Telehealth - Taliesin Grid a 2023 single on Very Famous.

Telehealth is the Seattle-based project of Alexander Attitude (Deep Sea Diver, Brian John Appleby) and Kendra Cox (Lemolo) that make Devo-esque synthscapes targeting capitalism and the absurdities of our modern world. Their debut album Content Oscillator was released in March and specifically delves into Alexander Attitude's transition from musician to architect and back to musician, after discovering his disillusionment with their utopian visions and the aesthetics of sustainability which consequently became a tool for developers to sit comfortably within a political domain that is essentially capitalist and centrist.

Our Song of the Day “Taliesin Grid” specifically hones in on this idea. “Straight line, black suit /Just when you see it, start to move /Not made, great men /Stuck in repetition,” Attitude declares in monotone over arpeggiated synths. He continues on, “A name that still survives /Dank Lloyd Wright /Architects they come, yeah /Architects they go /But materials finite.”

Content Oscillator features production from Trevor Spencer (Valley Maker, Spirit Award, Deep Sea Diver, Chastity Belt) and mastering by the legendary Ed Brooks. Watch the video for “Taliesin Grid" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer from the 2023 album DREAMER on Ninja Tune.

In late April, Nabihah Iqbal dropped her long-awaited sophomore record Dreamer via Ninja Tune. Five years after the release of her debut, Weighing of the Heart, and six since Iqbal’s last EP under her former moniker Throwing Shade, the record is a resplendent re-introduction to the London-born artist, curator, broadcaster and lecturer. Blending elements of early ‘80s electronica, shoegaze, and trance with ruminative lyricism, it’s a record that hits the heart as much as it does the body.

The story behind the record starts in agony, as many great records do, with Iqbal’s studio being burglarized in early 2020 and all her work lost, including what was supposed to be her sophomore record. Piling onto the trauma, her grandfather suffered a brain hemorrage leading Iqbal to fly to Pakistan shortly before the pandemic hit and stranding her there as the world shut down. But as all creatives know, what doesn’t kill you, gives you better material for your work. It was there that the first seeds of Dreamer appeared, with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonium.

Our Song of the Day is the album’s title track “Dreamer.” One of less trancey songs on the album, the song is a combination of Best Coast breeziness and Cocteau Twinsian dreaminess. The lyricism is pure unadulterated bliss, “Dream of me /And I'II dream of you,” Iqbal coos. “Sun so soft /And sky so blue /This love is happy love.”

The song comes with a video shot in 700-year old palace in Old Lahore, Pakistan and directed by Zayan Agha, who said this of the video, “Taking a documentarian's approach to directing the music video, I gave Nabihah the freedom to discover the vibrant chaos of Lahore. I filmed her navigating through the city's mundane cacophony, resulting in a surreal and dreamy visual experience that vividly portrays the city's essence.”

Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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mui zyu - "Demon 01" from the 2023 album Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century on Father/Daughter Records

With her solo project mui zyu, London-based musician Eva Liu (also of Dama Scout) sought to capture the sounds she heard growing up at her family's Chinese restaurant. As she explains to Talkhouse: 

My debut record, Rotten Bun for an Eggless Century, is about self-exploration and identity, at times told through a lens inspired by fantasy video-games and Chinese folklore. In the process of pulling together the themes for this collection of songs, I reflected on my own childhood and began to uncover sounds from my memory... Since we worked on this record, I feel even more tuned in to sounds around me all the time. For the most part, this has been a wonderful shift in my consciousness. Abrasive sounds that used to cause me stress are now intriguing — I’ll think about how they are made, what is causing the friction, how the air is moving, and I might even try to find rhythms in the chaos. I have welcomed this newfound relationship with my sonic surroundings and wonder if it’s played a role in my overall wellbeing.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Sessa - "Vento a Favor" a 2023 single on Mexican Summer

São Paulo-based musician Sessa returns with his first new single since last year's enchanting LP Estrela Acesa. The track is co-produced by Brazilian artist Biel Basile and American musician Mikey Coltun, who also plays bass in Mdou Moctar. 

"'Vento a Favor' started as a track meant to be on Estrela Acesa," he tells Stereogum. "It was recorded, mixed, and mastered in the same sessions as the whole LP but somewhere along the way, when putting the pieces together, I started to feel that its energy was different from the story I was trying to tell with the record. The track was a bit too sure of its force and movement forward, outwards, while Estrela Acesa’s gesture was something more of an inward look, a whisper to the soul. But you know, nothing wrong with that, breathing goes both in and out."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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deary - "Fairground (Saint Etienne Remix)" a 2023 single on Sonic Cathedral.

London-based dreampop duo deary couldn't have chosen a better group than long-running UK trio Saint Etienne and composer Augustin Bousfield to remix their debut single, "Fairground." (The mix is formally titled the "Saint Etienne Meet Augustin Bousfield At The Top Of Town Mix.")

“It was fun putting the guitars down for once, playing around with different synths instead,” says Ben, co-founder of deary. “I got into [Saint Etienne's 1991 debut LP] Foxbase Alpha in a big way while studying at Goldsmiths via the Dusty Springfield sample on ‘Nothing Can Stop Us.' I love that record; the drum samples and the pop sensibilities were a real inspiration for both ‘Fairground’ and deary as a whole. We absolutely love their reworking of ‘Fairground,’ it’s really trippy and such a joy to have them work on our stuff. A thousand thank yous to them and Augustin.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Corvair - Right Hook from the 2023 self-released album Bound to Be.

Portland duo Corvair describe themselves as “Scorpio weirdo power duo serving up lush guitar pop w/ sharp incisors,” which this fellow Scorpio can certainly appreciate. Made up of Brian Naubert (Ruston Mire, Tube Top, Pop Sickle, The Service Providers) and Heather Larimer (Eux Autres), the romantic, as well as musical, duo are veterans of the Portland music scene. They released their debut self-titled album in 2021 and are following it up with their sophomore full-length Bound to Be on June 23rd.

The lead single off the record is “Right Hook,” explores a dark night in a relationship where the protagonist is ready to fight. “On this record, I pushed myself to be more exposed and unfiltered,” explains Larimer of the song. “I can unfortunately be an ugly fighter and I wondered what would happen lyrically if I just owned up to it. The things I do that I am ashamed of and the toll it takes on everyone involved.”

“The musical spine of this song was me thinking about Tears for Fears meets King Crimson,” Nuebert says of the instrumentation. “But then Heather wrapped that art rock foundation in a Blondie-meets-Shirelles pop energy. It’s a strange combination that fits the story–out of control emotions that end in shame and regret.”

Watch the video for "Right Hook" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Feeble Little Horse - Tin Man from the 2023 album Girl with Fish on Saddle Creek.

Pittsburgh quartet Feeble Little Horse formed three years ago during the pandemic lull but have exploded since dropping their 2021 debut full-length Hayday. They’re on the verge of releasing its follow-up, Girl With Fish, via Saddle Creek, a perfect home for their slowcore brand of noise pop. Out June 9th, we’ve so far gotten three tastes of Girl With Fish, “Steamroller,” “Pocket,” and our Song of the Day “Tin Man.”

Starting with a mathy guitar line directly inspired by Slint’s incredible “Breadcrumb Trail,” a rush of feedback roars in as frontwoman Lydia Slocum delivers her trademark deadpan vocals about a vapid, emotionless manipulator. “Took him apart and I found nobody/But when I dent you, I end up bruised.”

“The song is about people who use sadness to control your actions because they know you will sympathize,” Slocum says of the song. “Oftentimes when these people are investigated there really is not much inside them, they just use emotions to get what they want out of other people. I have my qualms with this sort of person.”

“‘Tin Man’ is one of the songs that represents a new style of writing for us as a group,” explains guitarist/co-songwriter Ryan Walchoski. “This song went back and forth through Google Drive links, trying to come up with the best iteration of the song that we were all happy with; vocals recorded, scrapped and re-recorded, drums scrapped and re-recorded, the chorus at one point was completely different.”

Feeble Little Horse will be touring the US starting in June, with a date in Seattle on Wednesday, July 5th at Barboza. Watch the video for “Tin Man" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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ĠENN - "A Reprise (That Girl)" a 2023 single on Liminal Collective

On today's Song of the Day, Anglo-Maltese quartet ĠENN team up with guest vocalist John Newton (of fellow four-letters-all-caps duo JOHN) for this stylistically sinister slice of post-punk. 

On their Bandcamp page, vocalist Leona Farrugia speaks to the track's themes: “Naturally I’ve always felt like there’s a pressure to compare myself, be that through the lens of present technologies or within the creative industry. It’s something that can be very debilitating, especially to young people in a patriarchal society.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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MAN ON MAN - "Showgirls" from the 2023 album Provincetown on Polyvinyl.

“As we lean into what Man on Man is and will be, two things immediately come up. Energy and community. ’Showgirls’ is all that.” — Roddy Bottum, Man on Man

As co-founder Roddy Bottum puts it, today's Song of the Day embodies the fun-loving duo's ethos. The track is a sneak peek at their sophomore LP Provincetown, out June 16th via Polyvinyl Records and named for the town in Massachusetts where Bottum and his partner/bandmate Joey Holman shared their first home.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Caroline Polachek - "Fly To You (feat. Grimes and Dido)" from the 2023 album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You on Perpetual Novice.

New music from Caroline Polachek is exciting enough, but when it features collaborations with both Grimes and Dido, it's a mind-blower. In an interview with Vulture, Polachek says he wrote part of the song in Grimes' bedroom at 6 AM — "Just the two of us, in this very sweet session," she details.

As for Dido, Polachek wrote her a fan letter, asking for her involvement. “Her way of blending a quite natural, almost folk approach to pop singing with a very contemporary electronic production was very influential for me,” Polachek told Vulture. Following a FaceTime call days later (“I screamed and screen-grabbed it,” she admits), she traveled to Dido's home in Los Angeles where the two finished the track together.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Puerta Negra - Caida al Mal from the 2023 album Playa Sola on SYNTHICIDE.

Portland-based Puerta Negra have been an immense amount of buzz for only just releasing their debut EP in 2022. They make 80’s-infused EBM that’s somehow both slick and grimy, making for the perfect edge. Berlin label Detriti dropped their debut Costa Humano and their upcoming follow-up Playa Sola is being released through Brooklyn-based darkwave label/monthly dance party hosts SYNTHICIDE.

“Caida al Mal” is the lead single off Playa Sola and opens the four-track EP with swelling synths, hard-hitting electronic beats, and scathing growls from Maria Aguirre and Mark Arciaga. Of the song, the band had this to say:

“In every revolution there are winners and there are losers. What is a dystopia for one may be a utopia for another. The lights can blind you but they can also lead the way.”

Get a taste of Puerta Negra’s charismatic shows and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Kurs Valüt - Kurs Valüt from the 2021 album Kurs Valüt on No Emb Blanc.

Kurs Valüt is an electronic duo formed in 2017 by Eugene Gordeev in Dnipro to popularize the Minimal Wave in Ukraine. “The very appearance of Kurs Valüt is partly caused by the underdevelopment of the dark underground in Ukraine,” the duo explained in an interview with Post-Punk in 2021. “The moment of the absence of the subculture itself, thematic festivals, events for Gothic or Post Punk music fans…this is the result of a long disconnect of Ukraine from cultural processes in Europe and the World.”

Our Song of the Day is the title track and opener of their sophomore self-titled record, released in 2021. It’s a throbbing club track that sees Gordeev monotonously reciting Ukrainian lyrics that this writer has yet to decipher but are compelling nonetheless. Of the album Kurs Valüt, the band had this to say on Bandcamp:

“The second album, Kurs Valüt is the result of a long work that summarizes difficult stage of life experience inspired by solitude, austerity and extreme mental states. In comparison to the debut album Veselo (2018) it is more melodic and metaphoric. Lyrics can be interpreted differently. Usage of a tube summing mixer during the studio processes adds a warm, non-commercial textured color to the sound of this release.”

Get a taste of Kurs Valüt’s live shows with this live recording of “Kurs Valüt” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Prospexx - "Punya Siapa" from the 2021 album A Quiet World on Symphony of Distruction.

On today's Song of the Day, Singaporean synth-pop duo PROSPEXX take us back to the '80s with their darkwave dance tracks.

In an interview with Unite Asia, vocalist Vanessa explains that she and her bandmate Hafiz have always been into synthwave. "Both of us are super into 80s music, and the dystopian-esque vibe from the pandemic just happened to give us that huge push to actually do something about it," she explains of the band's inception. "It really isn’t like anything we do with any of our other bands and projects, plus the lockdowns made it hard for us to get together with any of our other friends anyway. So I guess it was borne out of both a love for the '80s and the absolute necessity to continue creating in a time of bleakness.”

While most of the group's songs are song by Vanessa, today's track features guest vocals by Azril, singing in Bahasa, a form of Malay spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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RATPAJAMA - "Violence" from the 2023 album The Drunken Lost Tapes on Deepland Records

With the release of her latest EP The Drunken Lost Tapes, Ratpajama — the solo darkwave project of Kyara Jereissati (aka Kyro Coma) — seeks to embrace imperfection. (Although today's Song of the Day is a goth-tinged piece of perfection to these ears, with a driving industrial beat that will take you to the Batcave, punctuated by Coma's solemn, beautifully detached vocals.)

"Because of my unhealthy perfectionism I couldn't, for a long time, find them good enough to release," she shares on her Bandcamp page. "However, I realized what I had forgotten about what was most important to me in this project: having fun. Now, after a long time, I finally looked at these tracks with a different perspective and I feel extremely fulfilled for being able to share them with you guys."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Zanias - "Burial" from the 2023 album Chrysalis on Fleisch Records.

Chrysalis, the third album from Zanias (aka Alison Lewis), finds the ethereal darkwave artist undergoing a metamorphosis. The songs on this release were written and recorded between her current home of Berlin and her original home of Australia during a period of self-protection, as Lewis processed feelings of burnout, trauma, and, on today's Song of the Day, grief. 

"That one is about burying someone you love," she revealed to Loverboy Magazine. "The period right after, when you have to build a new world without that person in it. I had flown back to Australia to be there when someone I loved died and people were angry at me for cancelling tour dates, even though I had told them a family member was ill. I wanted privacy but because of that they were questioning if I was lying. I couldn’t believe the insensitivity, and it was just really hard to feel like I had disappointed everyone over something that was already so heartbreaking and scary. So yes, ‘Burial’ is a heavy one. It’s also the first song I wrote after I decided to quit music, hence 'I can’t seem to do this anymore' and 'I’m not even sorry I disappeared.' I thought I was finished."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Of The Heavy Sun - Cosmic Television a 2023 self-released single.

Of The Heavy Sun are a psych rock trio from Seattle that has been churning out brooding psychedelic opuses since 2015, with the release of their debut self-titled full-length. They’re due to release their latest record Cosmic Television on June 2nd, after two years of production and “constant setbacks,” according to the band.

