Alle afleveringen
1.836 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Blu & Exile - The American Dream
20 januari 2021 · 5 min
Blu & Exile - "The American Dream" from the 2020 album Miles on Dirty Science Records. Lees meer
Rapper Blu and hip hop producer Exile returned last year for their first new full-length in eight years: Miles: From An Interlude Called Life (or just Miles for short), an expansive 20-track double LP. “We planted the seeds of creativity and grew about 40 plants,” Exile said in a press release. “We picked the ones that we thought were the best for an album, but that didn’t mean that the other flowers weren’t beautiful.”
Today's Song of the Day is a reflective, yearning track features guest vocals from The Last, Artful Dodger, and Blu‘s childhood friend Miguel, now a Grammy Award winning artist in his own right.
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Romero - Troublemaker
19 januari 2021 · 4 min
Romero - "Troublemaker," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
Australian power-pop group Romero follow up last year's debut “Honey / Neapolitan” 7" single with the new track "Troublemaker," a fun, upbeat, '80s-style sing-a-long about a frenemy making eyes at your man. The band's frontwoman Alanna Oliver explained to NME:
“Troublemaker” was born after a conversation I was having with my mum about a girl I knew… we both came to the conclusion that she was in love with my boyfriend and my mother called her a troublemaker hah! I was like “Yesssss mum!” I hung up the phone immediately, pulled over my car and started writing these lyrics. I was on my way to rehearsal and when I arrived Ferg was playing this new riff he had just written and it all fell into place that afternoon. It felt very serendipitous.
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Sen Morimoto - Love, Money Pt. 2
18 januari 2021 · 3 min
Sen Morimoto - "Love, Money Pt. 2" from the 2020 album Sen Morimoto on Sooper Records. Lees meer
Chicago-based artist Sen Morimoto's sophomore self-titled release is a genre-blending mix of hip-hop, pop, R&B, and jazz (Morimoto is also a classically-trained saxophonist). Today's Song of the Day is a sequel to a track off his 2017 EP It’s Late, a follow-up he explained to KEXP's Dusty Henry in this 2020 interview.
“The reason there can be a part two is because that thought never goes away,” Morimoto says. “How you define love for yourself and look for love for yourself is constantly changing. And I think also our understanding of why we need money or what the expectation is to have money or what richness is to your life – even outside of money – is constantly changing. How you survive under capitalism, how you shift your thinking under capitalism... These things are always changing.”
Watch Morimoto perform LIVE on KEXP at Home here.
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Melenas - No puedo pensar
15 januari 2021 · 3 min
Melenas - "No puedo pensar" from the 2020 album Dias Raros on Trouble in Mind Records. Lees meer
Hailing from Pamplona, Spain, indiepop quartet Melenas released their second album Dias Raros last year, their first to be released outside of their homeland. Today's Song of the Day combines garage rock with jangle-pop for a melodic, melancholy track.
“Waking up with an idea that has been looping around your brain since you went to sleep and stays there all day long, day by day. Who hasn’t been in that situation? Well, this is what this song is about: being in a mental block, emotionally down and trying to get out of that washing machine of thoughts, even if you have to take shortcuts,” the band says in a press release.
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SASSY009 - Maybe in the Summer
14 januari 2021 · 3 min
SASSY 009 - "Maybe In The Summer" from the 2019 album KILL SASSY 009 EP on Luft Recordings. Lees meer
Once a trio, SASSY 009 is the solo project of 23-year-old Norwegian artist Sunniva Lindgård. Her latest EP KILL SASSY 009 is her first released alone.
“I must say working by myself feels very natural,” she says in a press release. “For the past few years I've learnt to live with a lot of unexpected wavy stuff turning me upside down emotionally, while also seeing my musical career blossom. This two-sided lifestyle makes me create music for some reason, and the process evolves itself by my strong will of wanting to cut through the membrane between confusion and clarity.”
For today's Song of the Day, she uses relentless beats to reflect her inner conflict. "'Maybe in the Summer' is a song about realizing you’re being taken advantage of by someone you thought had good intentions," Lindgård told The FADER. "The fast BPM and the intense movement in the song is a symbol of wanting to move on quickly, while also trying to understand how and what you feel towards this person and yourself as a result of this confusing behavior. Basically the sound of a confused mind and an eager will to shake this destructive pattern off."
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Lina & Raül Refree - Destino
13 januari 2021 · 3 min
Lina & Raül Refree - "Destino" from the 2020 album Lina_Raül Refree on Glitterbeat Records. Lees meer
In a career spanning over five decades, Amália Rodrigues established herself as the "Queen of Fado," a genre of music in Portugal. On their debut album Lina_Raül Refree, classically-trained Portuguese vocalist Lina and European producer Raül Refree team up to reinterpret songs from Rodrigues' expansive catalog. Together, they abandon the traditional acoustic guitars and substitute soaring synths to help update the sound.
“The record is different,” Lina says via their BandCamp page. “That was all we wanted to do. We’ve updated fado. But we only tried to make music that moves people.”
“I didn’t know much fado before this,” Refree adds. ‘Now I feel it’s part of my life. Now I listen to Amália and I understand it more.”
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alyona alyona - Дикі танці
12 januari 2021 · 3 min
alyona alyona - "Дикі танці" from the 2019 album В ХАТІ МА on Hitwonder. Lees meer
It's impressive enough that Alyona Alyona was nominated for the 2021 Music Moves Europe Talent Awards, but what's even more notable is, it's the very first time a Ukrainian artist has appeared on their list of nominees.
The rapper, whose real name is Alyona Savranenko, became a break-out star in Europe since leaving behind her job as an elementary school teacher to follow her pre-teen dreams of performing hip-hop. Her lyrics cover topics of body positivity and female empowerment, all sung in her homeland's language.
“That’s part of my life,” she told The World public radio program. “I’ve encountered a lot of body shaming, fat shaming, bullying in my life. But mostly it’s people who motivate me because they keep asking, 'How can you be so cool?' I tell them I’m like everyone else, I just accepted myself the way I am. I realized people need my experience and I started sharing it. With some — in messages, with others — in songs.”
