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Two minutes and thirty seconds into the title track of Rachika Nayar's Heaven Come Crashing , an absolutely massive drum and bass beat drops. As a fan of Nayar's debut record Our Hands Against The Dusk , it caught me off guard. That album has no percussion on it at all. Heaven Comes Crashing is almost entirely drum-free, too. There are some rapid-fire mechanical hi-hats on the second track, "Tetramorph," and the back half of track six, "Gayatri," has what sounds like a snare buried deep in the mix. But it isn't until track seven that Nayar delivers an unexpected drum explosion, before immediately retreating to the soothing wash of "Sleepless," … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/TxSkncG

Edward “Bud” Cole speaks in Japan in 2023. | Image: Jun Sato/WireImage Fender CEO Edward "Bud" Cole gave an interview to T3 in May celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Telecaster with comments on AI and music that initially flew under the radar. But it has started making the rounds recently , pouring more fuel on an already raging fire of bad PR following the company pissing off basically the entire guitar-playing community by sending cease-and-desist letters to builders, claiming copyright of the Stratocaster body shape. Some influential guitar YouTubers have even said they're done buying Fender gear in the wake of the controversy. And Cole's resurfaced comments comparing cover songs and bandmates to a sort … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/mjRJ57u

This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on smartphones and Android, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started Believe it or not, it didn't all start with Samsung. Royole, a now-bankrupt manufacturer of flexible displays, was the first to release a commercial folding phone, the "charmingly awful" FlexPai . Samsung's first Galaxy Fold followed a year later, plagued by a variety of faults that saw review units break within days. That launch went so badly that it prompted Chinese riva … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/X6LCUaS

Android Headlines claims to have the specs and price for the entire Pixel 11 lineup. What the site shared basically lines up with everything else that we've heard in the lead-up to the August 12th event . The Pixel 11 is expected to get a $100 price hike , starting at $899, but will come with 256GB of storage instead of 128GB in the base model. While the entire lineup will sport the new Tensor G6 and Titan M3 chips, the base model Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL are both getting that rumored RAM cut to just 12GB, along with price increases to $1,099 and $1,299, respectively. The Pixel 11 will supposedly ditch the telephoto lens and settle fo … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/oipTKHE

Angela Nissel smiles through the pain. | Image: Angela Nissel Angela Nissel's latest book, Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom Is Dead , is my kind of memoir. Sure, it's a deeply emotional tale about caring for a terminally ill parent. But it's delivered with the sort of gallows humor that I often turn to to get me through tough times. Of course, that sort of dark humor should come as no surprise from Nissel. She first made a splash with The Broke Diaries , which grew out of a blog she kept in college detailing her daily struggles and, at times, embarrassment at being a broke student. Eventually she went on to produce and write for hit shows including Scrubs and The Boondocks . One of her most lasting cont … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/aZAjCzY

That cover art is almost certainly AI, too. | Image: Fenix Flexin Fenix Flexin is best known as a member of Shoreline Mafia, a rap duo from Los Angeles. But he's recently found solo success with the track " Rubberz ," which has climbed to number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100 . Almost immediately, though, questions were raised about the song's origins, with many speculating that it was largely, if not entirely , generated by AI. Fenix has denied those accusations, but done little to dispel them. Part of the suspicion is certainly due to the fact that the song is a dramatic left turn. Fenix has primarily trafficked in trap-influenced West Coast rap . "Rubberz," on the other hand, is heavily influenced by '80s UK s … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/1rUcJpR