Our Song of the Day is the album’s title track, a forceful nearly five-and-a-half-minute song that exemplifies the best of what the band has to offer: fiery guitars, humming basslines, and soaring vocals. The anxieties of modern life with the thesis being “Everyone is blinded by watching TV.” Frontman Samuel Emerick proclaims, “Finally awake /I can’t escape /Isearch these desert plains /It’s been two weeks since I was high and I can’t find a place to lay my head.”

“Cosmic Television” was produced by Jesse Field mixed by Matt Bayles and mastered by Adam Cichoki. Of The Heavy Sun is playing the Sunset Tavern on Saturday, June 10th with Tuff Talk, Torch, and Prismia. Get an idea of their searing live performances with a live video recorded at the High Dive and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Acid Arab & Wael Alkak - Ya Mahla from the 2023 album ٣ (Trois) on Crammed Discs.

French-Algerian collective Acid Arab recently released their appropriately titled third record ٣ (Trois) (٣ is the symbol for the figure three in Arabic and “trois” means "three" in French) in February via Crammed Discs. The collective, composed of Guido Minisky, Hervé Carvalho, Pierrot Casanova, Nicolas Borne and Kenzi Bourras, is known for their fusion of electronic and North African and Middle Eastern sounds and their latest record sees them bring in a bevy of guest vocalists from North Africa, Syria, and Turkey to add depth to their already-addictive club sounds.

Our Song of the Day, “Ya Mahla,” features Syrian singer Wael Alkak, an accomplished musician and founder of the Neshama Popular Arts Association who has spent the past decade making a name for himself as an artist speaking out about the revolution while merging synthesizers and machines with bouzouk, traditional chaâbi rhythms, and popular songs from the Levant. It’s a dark and churning techno track that spends nearly seven minutes hammering away. Perhaps perfect for the inky recesses of a nightclub but when translating the lyrics, it’s an anthem for freedom, reading: “What a beautiful word, ‘Freedom’ / I salute the Arab people / What a beautiful word, ‘Freedom’ / I salute the Arab revolutionaries.”

Watch the visualizer for “Ya Mahla" and read the full post at KEXP.org,

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Shalom - "Happenstance" from the 2023 album Sublimation on Saddle Creek.

Brooklyn-based, South Africa-raised artist Shalom had been playing bass in bands while in New Brunswick for college, and working on home-recorded solo songs on the side, when she was discovered by producer Ryan Hemsworth. He invited her to contribute to his collaborative project Quarter-Life Crisis, which led to her being signed with Saddle Creek Records, who released her debut album Sublimation earlier this year. 

On today's Song of the Day, the Brooklyn-based, South Africa-raised artist sings of her "need to evaporate and receive validation at the same time," displaying a raw vulnerability against a dancey beat.  

“The record is an introduction to me as a songwriter,” she says in a press statement. “I think it shows my versatility, but really, it’s me being really honest, earnest, and naked. You can see my bones on this record. I'm okay with it though, because I’ve got to get it out.”  

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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HÆLOS - "Last Days" from the 2023 album Where We Bring Our Burdens on INDIGO KIN.

London-based trio HÆLOS returns with the track "Last Days," a song they describe as "about trying to evade the fears that come from traumatic experiences by constantly reminding oneself to remain present."

It's the third single to be shared from the band's forthcoming full-length, titled Where We Bring Our Burdens. No official release date has been announced yet, but if today's Song of the Day is any indication, we have another beautiful, emotive LP from HÆLOS on the way. 

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Beach Vacation - "Lay Low" a 2023 single on Z Tapes.

Take some time off with the dreamy vibes of Beach Vacation. The latest single from this Seattle-based pop project of songwriter Tabor Rupp will call to mind bands on the Captured Tracks Records roster like Beach Fossils and Wild Nothing. Rupp told the music blog kid with a vinyl that today's Song of the Day is about “wanting to leave behind everything – specifically the things and people that are stressors and forget about them forever.” Sounds like a vacation to me. 

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Sendai Era - Calamansi dreams from the 2023 self-released album Kalayaan.

Sendai Era are a Seattle-based music duo of emcee Era and producer Sendai Mike. They’ve been making music together since 2013 and released their sophomore full-length Kalayaan in January. “Kalayaan” is the Tagalog word for “Liberation,” which is a feeling the duo tried to capture throughout the album. “This album carries the lessons and experiences over the past few years,” explains the duo. “Forming a myriad of songs that signify a new beginning for us.”

Our Song of the Day, “Calamansi dreams,” features guest vocals from Clarissa Abadesco and uses the economically important citrus hybrid predominantly cultivated in the Philippines, calamansi, as a metaphor for growth through discrimination and getting back to one's roots. "We wrote Calamansi dreams during lockdown,” says Sendai Era of the song. “It describes our experiences growing up in the diaspora through the lenses of family, culture, and music.”

Watch Sendai Era’s music video for Kalayaan track “Written" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Lo! Peninsula - Super Glue (Cover) from the 2023 self-released album The Resurrection Of The Princess Of Woe And Her Vampire Hound Posse.

Lo! Peninsula is a shoegaze/dreampop trio from Imphal, India that first caught the ears of KEXP’s John Richards and his producer Owen Murphy back in 2018 with their debut full-length AKA Lo Peninsula. Murphy interviewed the band that year about making music in a conflict-torn area and their DIY recording process. Since then, they’ve only released less than a handful of singles but recently returned with “Super Glue.”

The song is a cover of Indian noise-rockers Hoirong’s 2013 original and appears on a covers album made in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Hoirong’s debut album The Reincarnation of The Princess of Woe and Her Vampire Hound Posse. Titled The Resurrection of The Princess of Woe and Her Vampire Hound Posse, the album sees contributions from Indian bands like Pacifist, Disco Puppet, Mr. INDIA, and Audrey.

Hoirong’s version of “Super Glue” is a lo-fi affair with screeching warbles and fuzzed-out guitars while frontman Kamal Singh melodramatically sings, “Slowly comes an asshole and he looks so good /Slowly you become my menstruation /Funny how you try to be the super glue.” The original is so good that it’s a nerve-wracking undertaking to cover. Instead of trying to mimic, Lo! Peninsula wraps the song in a sheeny haze, taking “Super Glue” to new heights.

Watch the video for Lo! Peninsula’s 2021 single “Kintsugi” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Drinking Boys and Girls Choir - "City" from the 2023 album Hey, Listen To Me on Damnably

The latest release from South Korean trio Drinking Boys and Girls Choir is a collaborative project with three female artists from their hometown of Daegu. (On this EP, they've also invited special guest Jang Young-eun, guitarist and vocalist of the band igloo.)

On today's Song of the Day, they've teamed up with artist Kim Seoul, known for her humorous work in printmaking with hand-colored details. As they write on their Bandcamp, the song was inspired by a conversation with drummer/vocalist Myeongjin Kim and Kim Seoul "about the loneliness and fear that metropolitan cities can give to individuals living in them, especially those cities that feel bigger for women living alone. Inspired by the conversation, the image of the song itself is about comforting yourself, after having experienced those feelings, and comforting fellow citizens who are still in such a situation."

For the accompanying exhibition, Kim Seoul crafted a space that looks like her old living room. "The memories of living in a gap between clothes and objects in a small room are reproduced in this work. Through installations made with eco-friendly materials such as Tyvek, and silkscreen engraving techniques, the artist created a space filled with small but precious things which allowed for small citizens in large cities and exhibition visitors to search for other entries."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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FiFi Zhang - "Nobody" from the 2023 EP So Beautiful So Lonely on Gum Studio.

What started as a thesis project at the Parsons School of Design has since become a music career for FiFi Zhang. The Shanghai-born/Brooklyn-based artist was inspired by a sound design class to create her own songs, and submitted the track "Butterfly" and its accompanying music video. Since then, she's continued to evolve her ethereal electro-pop style, culminating in her latest EP, So Beautiful So Lonely (a title Zhang told music blog Grandma Sophia's Cookies was inspired by a line from the TV show Sex & the City). 

Today's Song of the Day transforms the loneliness Zhang experienced during the pandemic into a house track, with a companion clip directed by Xiao Han and produced by Kennie Zhou. As she told GSC, "My image for the video was, you are at the bottom of the ocean and nobody can hear you, just floating by yourself in the bottom of the ocean. There is a scene where I’m a mermaid deep in the ocean, the sea creatures, my imaginary friends, all pop up from underneath me. It’s my version of turning tears into pearls, a productive solitary self-indulgence where my own creations make my world so colorful and beautiful. That’s the message of the music video."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Lionmilk - "anxious thing" from the 2023 album Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222 on Leaving Records.

With his latest LP Intergalactic Warp Terminal 222, Lionmilk continues the theme of using music to heal with another collection of soothing soul-jazz sounds to inspire introspection.

Los Angeles-based musician/composer/producer Moki Kawaguchi refers to the new album as "music to feel less whack to." Like on 2021's COVID-response release, I Hope You Are Well, Kawaguchi explores songcraft as a means of self-care, connection, and community. (It's fitting that he continues to work with Leaving Records, who share a similar philosophy of camaraderie.) Today's Song of the Day is a lovely, lo-fi, breezy piece of electropop sure to absolve your own anxious feelings. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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MCM - Cry Me A River from the 2023 self-released Stolen Moments EP.

MCM (aka Mid Century Modern) is a brand new Seattle-based duo featuring long-running emcee, producer, and community organizer King Khazm and singer/songwriter Jesse Kogita. In February, they released their debut EP Stolen Moments. The three-song EP sees the duo reimagine classic jazz standards by building a collage of samples, boom bap, bebop, and hip hop.

On our Song of the Day, Ella Fitzgerald’s classic “Cry Me a River,” adding potent verses from Khazm of regrets and heartbreak, staying true to the sorrowful original but adding a downtempo boom bap beat, samples from old films, and Kogita taking on the role of singing Fitzgerald’s part. Ending with a sobbing woman, the song is both emotional and an incredibly original take on a song that’s been a part of our musical canon for nearly a century and covered countless times.

Find the Stolen Moments EP on Bandcamp and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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URF Tone - Zan Zendegi Azadi (Women Life Freedom) a 2023 self-released single.

URF Tone is a duo made up of producer (as well as model, actor, and avid golfer) Nicholas Demps, aka The World Famous N.I.C, and MC Ila Parvaz. Together they seek to pay tribute to the golden era of Hip Hop, with inspirational lyricism and jazzy production. Emerging in 2020, the duo have released a string of singles, with a full-length titled All That Glitters due out in 2023 which features contributions from Camp Lo, Mr. Funke (of Lords of the Underground), Rae Khalil (contestant on the Netflix series, Rhythm + Flow), and Uhmeer (actor/rapper, and son of DJ Jazzy Jeff).

Our Song of the Day, “Zan Zendegi Azadi (Women Life Freedom),” uses downtempo to highlight Parvaz’s lyrics about fighting oppression and tyranny, as well as lifting women up. The song is an excellent example of the band’s ethos, which they explained to The Hype Magazine in 2022 saying, “In a landscape of excessive braggadocio and shock-jocks, we raise questions around what is being elevated, while decency and simple goodness fall to the wayside. We’re both full-time workers and, more importantly, husbands to our wives, so we give everything we can to music from a place of passion and childlike joy.”

Watch the video for “Zan Zendegi Azadi (Women Life Freedom)" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Chyle - DAY (feat. B SELF) from the 2023 album Majestic Constellations on Cosmic Aliens Entertainment

On his latest LP, Majestic Constellations, Chyle MC (pronounced Child Emcee) invites listeners on a voyage influenced by classic Parliament-Funkadelic, who he cites as his "muse." Though based in Atlanta, Georgia, Chyle MC has ties to Seattle, working with longtime friend and producer Vitamin D, and on today's Song of the Day, bringing in Vitamin's Ghetto Children bandmate B-Self for guest vocals. The track serves as a pep talk to anyone just trying to get through the day, reviving you with its upbeat energy. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Pure Akan - "Yete Apor (feat. Efya)" a 2023 single on A-Level Music.

Ghanaian highlife/hip-hop artist Pure Akan stays true to his roots by rapping in Twi, a dialect of the Akan language. "It created a connection between me and my people, the Akan people and also our culture," he told Pan African Music. "My fans relate better. They understand me now."

His new single sees him pairing up with another Ghana-based songwriter, neo-soul artist Efya, whose voice elevates the beauty of today's Song of the Day. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Alsarah - "Farasha فراشة (feat. Sufyvn & Flippter)" a 2023 single on Alsarah Productions

On today's Song of the Day, Sudanese songstress Alsarah celebrates femininity. The song title "Farasha" translates to "butterfly" in Arabic, and in a press statement, she says the track honors the "spirit of resistance, resiliency, and perseverance" of Sudanese women. The featured song was co-produced with Sufyvn and features guest rapper, Flippter.

In the background, you'll hear field recordings Alsarah gathered in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile in Sudan. The accompanying music video — directed by award-winning Sudanese multidisciplinary artist, Mai Elgizouli — is designed to "shine a light on neglected issues facing women in Sudan, which have ranged from societal pressure over beauty standards to women’s roles in the revolution.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Acid Tongue - Consumerism a 2023 self-released single.

It’s been two years since Seattle garage rockers Acid Tongue released their third full-length Arboretum, which came about as frontman Guy Keltner came to terms with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as his struggles with his bipolar diagnosis, during the pandemic. Keltner and co-frontman Ian Cunningham detailed the making of the record as well as their personal experiences on Sound & Vision in 2021.

Our Song of the Day is the latest release we’ve gotten from Acid Tongue since then, the anti-capitalist/nihilist anthem “Consumerism.” Over the thrumming guitar rhythm, the message relayed by Keltner is clear. No matter how or what you consume, we’re all consumers. Be it eating too much, drinking excessively, consuming cheap drugs, or “digital love” (I think we all know what means), they’re all easy forms of escape through consumption. “Every day I consume more,” softly cries Keltner. “Can you tell me what it’s all been for?/ Cheap drugs and digital love/ I never know when enough’s enough.”

Below, watch the video for “Consumerism,” directed & edited by James Kimberling, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Daníel Hjálmtýsson - No Reception (feat. Aðalbjörn Tryggvason) from the 2022 self-released album Labyrinthia.

While Daníel Hjálmtýsson’s recorded work only dates back to 2020, he’s made quite a splash in the past few years, perking the ears of his fellow Icelanders as well as a particular Seattleite - Kevin Cole. He recently caught their performance at Tremor Festival which is set at secret locations around São Miguel island in the Azores and has been said by some to be the “world’s weirdest music festival.” So stunned by their performance, he had to share their music with the world.

In November, Daníel Hjálmtýsson, which also includes Hálfdán Árnason and Skúli Gíslason, released their debut full-length Labyrinthia. The album leans into Nick Cave-esque gothic rock that Mark Lanegan, also a clear inspiration, cited as, “Neo-goth music that brings to mind the forbidding landscapes of his native Iceland. One can imagine him on a stage in a church-turned-dungeon somewhere in the Reykjavik underbelly.” I don’t think I could possibly describe it better than Lanegan so I’ll let him do the talking.