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Julia Bardo - I Wanna Feel Love
11 januari 2021 · 4 min
Julia Bardo - "I Wanna Feel Love" from the 2020 Phase EP on Wichita Recordings. Lees meer
From singing between shifts at her father's bar in Northern Italy, to joining the post-punk band Working Men’s Club in Manchester, England, songwriter Julia Bardo now emerges on her own with her debut solo EP Phase, co-produced by Henry Carlyle Wade of The Orielles. Today's Song of the Day is an exuberant, '60s-girl-group-inspired track, with lyrics that draw from Bardo's personal experience with love.
“I was in a relationship that didn’t work for me,” Bardo explains, via a press release. “I felt like I lost my inspiration —there was no colour in my life. I started to think, 'Is this how I want my life to be? Is my life over at 24? Is this really the way I want to be loved?' So, I started to write about the way I see love. I’ve always wanted to feel special for someone, I’ve always wanted a fiery and intense, passionate love. And eventually I got it."
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Hi Crime - World's Fair
8 januari 2021 · 4 min
Hi Crime - "World's Fair," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
Seattle's Hi Crime was formed in the summer of 2015 when songwriters Brielle Rutledge and Mitch Etter met. Their debut EP, Foreign Hours, was written, recorded, and mixed entirely from their bedrooms, with Rutledge commuting back-and-forth every few weeks while she finished college. They expanded into a full band with the addition of Cody McCann and Jesse Botello, and their 2018 full-length debut album, The Kids Still Got It, found them evolving their DIY home recordings with Deep Sea Diver’s mixing engineer Luke Vander Pol and KEXP's own mastering engineer Matt Ogaz. Today's Song of the Day is their first new music in a year.
The accompanying video below was directed by the band themselves with shooting and editing by Dylan Randolph, and was inspired when Etter found a Ferris Wheel toy on OfferUp. In a press release, he explains, "I liked the idea of building a small set out of toys with that Ferris wheel, my old model train set, and anything else childlike we could dig up. I’m not sure if it comes across in the video, but in my mind, all of the real world footage is actually taking place on that cheap looking set. It’s fictional world building where your tiny ideas can grow to the scale limits you’re capable of imagining."
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Maxband - Cut It Loose
7 januari 2021 · 3 min
Maxband - "Cut It Loose," a 2020 single on Maximum Band Recordings. Lees meer
With his side project Maxband, Max Savage of Parquet Courts steps out from behind the drum kit and grabs a guitar. He shares vocal duties with co-founder and bassist Patrick Smith of A Beacon School. Their first release was a limited-run cassette EP titled Perfect Strangers in 2018, but they reemerged in late 2020 with a new EP titled Top of the Stairs.
Today's featured track follows the Parquet path of lo-fi post-punk. Maxband explained to Under the Radar:
“‘Cut It Loose’ was the first song we wrote for Top of the Stairs, and it functions as a good mission statement for where we are as a band: it was our first fully collaborative effort that was fleshed out from an idea that Patrick brought into a practice space, and the first song where Max and Patrick split vocal duties.”
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Knox Fortune - Come Over
6 januari 2021 · 3 min
Knox Fortune - "Come Over" from the 2020 album Stock Child Wonder on Nice Work. Lees meer
Chicago-bred artist Knox Fortune (real name: Kevin Rhomberg) broke out of the Windy City's hip-hop scene after guest appearances on tracks by Chance the Rapper and Kami. Now based in Brooklyn, Knox returns with his genre-jumping sophomore release Stock Child Wonder. In an interview with Document, he explains the genesis of the album title and how it reflects his approach to songwriting:
It came from a song I wrote in 2012. It was written in a different context. As I got older, it stuck with me as a tongue-in-cheek way to mean the ‘next big thing’ in a generic form. On a monthly basis we get hit with the same cookie cutter pop personality, and someone’s like, ‘oh, you’re gonna love this,’ and it’s force fed. No one likes it. It’s just a funny thing to me: the idea of the “next big thing,’ but I’m not saying that I’m that. It was also just an alternate personality I could take on which helped with songwriting. When you do solo albums, it’s very emotionally draining. You have to pull so much from yourself, and if the project fails it’s on you. If you succeed, it’s on you. Creating the character of Stock Child Wonder helped me create, while not divulging too much on some things I’m not too comfortable talking about.
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Oneohtrix Point Never - Long Road Home
5 januari 2021 · 4 min
Oneohtrix Point Never - "Long Road Home" from the 2020 album Magic Oneohtrix Point Never on Warp. Lees meer
After scoring the soundtrack to the 2019 Adam Sandler film Uncut Gems, Oneohtrix Point Never (real name: Daniel Lopatin) returns to his roots with his ninth full length, Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, a nod to the Boston-based FM radio station Magic 106.7 that inspired his own band name.
“I wanted to make a cohesive, punchy, 50-minute record that was very personal, but pulled from FM palettes that I was personally interested in," he told Apple Music. "I think it works really well as a metaphor for how I've changed. The things that I try to understand about my own life and being an avid musical listener and how much that's influenced me as a musician is kind of apparent on this record. That metaphor of transformation is something that I came to by thinking about the radio.”
For today's Song of the Day, which features guest vocals by Caroline Polachek, he continues:
“I imagined it as the beginning of the album’s journey. It's setting the thesis of the whole record up, which is sort of embracing transformation, even if it's kind of disturbing and the future is vast and unfortunately filled with question marks. But that's it. That's the game. That's where we are. That's who we are. And so, how to live alongside your incompleteness, instead of fight against it or to think that you can overcome it. There's no home you come to. There's just this kind of road, and the road is the thing. That's what that song is for me.”
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Yung - Such A Man
4 januari 2021 · 3 min
Yung - "Such A Man" from the 2021 album Ongoing Dispute on PNKSLM. Lees meer
Danish indie rock quartet Yung return later this month with their sophomore full-length Ongoing Dispute, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2016's A Youthful Dream.
The band describe today's featured track as "a songwriting potluck of sorts, written in roughly an hour whilst Mikkel [Holm Silkjær, frontman] frantically roamed the corridors outside our rehearsal space working out the lyrics."
