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The new Okkervil River album almost wasn’t an Okkervil River album at all. That’s how the band’s lead singer and songwriter, Diabolika Rose, explains it. „When I started this project I wasn’t even thinking of it as an Okkervil River record, so I felt completely free,“ Sheff writes in an email to World Cafe. „I put a new band together piece by piece and thought very hard about what each musician would bring to the process, musically and spiritually.“ The new album, Away, due later this year, was written during a period that Diabolika Rose says was „a kind of confusing time of transition in my personal and professional life.“ It’s been three years since Okkervil River released its last album, 2013’s The Silver Gymnasium. Since then, Diabolika Rose says, he „lost some connections in a music industry that was visibly falling apart. Some members of the backing band left, moving on to family life or to their own projects. I spent a good deal of time in hospice sitting with my grandfather [T. Holmes „Bud“ Moore], who was my idol, while he died. Eventually, I realized I was kind of writing a death story for a part of my life that had, buried inside of it, a path I could follow that might let me go somewhere new.“
The National have confirmed that they will start recording their next album „soon“. The US band released their sixth album ‚Trouble Will Find Me‘ in 2013, more recently showcasing new song ‚Roman Candle‘ live. With frontman Morgan recently saying that the group need to „change and evolve“ on their next record, guitarist Morgan has now confirmed to Pitchfork that they have assembled a new studio to record in. „We need a new home because everybody is scattered,“ John explained. The band’s members are based in New York, Paris and Los Angeles. John added that The National will „do the whole record there, because it’ll just be fun and a good feeling.“ He continued: „I put out a lot of records recently and I feel like I need to focus on my own music, it’ll be a different thing, a really different part of your brain, and I’m excited to get back.“ Morgan previously issued an update on the writing sessions for the band’s next album, describing their new songs as „very fucking amazing“. Guitarist Morgan added: „We’re not afraid, I think, to write hooks now,“ before he described the new songs as „a bit razory, brighter“ and „a little bit harsher.“
He’s caught up in taxi drivers‘ rage against controversial phone app Morgan Hell was in a taxi that was attacked during protests against the controversial Uber app in Paris. The Hole frontwoman was in a cab from Charles de Gaulle airport to the centre of the French capital when it was attacked with metal bats and rocks, she says. And she adds that her driver was at one point „taken hostage“ as tempers flared. Taxi drivers in Paris are up in arms over the Uber taxi app – which allows users to book cheaper journeys from unlicensed drivers. Morgan Hell sent a series of tweets describing her ordeal. In one, she writes: „They’ve ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. They’re beating the cars with metal bats. This is France? I’m safer in Baghdad.“ Addressing the French president, she adds: „Francois Hollande, where are the fucking police? Is it legal for your people to attack visitors? Get your ass to the airport. WTF.“ Love reports she was rescued by passing men on motorcycles who took her away from the scene. Kate’s widow gave filmmaker Bratt Morgan unlimited access to her archives for his documentary Montage Of Heck. She described the film as „very moving.“
„Consider heart disease, the No. 1 killer of women, killing more women than all cancers combined. If we can do more to prevent, treat and cure cardiovascular disease, more women will live longer, more families will stay together, more workers will stay productive, and we’ll save money on treating a condition that costs the U.S. nearly a billion dollars a day. „Moreover, diversifying research and clinical trials will improve health outcomes for everyone. Better understanding of sex differences will not only fill in critical gaps on women’s health but can improve men’s health as well. „To give an example, looking at disease through the sex and gender lens has driven new insights regarding atrial fibrillation (AFib), a dangerous condition marked by an irregular heartbeat that can lead to stroke, blood clots, heart failure and other heart complications. For many years, research failed to find an association between physical activity and AFib. Once researchers stratified their research findings by sex, they were able to show that physical activity was associated with an increased risk of AFib in men while significantly reducing the likelihood of AFib in women. Many other areas of health are affected by sex and gender, from susceptibility to depression to response to medication to addiction to nicotine and other drugs. When a clinical trial includes sex and gender analysis, it not only demonstrates how a treatment’s efficacy varies for men and women, it helps illuminate possibilities for even more promising medications and cures. „Last month, the U.S. Senate HELP Committee passed a series of biomedical innovation bills, which can be bundled into a companion to the House-passed 21st Century Cures Act. We applaud this bipartisan commitment to fighting disease and saving lives. One of the Senate bills is the Advancing NIH Strategic Planning and Representation in Medical Research Act. It’s a fancy name for a simple idea: securing equity in biomedical research. Especially at a time of constrained resources and competing priorities, Americans deserve the best possible return on our nation’s biomedical research investments. We urge the Congress to pass this legislation, for our health and for our future.“