Our Song of the Day is the lead single off Labyrinthia, “No Reception,” which features guest vocals from fellow Icelandic rocker, Aðalbjörn Tryggvason, of the long-running post-metal band Sólstafir. It’s a slow-churner about the anxieties of loneliness and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Also, perhaps because I’ve recently binged the new Interview with a Vampire series, the words, “I’ll never see another /I’ll never see another /Day” seem like a song Louis might write. A melancholy ode to the plight of eternal darkness.

The official video for “No Reception” debuts today, alongside our Song of the Day, and was directed, edited, and produced by Jónatan Leó. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Tramhaus - "Make It Happen," a 2022 single on Subroutine Records.

Post-punk quintet Tramhaus provide a sneering statement on their hometown of Rotterdam, Netherlands on today's Song of the Day. 

The phrase "make it happen" serves as the city's official slogan — "a phrase which coincidentally functions as the absurd and out-of-touch city-slogan of Rotterdam," they state on Facebook. The accompanying music video was filmed in the Wielewaal neighborhood, and the residents who are set to be evicted. “Drawing further on what we believe is a misleading Rotterdam city slogan  – 'make it happen' – we came up with the idea to make a video with the Wielewalers,” the band commented to Beats Per Minute. “With the video, we hope to show their struggle to a wider audience.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Verde Prato - "Niña Soñando" from the 2023 album Adoretua on Plan B Rec.

Recording under the name Verde Prato, Colombian artist Ana Arsuaga sings in Basque, honoring the traditions of the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Her haunting neo-folk synth-pop songs call to mind artists like Kate Bush or Tirzah. 

Via her Bandcamp page, she explains today's Song of the Day reflects on "the questions that arise for a girl, questions that a girl asks of the world, of life, of otherness, of love, to innocence." The accompanying video features students at the Berrobi School in Tolosa, Spain, and the clip was directed by Maria Muriedas and Arsuaga's mother, Elena Arambarri (the theater teacher at the Berrobi). 

"I find it a song that moves me," she tells Mondo Sonoro, "because it talks about some questions and a general state in which I could be a lot when I was a child, and I'm not only referring to the lyrics but also to the tone of the song, to the cadence, to the atmosphere. For me, it's like a sad and happy song at the same time, dreamy, and the rhythms also lead me to such a dance."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Lucrecia Dalt - "Contenida" from the 2022 album ¡Ay! on RVNG Intl.

On her eighth and latest LP ¡Ay!, Colombian-born, Berlin-based artist Lucrecia Dalt celebrates both her homeland and outer space. Infusing childhood influences of bolero, mambo, merengue, and salsa into her synth-heavy soundscapes, she tells the story of Preta, an extraterrestrial being who lands on Earth. The ten-track album examines themes of love, time, and on today's Song of the Day, existence.

"A falling progression, vocals harmonizing, a jazzy something… Why not?," she describes to The Fader in a track-by-track. "Playing this piece live, it’s become one of my favorites from the album. Fun to perform, fun to dance to. Can you imagine being bodiless and suddenly feeling trapped, like theatrical containment? Irreversible…"

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Jarv Dee & Bad Colours - Beat Drop a 2023 single on MOOR LIFE.

Jarv Dee has been one of the leading rap luminaries of the Seattle scene for the past decade, churning out numerous bops and anthems. Since the beginning, one of his secret weapons has been production from London-born, Maryland-raised, Brooklyn-based DJ, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Ibe Solima, aka Bad Colours. Solima has worked with some big names including Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross, Keyshia Cole, and Faith Evans but it wasn’t until 2021 that he finally dropped his debut Bad Colours full-length PINK, which featured Jarv Dee.

Since then, the duo has been consistently dropping collaborative singles and our Song of the Day is their most recent. Described by Dee as “If ‘F**k around and found out’ was a person,” the song is an absolute banger. The house track bounces and bumps while Dee encourages listeners to dance the pain away “When the beat drop.”

Watch the Tim Slew-directed video for “Beat Drop” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Es - Swallowed Whole from the 2023 Fantasy EP on Upset The Rhythm.

London-based quartet Es burst onto the scene back in 2020 with their debut LP Less of Everything, made up of nine tracks of ominous and icy post-punk exploring the tension between intent and interpretation. Three years later, they’re back with the Fantasy EP. For their new release, they’ve bumped the tempo up but haven’t lost an ounce of sneer.

Our Song of the Day “Swallowed Whole” is frantic and twitchy, with taut syncopated rhythms and pinched synths while frontperson Maria Cecilia Tedemalm sings of building anxiety that completely overwhelms. Tedemalm had this to say about the song:

"Musically the writing process behind ‘Swallowed Whole’ is a bit hazy for me, but I very vividly remember getting super excited when listening to the first rough demo over and over again and writing almost all the lyrics while walking to the bus stop 7 minutes from my house. Once I had the first line down the rest just came flowing. I think I had a lot of pent up frustration just itching to get out as thematically the song taps into some quite frantic and raw emotions. It’s about teetering on a knife's edge and wanting to escape yourself and your current circumstances before they completely devour you. We shot the video for it at our friend's recording studio called Head Cold in Bermondsey. The idea originally was to be "Swallowed Whole" in smoke but sadly the smoke machine we borrowed wouldn't work so it came out a bit more like maybe we're playing at your highschool under the sea themed prom."

Watch the video for "Swallowed Whole," directed by Tedemalm, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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System Olympia - "Falling in Love" from the 2023 album New Erotica Collection on Okay Nature

Over the past few years, London-based producer, DJ, and vocalist System Olympia (real name: Francesca Macri) has been releasing a series of sultry stand-along singles, including today's Song of the Day, featuring guest vocals from South London artist P Nut. Earlier this year, she compiled nine of these tracks into the LP New Erotica Collection, 

With an album title like that, you won't be surprised that System Olympia finds inspiration in Tinto Brass films and Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus short story collection. (In fact, Macri's 2020 LP of the same title is an ode to those literary works.) On her Bandcamp page, she cites "night rides in my Mercedes Benz." Check out the video for today's Song of the Day, and climb into the passenger seat. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Say She She - "Reeling" a 2023 single on Colemine/Karma Chief.

It's a tongue-twister, but Brooklyn trio Say She She named their group as a tribute to none other than Nile Rodgers ("C’est chi-chi!: It's Chic!,” they explain on their Bandcamp). They also carry his torch with their self-described "discodelic soul," sure to get you out on the dance floor.

On today's Song of the Day, band members Nya Gazelle Brown, Sabrina Cunningham, and Piya Malik deliver an "incantation from Mother Earth to the masses to join the rising against the calamitous forces of unfettered capitalism that has left our seas and skies grappling." In flawless harmony, the incite the listener to: 

Shake it all off
Toss the ashes
Kick the door down
Smash the ceiling
Leave 'em reeling

Check out the accompanying video (directed by Lisa Schiller), and then revisit their November 2022 KEXP in-studio session below.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Outside - "Then It Hits You," a 2023 single on Dorado Records Limited.

"I’ve evolved the mixture of modern and retro," says multi-instrumentalist, writer, and arranger Matt Cooper. "That’s the Outside sound."

Cooper began Outside during the '90s London club scene, releasing his 1993 debut album Almost In at the age of 20. Now, 30 years later, he returns with a forthcoming sixth studio album, Almost Out. The album was recording during lockdown from his home studio in west London, and in a press release, he calls it, "a distillation of everything I’ve produced here." Today's Song of the Day gives us an early listen; the track features guest vocals from Danish artist Marie Dahlstrom.

"This album is a lot more minimal," he continues. "I used to throw the kitchen sink into each song, and have massive layers. I’ve evolved: I can have fewer instruments, but those instruments speak better because they have room to breathe."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Rose City Band - “Chasing Rainbows” from the 2023 album Garden Party on Thrill Jockey.

Rose City Band, the brainchild of Ripley Johnson (also of Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo and, with a name like that, was either born to play music or be the keeper of facts that you may, or may not, believe) is due to release their fourth record later this month. Titled Garden Party, the album follows up 2021’s Earth Trip and is said to be, “A celebration of summer and all it brings: communal gatherings, the respites offered by nature, and an appreciation for even the simplest beauty, from 12-foot sunflowers to a contorted carrot planted in the spring.”

The record’s lead single and our Song of the Day does not dispute that claim. “Chasing Rainbows,” by name alone, suggests the nostalgic innocence of childhood when one’s summer days might consist of chasing things one cannot capture but deeply believe they can. Led by a rollicking pedal steel by Barry Walker, the song actually tells a story not of childhood but on the road on tour, which can feel like a certain kind of childhood in that your days are filled with car rides and playing music. ”Tour ‘round the world and back,” sings Johnson. “Throw it out and you blaze a path /Wanderin' a dream all our own.”

Rose City Band will be chasing rainbows all the way to Seattle on Friday, May 5th to play the Tractor Tavern. Read Martin Douglas’ Throwaway Style piece on Rose City Band and watch Ripley Johnson front a Wooden Shjips KEXP in-studio performance from all the way back in 2013 at the full post at KEXP.org.

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Tanukichan - “Thin Air (feat. Enumclaw)” from the 2023 album GIZMO on Company Records.

Last month, San Francisco-based artist Hannah Van Loon, known better as Tanukichan, released her incredible sophomore record GIZMO which widened the depth of the shoegaze-indebted dreampop that she’s been making since 2016. Co-produced by Toro y Moi’s Chaz Bear, who’s been assisting Van Loon since her debut EP Radiolove, GIZMO is a massively textured record that deserves repeat listens.

One of the highlights on the record comes from an unexpected but deeply exciting collaboration with one of Seattle’s brightest rising stars, Enumclaw. The band’s frontman Aramis Johnson lends vocals on our fuzz-filled Song of the Day, “Thin Air.” Johnson’s languid, disaffected croons interplay with Van Loon’s ethereal, breathy hums in a way that on paper doesn’t seem like it should work but come together magnificently for a wistful malaise that reads perfectly for this song.

"This song is about exes,” explains Van Loon. “Some people that I really cared about but ultimately didn’t want to be with.The sadness I feel when I’m hurting someone, and missing them and knowing you won’t ever have that closeness again. It’s about how important they are and how much they’ve taught me, or helped me, but how I also know that people come and go. The chorus has a double meaning for me where I feel like I can’t prioritize relationships because I need to keep on focusing on myself. The other is feeling like I’m broken and keep ending up with the wrong people, and hurting them."

Tanukichan will be playing her first KEXP in-studio session on Monday, April 24th at noon PST. Until then, relive Enumclaw’s KEXP in-studio session, recorded in November 2022, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Momma – “Bang Bang,” a 2023 single on Polyvinyl.

With their latest single "Bang Bang," Brooklyn-based trio Momma set out to write something provocative. “We wanted to write something lyrically different than anything else we’d done," explained band member Allegra Weingarten, "just super literal and crude."

Today's Song of the Day came out of a COVID bubble between Weingarten and her bandmate Etta Friedman. "We decided to isolate, get drunk, and write together,” Friedman said in a press release. “Within a night, we had demoed a hot sounding song about great sex.”

They sent the demo to their bandmate/bassist/producer Aron Kobayashi Ritch. "He sent us back a new version with a lot of added extra production: drums, bass, synths, acoustic guitar, etc. It felt totally different and fresh," Weingarten says. "The finished song has a lot of classic Momma – heavy guitars and catchy melodies – but packaged in a different form. It feels immediate, like a whole new sound for the band."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Indigo De Souza- “Younger and Dumber” from the 2023 album All of This Will End on Saddle Creek

On today's Song of the Day, Asheville, NC-based artist Indigo De Souza reflects on the insecurities of her youth. The track serves as a sneak peek to her forthcoming full-length, All Of This Will End, which will be released April 28th via Saddle Creek. 

In a press statement, she shares:

“Younger and Dumber” is a flood beam of my emotional and spiritual human experience. My growing up defeated by a world brutally littered with trash, violence and grief, and somehow finding beauty, purpose, and boundless love existing in the same place. This song felt really emotionally intense for me when I wrote it. I was sitting in my house and it kind of flowed right to me as if it had already been written by some other force. A lot of the lyrics are a nod to the idea that your experiences make you who you are. I endured some heavy darkness and dysfunction when I was a teenager. But if I hadn’t been through those things, I wouldn’t be who I am now. When you’re young, you don’t know any better, but you learn from your experiences, and then you become somebody who’s been alive and learning. It’s also about how heartbreaking that is; to start as a child with vivid curiosity, innocent imagination and joy, and for the world to end up being kind of brutal to be a part of. This song is a love letter to everyone’s inner child. No one can prepare us for how insane it is to be alive. How many times we will have to rise from the ashes and what courage it will take.

De Souza directed the song's accompanying music video, as well as co-designed the costumes alongside her mother. Of the clip, she says:

I took psilocybin for the shoot. I have a very specific way of dancing when I’m on mushrooms. The movements feel like electricity rising up from the earth through ancient networks of mycelium. It feels like the trees and plants are moving my body for me and I am just surrendering. It feels so clear to me now more than ever, how important it is to unabashedly embody my truest spirit. Because I am not special, and I’m fleeting, and it feels like it’s my purpose to help mobilize others to come home to themselves. To wake from our societal sleepwalk and consider the importance in creating deep connection within community and relationships. To find a preciousness in the time we have and the earth we’re nourished by. To see nature in all its primordial magic, as something to learn from and grow with. Something to protect.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Ven Y Mira - “Padre Nostro” from the 2023 self-released album Parque de Letras.

With today's Song of the Day, Mexico-based quartet Ven y Mira shares a sneak peek at their forthcoming debut full-length, Parque de Letras, due for release on April 28th. 

Expanding on the psych-inspired sounds we heard on last year's EP, Nota Roja, the group takes a harder, punk-influenced approach on today's featured track, crafting a cacophony of fierce percussion punctuated by impassioned vocals. 

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Who Is She? - My My Orca Card a 2023 single on Father/Daughter.

Seattle supergroup Who Is She?, made up of Bree McKenna of Tacocat, Robin Edwards AKA Lisa Prank, and Chastity Belt frontwoman Julia Shapiro, have been making sweetly sardonic music since 2017, when they released their debut record Seattle Gossip. After a few years of silence from the trio, the band went from Who Is She? to Where Are They? (Admittedly, busy with their other bands.) But they came back in a big way when they were invited to be the house band for Seattle’s newly established hockey team The Kraken for a weekend and played “My My Orca Card” at “Jeff Bezos’ Climate Pledge Arena.”

A reimagining of Le Tigre’s 1999 song “My My Metrocard,” the song takes aim at Amazon’s head honcho and multi-billionaire Bezos. “Oh, no /Jeffrey Bezos /He’s such /A total jerk /Shut down /all the bookstores /Billionaires /Do not work.” They were swiftly fired after one night of playing the song, making it the most punk, anti-establishment music moment to happen in Seattle in far too long.

Hear more about the story of how this legendary moment came to be in KEXP’s Dusty Henry’s interview with the band prior to their performance and watch Lisa Prank’s KEXP in-studio session from 2016 at KEXP.org.

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TV Star - In-Between from the 2023 album Hallucinate Me on Painter Man.

Seattle’s TV Star make desert-tinged neo-psych with nods to The Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Formed in 2020, the five-piece features members of Shine, Regional Justice Center, and Advertisement and unveiled their debut EP in February, Hallucinate Me.