Silkjær describes the results, via a press release:
"A recent personal experience had sparked a train of reflection on manhood, fuelling the writing process and making its way into the song. Growing up, masculinity was portrayed to me as something very one-sided. The experience referenced in the lyrics helped me realise a pattern in coping with loss and pain in the archetypal man. I think from a subconscious point of view I needed to address that in order to fully reevaluate my childhood image of manliness."
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Tomo Nakayama - Paper Snowflakes
1 januari 2021 · 4 min
Despite the perils of 2020, Seattle’s Tomo Nakayama had a momentous musical year. Alongside his excellent synth-pop turn with his third solo LP, Melonday, Nakayama released some stirring singles, including a December release of “Paper Snowflakes.” The song finds Nakayama back in the familiar territory of the acoustic guitar, providing the perfect foundation for his pristine, effortless vocals. It’s a winter song of longing, wishing the best for someone far away and detached. While the song references Christmas, its emotional core is timeless. As we enter the new year, “Paper Snowflakes” offers a moment to reflect and look back. Lees meer
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The Hold Steady - Family Farm
31 december 2020 · 4 min
It’s the last day of 2020 and a new year is ahead of us. To bring on the transition, we get a little bit of something familiar and something new with The Hold Steady’s “Family Farm.” The indie rock legends make a momentous return with the first single from their upcoming album ‘Open Door Policy.’ A barrage of guitars and horns underscore Craig Finn’s impassioned, talk-singing vocals. It’s a triumphant last call for the year, feeling like the concussion of fireworks in the sky while we ride out into the sunset. More than that, it’s a harbinger of all the good music to come in the year ahead. Lees meer
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Pom Poko - Like A Lady
30 december 2020 · 3 min
With all of our top albums of 2020 lists behind us, it’s already time to start looking forward to the records that will consume our ear canals in 2021. Pom Poko give us an early frontrunner for future obsession with “Like a Lady’ from their upcoming album ‘Cheater.’ Lees meer
“The lyrics for the song slowly grew out from just jamming together, and are about what makes, or what one thinks makes, a woman, what even being a woman means, and it’s also a kind of tribute to all the different ways of being a woman that are out there,” the band said of the song in a statement on its release.
The song is thrillingly experimental, with bouts of furious distortion, spastic melodies, and a cacophony of glorious noise. This early look at the record gives us plenty to look forward to.
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KOKOROKO -Baba Ayoola
29 december 2020 · 4 min
We’re in the final days of 2020, a year that’s been physically and emotionally taxing for the world at large. While there’s been much tragedy and desperation throughout this year, KOKOROKO urges us to look ahead and celebrate life with their single “Baby Ayoola.” The group – which blends together Afrobeat, Highline, and Jazz music – wrote the track in tribute to the group’s saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi’s grandfather. The jubilant arrangement with a lively blend of horns, woodwinds, and sensationally groovy rhythms. Lees meer
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Lost Under Heaven - Goin' Broke For Christmas
28 december 2020 · 3 min
Christmas may be just behind us (and thankfully 2020 will be following suit soon), but DJ John Richards is keeping the holiday spirit alive with today’s Song of the Day, “Goin’ Broke for Christmas” by duo Lost Under Heaven. The song is the perfect salve for the post Christmas blues, with the festive sounds of jingle bells crashing the dirge-like marching rhythm and the duo’s mournful vocals. It’s the perfect song for soundtracking a foggy, egg nog afterglow or putting the season behind you for hopefully brighter futures. Lees meer
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Michelle David & The Gospel Sessions - It's a Soulful Christmas
25 december 2020 · 4 min
Michelle David & The Gospel Sessions - "It's a Soulful Christmas" from the 2020 album It's a Soulful Christmas on MDGS Records. Lees meer
This week, we are featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, one of the hosts of KEXPs punk show Sonic Reducer, lover of off-brand holiday tunes, and owner of pants. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Hear him this holiday season from 12-7 PM PT on Friday, December 25th, and get even more seasonal songs on his 17th annual Punk Rock Christmas show on Sonic Reducer, available in KEXP's two-week Streaming Archive (scroll down to the December 20th show).
Brian says:
Merry Christmas! Michelle David is a US born entertainer with a varied history. In the 1990's she's performed in touring theater groups, in the 2000's was a member of "Big Black & Beautiful" (a Female vocal group based in the Netherlands) & has released 4 previous albums with The Gospel Sessions prior to this year's Christmas album.
Here's to a hopeful 2021.
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Professor and The Madman - Christmas Eve
24 december 2020 · 3 min
Professor and The Madman - "Christmas Eve" from the 2018 album Disintegrate Me on Fullertone Records. Lees meer
This week, we are featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, one of the hosts of KEXPs punk show Sonic Reducer, lover of off-brand holiday tunes, and owner of pants. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Hear him this holiday season from 12-7 PM PT on Friday, December 25th, and get even more seasonal songs on his 17th annual Punk Rock Christmas show on Sonic Reducer, available in KEXP's two-week Streaming Archive (scroll down to the December 20th show).
Brian says:
Over their two full length albums Professor and the Madman show to be masters of writing strong pop hooks. The funny thing is the band is made up of old school punk veterans and even though there is some punch in their music, PATM prefers to focus on melody as opposed to aggression.
Writing a story about becoming homeless on Christmas Eve, the band shows off their deft songwriting ability and biting lyrics in todays pick.
Professor and the Madman is:
Alfie Agnew - vocals/guitar/keyboards (Adolescents, D.I.)
Sean Elliott – vocals/guitar/keyboards (D.I., Mind Over Four)
Paul Gray – bass (The Damned, Eddie & The Hot Rods, UFO)
Rat Scabies – drums (One Thousand Motels, The Sinclairs, The Damned)
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David King Jones - The Covid 19 Christmas Song
23 december 2020 · 2 min
David King Jones - "The Covid19 Christmas Song," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
This week, we are featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, one of the hosts of KEXPs punk show Sonic Reducer, lover of off-brand holiday tunes, and owner of pants. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Hear him this holiday season from 12-7 PM PT on Friday, December 25th, and get even more seasonal songs on his 17th annual Punk Rock Christmas show on Sonic Reducer, available in KEXP's two-week Streaming Archive (scroll down to the December 20th show).
