Peaches’ Rude Return and Mitski’s Looming Nothing [Stereo Current]

[00:00] Sloane Rivera: The air feels a little sharper today, like the smell of ozone before a storm. [00:06] Sloane Rivera: I'm Sloan Rivera. [00:07] Julian Vance: And I'm Julian Vance. [00:09] Julian Vance: You're tuned into Stereocurrent at stereocurrent.neuralnewscast.com. [00:14] Julian Vance: Your daily frequency for the records that matter and the rumors that might. [00:19] Sloane Rivera: Julian, it's rare that we get two Titans of the Indiverse announcing within the same breath. [00:24] Sloane Rivera: But here we are. The icons are reclaiming the throne. [00:28] Julian Vance: Yeah, it's a good day for the analog souls and the digital punks alike, Sloan. [00:33] Julian Vance: Where are we starting the needle? [00:35] Sloane Rivera: We have to start with the queen of the provocative. [00:39] Sloane Rivera: Peaches is finally ending her 10-year silence. [00:43] Sloane Rivera: On February 20th, we get no lube, so rude. [00:46] Sloane Rivera: And honestly, if that title doesn't tell you she's still got that jagged, electroclash edge, nothing will. [00:54] Julian Vance: Ten years is a lifetime in the electronics scene, but Peaches isn't a trend chaser, she's a trend maker. [00:59] Julian Vance: What's truly fascinating to me is the label move. [01:03] Julian Vance: She signed with Kill Rockstars for this one. [01:06] Julian Vance: That is a marriage of icons right there. [01:08] Sloane Rivera: Exactly. [01:09] Sloane Rivera: It's poetic, isn't it? [01:11] Sloane Rivera: Kill Rockstars has always been the sanctuary for the boundary pushers, the ones who aren't [01:16] Sloane Rivera: afraid to get their hands dirty. [01:18] Sloane Rivera: It suggests a return to that raw, genre-blending philosophy that made her a [01:22] Sloane Rivera: cultural phenomenon in the early 2000s. [01:25] Julian Vance: It's part of this wider Canadian resurgence we're seeing, too. [01:28] Julian Vance: Between her and the news from Broken Social scene and Metric, [01:31] Julian Vance: Toronto and Montreal are feeling like the epicenter again. [01:34] Julian Vance: But she is not the only one coming back to the fray. [01:37] Sloane Rivera: Um, no. [01:39] Sloane Rivera: The internet practically buckled under the weight of the Mitzky News. [01:43] Sloane Rivera: Eighth studio album, Julian. [01:46] Sloane Rivera: Nothing's about to happen to me, dropping February 27th. [01:49] Julian Vance: Yep. [01:50] Julian Vance: The master of the emotionally resonant gut punch. [01:53] Julian Vance: From Barry Me at Makeout Creek to now, she has this way of navigating personal voids that feels universal. [02:00] Julian Vance: That title? [02:01] Julian Vance: It's classic Mitzky. [02:02] Julian Vance: It's a shrug and a scream at the same time. [02:05] Sloane Rivera: Her lyrics always feel like a secret you weren't supposed to hear. [02:09] Sloane Rivera: With her devoted following, February is suddenly looking like the most high-stakes month for indie music we've seen in years. [02:16] Julian Vance: It's a heavy month for the art, but the industry infrastructure is also going through a bit of a midlife crisis or maybe a rebirth. [02:24] Julian Vance: Did you catch the Billboard Power 100 notes? [02:27] Sloane Rivera: The Year of the Human. [02:29] Sloane Rivera: Sir Lucy and Grange sounds like he's trying to build a moat around artistry to protect it from the AI flood. [02:36] Sloane Rivera: It's a nice sentiment, but BMG's Thomas Kosefeld seems to think AI will just be the new studio assistant. [02:44] Julian Vance: It's the tension of 2026, isn't it? [02:46] Julian Vance: On one hand, you have CAA and Emma Banks talking about artist burnout and ethical ticketing, [02:52] Julian Vance: which, let's be real, is long overdue. [02:54] Julian Vance: And on the other, you have this aggressive catalog acquisition. [02:58] Julian Vance: The machine wants the old hits, while the humans are trying to make new ones. [03:02] Sloane Rivera: That's where Duetti comes in. [03:05] Sloane Rivera: They just raised $200 million to bridge that gap. [03:08] Sloane Rivera: They're letting indie artists, even those making as little as $2,000 a year, monetize their catalogs. [03:16] Sloane Rivera: It's democratization, Julian, or at least a very expensive version of it. [03:21] Julian Vance: It's about access. [03:22] Julian Vance: If you aren't in the top 1%, you've historically been locked out of those big catalog deals. [03:28] Julian Vance: Duetti is closing 80 deals a month now. [03:31] Julian Vance: That's a lot of artists getting a check that doesn't involve a label debt. [03:35] Sloane Rivera: And speaking of bypassing the gatekeepers, have you looked at ROKK, the streaming platform [03:42] Sloane Rivera: founded by the Camelot and Mentalist guys? [03:44] Sloane Rivera: They just launched a direct music upload feature. [03:47] Julian Vance: I love the philosophy there. [03:49] Julian Vance: No minimum stream threshold for royalties, no percentage cut from the artist payout. [03:55] Julian Vance: It's built for the heavy music scene, but it feels like a blueprint for how streaming [03:59] Julian Vance: could actually work if it wasn't a race to the bottom. [04:02] Sloane Rivera: It's the direct-to-fan dream. [04:04] Sloane Rivera: If the Billboard Power 100 is the view from the penthouse, R-OK Joy is the view from the [04:10] Sloane Rivera: garage where the band is actually practicing. [04:13] Sloane Rivera: It's refreshing. [04:14] Julian Vance: Speaking of garages and legacies, we have to talk about the Men of the Hour in Manchester. [04:20] Julian Vance: Noel Gallagher just picked up The Brit for Songwriter of the Year. [04:24] Sloane Rivera: Three decades of Oasis and the High Flying Birds. [04:28] Sloane Rivera: And after that reunion tour sold a million albums in a single year, it's less of an award and more of a coronation. [04:35] Sloane Rivera: Three Oasis albums in the UK Top Five simultaneously. [04:39] Sloane Rivera: That's not nostalgia. [04:41] Sloane Rivera: That's a fever. [04:42] Julian Vance: It's the Gallagher world. [04:43] Julian Vance: We're just living in it. [04:45] Julian Vance: But the Brits are looking forward to. [04:47] Julian Vance: Olivia Dean and Lola Young leading the nominations, it's a good balance. [04:51] Julian Vance: And the BBC is leaning into that UK indie heritage with a new six music stream launching this summer. [04:58] Sloane Rivera: The Indie Forever expansion. [05:01] Sloane Rivera: 80% UK artists, everything from The Smiths to Wolf Alice. [05:06] Sloane Rivera: It's basically a curated history of why we love the station. [05:09] Sloane Rivera: They're digging into the BBC archives for live sessions, which is where the real magic is. [05:15] Julian Vance: It's that regional storytelling. [05:17] Julian Vance: Speaking of regional, the North is busy. [05:20] Julian Vance: Ghost Rocket just launched Skyrocket Records in Canada. [05:23] Julian Vance: Luke Danilon is basically saying talent isn't the problem. [05:27] Julian Vance: It's the lack of a global machine for indie artists. [05:30] Sloane Rivera: Right. [05:31] Sloane Rivera: They're offering management, sync, global PR, all the things that usually require signing [05:37] Sloane Rivera: your soul away to a major. [05:39] Sloane Rivera: It's a 15-year-old company finally scaling up to meet the moment. [05:42] Sloane Rivera: Right. [05:42] Sloane Rivera: And they're doing a ticket giveaway with Billboard Canada all month. [05:47] Julian Vance: It's a good time to be an artist in the Great White North. [05:50] Julian Vance: But let's look at the new arrivals. [05:51] Julian Vance: Hallie Grace is building some serious momentum for her debut, Motivation, coming in March. [05:57] Sloane Rivera: Her voice is distinctive, confessional but with a pop sensibility that doesn't feel manufactured. [06:04] Sloane Rivera: The final single, You're My Person, drops February 13th. [06:08] Sloane Rivera: There's a premiere at V13 earlier that week that people should keep an eye on. [06:12] Julian Vance: And we can't forget the new music Friday we just lived through. [06:16] Julian Vance: Silver Sun pickups and Jay Buchanan leading the charge. [06:19] Julian Vance: But the real surprise? [06:20] Julian Vance: Haley Williams has a new band called Power Snatch. [06:24] Sloane Rivera: Power Snatch. [06:25] Sloane Rivera: I love it. [06:25] Sloane Rivera: It's gritty, it's fresh. [06:28] Sloane Rivera: And then you have Rolling Blackout's coastal fever returning after three years with a six-and-a-half-minute jam. [06:34] Sloane Rivera: They hadn't come back to play it safe. [06:36] Julian Vance: Safe is boring, Sloan. [06:38] Julian Vance: Even the veterans are shaking it up. [06:39] Julian Vance: The black keys are going back to those bluesy roots, and Peter Gabriel is teasing us with more tracks from his upcoming record. [06:46] Julian Vance: It's a rich tapestry right now. [06:48] Sloane Rivera: It feels like the industry is finally realizing that human isn't just a buzzword for 2026. [06:55] Sloane Rivera: It's the only thing that actually sells records. [06:58] Sloane Rivera: Whether it's peaches being rude or Mitzky being melancholy, we're here for the mess of it. [07:03] Julian Vance: The mess is where the best songs live. [07:06] Julian Vance: That's our time for today. I'm Julian Vance. [07:10] Sloane Rivera: And I'm Sloan Rivera. Keep your ears open and your stylus clean. [07:14] Sloane Rivera: This has been Stereocurrent. [07:17] Sloane Rivera: Neural Newscast is AI-assisted, human-reviewed. [07:20] Sloane Rivera: View our AI Transparency Policy at neuralnewscast.com.