Our Song of the Day is the rambling “In-Between,” the dreamy guitar-led early single off the record. Ashlyn Nagel’s crystalline vocals cry out with catharsis, “I’m comin clean/ I’m livin free/ The in-between,” about ditching what’s expected in order to become one’s authentic self. She had this to say about the song:

“‘In-Between’ is about breaking out of a funk, letting go of the pressure, and living the way you want to. It’s about caring less what others think and making self-fulfilling decisions.”

The song comes with a lo-fi fisheye shot video of the band on the road, being themselves. Watch the Nate Kahn-directed video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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DEBBY FRIDAY - "SO HARD TO TELL" from the 2023 album GOOD LUCK on Sub Pop

Nigerian-born, Toronto-based artist DEBBY FRIDAY needed some convincing before designating today's Song of the Day as the lead single from her debut album, GOOD LUCK, released just last week via Sub Pop Records. 

"Every single person that I would play the album to was like, 'This song, this song, this song, this song — this one has to be the first single!'" she told Exclaim!. It's a surprisingly softer side than we saw on DEBBY's 2019 EP DEATH DRIVE, with a graceful co-production from Graham Walsh (METZ, Holy Fuck). 

“I have a lower register and speak with vocal fry so I don’t know what came over me when I made this track,” she stated in a press release. “I have never in my life sung like this before and I had no idea I could even make these kinds of sounds with my voice. There’s no pitch effects on ‘SO HARD TO TELL,’ it’s all me.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Model/Actriz - Crossing Guard from the 2023 album Dogsbody on True Panther

Brooklyn-based band Model/Actriz taps into Greek mythology on today's Song of the Day.

The titular "Crossing Guard" is the figure Charon, the ferryman of the dead who transported the ghosts of the dead across the rivers Styx. As the post-punk band explained to Paper Mag, the accompanying music video, directed by Nathan Castiel, captures vocalist/lyricist Cole Haden conveying "the body's fragility and gradual degradation through slow, deliberate movement," via choreography by Alena Henke. 

The band also cites the track as the "initial creative revelations that guided and buoyed [them] to completing" their debut LP, Dogsbody, released last month via True Panther. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Caution - "To Decide" a 2022 single on Hardly Art.

Last year, local label Hardly Art Records celebrated its 15th anniversary by releasing 15 new singles from some of their favorite artists. They closed out the series back in December with this release from the duo Caution. 

Songwriters Cash Langdon and Nora Button formed the pairing in 2019, after departing the DC-based power-pop group Saturday Night. With Langdon relocating to Alabama and Button in Minnesota, they collaborated by sending files back and forth online.

For today's Song of the Day, Langdon shares, "The initial demo of ‘To Decide’ was created January 1st of 2022. The cold darkness of Minneapolis winter had pervaded my mood. The lyrics confront an inability to experience meaning and connection as well as a wavering between fear and acceptance of ephemerality." 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Kassa Overall - John Coltrane (Clifford Jordan Quartet) (feat. Tomoki Sanders & Vitamin D) from the 2023 self-released album Shades 3.

The ever-talented jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer Kassa Overall dropped the latest addition to his Shades mixtape series, Shades 3, in February as a sample-heavy remix project that fuses jazz with modern danceable drum machine rhythms in a gonzo approach to the jazz tradition. The Seattle-raised, Brooklyn-based artist has been blowing minds to a wide audience of fervent fans since the release of his acclaimed sophomore record I Think I’m Good in 2020 and this project does not disappoint.

Our Song of the Day reimagines the Clifford Jordan Quartet’s 1974 track “John Coltrane” with the help of New York-based multi-instrumentalist Tomoki Sanders on Tenor Sax and Derrick Jabar Brown, better known as Vitamin D, on vocals. “Welcome to the Upside Down” introduces the song before going into a profession for the love of jerk chicken. Over a warbling brass line, manipulated vocals cry out “Black spirit” while Vitamin D spits a verse about Black power and the incredible endurance and accomplishments of Black folks despite the many obstacles thrown at them.

Below, watch Kassa Overall’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2020 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Mic Flont & Khingz - Gucci (feat. Larisa Marie, AbJo) from the 2023 album Premium Smoke on OTOW.

Earlier this year, Seattle emcees Mic Flont and Khingz teamed up to drop the collaborative LP Premium Smoke via Operation Take Over the World (OTOW), a Seattle-based independent record label and multimedia collective. Our Song of the Day sees local musicians ABJO and Larisa Marie jump to provide production and vocals, respectively. It’s a downtempo slow-burner about feeling “Gucci/ Feelin good” and perfect to bump either when you're in the throes of elation or if you need a little boost to get there.

Read the full post at KEXP.org.

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rum.gold - "Water My Heart (feat. Mereba)" from the 2023 album U Street Anthology on Leola LLC.

Brooklyn-based artist rum.gold has been on a creative run since his 2018 debut EP yaRN. He followed with 2019's EP aiMless and the 2021 LP Thicker Than Water, a soulful, confessional full-length that was an introspective examination of upbringing, experience, and identity. 

His sophomore full-length, U Street Anthology, is right around the corner, but in the meantime, he's shared the slow-groove "Water My Heart." The track teams him up with Los Angeles-based artist Mereba for a delicate, romantic duet. Hear him turn the tides on today's Song of the Day, and catch him on May 4th at Madame Lou's with Seattle's own dsrt flwr opening.

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Jackie Venson - "Flying #evolution" from the 2023 self-released album Evolution of Joy.

When Jackie Venson named her latest LP Evolution of Joy, she meant it in more ways than one. Not only is this a re-working of her 2019 album Joy, but it's also reflective of the evolution she's seen in the music industry since the pandemic struck. 

“I released more music than I ever have before,” she told Austin Woman. “But that also led to more people discovering me that never had before. Then at the end of that year, I actually landed my first Austin City Limits TV taping, and it was because of all of the buzz that I had garnered. I shifted my whole career to the internet, made more music than I ever have in my life and also got more exposure than I ever have in my life. No label helps me get that exposure; all I did for that exposure was frequency.”

With Evolution of Joy, she continues, "everything is beefier. Everything’s bigger. Everything is more consistent. Everything is better put together, more organized, and the skills are better. The techniques are all there presented. I’m excited about having Evolution of Joy as a foundation for who I am now [and] releasing more projects under that foundation.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Taylar Elizza Beth & WD4D - "THE BEAST / DAY 117" from the 2023 self-released album UNDERCOVER LOVERGIRL.

On her new album UNDERCOVER LOVERGIRL, Seattle-based rapper Taylar Elizza Beth [aka Taylar White] reunites with producer and DJ WD4D (Blue Scholars, Abyssinian Creole, Common Market). The pair previously worked together on last year's EP, NINETY THREE.  “I want to have more say in what my sound sounds like — and so meeting up with WD4D and figuring out that we have a really great artistic chemistry, it was really serendipitous,” she told the South Seattle Emerald. And on this release, White gets her first producing credit. 

On her Bandcamp, she writes that UNDERCOVER LOVERGIRL “is for anyone who has an abundance of love to give, but hasn't always felt safe giving it. It's for people who have had to grow hardened, to protect themselves, to survive. It's for the romantics, the dreamers, the people who even after all the bullshit still know that love is real — because they are full of it.”

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Lalalar - Yalniz Olu Baliklar Akintiyi Takip Eder from the 2022 album Bi Cinnete Bakar on Bongo Joe Switzerland.

Lalalar are currently Turkey’s buzziest band and for good reason. The trio’s fusion of 70’s Anatolian rock and 80’s dark wave with a punk attitude make for an intoxicatingly fierce and innovative sound. While the band has only been around since 2018, Ali Güçlü Şimşek, Barlas Tan Özemek and Kaan Düzarat are established members of the Istanbul music scene so it was an almost-inevitable meeting of minds and an exciting one for those familiar with their prior work.

Last year they released their debut album Bi Cinnete Bakar, a 70-minute epic journey of head-bopping soundscapes. Our Song of the Day “Yalniz Olu Baliklar Akintiyi Takip Eder” was originally released in 2019 on the split 7” Isyanlar. One of the most psych-infused tracks on the record, the band amps the fuzz up to 11 with an explosive meandering guitar line that cools to let Şimşek recite his spoken word lyrics only to burst again when he steps off the mic. It’s a dynamic thrill ride that’s only a small portion of what Lalalar excels at.

To get a taste of Lalalar’s riveting live shows, watch a performance of Bi Cinette Bakar opening track "Isyanlar" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Ill Considered - Dawn Lit Metropolis from the 2020 album Band Selects on Ill Considered / New Soil.

Ill Considered are a UK-based improvisational jazz outfit that’s become a cult favorite after releasing nine albums between 2017-2019 of deep grooves made up completely on the spot. Led by Idris Rahman on sax, Leon Brichard on bass, Emre Ramazanoglu on drums, and Yahael Camara-Onono on percussion, the group’s recordings sound so tight it’s tough to believe that they weren’t written and rehearsed prior but that’s part of the magic of Ill Considered.

We’re taking it back to the beginning for our Song of the Day with “Dawn Lit Metropolis,” originally released on their 2017 self-titled record. The opening track off the LP, the song softly saunters in with a mischievously plucked upright bassline and a lone mournful brass. Frantic yet delicately pattered drums join in as the song builds over the course of its four-and-a-half-minute running time (a rather brief track for this group). It’s proof that sometimes less is more, with just bass, brass, and drums carrying the song its entire length, and can be just as - if not more- compelling a listen.

Watch the video for "Dawn Lit Metropolis" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Dame Area - "Esto me pertenece" from the 2022 album Esto me pertenece on Humo Internacional & BFE Records.

Barcelona-based duo Dame Area deliver their most dance-oriented release to date with Esto me pertenece. The post-industrial twosome of Silvia Konstance Costan and Victor Hurtado met in 2014 via Màgia Roja, a cultural center and record label. Combining their loves of krautrock, industrial, and black metal, they released their first single by the end of 2015. On today's Song of the Day, they bring these influences to the floor, punctuated by Silvia's vocalizations and a relentless rhythm. 

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Inês Malheiro - "Overflowing" from the 2022 album Deusa N​á​usea on Lovers & Lollypops / Inês Malheiro.

The debut album from Portuguese artist Inês Malheiro went through a few iterations before finally landing at Deusa N​áusea, released late last year. The songs evolved throughout the lockdown, "polarized, reversed, perplexed, epithelialized by espectral processes and beleza pura," as it states on her Bandcamp. 

“The album was not all made at the same time, it went through several stages and I would say that this is reflected in the lyrics as well," she told the culture website A Cabine. “I think that on this record I felt that the lyrics were more of a plastic material to guide the voice than an objective source of meaning."

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Grove - "Feed My Desire" a 2022 single on Memorials of Distinction x Grove.

Bristol-based artist Grove returns with a pulsating, gritty dancehall track, expanding on the club-inspired sound introduced on their 2021 debut release QUEER + BLACK. Today's Song of the Day finds Grove teaming up with fellow Bristol producer Kursa, as well as their partner EJ:AKIN. 

“After getting this beautifully dark, skippy UKG beat through from Kursa and making my own additions – the concept and lyrics spilled straight out of my mind," she shares in a press release. "It's born out of sweaty and interlocked nights, with the rises and rests of intensity that entails. It's passionate, cheeky and queer through and through." 

"My partner (both romantically and on-stage), EJ:AKIN, also wrote the gnarly synth part that comes in. They're a bass demon and they're amazing. Definitely my most collaborative release to date with Kursa, EJ, and I all on the making, and I'm so happy about it :-)"

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Cherry Ferrari - Call Me Up a 2023 self-released single.

Cherry Ferrari is the project of teenagers Emma Wang and Oliver Crosby. While they’ve been in existence for roughly a year and currently have just two singles in their discography, those pair of songs are exciting enough to warrant paying attention to the young Seattle band. And people certainly have, if their slots on beloved local stages like the Crocodile and Barboza are any proof.

Our Song of the Day, “Call Me Up,” is a slinky funk track with an infectious hook that’s impossible to not sway your hips to. Taking inspiration from disco funk greats and modern pop, Cherry Ferrari have a retro-futuristic sound that’s fresh, fun, and groovy.

Cherry Ferrari will be competing in this year’s 2nd annual 21-and-under Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) music showcase, Sound Off! They’ll be performing on Saturday, March 11th alongside other up-and-coming local artists Stargazy Pie, Fight Milk, and Sadie Hale. Watch a snippet of a self-made video for “Call Me Up” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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JusMoni & Nappy Nina - Henny Lavender a 2023 self-released single.

If you feel like you just saw a Song of the Day feature from Seattle-based singer/songwriter JusMoni and Oakland-born/Brooklyn-based emcee Nappy Nina, it’s because you did. Earlier this week, we shared the song “Prayer Hands” off Nappy Nina’s latest album Morning Due and today we’re sharing another collaboration between the two artists, “Henny Lavender.”

Released in February alongside the drop of an exclusive candle and clothing collab with the fashion retailer and creative agency Paradice Avenue Souf, the song is dripping with erotic sensuality. While “Prayer Hands” leaned on Nappy Nina’s dexterous rhymes with JusMoni adding gorgeous vocal flourishes, “Henny Lavender” is a true collaboration. Backed by a sexy synth slow jam beat produced by 104Rog, JusMoni coos while Nappy Nina flows about their belief in love and desire for the carnal aspects of it.

Watch JusMoni’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Rahill - "I Smile for E" from the 2023 album Flowers At Your Feet on Big Dada.

With today's Song of the Day, Iranian-American artist Rahill shares a sneak peek at her forthcoming debut album, Flowers At Your Feet, out May 12th via Ninja Tune imprint Big Dada. 

The track is a tribute to her late Aunt Elaheh. As Rahill writes on Instagram, "The rock of my fathers family. A beloved mother, daughter, sister, and wife. I wrote this song to celebrate and honor her, because the love shared and connection I still feel to her outshine the devastation of her departure from the physical realm. She’s still with me. May this song be a gentle reminder to anyone walking with that pain and grief."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Nappy Nina - "Prayer Posture (feat. JusMoni)" from the 2023 album Mourning Due on LucidHaus.

On her latest LP Mourning Due, Nappy Nina, as she puts it, "considers grief a currency and questions who is owed what." The Oakland-born/Brooklyn-based artist delivers vulnerable lyrics in her distinctive rapid-fire style, like a conversation with a friend who's had too many cups of coffee. 

Mourning Due features a plethora of guests, including Moor Mother, Mavi, lojii, maassai, Cavalier, Stas Thee Boss, and on today's Song of the Day, JusMoni. The track is produced by Nina's frequent collaborator, Nelson Bandela. "Prayer Posture" explores the uncertainty of life. As Nina raps "Shit won't last on some quarter notes / I may laugh but I'm hoarding hope and reading my homies' horoscopes," JusMoni coos in a following line, "I feel like the worlds on fire / none of us know how to swim." It's a relatable emotion, that resonates throughout the whole reflective album. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Lavarr the Starr & Shabazz Palaces - "Glass Top Roof (The One)" from the 2023 album Illusions Ago on Glass Cane Records.