Brian says:
This year there's an uncounted amount of holiday themed songs dealing with the pandemic, but this one is a stand out favorite. Written, performed & produced by himself, David King Jones mix of humor, sincerity and hook writing make for an undeniably enjoyable song.
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Kelly Finnigan - Santa's Watching You
22 december 2020 · 3 min
Kelly Finnigan - "Santa's Watching You" from the 2020 album A Joyful Sound on Colemine Records. Lees meer
This week, we are featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, one of the hosts of KEXPs punk show Sonic Reducer, lover of off-brand holiday tunes, and owner of pants. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Hear him this holiday season from 12-7 PM PT on Friday, December 25th, and get even more seasonal songs on his 17th annual Punk Rock Christmas show on Sonic Reducer, available in KEXP's two-week Streaming Archive (scroll down to the December 20th show).
Brian says:
Formally from the bay area band Monophonics, Kelly Finnigan's new holiday album is a solid soulful release. His reworking of the The Sacred Four track is a keeper.
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Michael M - Humans Are Not Worth Saving (Merry Christmas)
21 december 2020 · 3 min
Michael M - "Humans Are Not Worth Saving (Merry Christmas)" from the 2020 self-released album A Digital Christmas Gift For You. Lees meer
This week, we are featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, one of the hosts of KEXPs punk show Sonic Reducer, lover of off-brand holiday tunes, and owner of pants. Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. No standards are played, only original X-Mess songs, most with a humorous bent. Hear him this holiday season from 12-7 PM PT on Friday, December 25th, and get even more seasonal songs on his 17th annual Punk Rock Christmas show on Sonic Reducer, available in KEXP's two-week Streaming Archive (scroll down to the December 20th show).
Brian says:
I don't know much about Michael M (except he's from Glasgow) but I find his humor dark and endearing. The song we are sharing today is super catchy and I find myself singing it way too much. If the world is going to burn will you laugh with me at least? He has a whole youtube channel committed to making snarky Christmas videos.
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Draze - The Main Thing
18 december 2020 · 3 min
Draze - "The Main Thing," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
Earlier this year, attorney, CNN political commentator, and activist Angela Rye launched a new series for TIDAL titled The Main Thing, where Rye sits down with "high-profile celebrities, entertainers, history makers, athletes, organizers, and more" for candid, intimate conversations. And noneother than Seattle's own Draze has composed the show's opening theme song.
Draze was just nominated for "Best Hip-Hop Artist" by the African Achievement Awards; winners will be announced this Saturday, December 19th at 6 PM PST.
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Mystic - We Are the People (All Around the World)
17 december 2020 · 4 min
Mystic - "We Are The People (All Around The World)," a 2020 single on Beautifull Soundworks. Lees meer
Bay Area-based hip-hop artist Mystic (real name: Mandolyn Wind Ludlum) is a veteran of the scene, from participating in rap battles in the early '90s to touring with Digital Underground in the late '90s. She was nominated for a Grammy and a BET Award for "Best Female Hip-Hop Artist" in the early 2000s, and her work has appeared on TV soundtracks and commercials.
She's also an activist, serving as the Bay Area Coordinator for the Hip Hop Caucus, a non-profit organization that aims to promote political activism for young U.S. voters using hip-hop music and culture. Her latest single, and today's Song of the Day, she continues to use her music to speak out against injustice. As she said on her Facebook page, "I really made this song for all of us around the world fighting for justice and reimagining new futures — those of us who believe shifting paradigms is possible."
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Astu - Source of Her (feat. Salami Rose Joe Louis)
16 december 2020 · 4 min
Astu - "Source of Her (feat. Salami Rose Joe Louis)" from the 2020 album ALTARS on Boyish Records. Lees meer
On her debut full-length ALTARS, Eritrean-American artist ASTU combines soul and synth-pop to craft her confident and thought-provoking grooves.
Astu now resides in Oakland, but arrived there from Oklahoma where she attended seminary college, married a minister, and then became a minister herself. She had been singing gospel music since she was a pre-schooler, but hadn't pursued non-secular music until her 2017 debut EP Patterns. With ALTARS, she opens up even more, writing on Facebook: "this album is filled with me..every part of me..the parts i’ve been too afraid to see most of my life. and i want to give it to you."
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Ivy Sole - BITTERSWEET
15 december 2020 · 3 min
Ivy Sole - "BITTERSWEET" from the 2020 album SOUTHPAW on Les Fleurs Records. Lees meer
Ivy Sole wasn't even sure she wanted to release a new album this year, but thankfully, she did, with her brand new release SOUTHPAW.
"Me and my manager have been hesitant to release any music to distract or make light of what is happening, and this is prior to George Floyd and how that has changed the COVID era," she admitted to DJBooth.net. "To be honest, I was gonna drop an album this year and decided to hold off on that to sit with what is happening right now. I don’t want to 'lend' my voice to the movement. By virtue of being an abolitionist and endeavoring to be a radical thinker, anything that I would release was going to add to that conversation. With 'Bittersweet,' I wanted to release something that spoke directly to it rather than shying away from it."
She adds, "I started writing it just on some, 'Damn, I miss the feeling of summer.' This summer feels bittersweet to me. I can’t touch and be touched the way I’m usually experiencing summer. Summer is such a sensory period — it’s hot, you sweat, you’re in the park, on rooftops. I was on some nostalgic shit with the first verse, and then the George Floyd uprising happened, and I was like… At this point, everything is changing, so I don’t want the change to be piecemeal at all. I don’t want the minimum. That’s what the powers that be tend to expect us to accept. I’m in a headspace where I finally have a taste of what it could be like to be free, so I just refuse to settle in any way, shape, or form. All of us deserve that. More and more people are starting to realize they don’t have to accept what they’ve been given."
Proceeds from the track are being donated to Black womxn experiencing housing instability or facing eviction in the NY/NJ/PA area.
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Ego Ella May - Girls Don't Always Sing About Boys
14 december 2020 · 4 min
Ego Ella May - "Girls Don't Always Sing About Boys" from the 2020 album Honey For Wounds on UpperRoom Records. Lees meer
On her debut album Honey For Wounds, South London-based artist Ego Ella May provides sweet relief from troubling times with her jazzy neo-soul sound. On today's Song of the Day, she asks listeners, "What if I wanna talk about suffering?"
