Say Goodbye It's Independence Day

It's the Fourth of July weekend, Independence Day in America, and today's MusicREDEF is dedicated to BRITNEY SPEARS, may she find her way to freedom soon. MusicSET: "Framing, Failing and Freeing Britney Spears."

Crosstown Traffic

As agents and promoters had predicted for months, the more the live music circuit opens, the bigger the traffic jam gets. Rolling Stone's SAMATHA HISSONG on "The Mad Pandemic Bottleneck of Indie Bands," in which bigger and smaller artists are competing for the same rooms, bookings can vanish into thin air and the circuit has become "essentially a free-for-all"... PIOTR ORLOV writes for Bklyner on "learnings, insights, new truisms and beefs" for fans heading out to increasingly crowded clubs and dancefloors in New York. Pro tip: "Carry your card." You know which one... You'll need that card in Ibiza, too... But not in Britain... "The Dancing Man of LA," superfan HOWARD MORDOH, is planning his return (ERASURE! TAME IMPALA! SLEIGH BELLS! LORDE! SPARKS!) while a new documentary tells his endearing story... PATTERSON HOOD writes about his first shows back, on Vashon Island, Wash., after a year and a half of unemployment: "I managed to not be a blithering crying idiot"... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, having reopened Broadway, is now on the calendar to reopen Central Park, so to speak, along with JENNIFER HUDSON and PAUL SIMON.

Summer of Film

QUESTLOVE's SUNDANCE-winning documentary SUMMER OF SOUL, chronicling the 1969 HARLEM CULTURAL FESTIVAL, opens wide (which is apparently a thing again) in theaters today, while also debuting on HULU. Shoutout producer JOSEPH PATEL... Opening not so wide theatrically, and virtually via the KINO MARQUEE platform, is BETH B's doc on a long-running New York underground icon, LYDIA LUNCH: THE WAR IS NEVER OVER.

It's Friday

And that means new music from British R&B singer LAURA MVULA, who explores her inner synth-popper on PINK NOISE, her first album in five years... Chicago rapper G HERBO chronicles life at age "25" on the album of that title (no, it isn't an Adele cover album), with help from Polo G, Lil Tjay, 21 Savage and others... LANA DEL REY quietly (relatively speaking) drops BLUE BANISTERS, her second album in four months, which apparently is meant to be heard while watching fireworks, as it won't actually arrive until Sunday, July 4... The dance-music comp RED HOT + FREE, produced/curated by BILL COLEMAN and benefitting the HIV/AIDS nonprofit Red Hot, features tracks from Sofi Tukker, Ultra Naté, Billy Porter and many more... Primal Scream's BOBBY GILLESPIE and former Savages frontwoman JEHNNY BETH join up for "a set of songs located within the wreckage of a marriage" on UTOPIAN ASHES.

Also today: new albums and EPs from BOMBA ESTÉREO, JEFF LORBER FUSION, VINCE MENDOZA, LANCO, RILEY GREEN, FLATLAND CAVALRY, AT THE GATES, SNAG, JXDN, PEEZY, DECLAIME & MADLIB, FENIX FLEXIN (ex-Shoreline Mafia; released earlier this week), YN JAY, YUNGEEN ACE, MOLLY LEWIS, REXXIE (released earlier this week), the GO! TEAM, DRUG STORE ROMEOS, TASHAKI MIYAKI, DESPERATE JOURNALIST, SNAPPED ANKLES, KAT EATON, IZZY TRUE, JONATHON LONG, EARL SLICK (instrumentals) and, strangely, for the first time ever, a SEINFELD soundtrack, consisting of composer JONATHAN WOLFF's cues for Jerry, Elaine and the gang. Listen to the slap bass go boom.

Rest in Peace

Avant-garde jazz pianist BURTON GREENE... Dutch composer LOUIS ANDRIESSEN... Electronic musician/producer NAPOLIAN... HUM drummer BRYAN ST. PERE... Downtown New York pianist, conductor and event concert programmer MIMI STERN-WOLFE.

Programming Note

MusicREDEF is taking a long July 4 weekend. We'll be back in your inbox Wednesday morning, July 7.