Like many of Ishmael Butler's projects, this collaboration between Lavarr the Starr & Shabazz Palaces is shrouded in mystery. Their Bandcamp tells us they're based in Lagos, Nigeria, and that today's Song of the Day features "Lavarr sings of blissing, riding around with 🧁 sun roof peeled tunes floating cuz Love Ain't Dead." Luxuriate in a backyard hang with the track's accompanying video, directed by Natalie Worgs for gIRLS aBOUT pECKHAM productions.

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Zari Alexandria - (Gotta Get) Over You from the 2022 self-released Congratulations, I'm Angry EP.

19-year-old Zari Alexandria has been honing her vocal abilities since childhood, performing in choir and musical theater and delving into songwriting at fourteen. After spending the past five years sharpening her skills and finding her sound, she released her debut EP Congratulations, I’m Angry in 2021. Made up of six tracks of emotionally-charged R&B/pop tracks, it’s an excellent introduction to an artist determined to climb her way to the top.

Our Song of the Day is the EP’s lead single “(Gotta Get) Over You,” a heartbreak banger led by a synth piano line and a softly driving electronic drum beat. In it, Alexandria relays an all-too-familiar story for many of a romantic partner stringing her along and the final realization that she’s just gotta get over them because “You make me feel bad.”

Alexandria will be competing in this year’s 2nd annual 21-and-under Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) music showcase, Sound Off! She’ll be performing on Saturday, March 4th alongside other up-and-coming local artists Midpak, Podesta, and Wyatt Silva. Watch the official video for the Congratulations, I’m Angry track “Be Gone” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Yves Tumor - Echolalia from the 2023 album Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) on Warp.

Genre-bending visionary Yves Tumor is set to release their fourth full-length Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) on March 17th and the anticipation couldn’t be higher. After breaking through in a big way with their acclaimed 2020 record Heaven To A Tortured Mind, Tumor has been proving their rock god excellence through their expertly crafted blend of rock, psychedelia, R&B, and electronica as well as their larger-than-life androgynous stage persona.

The second single off the album, released in February, is our Song of the Day “Echolalia.” Led by syncopated drumming and a buzzing guitar riff, the song churns with momentum as Tumor sings of an all-consuming kind of love to a person referred to as “God” and the madness a love like this provokes. Meanwhile, the spoken-word interlude advises against this. “If you say you love me and you, like, your happiness only depends on me, it might not be true love. Maybe it's something you need and you want, but you think it's love, it's not love.”

The song comes with a striking video directed by Jordan Hemmingway which leans on a Gulliver’s Travels-type theme, with a team of tiny Tumors taking down one giant one. Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) is produced by Noah Goldstein (Frank Ocean, Rosalía, Drake, Rihanna, Bon Iver), and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails). It also features contributions from Chris Greatti (Yungblud, WILLOW), Yves Rothman (Girlpool, Amaarae) and Rhys Hastings.

Watch the video for “Echolalia” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Petite Noir - "Simple Things (feat. Theo Croker)" from the 2023 album MotherFather on Roya.

Petite Noir (real name: Yannick Ilunga) shares a message of empowerment on today's Song of the Day. 

“’Simple Things’ is about taking back your power,” the Congolese artist states in a press release. “It’s a song for the people, to embrace harmony, reject division, and recognise that freedom comes from within.”

The track features trumpet from Grammy-nominated, Floridian jazz musician Theo Croker, and will appear on his forthcoming sophomore LP MotherFather, out April 14th via Roya Records. It'll be his first new release since 2018's mini-album La Maison Noir / The Black House, and his 2020 singles “Alive” and “Through the Bad Times.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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M83 - "Amnesia" from the 2023 album Fantasy on Mute.

Earlier this month, M83 shared six songs from their forthcoming ninth LP Fantasy, due out March 17th via Mute. In a press release, primary songwriter/frontman Anthony Gonzalez claims it'll be his most intimate release yet. "I wanted to be more present lyrically and vocally even if that was daunting at first. I thought if I could achieve that, this album will be more personal than those that came before.”

He adds, “I wanted this record to be very impactful live. The idea was to come back with something closer to the energy of [his 2005 album] Before the Dawn Heals Us. The combination of guitars and synths is always in my music, but it’s maybe more present on this new record than on the previous ones.”

You can experience the impact yourself when M83 stops in Seattle for two dates at Showbox SoDo on May 10th and 11th.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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June McDoom - "On My Way" from the 2022 June McDoom EP on Temporary Residence Ltd.

Singer/songwriter June McDoom taps into her family history for her music: her parents relocated from Jamaica to New York City in the 1970s. As an adult, she began listening to folk artists from that era, like Joan Baez and Judee Sill, vintage soul from The Delfonics and The Supremes, and reggae artists her family listened to, like Alton Ellis and Phyllis Dillo. On her self-titled debut EP, she infuses these influences through a mix of analog and digital recording techniques. 

“‘On My Way’ is about making my way through life while sharing it with another person," she told Beats Per Minute. "About how grounding and scary it can be to share a life with someone, while both working to fulfill life’s passions and dreams. Living in NYC always feels like a journey just getting from one place to another and life can feel just the same.”

"I recorded several versions of this song, with earlier versions at a slower tempo. Then one day I had an idea to try recording it one more time from scratch a little faster, after continually feeling like it needed something more/dragged a bit and it ended up fitting a lot better so we followed through with that final arrangement. With the tempo change of the final version, I wanted to also texturally mirror the message of traveling and working towards a destination with low and high moments."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Pilot Seat - Spinning Circles a 2022 self-released single.

The Shoreline, WA-based band Pilot Seat only just started playing together in 2021 and released their first three singles in 2022 but have already made a name for themselves locally with a strong legion of loyal fans huddled closely to the stages they’ve played. The video for their second single “A Place Like Nowhere Else” has already racked up 2.7k views in the five months since its release which is nothing to scoff at for a band just at its beginning.

Our Song of the Day, “Spinning Circles,” is their third and latest release and shows the band at their dreamiest. The song starts with a jangly guitar melody and softly cooed lyrics about the anxieties that plague the mind late at night with the song building and bursting with cathartic release, mimicking the moments of letting go.

Pilot Seat will be competing in this year’s 2nd annual 21-and-under Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) music showcase, Sound Off! They’ll be performing on Saturday, February 25th alongside other up-and-coming local artists King Zaae, defsharp, and lavenderhayez. Watch the official video for “A Place Like Nowhere Else,” directed by Quang Nguyen, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Spirit Award - Pushing Forward from the 2023 album The Fear on Share It Music.

Seattle’s Spirit Award, the project of Daniel Lyon and currently with Chris Jordan of Sunny Day Real Estate on bass, has been fine-tuning his brand of doom-filled psychedelic indie for over seven years now, with his upcoming fourth studio album The Fear destined to be one of his best. While they may only have one single out, it’s an incredibly strong one and shows that Spirit Award are only getting better.

“Pushing Forward” is a psychedelic journey into the recesses of the mind that technically refers to drugs but can be taken to a larger level. Unlike the long journey that drugs often take a mind through, the song breezes by with its layers of dreamy guitar play. While the song specifically references the paranoia post-drugs that requires one to either succumb to the fear or push forward through it, it has deeper layers for Lyon.

“This idea for this song came about at a time of growth and realization, during some sleepless nights,” explains Lyon. “I had so many things getting thrown my way throughout my musical career; Vans getting broken into, gear stolen, rehearsal space getting robbed, identity getting stolen, van getting stolen, health problems, and most of all financial problems. The worst of all these has been a post-pandemic landscape which has changed how bands tour and put out music and try to make a living doing so. This has not only affected musicians but also music venues. Throughout all this, as a person and as a musician, I have always tried to keep ‘pushing forward’. So this song became a motivation to do so and sort of a rallying cry for our music community. I am thankful to have had the support of MusiCares and friends that helped me through a journey of growth and discovery. And knowing that no matter how low things get, there is hope.”

The Fear is out May 19th via Share It Music. The video for “Pushing Forward” sees Lyon traverse a wild night helmed by some mystically masked characters and is directed by Seattle’s Eric Luck. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Thrillhouse - "Fatal Flaw," a 2022 self-released single.

Brighton duo Thrillhouse channel the '80s (Echo & the Bunnymen, in particular) on their latest single, "Fatal Flaw." ("Hopefully it’s not toooo similar. Eek," they joked to Analogue Trash.)

"We’ve never really settled on a sound," they continued. "Will probably be the cause of our eventual demise down the road. But it’s nice to write different types of songs otherwise the whole thing gets a bit stale, I think."

With today's Song of the Day, Thrillhouse pens an ode to supportive friends. "It’s kinda like a love letter to people that stick by you when you’re having a crap time. So, more of a thanks to the people in my life that have been nice, rather than a particular moment."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Screaming Females - "Brass Bell" from the 2023 album Desire Pathway on Don Giovanni

Jersey trio Screaming Females continue to pave their own punk-rock path on their latest LP Desire Pathway, out now via Don Giovanni Records. Vocalist/guitarist Marissa Paternoster speaks to the album title, sharing, "Maybe there was one in your neighborhood growing up, a corner where everyone decided it took too long to go around, so they made their own pathway to cut through. There’s this cool unsaid group consciousness that comes together where everyone decides, this is the right way to go."

With today's Song of the Day, she reflects on sacrifice, stating, "'Brass Bell’ is a song about surrendering your autonomy to something so overwhelmingly powerful you willingly relinquish your ambitions and self-worth. My intention was to draw an interesting dichotomy between the muscular nature of the song and the rather bleak, worried lyrics.”

Screaming Females will be playing in Seattle on Wednesday, April 12th at Madame Lou's with Smirk and Generacion Suicida. More dates on their website here.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Eyelids - "Colossal Waste of Light" from the 2023 album A Colossal Waste of Light on Jealous Butcher.

Portland supergroup Eyelids have gotten even more powerful on their fourth LP, A Colossal Waste of Light, which will be released on March 10 via Jealous Butcher Records. Songwriters John Moen (of The Decemberists) and Chris Slusarenko (formerly of Guided by Voices) are now joined by Victor Krummenacher (of Camper Van Beethoven) alongside existing members Jonathan Drews (guitar) and Paulie Pulvirenti (drums). Their latest album is produced by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, also a guest musician on the release. He'll be accompanying the band on March 11th when Eyelids plays the Sunset Tavern in Seattle. 

Today's Song of the Day was released with a video from their longtime director John Clark; the band members are captured in papier-mâché, using figurines made by Scottish artist Jo Hamilton and bodies built by multi-talent Moen. "We still have that Little Rascals 'let's put on a show' with every Eyelids video," the band state on their website. "This one might take the cake, though. It's beautiful and ridiculous in equal measure."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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King Zaae - Someplace Somewhere a 2022 self-released single.

Seattle-based artist King Zaae may be young at only 17 but he already has a widespread discography of genre-fluid sounds in the six years he’s been making music when he started fiddling with making music on his iPhone at eleven years old. Since 2021, though, his music has really started to take shape, refining his production techniques for a fully formed yet ever-changing musical identity.

His earlier mixtapes like I Hate This Town and debut album Being Sad is a Cliché saw King Zaae lean into the emo influences he gleamed from his auntie like My Chemical Romance, Hawthorne Heights, and American Football. In recent singles (of which he’s released over a dozen since the start of 2022), he’s explored everything from R&B and funk to hyper-pop. Our Song of the Day, “Someplace Somewhere,” is a softly-strummed R&B ballad that leans on King Zaae’s smooth vocals while a warbling synth and a hypnotic electric guitar melody keep meter. The main element of emo - longing - is still present but in a more Frank Ocean than Gerard Way manner.

King Zaae will compete in this year’s 2nd annual 21-and-under Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) music showcase, Sound Off! He’ll perform on Saturday, February 25th alongside other up-and-coming local artists Pilot Seat, defsharp, and lavenderhayez. Watch the official video for “Being Sad Is a Cliche” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Oddisee - Try Again from the 2023 album To What End on Outer Note Label.

In January, rapper/producer Oddisee dropped his twelfth studio album, To What End, which explores human ambition, posing the question: “How far are you willing to go, and why?” This idea is expressed in our Song of the Day and early single “Try Again.”

Backed by a funky groove, the DC-based emcee waxes about growing from the trials and tribulations he previously endured. "Couple wins, couple L’s / Took a hit but I prevailed/ Now I got the gist on how to flip it when I fail." Synth keys, rapid-firing drums, and a luscious guitar lick round out the infectious dance jam as Oddisee encourages listeners to not let their losses define them, proclaiming "All this time you spent / All that love you gave/ Please don’t walk away / Try again.”

Watch Oddisee’s stirring Live from KEXP at Home performance and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad - "Fire In Detroit", a 2023 single on Jazz Is Dead.

Launched in 2020, the Jazz is Dead series is an ongoing series from producers Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, aiming to elevate some legends of the genre with original collaborations. For the latest edition, the guys team up with trombonist Phil Ranelin and saxophonist Wendell Harrison, founders of the '70s Detroit-based label and collective, Tribe Records.

Tribe Records was more than just an independent record label; it was a community-run organization that tackled all aspects of an album release, including promotion, distribution, and publishing. Their message was "music is the healing force of the universe," and it's a motto that Jazz is Dead keeps alive with their own releases. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Ivy Sole - "Don't Hide (feat. Kingsley Ibeneche)" a 2023 single on Ivy Sole LLC / Venice Music

Candid, the latest album from Philly-based Pan-Africanist artist Ivy Sole, is presented as triptych, inspired by her parents' love story and how it shaped her own views on relationships. 

As she told Metal Magazine, "How the story unfolds in this album is not identical to how it transpired in the lives of my parents, or even in my life, but this much is true – Candid helped me love myself and love my family in ways I could never have imagined and confirmed that our enemy is not each other but the world we live in. How could I not talk about that when the world has only gotten more deadly for all of us?"

Today's Song of the Day finds Sole reuniting with previous collaborator Kingsley Ibeneche, a singer/songwriter/dancer in his own right. Watch them perform in the music video below, directed by Sole and filmed by Wren Rene. 

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C.S. Armstrong - "MA EMILY (feat. Rapsody)" from the 2022 self-released album THE MAKINGS OF ME.

During the three years of lockdown, Houston, Texas-based artist C.S. Armstrong didn't release any original music. But the period gave him time to reflect. "The pandemic allowed me to sit with myself" he continues. "God told me to began producing, with not much knowledge I started to learn how to produce. I used God and my ears, I followed both until I reached this project that I’m so happy to finally give you."

THE MAKINGS OF ME was produced by Armstrong with additional production by Miles James. The eight-song EP ranges from hip-hop to blues and gospel. As Armstrong calls it, it's a "journey through the things that made me who I am today."

