fourteen different artists to curate a unique exhibition centered on their recent Notes On A Conditional Form album.

The exhibition takes the form of a YouTube playlist and is viewable on the band’s official website, the artists working across a range of mediums such as 3D modelling, AI, generative animation, motion-capture and performance to create a visual story for each of the tracks.

The release of visuals has been a regular feature of The Weeknd‘s After Hours campaign, both before and after the album’s release in March, and another was out last week.

Snowchild is a career retrospective directed by Arthell Isom, and is premiered with world tour dates now due to open in June 2021 with shows in Abel Tesfaye’s native Canada.

Stormzy headlining Day 1 at TRSNMT Festival 2019 (Gary Mather for Live4ever)

Big names on the British music scene including Stormzy, Dua Lipa and Charli XCX have been nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize.

“In these difficult and uncertain times the Hyundai Mercury Prize is proud to celebrate the remarkable power of music to inspire and exhilarate,” the judges say. “The albums on the 2020 shortlist showcase a great diversity of sounds, styles, ambitions and experience. What these albums share is an irresistible urgency, a belief that their music matters more than ever.”

Less than a week after it looked like the coronavirus lockdown had claimed their futures, Manchester live music hubs the Gorilla and Deaf Institute have been saved from permanent closure thanks to local entertainments company Tokyo Industries.

The Manchester Evening News reports that Tokyo will add the Gorilla and Deaf Institute to its current portfolio of Manchester clubs which includes The Factory and South, with the aim of keeping the two venues, ‘operating in much the same way as they have done in the past.

Nick Cave and Little Simz will be competing for the Best Album award when the 2020 Ivor Novellos are held, remotely this year, on September 2nd.

Dave is up for Best Contemporary Song thanks to his cutting Psychodrama track Black, while Kate Tempest gets a nod in the same category along with Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey for Firesmoke.