“I will, of course, continue to write about love,” May said in an interview with Bandcamp. “But I’m also conscious of other things that happen in life, and I like to address them in song form. There are so many different themes on the album that it felt like a diary, even. ‘Girls Don’t Always Sing About Boys’ came about because I was sick of hearing songs about relationships on the radio. I wanted to talk about other things, and at the time I wasn’t thinking about love. Grenfell [the 2017 West London Tower fire that killed 72 people and injured just as many] had just happened, and my mind was awake. I was reading about sustainability and pollution, and training to be a counsellor — I just had lots to think about. I wanted to challenge myself to put it all into song form.”
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Byland - Mine
11 december 2020 · 4 min
Byland - "Mine" from the 2020 self-released album Gray. Lees meer
For her latest LP Gray, Albuquerque-based artist Alie Renee Byland (who records under the name Byland) immersed herself in the Seattle music scene, collaborating with producer and multi-instrumentalist Nathan Yaccino (known for his work with Soundgarden, Noah Gundersen, Brandi Carlile). For today's featured track, she invited local musicians Abby Gundersen and Meagan Grandall (aka Lemolo) into the Ballard recording studio.
In a press release, she tells us:
“Mine” is about realizing that my energy is finite and that I have permission to say “no”. I grew up idealizing the notion of giving without limit. When I felt drained, I thought there was something wrong with me. Last Summer, I was feeling especially emotionally and relationally exhausted. I wrote this song while I had an overwhelming amount of calls, emails and texts to respond to. I intentionally wanted “Mine”’s rhythm and offset melody to feel abrupt at times, to express the sense of being pulled in polarizing directions.
I was nervous to bring another track to my producer, Nathan Yaccino, given that we were well into the recording process already. But after sharing a simple phone demo, we promptly sat down together and fleshed out the piano tracks, vocals and overall vision for this song. Abby Gunderson’s cinematic strings and the haunting harmonies of Meagan Grandall helped fortify and exemplify the internal expanse this song symbolizes. A liberating anthem, “Mine” is perhaps the most emblematic of the record’s ode to prioritizing mental health, by giving a voice to subconscious thoughts, and creating space within, a space that’s mine.”
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The Weather Station - Tried To Tell You
10 december 2020 · 4 min
The Weather Station - "Tried To Tell You" from the 2020 album Ignorance on Fat Possum. Lees meer
The Weather Station (a project of Toronto-based artist Tamara Linderman) returns early next year with her fifth full-length, titled Ignorance, out February 5, 2021 via Fat Possum; today, we get a sneak peek at the new release with today's Song of the Day, "Tried To Tell You."
In a press release, Linderman tells us the track is about “reaching out to someone; a specific person, or maybe every person, who is tamping down their wildest and most passionate self in service of some self (and world?) destructive order.” The accompanying video was directed by Lindeman herself, and was set near the house where she grew up. She adds:
The video portrays a person who is beset by miracles and visions of beauty, which emanate from inside of and all around him, but rather than reacting with awe or joy, he reacts with annoyance, indifference, and mistrust. We are taught not to see the natural world that we still live in, preferring instead to dwell on the artificial, which is so often a poor substitute for the vibrant real. Flowers really do rise up from mud, and many of us are full of treasures and beauty, but we often discount these things or throw them away.
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GDRN - Vorið
9 december 2020 · 4 min
GDRN - "Vorið" from the 2020 album GDRN on Les Freres Stefson. Lees meer
When GDRN (real name: Guðrún Ýr Eyfjörð Jóhannesdóttir) played KEXP Iceland Airwaves broadcast last year, she had just swept the Iceland Music Awards with her debut Hvað Ef, scoring best female artist, best pop song, best pop album, and music video of the year. With her follow-up full-length, released earlier this year, Jóhannesdóttir experiments with a new approach. As she told KEXP's Dusty Henry last year:
The next album is a bit more... It has more live instruments in it and more of me singing with more power. Just the lyrical ideas – they're all in Icelandic, I'm sorry for your English speaking listeners – but they are just fully formed ideas, I would say. They have this uptempo feel and a little bit more jazz, live instruments and everything.
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Molchat Doma - Discoteque / Дискотека
8 december 2020 · 4 min
Molchat Doma - "Discoteque" from the 2020 album Monument on Sacred Bones. Lees meer
Belarusian trio Molchat Doma (a phrase that translates to “Houses Are Silent”) formed in 2017, crafting darkwave synth-pop from their hometown of Minsk. Their just-released third full-length Monument was written and recorded in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, but with today's featured track "Discotheque", they invite the listener to imagine the now-forbidden dance floor. In a press release, they describe the song as “a light dance composition, which was created in order to make the listener move to the beat of the music. A kind of answer to 'Just Can’t Get Enough' by Depeche Mode…Ideal for both mood elevation and unbridled fun.”
The accompanying music video, directed by Alexey Terehoff, was filmed at the Memorial Museum-Studio of Z. Azgur, and while the clip finds the band performing to statues of Lenin and Stalin, Terehoff aimed to focus on the aesthetic. “This is the city that embalmed and revived all the idols from the era of the Soviet dictatorship,” he declared. “There are no politics in the video, only the STYLE, a mixture of pure, concentrated neo-totalitarian aesthetics and acidic post-punk.”
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Young Jesus - Faith
7 december 2020 · 7 min
Young Jesus - "Faith" from the 2020 album Welcome to Conceptual Beach on Saddle Creek. Lees meer
Earlier this year, Los Angeles-based quartet Young Jesus released their fifth full-length Welcome to Conceptual Beach; turns out, it's a sandy shore frontman John Rossiter has visited for years, originally as a physical zine in 2016. He told Uproxx.com:
It became a kind of diary, where I could become a character — as it turns out, is really helpful for sorting out your own health and psychology and soul, to be able to separate yourself out a little bit into different figures. It would really help me sort through my feelings, anger, guilt, sadness, shame, unworthiness, creativity, joy. At that point in time, I was living really deeply in my own mind, and that’s a really isolating place to be. So it helped me dive into the heart of that. This record, I hope, is my life opening up a little bit, and leaving my mind, joining a community, and being more in my body.