Today's Song of the Day is one of the most personal songs on the new release, inspired by his great-great-grandmother, Ma Emily. (In fact, the album cover photo was taken at her home.) Armstrong talked to our own DJ Gabriel Teodros about the song's origins:

The song came about through a conversation with my mom actually. I was just asking about the history of my family and she talked about Ma Emily and that was her great-grandmother. She was just telling me her experiences with her and I took that conversation and really, I wanted to dive into, you know, generational curses that we all trying to break. And it came out literally — I didn't write anything — everything really just came out natural. So, for you to be highlighting such a personal song, it truly means a lot to me.

Also, I sent it to [guest vocalist] Rapsody and I've been working with Rapsody since about 2012, and you know, she's always been supportive. When she sent her verse back, I literally, you know, fell to tears, man, because it's amazing not to have to explain too much to people. We did that through text, you know, I texted her. We weren't in the same room. I sent it to her and she sent it back in a matter of days and it gave me chills, man. So, shout out to Rapsody for delivering such a phenomenal verse. I think one of my favorite verses of last year.

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Fight Milk - ICU from the 2022 self-released Fight Milk EP.

Fight Milk is the project of Redmond, Washington-based project of Jackson Leavitt, who has been releasing singles and EPs since 2019 under the name. Influenced highly by campy ‘80’s new wave bands like Devo, Fight Milk’s shows are a multi-disciplinary audiovisual experience made to entertain.

Our Song of the Day, “ICU,” comes off of 2022’s self-titled EP and is a high-energy bop led by tapping synth rhythms and a scorching guitar melody, with Leavitt fusing very real and vulnerable feelings of longing with silly voices and lines that brings to life the absurdity that is longing. “I wanna see you so bad, it hurts me all of the time /It's like when you cut your thumb, and then you heal it with lime,” sings Leavitt like a long-forgotten Hawthorne Heights track before following with a bridge of, “Romp around the rink, romp around the rink /Where do you think /Romp around the rink, romp around the rink /Star on the sink.”

Fight Milk will be competing in this year’s Sound Off!, a showcase for young artists in the surrounding Seattle area that has helped prior artists like Falon Sierra, Jason McCue, Naked Giants, Manatee Commune, Maiah Manser, and more gain a platform and industry education to bring their music to the mainstream. Watch the video for other Fight Milk track “Grenge” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Avalanche Kaito - Dabalomuni from the 2022 Dabalomuni EP on Glitterbeat Records.

Avalanche Kaito is as their name suggests, an avalanche of disparate sounds, ideas, and ancestral odes. Made up of Burkinabe griot singer and multi-instrumentalist Kaito Winse and Brussels noise punk musicians Benjamin Chaval (drums, electronics) and Nico Glitter (guitar), the trio fuse West African oral traditions with pummeling post-punk for a sound so unique it defies categorization.

Our Song of the Day, “Dabalomuni,” comes from the three-song EP of the same name, released in early 2022 and catapulting them into the European festival circuit, the international consciousness, and even the Grammys stage. The song is ferocious, with super-charged, sinewy post-punk rhythms backing a myriad of tribal instrumentation, glitchy electronic flourishes, and Winse’s powerful, bellowing recitations for a hypnotic experience that makes one ask, “What the hell just happened?”

Watch a mesmerizing live performance of the song and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Tautumeitas - "Spodrē Manu Augumiņu" from the 2022 self-released album Skrejceļš.

Latvian ensemble Tautumeitas take traditional folk songs and folklore from their homeland and update them with modern beats and production. Their latest album, Skrejceļš, was crafted with their long-time producer Reini Sējanus, as well as Swedish producer Povel Olsson. 

Today's Song of the Day is a celebration of the winter solstice, as captured in the accompanying video, directed by Dārta Apsīte. The clip was filmed in early November on the coast of Vidzeme, using light installations to convey how "in ancient traditions, through disguise and rituals, people became brighter and stronger."

In the same press release, percussionist/vocalist Aurēlija Rancāne explains the masks worn: “Masks are made of various plants and cereals found in Latvian nature, as well as components of electrical appliances that no longer function in everyday life. This is a direct reference to tradition, because in the past, masks were used to integrate objects and clothes that are no longer used in everyday life." Watch below.

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Jembaa Groove - "Bassa Bassa" from the 2022 album Susuma on Agogo Records.

The word “Jembaa” translates to “life,” and a "groove in life" is what Berlin-based Afro-Soul band Jembaa Groove aims to inspire with their music. Bassist/composer Yannick Nolting and vocalist/percussionist Eric Owusu happened to meet in late 2020 when they were each picking up their sons from kindergarten. Before too long, they'd assembled a seven-piece band to meld influences from traditional West African styles (like Highlife, Adowa, and Wassoulou) with ‘60s and ‘70s soul music. 

In a press statement, the band explained they wrote today's Song of the Day "to motivate people." They continue, "It’s an energy and it’s for people who are looking to make a vibe, especially the new generation. It’s for those people who are fed up with the mess that is everywhere at the moment."

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Noah Coinflip - Journey (feat. Porsche) from the 2022 self-released album God Is Love.

Seattle-via-Alabama producer Noah Coinflip released his latest album God Is Love back in November. According to Bandcamp, the album is “an exploration of themes related to finding a transformative higher power through compassion and community” as well as “an exploration of the mystery behind the higher power” and “a prayer of surrender.”

That’s expressed most clearly in our Song of the Day “Journey.” One of the few tracks on the vibey instrumental record with vocals, Coinflip, who is also a member of the jazz fusion band Animal Face and engineer at South Seattle studio Mead St., lays down a swirling beat chock full of ripping electric guitars and glitchy flourishes, anchored by a smooth and sexy synth melody. Over it, Porsche articulates through spoken word the power of inner purpose, perseverance, and love.

Watch Noah Coinflip wield magic in a live video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Christine and the Queens - la clairefontaine from the 2022 album Redcar les adorables étoiles (prologue) on Because Music.

In November, Christine and the Queens dropped their latest album Redcar les adorables étoiles which also unveiled a new persona for frontperson Chris, Redcar (he/him). The record follows the 2020 EP La vita nuova and his sophomore album, Chris, released in September 2018. One of the lead singles and standout songs of Redcar les adorables étoiles is “la clairefontaine,” a mesmerizing and ethereal track that showcases Chris' unique blend of nostalgic synthpop and modern electronic music.

With its hypnotic pace and twinkling synths, the song transports listeners to a dreamlike world where the starry night sky speaks through Chris' pristine vocals. As the track slowly unfolds, its soft percussion and intricately layered production reveal a soundscape that is both nostalgic and contemporary. This standout track from Chris' third studio album, Redcar les adorables étoiles, is a testament to the musician's artistry and showcases their ability to create music that is both captivating and timeless.

Watch Christine and the Queens’ 2020 Live on KEXP at Home performance and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Fievel Is Glauque - "My Rebel" from the 2022 album Flaming Swords on MATH Interactive.

Taking their name from a diss on a 1986 cartoon character, Belgium-based vocalist Ma Clément and NY producer/musician Zach Phillips comprise the duo that is Fievel Is Glauque. ("Fievel" is a mouse who stars in the animated An American Tail film series; the internet says "glauque" translates from French to "sinister, ominous, worrying.") 

The jazzy-pop of their 2021 debut cassette God’s Trashmen Sent To Right The Mess landed them an opening slot on Stereolab's recent North American tour, but their first proper LP — Flaming Swords, released back in November — adds a sheen to their prog-punk-jazz sound. The album was recorded live, in its entirety, during an evening in Brussels, August 2021. 

“Musically, Ma directed melodic impetus and I directed harmonic and rhythmic framing,” Phillips said in a press release. “Lyrically, we fought and embraced our initial impulses alternatingly; above all, we tried to trust and document the psychodynamics of the process itself rather than attempting to express concrete, prefab emotional or intellectual messaging. This approach to writing is intended to promote poetry while avoiding alibis and the hall-of-mirrors reproduction of excessive self-identification.”

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MIKE - Stop Worry! (feat. Sister Nancy) from the 2022 album Beware of the Monkey on 10k

London-via-the-Bronx artist Michael Jordan Bonema (better known as MIKE to us) has recruited the legendary Sister Nancy to help out on today's Song of the Day. Sister Nancy is the first ever female dancehall DJ, and her repeated refrain to "wake up" helps elevate this laid-back, synthesizer-laden song. 

The track can be found on his latest full-length Beware of the Monkey, titled after some advice he found in his Chinese horoscope. Like on previous releases, the new album honors the memory of his mother. The video, directed by Ryosuke Tanzawa, is dedicated to her, and the single was released on what would've been his mother's birthday.

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A party in the Bronx on August 11th, 1973 is widely considered to be the birthplace of hip-hop. The art form has since touched every corner of our world and evolved into one of the most significant cultural forces today. This year, on hip-hop's 50th anniversary, we’re giving it a proper tribute. 

50 Years of Hip-Hop is KEXP’s newest podcast. Hosted by Larry Mizell Jr, the series highlights a different year of rap history each week. Jumping around the timeline from 1973 to today, expect personal reflections, iconic tracks and albums, and conversations around the genesis of the culture. New episodes drop every Wednesday starting February 1. 

Subscribe to 50 Years of Hip-Hop now and learn more at KEXP.org.

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Liv.e - "Wild Animals" from the 2023 album Girl In The Half Pearl on In Real Life Music.

Psychedelic soulstress Liv.e returns with her sophomore full-length Girl in the Half Pearl, out February 10 via In Real Life. The Dallas-born, Los Angeles-based singer/producer found inspiration while experimenting with live performance at her residency last year at London's Laylow.

Today's Song of the Day was co-written and produced with John Carroll Kirby and Solomonphonic, and is accompanied by a video directed by herself. 

“I really love the process of coming up with a vision and doing my best to ensure that it will come out just as it was in my imagination,” Liv.e shared in a press release. “I tend to use almost all my practices as another way to strengthen my trust and belief in myself. The concept is just based on the release of letting go old ‘people pleasing’ habits that I tended to act on in the past a lot. A depiction of gaining the strength & courage to choose myself every time.”

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Hibou - Night Fell from the 2023 self-released Arc EP.

Hibou, the solo project of former Seattlite Peter Michel, dropped his first body of music in three years earlier this month. The five-song EP Arc builds upon the dreamy atmospherics that have been his signature since releasing his debut self-titled back in 2015. Now living in Paris, Michel was inspired by “an electric arc between things, or arc lightning” when titling his new EP.

Our Song of the Day “Night Fell” is a shimmering, nostalgic bridge between shoegaze and dreampop with only a steady, pulsing drumbeat keeping our feet planted on ground lest we float straight to the heavens. “It’s exhilarating to be releasing new Hibou music after spending so much of the last several years concentrating on my folk project,” Michel says of Arc. “‘Night Fell’ feels like the perfect song to kick things back into gear. Packed tightly into this track is my return to the lush textured melodies and breezy blend of gossamer vocals that comprise Hibou.”

Michel spent the summer writing Arc along the Canal de l’Ourcq in Paris, before recording in various apartments, bathrooms and rehearsal spaces in the city. The EP was engineered and produced by Michel himself, who also performs vocals, guitar, and bass on each track, with drums provided by Jase Ihler.

Watch Hibou’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2019 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Black Belt Eagle Scout - Don't Give Up from the 2023 album The Land, The Water, The Sky on Saddle Creek.

Three years after the release of her sophomore record At the Party Wtih My Brown Friends, Katherine Paul unveiled the new Black Belt Eagle Scout single "Don't Give Up." The song is a dreamy, emotive gift to her Indigenous Swinomish, WA community, where over a melancholic guitar melody she hushedly touches on mental health awareness and the importance of connection to the land in the healing process. Paul wrote the song over the course of two years, starting in 2020 at a songwriting residency in Coast Salish territory before the pandemic and finishing in November 2021 while attending the same residency again.

She had this to say about the song:

“'Don’t Give Up' is a song about mental health awareness and the importance that my connection to the land plays within my own mental health journey. Spending time with the land and on the water are ways that strengthen my connection to my ancestors and to my culture. It helps heal my spirit and is the form of self-care that helps me the most. The lyrics “I don’t give up” mean staying alive. I wrote this song for me but also for my community and anyone who deals with challenging mental health issues to remind us just how much of a role our connection to the environment plays within our healing process. At the end of the song when I sing, “The land, the water, the sky,” I wanted to sing it like my late grandfather Alexander Paul Sr. sang in our family’s big drum group—from the heart."

Black Belt Eagle Scout is embarking on a tour in February, with a date in Seattle on Wednesday, February 15th at Neumos. Watch Black Belt Eagle Scout’s KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Genesis Owusu – “Get Inspired,” a 2022 single on Ourness

With his 2021 debut LP Smiling with No Teeth, Ghanaian-Australian artist Genesis Owusu swept the ARIA Music Awards (like the Australian Grammys) landing Album of the Year, Best Hip Hop Release, Best Independent Release, and even Best Cover Art.

As we await another full-length, Owusu has shared some stand-alone singles, including today's Song of the Day, which brings a fun new wave-feel to his lightning-quick raps. The track is accompanied by a video made in collaboration with creative agency Babekühl and illustrator/animator Chris Yee. Owusu heads to the US later this year, touring in support of Paramore. No Seattle dates yet, but stay tuned.

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Gladie - "Heaven, Someday" from the 2022 album Don’t Know What You’re in Until You’re Out on Plum Records

Recorded in early 2022, Philadelphia band Gladie chose an appropriate name for their second LP: Don’t Know What You’re in Until You’re Out. The thoughtful title covers more than just the pandemic. As frontwoman Augusta Koch explained to Flood magazine, "We decided to name the record this because it deals a lot with the theme of shifting into a new mindset, and with that change you can objectively look back and see what you were going through without your thought processes being clouded by being in the thick of it." She adds, "I think it’s also an ambiguous title in a way, because I like the idea that it can be interpreted as both a positive and a negative. Like, the duality of both ‘you don’t know what you’re in until you’re out’ could seem sad because it implies hardship and turmoil, but it can also seem hopeful in the sense that although you’re going through something really rough, there’s hope that it will get better — you will change, you will survive it, and you will be able to view yourself and your surroundings from a totally new perspective."

Today's Song of the Day continues that theme of duality. She tells Flood, it "was written during the height of the 2020 doomscroll-bad-news factory, when we were all putting in overtime. It’s about trying to combat the fear of the outside world and your inner demons at the same time. There’s still some hope to hold onto, though, and it’s important to remember that even both the inside and outside feel inhabitable."

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Deerhoof - My Lovely Cat! from the 2023 album Miracle-Level on Joyful Noise.

Bay Area-based noise-pop group Deerhoof may not be savvy on internet-memes, but they did dedicate today's Song of the Day to the online feline sensation Lil Bub, and had the song produced by Mike Bridavsky, Lil Bub's owner. As the band explain in a press statement:

If you were going to compose a song about a cute cat from the internet, then get it recorded and mixed and mastered by an outside producer known not only for their recording and mixing and mastering, but for their cute cat from the internet, well, you would be shrewd indeed. But this of course we did not do, because we didn't know about Mike Bridavsky or Lil Bub when we wrote the song! Well, we think about him now: a true collaborator and artist and friend.

