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Music News: The National announce new album, 'Sleep Well Beast'

Matt Berninger of The National performing at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium August 6, 2013, Saint Paul, MN.
Matt Berninger of The National performing at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium August 6, 2013, Saint Paul, MN.MPR / Nate Ryan

by Jay Gabler

May 10, 2017

The National have announced their seventh studio album. Sleep Well Beast will be out Sept. 8. After extended social-media teasing, the band ultimately made the announcement the old-fashioned way: via posters. (Pitchfork)

Remembering Mario Maglieri

Longtime club manager Mario Maglieri has died at age 93. Maglieri ran the Sunset Strip's Whiskey a Go Go for many years, starting when the club opened in 1964. The club was at the heart of Los Angeles's music scene in the 1960s, hosting shows by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, and Led Zeppelin. For a while, the Doors were the house band. When the Beatles came to town, the Whiskey a Go Go was on their must-visit list. In the '70s, Maglieri and two business partners opened the Rainbow Bar & Grill, which became famous in its own right as a hangout for Lemmy Kilmister and others.

Maglieri was revered as a nurturing figure for a wide variety of musicians. "To play the Whisky a Go Go was the holy grail coming up," remembers Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx. "He would talk to me. He would sit down and I'd play him our demo. He'd say, 'Nikki, you've got something there.' One day at the Whisky, he said, 'Kid, I think you're going to make it.' It meant so much to me." (New York Times)

eMusic relaunching

EMusic, one of the first music services to appear on the internet, is getting a reboot: the new version, which launched on Wednesday, "offers users free and discounted downloads, cloud-based storage, universal access on any device and a catalog of 32 million titles exclusively from independent labels," reports Stereogum. Subscription plans will range from free to $29.99 per month.

EMusic, which launched in 1998, became known for its commitment to independent music and its rejection of the digital rights management technology that makes downloads from services like iTunes restricted only to certain apps and devices. The service was purchased in 2015 by TriPlay, whose CEO Tamir Koch says he believes there's still a strong market of users who want to own and download music instead of just streaming it.

Thom Yorke to score scary movie

Thom Yorke is composing music for a remake of the 1977 horror classic Suspiria. It will mark Yorke's first solo outing as a feature film composer, while his Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood has achieved great acclaim in that department, notably in collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson.

The new Suspira, which "stars Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, and Chloe Grace Moretz and revolves around young women at a Berlin dance company," has just wrapped up filming but doesn't have a release date set, reports Rolling Stone.

Here's the trailer for the original:

The Fyre still burns

The hits just keep coming for the Fyre Festival, which is now the subject of — count 'em — seven lawsuits. The latest legal volley at festival founders Ja Rule and Billy McFarland alleges that they kept selling VIP upgrades even after the Caribbean island festival was canceled due to flooding and disastrous under-planning. The suit also alleges that the festival told artists the event was off "long before" they bothered to informed ticket-buyers, according to Pitchfork.

Trent Reznor writes music for Banksy hotel

Trent Reznor and his composing partner Atticus Ross have written an eerie piano piece for a Banksy hotel in Bethlehem. The "Walled Off Hotel" functions as a hotel, but is also "an immersive art piece located near the wall that separates Israel and the Palestinian territories," reports Rolling Stone. The Reznor and Ross piece, "Green Lines," is heard coming from an automated player piano in the hotel bar.