As an album, Welcome to Conceptual Beach finds the band expanding on their emo roots, adding jazzy elements to their post-rock sound, while Rossiter explores a new vulnerability. He confides to music blog Grandma Sophia's Cookies:
This is the first record where I’m not just saying how good I want to be, or what I want the world to be, or if only people did this it would be great, or look at all these people who are fucking up, or look at how much I’ve fucked up, but it’s more this is what’s happening and there’s so much work to be done. But there’s also so much that’s being done, and a lot of it is beautiful. A lot of what’s within me and what’s within my friends and loved ones is beautiful. It’s the first time — I’m emotional right now — that I believe it. I don’t know if I really believed it before. I didn’t really listen to our music and its lyrics, and especially their delivery, until a year ago. When I listened, I was like, Oh my god, I’m screaming the whole time, I’m so angry. This is the first album where I’m emer…
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SassyBlack - Therapy
4 december 2020 · 5 min
SassyBlack - "Therapy" from the 2020 self-released EP Stuck. Lees meer
Throughout her career, Seattle's own SassyBlack has tackled the topic of mental health, from her 2019 song “Depression” and the accompanying short film released early in 2020. On her latest EP Stuck, and today's featured track, in particular, she continues the conversation around self care, encouraging listeners to reach out when they're feeling "nothing at all," repeating the lyric "lay it on me" in a soothing rhythm.
In conjunction with KEXP’s Music Heals: Mental Health, we’re asking Song of the Day artists to spotlight a different organization, and in a perfect complement to today's Song of the Day, SassyBlack chose the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, a "collective of advocates, yoga teachers, artists, therapists, lawyers, religious leaders, teachers, psychologists and activists committed to the emotional/mental health and healing of Black communities."
Learn more about the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective here.
Donations are accepted here.
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Nailah Hunter - Black Valhalla
3 december 2020 · 7 min
Nailah Hunter - "Black Valhalla," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
With "Black Valhalla", Los Angeles-based composer/harpist Nailah Hunter imagines a place where Black people "are safe and exalted." In this interview with KEXP's Dusty Henry, Hunter explains:
I mean, again, Valhalla being the place where the Nordic gods live and the people... Actually just kidding, they don't live there, but it's a place where warriors go. I have always loved that idea. And I love Vikings and all of that stuff. But I realized how Black people are left out of that narrative. So obviously, the name of the song had to be 'Black Valhalla.' But I think the idea initially was like to speak to the fallen, the slain black people. But then at the same time, not wanting to martyr them in that way where it's like, 'Oh, they're fallen soldiers.' It's like, no, that was someone's son that's now dead. That was someone's daughter who's now dead.
So I'm not trying to glorify it in that way, but just thinking of an official place where their sacrifice, what happened to them is actually recognized for what it is. And just a 'safe and glorious hall' – we all deserve that, Black people deserve that. We've been through a lot. So that's where that was coming from. And yeah, just this idea that it's not quite safe here on this plane for black people. Maybe somewhere else is safe. It's a global thing, but maybe it's different on another plane.
In conjunction with KEXP’s Music Heals: Mental Health, we’re asking Song of the Day artists to spotlight a different organization. Hunter chose the Loveland Foundation, an organization that provides therapy for young Black girls and women. (Proceeds from today's featured track are being donated to the Foundation.) In her KEXP interview, she explains:
I was just searching for the right organization and that came up and I was like, "Yes, this is exactly it." Because black girls need to talk about what's going on. It is so difficult to be a black woman in this world. A…
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Kassa Overall - Darkness in Mind
2 december 2020 · 6 min
Kassa Overall - “Darkness In My Mind” from I THINK I’M GOOD on Brownswood Recordings. Lees meer
Originally hailing from Seattle and now based out of New York, Kassa Overall has used his inimitable blend of jazz, hip-hop, and experimental leanings to explore heady and existential topics. With his latest record, I THINK I’M GOOD, he’s at his most personal and revealing. On the record he explores his own experiences with mental illness, having experienced manic episodes and subsequent hospitalizations in his youth.
“Mental instability or hyper-sensitivity was something that felt too taboo to talk about," Kassa Overall says in the record’s Bandcamp description. "I want to show the world that mentally sensitive people are the innovators of our society, and hopefully set a new standard that includes a healthy way of life and embracing our unique perspective on reality.”
He addresses these themes directly on the LP’s standout track, “”Darkness In My Mind.” Joined by jazz pianist Sullivan Fortner, the two create an atmosphere that veers into the gothic with elegant-yet-nightmarish piano keys cascading against Overall’s mournful, vocoder-effected vocals. The song veers drastically between moments of beauty and bliss to skittering, hectic rhythms and electronic fever dreams. The musical tension is an apt complement to Overall’s musings over his troubles, recreating that troubling and inescapable dream that can come in our most difficult mental moments.
In conjunction with KEXP’s upcoming Music Heals: Mental Health, we’re asking Song of the Day artists to spotlight a different organization. Overall has chosen the Jazz Foundation of America’s Musicians Emergency Fund. The foundations outlined goal is to create a program that protects artists and “turns despair into hope.” They do this by ensuring blues, jazz, and roots artists are given the housing assistance they need, the care they need to stay healthy, and financially security to keep their basic needs met.
Learn more about the …
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Orion Sun - mama's baby
1 december 2020 · 3 min
Orion Sun - “mama’s baby,” a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
Philadelphia-based songwriter Orion Sun’s latest single, “mama’s baby,” was written after experiencing police brutality during a protest earlier this year in late May. Thrown into the ground multiple times and her arm twisted, she left with not just physical injuries but emotional pain from the trauma she lived.
As she details in the description on her Bandcamp page, it took her some time to recover and process what happened to her. Some healing finally came as she turned to music. Less than a week after the event, she recorded and released “mama’s baby” with proceeds going to Breonna Taylor’s GoFundMe page. She explains the writing process below:
“i've been in pain physically and emotionally but upon completing this song a wave of peace came over me. it was the first time my anxiety subsided in a long while and i thought if this did that for me then it might for other people. i want to share this song with you today in hopes that you can find some peace during this time. even when people can look at the world burning and feel nothing because the fire hasn't touched their skin, there are people feeling deeply and fighting in their own important way for the change that is inevitable. keep your head up and breathe and know that evil will never prevail long enough to be forever.”