The song is a first-look at the band's forthcoming full-length, Miracle-Level, which will be released on March 31 via Joyful Noise. It's their first Japanese-language LP, and their first to be made entirely in a proper recording studio (with the aforementioned Bridavsky). Lil Bub's Dad shared in a press release, "Satomi [Matsuzaki], Ed [Rodríguez], John [Dieterich], and Greg [Saunier] tried something different on this record, and the result is Deerhoof at their most sparse and vulnerable."

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Quasi - Doomscrollers from the 2023 album Breaking the Balls of History on Sub Pop.

"Doomscrollers" is a new single from the indie rock duo Quasi, the project of former partners Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss, off their upcoming album Breaking The Balls Of History which is set to be released in February and is their first full-length in a decade. The song is a commentary on the modern phenomenon of doomscrolling, where people compulsively consume negative news and social media, leading to feelings of anxiety and despair. The lyrics of the song also touch on themes of addiction and isolation, painting a bleak yet relatable portrait of the 21st century.

The song opens with a punchy guitar riff, and Coomes's lyrics paint a picture of the current state of society, of people sleeping in their cars, teenage TikTok stars, and everyone baking bread, doomscrolling, and going out of their heads. Weiss, famed former Sleater-Kinney drummer, adds an upbeat, energetic feel to the song that belies the dark lyricism. The lyrics of the song are relatable and dig right into the anxieties of our divisive, COVID-contorted culture.

The music video for the song is directed by B.A. Miale and is visually striking, taking Weiss and Coomes into psychedelic territory, facing death, the apocalypse, pies, penguins, and more. Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Death Valley Girls - What Are the Odds from the 2023 album Islands in the Sky on Suicide Squeeze.

Los Angeles-based garage rockers Death Valley Girls are releasing their fifth record Islands in the Sky on February 24th via Suicide Squeeze. The follow-up to 2020’s Under the Spell Of Joy was recorded in a cabin in the California woods in early 2022 following a “mysterious illness” that left frontwoman Bonnie Bloomgarden bedridden from November 2020 to March 2021 which inspired much of the record.

“When I was sick I had to sleep most of the day,” Bloomgarden details in a press release. “I kept waking up every few hours with an intense message to take care of the island, feed the island…I have no idea why, but making music for the island kept coming up.” 

Our Song of the Day is the lead single off the record “What Are the Odds,” a rollicking riff-ripping scorcher that takes its inspiration from an unlikely source: Madonna. “In ‘I’m A Man Too’ we were trying to revisit No Doubt’s ‘I’m Just A Girl’ but through a new lens,” explains Bloomgarden. “‘What Are The Odds’ is in the same way an investigation/revisitation of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’ but with a DVG spin.”

She continues on to say, “We love to think about consciousness and existence, and we very much believe in some type of reincarnation, but also that this experience isn’t linear, there isn’t a past and future, there’s something else going on! What is it? Is it a simulation, are we simulated girls??”

The video for the song sees two versions of the band, one where they’re black hoodie-clad amongst a dreary LA landscape and the other a technicolor dreamscape of them lounging at a pool with red beehives. Which one is the simulation is anyone’s guess, but I’d personally rather live in the latter. Watch the Samantha Westervelt-directed video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Moriah Bailey - "The Ocean Life" from the 2022 album i tried words on Keeled Scales.

"i was hoping on the ocean life to pull through /
turns out i’ll have to say goodbye real soon."

On her sophomore full-length, i tried words, harpist/vocalist Moriah Bailey reflects on the end of a relationship, and the definitions and expectations of "femininity" that can play into not only romantic relationships, but friendships, jobs, or family. 

Not only is this reflected in her words, but also on the expanded sound she presents on the new album. After recording the voice and harp parts in her former rental home in Tucson, AZ, she recruited Sarah Reid (violin), Ryan Robinson (percussion), and Ricky Tutaan (guitar) to contribute to those tracks, allowing them to follow their own "musical intuition and insight." The beautifully woven results provide a backdrop for her thoughtful lyrics, ruminating on the struggle of dualities: "yes/no, future/past, darkness/light, giving/taking, masculinity/femininity, wants/needs."

Today's Song of the Day is accompanied by a video directed by Lauren Reese. Bailey shares on her Instagram, "When we initially talked about collaborating on this, I let her listen to the whole album and choose a song that she was excited about. The video was filmed at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. Elmer Fajardo and [Holly Pierce] assisted Lauren in shooting the video and providing me moral support in being in front of the camera. Ha. The result is a really compelling illustration of themes in the song that plays with shots of light, reflections, shadows, movement, and water."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Fan Girl - "react (react)" a 2022 self-released single.

Australian quintet Fan Girl closed out 2022 with a bang, releasing their latest single "react (react)," a boisterous high-energy piece of early 2000's-influenced pop-punk. 

“We wrote this song during a particularly wintry week in our studio in Brunswick, Melbourne, channeling the energy and excitement of playing shows,” they told Australian website Pile Rats.

You can witness that excitement in the song's accompanying video, filmed at one of Melbourne’s longest-running venues, Revolver Upstairs. 

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Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations - "Blood Ah Go Run (feat. Wesley Joseph & ESKA)" from the 2023 album I Came From Love on Transgressive.

Mercury Prize-nominated artist Dave Okumu returns with his new project, Dave Okumu & The 7 Generations, a name he says honors "my actual ancestors, the ancestors of others, my musical ancestors, and my descendants." Their debut album, I Came From Love, will be released April 14th via Transgressive Records.

In a press statement, the UK-based guitarist/producer explains, "the narrative of this record emerged in tandem with the origin of its musical journey, through a rumination on survival, ancestry and heritage. The account of the young west African girl who was transported to South Carolina in 1756 and sold to the slave owner Elias Ball and the subsequent unearthing and presentation of her story to her descendants became an emblematic framework for these songs, opening doors to many aspects of the diasporic experience. The music stands in loving defiance of any forces that would seek to disconnect us from our collective history. As I consciously stand before my ancestors through the medium of this sound world, I proclaim that ‘You survived so I might live.’”

On today's Song of the Day, in particular, he reflects on the New Cross house fire in 1981 that killed 13 Black teenagers in South London.

“Living in an area as culturally rich and diverse as southeast London, I feel touched by an atmosphere of transcendence forged through a particular type of adversity. When you walk the streets and so many cultures are represented within a community, it’s difficult not to ask the questions ‘how did these people get here and what have their ancestors passed through so that I can have the life I am experiencing now?’ The story of the New Cross Fire and the subsequent response from different factions of society is one such trial, embodying a process which came to shape a significant element of the discourse around race relations in this country. Living in this part of London, I want to remember and honor those who lost their lives in that fire as their sacrifice, along with many others, feeds directly into my experience of this world.”

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Caleb Kunle - All In Your Head a 2022 single on Pony Recordings.

While Caleb Kunle may only have a handful of EPs and singles under his belt, the soul-pop artist has been making a splash in the UK since the release of his debut EP Eden in 2017 which landed him the prize of Emerging Artist of the Year 2017 from Thatchers Haze x NME. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Kunle immigrated to the Irish countryside of Laios at eight years old where his love of music was fostered through church choir and playing guitar.

Inspired by Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, Kunle’s music has a sound that’s simultaneously retro and refreshingly modern. Our Song of the Day, “All In Your Head,” opens with stirring strings before Kunle bursts in with an impassioned “Oh!” From there, a bellowing horn section, jazzy piano, and uptempo drums accompany Kunle’s croons to pop perfection.

Kunle had this to say about the song:

“All in your head is an anthem about us facing and rising to our inner challenges. Referenced in the middle 8 lyric ‘It’s in your head now, you’re on the frontline’ this highlights how we collectively have our internal battles and that we can overcome them!”

“All In Your Head” is accompanied by a joyful and appropriately retro video directed by Andy Banjanin. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Queralt Lahoz - "Blade," a 2022 single on Costa Futuro/Say It Loud.

Queralt Lahoz is a rising star from Spain who has captivated audiences with her powerful live performances over the past handful of years. Ahead of not only her Eurosonic slot, but also her first stints at SXSW in Austin, Texas, she released the song “Blade.” Her most powerful, pop-centric track yet, the song sees her both sing and rap with equal dexterity about mystical forces at work. Vampires are no match for the katana she weilds which speaks true to the survivor mentality that’s always run strong through her work.

Watch the Bycontrast-directed video for "Blade" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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BILBAO - "Get Up!" from the 2022 album Shake Well on [PIAS].

Like the beautiful city in Spain where they derived their band name, Bilbao create sunny, summery songs, showcased on their debut LP Shake Well. It's hard to believe then that the quartet themselves actually hail from Germany.

"There is the 'Bilbao' song by Yves Montand, a chanson that my parents used to play," bassist Jannes Eschrich shares about their moniker. "He tells of the place of longing Bilbao. Our band should also be a place of longing, a place that we conjure up in rainy Hamburg and that you can dream of."

Bilbao came together after the four friends attended the Reeperbahn Festival in 2019, writing and recording their first EP within a month. Despite the pandemic, they kept the momentum going, resulting in their first full-length, released in early 2022. Calling to mind bands like Bombay Bicycle Club and Two Door Cinema Club (and other groups that don't have "club" in their band name), Bilbao suceed in transporting you to sunnier shores with their buoyant, upbeat tunes.

This week's Songs of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, showcasing artists playing at this year’s ESNS (Eurosonic Noorderslag) Festival. ESNS is a European new music showcase festival and conference committed to presenting and supporting the best new and emerging artists. This year’s festival will take place January 18-21, 2023 in Groningen, NL.

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OSKA - "Starstruck" from the 2022 album My world, My love, Paris on Nettwerk Music Group.

Though paying tribute to the City of Lights on her debut album My world, My love, Paris, singer/songwriter OSKA (real name: Maria Burger) was born in a small village in Lower Austria, the youngest of eight kids. She moved to Vienna at the age of 18 to study music, busking on the streets, and sharing her debut EP, Honeymoon Phase, in 2020. The five-song release won her the XA Music Export Award at Waves Vienna Festival 2020.

Conceived near the beginning of the pandemic, OSKA envisioned the story of a couple "who board a boat as the world comes to an end" as the theme for her eagerly-anticipated first full-length. She cites her inspiration as the Edith Piaf song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" (which translates to “No, I do not regret anything”).

Today's Song of the Day has a particular cinematic influence. "This song was inspired by one of my favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," she shared in a press release. “It’s about celebrating someone great that is in your life while also dealing with the fear of losing them.”

This week's Songs of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, showcasing artists playing at this year’s ESNS (Eurosonic Noorderslag) Festival. ESNS is a European new music showcase festival and conference committed to presenting and supporting the best new and emerging artists. This year’s festival will take place January 18-21, 2023 in Groningen, NL.

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Jarv Dee & WD4D - “Lets Work,” a 2022 single on MOOR LIFE.

Today’s Song of the Day is a Seattle-centric bop that sees rapper Jarv Dee hook up with producer WD4D for a buoyant banger about the stressful nature of the “work hard, play hard” lifestyle. While the track is light and airy, Jarv Dee clearly isn’t. “Sometimes I wanna take a vacation just to clear my head and get my money right,” he exasperates on the hook while a scorching beat evokes the feeling of a summer evening with zero concerns. A vacation in the ears is better than no vacation at all.

Jarv Dee stopped by KEXP in July 2022 for a live performance. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Blinky Bill, M.anifest, Khaligraph Jones - “Inaweza Haiwezi,” a 2022 single on Rauka Music Ltd.

You may know celebrated Kenyan producer/DJ Bill Sellanga, aka Blinky Bill, is one-fourth of the electronic collective Just A Band and has produced songs for notable names like Nneka, Goldlink, and Sampa The Great. The OneBeat Alum and TED Fellow is on the verge of releasing his anticipated sophomore record We Cut Keys 2, which follows 2018’s Everyone’s Just Winging It and Other Fly Tales.

Our Song of the Day is the lead single from the record, “Inaweza Haiwezi,” which features two of Africa’s greatest rappers, M.anifest from Ghana and Kenya’s Khaligraph Jones. Produced by Blinky Bill and Swiss producer Hook (MDQ), mixed by Commissioner Gordon (‘Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’, ‘Welcome To Jamrock’) and mastered by Tony Dawsey (Jay-Z ‘Blueprint 3’, Whitney Houston “My Love is your Love”, Nas ‘Illmatic’), the song is a bouncy, bass-heavy thrillride that shows off each rappers dexterous flows in this “East/West classic.”

The song comes with a colorful, gorgeously-shot video directed by Zack Adell. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Ukhoikhoi - “Abathembu” from the 2022 Nongqawuse EP on Next Movement

More than just a musical duo, uKhoiKhoi call themselves a "a live looping, musical performance art showpiece." Hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa, the group is comprised of musician/composer Yogin Sullaphen and vocalist Anelisa Stuurman. Their band name pays tribute to their shared KhoiSan heritage, an indigenous tribe said to be the first inhabitants of southern Africa. By combining operatic elements with chanting and poetry, they create a unique Afro-Futuristic sound they call "indigenous-electro."

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Little Simz - “Angel” from the 2022 album NO THANK YOU on Forever Living Originals.

With her latest single "Angel," London-based artist Little Simz continues to pay tribute to her friend Harry Uzoka, who was murdered in 2018.

"Harry listenin’ from Heaven on repeat/
He was backin’ it when nobody believed"

She previously wrote about Uzoka with her 2019 song "Wounds" off the album GREY Area. As she told The Guardian at the time, "“I remember waking up, Googling, trying to find out as many details as I could and going to the studio in bits. I sat in the dark in tears and I didn’t go on socials to see everyone posting ‘RIP’ – and because I didn’t do that, I was able to write 'Wounds.'”

Today's Song of the Day not only finds Little Simz continuing to process her grief, but also struggling with the music industry, as she notes on the couplet:

"They don’t care if your mental is on the brink of somethin’ dark/
As long as your cuttin’ somebody’s payslip"

A ten-minute short film was released to accompany her latest LP NO THANK YOU. Watch that below, along with her 2021 Live on KEXP at Home session.

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Contour – “Hearing Voices” from the 2022 album Onwards! on Touching Bass Limited.

Recording under the name Contour, Khari Lucas combines tradition and technology into his sophomore full-length Onwards!, using both archival material and atmospheric production to weave together influences of jazz, soul, psych, and hip-hop.

In a press statement, he offers, "The record exists as a bridge in conversation between today’s artists and art of the past which offered potential ways to navigate the world that we’re in; personally or on a larger scale."

He explains that today's Song of the Day “explores the relationship between our conditions of living and working and how we process or fail to process them," adding, it's about "our connection to intuition.” 

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Stas THEE Boss is no stranger to KEXP. The former host of our station’s beloved weekly hip-hop show, Street Sounds, Stas has been a fixture of Seattle since she emerged as part of the duo THEE Satisfaction. Though Stas has since moved away, her sound, influence, and ingenuity can still be felt reverberating in Seattle. The rapper and producer has been busy dropping singles the past couple of years following 2020’s immaculate On the Quarner. “Don’t Crash” finds Stas steeped in deep house, capturing the feeling of blurry, 4 a.m. euphoria on the dancefloor. As always, Stas’ voice is the smooth tether holding you down. It’s an exciting new dimension to her ever-expanding sounds and ideas in her catalog. 

