SoundBites: Aaradhna, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Duran Duran

Aaradhna

The first artist in your alphabetised music library is back with a new album on the way.

The follow-up to Treble & Reverb, Aaradhna's fourth studio album Brown Girl was recorded in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and produced by Jeff Dynamite.

It's a darker, moodier affair, with teaser track Welcome To The Jungle featuring Aaradhna's smooth bluesy vocals over a series of both earthy and electronic beats, pops and noises. First official single Brown Girl is set for release on June 24.

Publicity promises an album visiting topics including race relations, label politics, love, heartbreak, judgment and ignorance.

Aaradhna says that, while her last album was a little sparklier, "this new album is all me, like a slow-burning incense stick, it burns slow but leaves behind a scent that's 100 per cent authentic".

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' new album Skeleton Tree will be accompanied by a film by New Zealand-born Australian director Andrew Dominik.

The album, the band's 16th, will be released on October 9, one day after the film, One More Time With Feeling.

Skeleton Tree is the first new music from the band since the death last July of Cave's teenage son Arthur.

What started out as as a film documenting the making of the album and band performances became a study of a father's grief as he tries to find his way through the darkness.

Revisit a classic

The name "Rio" will be on many of our lips over the next few months as the Brazilian megalopolis prepares for and hosts the Olympic Games.

But Rio is also the name of a woman with a cherry icecream smile who dances on the sand.

Yes the title character of Duran Duran's 1982 album and single helped launch the band to stardom. Of course the major success of Hungry Like The Wolf had a bit to do with that as well.

The album was the band's second, and featured the classic lineup - Le Bon, Rhodes and the three Taylors (classic joke: Why are Duran Duran so well dressed?)

Best moment on the album? That opening synthesizer riff on Save A Prayer.