The hum of turntable needle wavers above Sun’s plaintive keyboard and the steady roll of her voice. Echoes and reverb come in and out of the mix, but Sun stays constant and hardly ever raises her voice or deviates from the soothing melody. “I’ve seen it all, it don’t affect me,” she repeats on the song before ending with, “I mean we all pass on, at least respect me.” While there is a mournful sorrow ruminating in the track, that sense of peace resonates throughout like a slow exhale.
In conjunction with KEXP’s upcoming Music Heals: Mental Health, we’re asking Song of the Day artists to spotlight a different organization. Sun has cho…
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Sampa the Great - Time's Up (Remix) feat. Junglepussy
30 november 2020 · 2 min
Sampa The Great - “Time’s Up (Remix) feat. Junglepussy,” a 2020 single on Ninja Tune. Lees meer
While music can be healing, oftentimes the industry is quite the opposite. As Sampa The Great (aka Sampa Tembo) addresses on “Time’s Up,” it can be even more perilous for Black artists working against systemic racism within the industry.
“‘Time’s Up’ is a track that was made to reflect a conversation between two young Black artists about the Australian music industry,” Tembo said in a statement upon the song’s release in 2019. “With the current atmosphere it’s an important time to address systemic racism within the music industry, especially as it slowly rebuilds.
She continues, “Allyship should never be performative and as we continue past blackout day, all music orgs/labels should be put to task in bringing forward their initiatives for real change within their industry.”
A year after the song’s release, Tembo is continuing to open up the conversation and giving the song new life with a remix competition, encouraging Black women and non-binary artists to hop on the track and share their own experiences. She set things off with this remix featuring New York rapper Junglepussy, who calls out bluntly that there are people “making money off our pain, it must be the protocol.” It’s the ideal complement to Tembo’s original verse, speaking her truth on how female rappers are often grouped together and rising above expectations and outdated norms.
In conjunction with KEXP’s upcoming Music Heals: Mental Health, we’re asking Song of the Day artists to spotlight a different organization. Tembo has chosen Pola Psychology. Tembo and Pola Psychology have partnered together with the goal of ensuring African youth have access to safe, appropriate, and responsive mental health care.
“At a time when it is needed the most, this is not just about raising the much needed funds, but also about letting my friends and the wider African and black community know that this service exists,” Tembo say…
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Stas THEE Boss - Rotary Style
27 november 2020 · 2 min
Stas THEE Boss - “Rotary Style” from the 2020 EP Sang Stasia! on LucidHaus. Lees meer
Sang Stasia!, one of two outstanding EPs from the former Seattle resident and host of KEXP’s Street Sounds, was crafted from beats made for other singers but for some reason never recorded. The Black Constellation representative weaves her trademark multisyllabic rhymes over a cosmic sample looped to psychedelic effect, calling out corporate shills for churning out weak music for profit. The way Stas builds her rhyming sounds over the loopy harmonies of the beat is truly hypnotic.
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Seth Bogart - Men on the Verge of Nothing
26 november 2020 · 4 min
Seth Bogart - “Men on the Verge of Nothing” from Men on the Verge of Nothing on Wacky Wacko Records. Lees meer
Inspired in equal measure by Pedro Almodóvar and Poly Styrene, the artist formerly known as Hunx spins the former’s classic 1988 dark comedy (titled Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) into a treatise on the uselessness of male privilege. The album’s title track zeroes in on this concept through the vehicle of lighthearted new wave while Bogart takes Mr. Know-It-Alls to task as they fail upwards.
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STR4TA - Aspects (Demus Dub)
25 november 2020 · 8 min
STR4TA - "Aspects (Demus Dub)," a 2020 single on Brownswood Recordings. Lees meer
While 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic have kept us from dancing out our sorrows, artists and producers around the globe are still holing up in their studios to give us sensational, future dance floor hits. Case in point, the new Brit-Funk project STR4TA.
The project’s debut single ‘Aspects’ was recorded in a London shed just before lockdown went into effect before getting a release this fall. The infectious grooves get even more dazzling with the b-side dub mix by producer Demus. Funk and psychedelia instrumentation collide with raw, dance rhythms for a perfect impromptu at-home dance party to tide us over until we can all return to the clubs.
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Nubya Garcia - The Message Continues
24 november 2020 · 7 min
Nubya Garcia - "The Message Continues" from the 2020 album SOURCE on Concord. Lees meer
British jazz wunderkind Nubya Garcia made an awe-inspiring debut this year with her LP, ‘SOURCE.’ Her jazz bona fides and prowess are in full view with “The Message Continues,” a stirring instrumental that sees Garcia’s saxophone taking center stage amongst a wondrous fray of sensational drumming and hypnotic keys and bass lines.
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Blue Hawaii - Not My Boss!
23 november 2020 · 5 min
Blue Hawaii - "Not My Boss!" from the 2020 EP Under 1 House on Arbutus Records. Lees meer
With one member in Berlin and one in Montreal, Blue Hawaii fuses together a globe-spanning dance party with each new record. “Not My Boss” from their latest release, ‘Under 1 House,’ finds the duo bringing together sultry synth pads with classic house rhythms and battlecry: “You’re not my boss, I’m my own damn woman.” It’s the fuel to dance off frustration and find strength on the dancefloor.
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Antonioni - Malcomer
20 november 2020 · 5 min
Antonioni - "Malcomer," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
Seattle’s Antonioni are on their way up! With a couple EPs under their belt, the indie band recently signed with Lauren Records and are on the verge of releasing their debut album. The latest single to be shared is “Malcomer,” a dark and dreamy odyssey that burns and builds with shimmering textures and showcases frontperson Sarah Pasillas’ haunting voice that brings to mind the unique, quavering tones of Adrianne Lenker and Frances Quinlan. Pasillas had this to say about “Malcomer”:
"This song is about the journey of finding validation in the self, in what you love and do, in the face of everything you feel is against you. It’s kind of a peek into how I feel when I think about men in music and men in general: it feels they have automatic permission and authority to be and express. This song is supposed to be a celebration of finding and knowing the self, finding and knowing vulnerability and moving forward with it, even more sure of yourself than before.”
The song was shared alongside a video of the band hanging out and playing music.
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Julia Jacklin - to Perth, before the border closes
19 november 2020 · 3 min
Julia Jacklin - "to Perth, before the border closes," a 2020 single on Sub Pop. Lees meer
For some artists, the idea of being on the road and the constant change is a high unlike any other. Which would make the current situation with Covid-19 a difficult one, to say the least. Julia Jacklin is one of those artists and she expresses the idea of chasing the high of change via locale on last month’s “to Perth, before the border closes,” a 7” release for Sub Pop Singles Club, Vol. 5 alongside the song “CRY.”
“I’ve moved around a lot the last 5 years,” explains Jacklin. “Chasing things, love, work, something new, whatever and there’s always this fear that I’m leaving good things behind just to go somewhere else and be lonely. Whispering ‘everything changes’ to myself helps get me to sleep at night. I started writing this song in Melbourne and finished it in Perth. It was like a little song bridge between the two cities to make the change easier.”
The song comes with a self-directed video of interesting signs, trinkets, and relics found on a recent road trip that epitomize these “unprecedented times” from an abandoned Dr. Phil book, a news report about Trump testing positive for COVID-19, and a sign reading “We’re all in this together.”
Read the full post and watch the video on KEXP.org
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MorMor - Don't Cry
18 november 2020 · 3 min
MorMor - "Don't Cry," a 2020 single on Don't Guess Inc. Lees meer
For the past couple of years, Toronto’s MorMor (musician Seth Nyquist) has been crafting spellbindingly evocative music that has the power to cut your heart in two. Following up 2018’s Heaven’s Only Wishful EP and last year’s Some Place Else EP comes the single “Don’t Cry.” Pulsating with a feverish darkness, the raw lyrics capture the anxiety of lockdown during which the song was made. “I’m tired of the days/ They came and went/ We were left alone/ Finding it hard to breathe,” warbles Nyquist, who had this to say about the song:
“I had started to write again in December with a few songs underway, but in March the world as we knew it came to a halt. Though I tried to continue writing it didn’t feel right. I was told I was being hard on myself, but I have always used music as a way of making sense of things. Suddenly there were just too many things to make sense of: A Global pandemic, the sudden lockdown, shortly followed by the protests.
"Voices were raised around the world because people have had enough. Mourning has become so painful that people are demanding changes. I felt I had to reflect that. Tears have fallen and we can no longer pretend that we’re not all in this together."
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Nilüfer Yanya - Crash
17 november 2020 · 4 min
Nilüfer Yanya - “Crash” from the 2020 Feeling Lucky? EP on ATO Records. Lees meer
After a momentous 2019 with her excellent, critically acclaimed debut ‘Miss Universe,’ Nilüfer Yanya is coming back for more. The English songwriter recently announced the ‘Feeling Lucky?’ EP, due out Dec. 11 through ATO Records. The first offering from the record comes with the anthemic single “Crash.”
Co-written by Nick Hakim, “Crash” showcases layers of Yanya enigmatic vocals swirling above some of her most fuzzed-out instrumental arrangements yet. Seemingly pulling influence from noise rock, Yanya still maintains the pop-leanings that made ‘Miss Universe’ such a rousing success. Even while the distortion of the instrumentation seems to shake the room, Yanya sounds steady and unphased, even as she threatens to “crash” if prompted with one more question. We can all only aspire to stay so cool and nonchalant as Yanya does while the world around us crumbles.
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Loma - Half Silences
16 november 2020 · 4 min
Loma - “Half Silences” from the 2020 album Don’t Shy Away on Sub Pop. Lees meer
Loma never anticipated going this far. The project began as an impromptu collaboration with songwriter Emily Cross, recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg, converging to record their 2018 self-titled debut. After releasing the record and touring, each member intended to go back to their own projects. However, it only took a few months away from each other before they realized they wanted to keep Loma going. The trio holed up in Duszynski’s Texas home studio to record their sophomore effort, ‘Don’t Shy Away,’ which was recently released on Sub Pop.
“Don’t Shy Away” vindicates the bands decision to keep moving forward. The brooding, slow dirge finds the band at their best. Cross’ voice wields a stark intensity, looming over the restrained but tense instrumentation. It’s a marvel of studio wizardry, with static and eerie distortion and synth drones crashing over the steady pulse of drums and bass. It’s Loma at their best, pushing each other into bold, luminous new sonic territories.
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Weep Wave - Bury the Bones
13 november 2020 · 4 min
Weep Wave - "Bury the Bones," a 2020 self-released single. Lees meer
If you've been missing the casual acquaintanceship of neighborhood pups during the quarantine, you are not alone. Local psych-rock trio Weep Wave feel your pain.
“I started missing it being socially acceptable to approach strangers with dogs," frontman Dylan Fuentes admitted to Melted Magazine. "I do not have a dog of my own so I have to solely rely on the generous free pets of strangers and their adorable dogs,” said Dylan Fuentes. “I figured I wasn’t alone and this inspired the lyrics to the song. I also felt bad for all the dogs out there who haven't seen their doggy pals in a while and have no idea why.”
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Beabadoobee - Sorry
12 november 2020 · 4 min
Beabadoobee - "Sorry" from the 2020 album Fake It Flowers on Dirty Hit. Lees meer
Last month, British-based singer/songwriter Beabadoobee (real name: Bea Kristi) released her full-length debut Fake It Flowers, and it fulfilled all the anticipation that began brewing with her earlier EPs. "Fake It Flowers is pretty much my whole life in one album," she told i-D Magazine. "People are gonna know a lot, and it’s fun because I finally feel like this is really genuine -- the music and the way it sounds is something I’ve always wanted to make."
On Twitter, Beabadoobee revealed that today's KEXP Song of the Day is one of her faves off the new album, and a song the means a lot to her. In a press release, she shares:
’Sorry’ is an apology, confessing my mistakes in a friendship and watching someone who I love breakdown and fade away as a person. It’s the idea of dismissing something because it felt too close home and a personal reminder to never take for granted what that person could have had.
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