Get to know more about Stas KEXP’s Fresh off the Spaceship podcast.

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Nick Hakim - “Vertigo” from the 2022 album COMETA on ATO / PIAS.

Nick Hakim has been making amorphous psych-soul since 2014 that hones in on his gorgeous buttery smooth croons. Just since 2020, he’s released three projects, 2020’s WIl This Make Me Good, a collaborative record with jazz saxophonist Roy Nathanson, Small Things, in 2021, and, most recently, the intimately stunning COMETA.

Featuring appearances by Alex G, Helado Negro, Arto Lindsay, and DJ Dahl, with co-production from indie’s go-to guy Andrew Sarlo, COMETA is a collection of romantic songs written through different lenses, guided by Hakim’s own experience of falling in love in a way that made him feel like he was floating. This is best seen on our Song of the Day, “Vertigo,” in which Hakim is struck by the hypnotic feelings of falling in love. The tender track whirrs and sputters as Hakim coos, "Can't tell if it's me or the room that's moving."

“The key is to find that extremity of love for yourself,” he says of the romantic themes on the record. “It’s about growing into someone you want to be; it’s about finding pure love within yourself when the world around us seems to be crumbling.”

The song comes with a cinematic and perfectly-paired video by Asli Baykal shot at a real-life rotating house in Bosnia-Herzegovina built by Vojin Kusic for his wife, who desired a life where she could enjoy constantly-evolving views. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Dina Ögon - "Oas," a 2022 single on Playground Music Scandinavia.

Stockholm-based songwriter Dina Ögon captures the warmth of Laurel Canyon with her immaculate, soothing arrangements, and pristine vocals. After releasing her self-titled debut album in 2021, Ögon teases more of what’s to come with new single titled “Oas.” The title track from her forthcoming sophomore album on Feb. 3, 2023, the song is a breezy exhale as we reach the end of the year. 

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SHIRT - "Dave Chappelle Is Wrong (Beef With God)" from the 2022 album I Turned Myself into Myself on Mello Music Group.

Queens-based artist Shirt carries many titles – rapper, conceptual artist, experimentalist. These are all titles that are easy to call yourself and harder to live up to. Shirt, of course, rises to the occasion. On his Bandcamp page he describes his latest album, I Turned Myself Into Myself, as “an album that understands that the devil’s greatest trick is mobilizing our collective fear, to render us catatonic and indifferent to so much possibility around us.” With that in mind, the opening track “Dave Chapelle Is Wrong (Beef With God)” comes out blazing without mincing his words. It’s a song that dares to up to our heroes and push for the right way forward. 

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SAULT - "Money" from the 2022 album Today & Tomorrow on Forever Living Originals.

Ever-mysterious and always reliably great, SAULT capped off 2022 by dropping five albums simultaneously on Nov. 11. “Money” is a raucous standout from one of those album, Today & Tomorrow. While the whole album digs into the grittier side of the anonymous collective’s work, “Money” is the band at their most distorted and tenacious. It’s a punk rock squall to getting your due – mainly cold hard cash. 

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Zahara Elan - “Dear Santa…(NAUGHTY),” a 2022 self-released single.

This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. He will be hosting his 18th annual Punk Rock Xmess on Saturday, December 24th from 9pm -12am and then jump back on the mic Christmas day from noon - 9pm for his no standards, non-traditional Christmas broadcast, including a special holiday edition of Sunday Soul.

Zahara Elan is a young musical prodigy who’s been posting her covers and, recently, original songs on YouTube the past couple of years. Born in 2008 with Malignant Infantile Osteopetrosis (MIOP), a very rare and fatal genetic bone disorder in which the bones grow unchecked, Zahara (formerly known as Zoe) required serious medical procedures to save her life. Early videos on her YouTube channel, made by her parents, focused entirely on her therapies and development but recently they’ve shifted to focus on her main passion: creating and performing music.

Her latest original song is, to put it lightly, an absolute banger. “Dear Santa…(NAUGHTY)” is, indeed, bawdy, with the Seattle-based pre-teen not holding back on the curse words. “Mind your fucking business,” Elan declares in one verse to the nosy and judgemental Saint Nick. But it’s the chorus that packs the biggest punch with, “WHAT THE FUCK, Santa?! /Don’t tell me to be good /I blow off steam from time to time /Because I’m misunderstood.” It’s about time someone gave Santa the middle finger.

Watch the adorably creative video for “Dear Santa…(NAUGHTY),” written, directed, filmed, and edited by Elan’s mother Kellie Newton, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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We Are The Union - “Yr Always Alone (On Christmas)” from the 2022 album I Surrender Sleighs on I Surrender Records.

This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. He will be hosting his 18th annual Punk Rock Xmess on Saturday, December 24th from 9pm -12am and then jump back on the mic Christmas day from noon - 9pm for his no standards, non-traditional Christmas broadcast, including a special holiday edition of Sunday Soul.

We Are The Union have been making ska-infused pop punk since 2005 with five full-length records to their name. After multiple lineup changes, original members vocalist/guitarist Reade Wolcott and bassist Brandon Benson have remained and added Ricky Weber on lead guitar and Jer Hunter on the ska-important trombone.

Their latest single “Yr Always Alone (On Christmas)” centers on the idea of loneliness and how especially excruciating the feeling is around the holidays. “Nuclear holiday /Oh, oh, oh, oh, detonate, set me free,” Wolcott sings with a nasally snarl. “Venom in your head, brandy on your breath /'Tis the season to be vile and mean.” The band had this to say about the song:

“Yr Always Alone (On Christmas)' is almost not a holiday song. It's a fairly cynical take on loneliness as a consequence of selfishness, but it's centered around Christmas as a focal point.”

The song was released on a compilation album of original, non-traditional Christmas songs via I Surrender Records titled I Surrender Sleighs. Watch the video for “Yr Always Alone (On Christmas),” directed by Rae Mystic, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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BumbleWasps - "Ill Be at Work for Christmas" from the 2021 self-released album F U Xmas.

UK-based BumbleWasps describe themselves as “cute like a bee, scary like a wasp.” It’s an apt description for the project with its bubbly aesthetics and biting lyricism. No more is that better exemplified with their yearly Christmas music, especially last year’s F U Christmas. Stand out track “I’ll Be At Work for Christmas” captures the dismal capitalist nightmare of working on the holidays. While you’re smashing back that egg nog and roasting the Yule log, let BumbleWasps remind you that they and others are somewhere out there putting in the hours. 

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Bat Hearse - “Coffin for Christmas,” a 2021 self-released single.

This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. He will be hosting his 18th annual Punk Rock Xmess on Saturday, December 24th from 9pm -12am and then jump back on the mic Christmas day from noon - 9pm for his no standards, non-traditional Christmas broadcast, including a special holiday edition of Sunday Soul.

Detroit-based Gothabilly band Bat Hearse lean into darkness and horror but with a humorous slant. The five-piece have released two records, their 2021 self-titled debut and 2022’s Transylvania Moonshine but before dropping either, their first single was a tune in celebration of a very unlikely holiday for a band gushing Halloween out of their pours.

“Coffin for Christmas” barrels in like an undead force to be reckoned with. In between frequent howls, frontman Rick Ruiner sings of unrequited love and is either threatening them with a coffin for Christmas or is proclaiming that’s what he’s received. Either way, his anger is palpable. “Are you looking for stocking stuffer, baby?” asks vocalist/guitarist Nina Friday and Ruiner’s howls confirm the answer is most definitely affirmative.

Watch the blast of a video for “Coffin for Christmas” at the link below.

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James Kochalka Superstar – “Christmas Muffin,” a 2017 self-released single.

This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss, host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer. He will be hosting his 18th annual Punk Rock Xmess on Saturday, December 24th from 9pm -12am and then jump back on the mic Christmas day from noon - 9pm for his no standards, non-traditional Christmas broadcast, including a special holiday edition of Sunday Soul.

James Kochalka is a Vermont-based comic book artist and writer, animator, and rock musician. Under his James Kochalka Superstar moniker, it makes sardonic comic rock with nearly twenty releases to his name, going back to 1995. As you’d imagine, his take on a Christmas tune is wry and undeniably silly.

“Christmas Muffin” grapples with the very adult reality of having to purchase gifts when you’re flat broke. With little dinero to his name, our narrator instead offers the most generous gift of a muffin - or at least half of it. The song is less than a minute long but his point is made quickly and succinctly. Over a spare high hat beat, Kochalka declares, “Ain’t got no money to buy you nothin’ /Ain’t got no money to buy you shit / Ain’t got no money to buy you nothin’ so I got you this muffin /But we’ll have to split it.” If that’s not the true spirit of Christmas, I don’t know what is.

Watch the selfie-shot video for "Christmas Muffin" at the link below.

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Kennebec - Tall Tales (feat. Hemlock Ernst and Sudan Archives) from the 2022 album Without Star or Compass on Night Time Stories.

While Eric Phillips has only been releasing cinematic instrumental soundscapes under the name Kennebec since 2020, his enchanting works have garnered attention and led to a number of incredible collaborations. Our Song of the Day, “Tall Tales,” sees the Portland-based artist team up with Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands under his rap moniker Hemlock Ernst and Brittany Denise Parks, better known as the LA-based musician Sudan Archives.

The early single off his sophomore record Without Star or Compass is one of three tracks on the album that Herring contributes to but the only one under his rap alias. Over a guitar-strummed hook, Herring and Parks swap stream-of-consciousness verses and come together for heavenly harmonies on the chorus. While the lyrics are esoteric, ripe with references to nature, the seeming meaning revolves around our inability to fully know what another is thinking or feeling.

Phillips had this to say about working with Herring:

“I think our styles just resonated well with one another, and we clicked naturally. We sent some ideas back and forth remotely and then he flew out to Portland and we recorded all the vocals in three days together. It was so fun and inspiring – and really deepened my appreciation for his craft. He’s such a nice guy and a total genius. Sam’s lyrics really hit a beautiful balance between that sense of magic and folklore in the natural world that I’m after, while really bringing his own sense of narrative. He’s really amazing at constructing lyrical concepts in a way that I think compliments my own strengths (and weaknesses).”

Watch Future Islands’ Live on KEXP at Home performance from 2020 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Archie Roach - One Song from the 2022 album My Songs: 1989 – 2021 on Bloodlines.

Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter, activist, and author Archie Roach exited this mortal coil on July 30th of this year, leaving behind a legacy of powerful blues tunes telling the story of his painful personal history as well as those of the Aboriginal community. In his 66 years on the planet, 30 of them releasing music, he acquired numerous awards and accolades, including multiple ARIAs (Australia’s version of the Grammy’s), an International Human Rights Achievement award, and a hall of fame induction at the 2020 ARIAs.

Shortly before his death, in February of 2022, Roach released the 44-tack anthology album My Songs: 1989 – 2021 which included a new song titled “One Song.” The softly-strummed six-minute song is sparse yet compelling, with Roach singing of a collective connection and the acknowledgment of and privilege to all come from one place. “Remember well what we have told you /And don't forget where you come from,” Roach warmly suggests. “Mother Earth will always hold you /And you are born of just one song.”

Watch Archie Roach play the song live for Triple J’s Like a Version at read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Weyes Blood - "Grapevine" from the 2022 album And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow on Sub Pop.

Los Angeles-based artist Weyes Blood (real name: Natalie Mering) explores the ways we're tangled together on the wistful acoustic ballad "Grapevine."

“Technology is harvesting our attention away from each other,” she said, via a press release. “We all have a ‘Grapevine’ entwined around our past with unresolved wounds and pain. Being in love doesn’t necessarily mean being together. Why else do so many love songs yearn for a connection?”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Bleached - "Flip It" a 2022 self-released single.

Los Angeles-based sibling duo Bleached return with a pop-punk pep talk, inspired by television dialogue and self care.

“I heard this quote on Euphoria," Jennifer Clavin said in a press release, "‘Every day you get out of bed is an act of courage.' I really related that to the lyrics. During the time of writing this song, I felt like I had to find my inner warrior to make it through another day in LA.”

Her sister Jessie adds, "“I was thinking of the way I speak to myself and I never realized how hard I could be on myself. I'm becoming way more aware of my inner voice. When I’m going through a day and I'm just feeling extra challenged, I now think about flipping it.”

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Hannah Jadagu - "Say It Now" a 2022 single on Sub Pop.

As we eagerly await a full-length debut from Hannah Jadagu, the 20-year-old artist gives us a sneak peek with the new single "Say It Now."

In a press release, the Texas-born/New York-based artist explains, “"Say It Now" is my sort of inner reflection on where things have gone wrong in my past interactions and relationships with other people. Sonically and lyrically, I feel as though this song signifies me venturing into a new world that is even more intense and vulnerable.” 

The new track is accompanied by a video directed by Jade De Brito and shot in Paris. Jadagu adds, "Making this video was so special because I got to make it during my first visit to Paris. We shot it in about 2 days, showcasing a sort of “day in the life” where I do studio work and get to go around the city. It’s a nice contrast to the lyrical content because there’s truly no time to be sad in Paris."

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Field School - "Jennifer Valentine" from the 2022 album When Summer Comes on Bobo Integral / Small Craft Advisory.

It can be rare for a new band to immediately conjure a very specific location, scene, time, and sound but pressing play on Field School’s debut album When Summer Comes is like traveling to Olympia in the early ‘90s, despite its 2022 release. The project of Charles Bert of Seattle band Math and Physics Club, Field School was born out of necessity during the pandemic. Without the ability to play with his bandmates, Bert leaned on himself to create and record full songs on his own. Conjuring the twee pop sounds K Records became synonymous with during that era, the perhaps-not-coincidentally Olympia-based artist makes sentimental lo-fi jangle pop with all the sugary sweetness but none of the calories.

Our Song of the Day, “Jennifer Valentine,” is a highlight off the record and hones in on the saccharine wistfulness. “Jennifer Valentine, I wrote your name a thousand times/I wonder if you remember mine,” Bert sings with sincerity while a simple drum beat keeps tempo and guitars effervescently jangle. “Jennifer Valentine, I'll never change my mind /Cross my heart and hope to die.” If that’s not twee, I don’t know what is.

Purchase When Summer Comes on Bandcamp and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Peak Park - Need Your Love a 2022 self-released single.

Naarm/Melbourne-based trio Peak Park make groovy multi-facted art rock that blends genres to make music that’s at times upbeat and dancey and other times slow and sweet. Ethereal vocals deliver vulnerable and honest lyricism, centred on identity, existentialism and mental health.

Our Song of the Day “Need Your Love” is a dark and driving synth-filled tune about the intoxication and obsession of the baser needs surrounding new love. In a TikTok made by the band, they claim to have been inspired by the films The Batman, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, Drive, and Good Time when writing the song and the gritty undertones of those films are felt on the track. “Need your love /I wanna lose the weight of my bones /Intoxicate my air /I just need a taste of you,” passionately croons frontman Mitch Summers, balancing the complex feelings of vulnerable pining with the sometimes-seedy demands of desire.

To see a different side of the band, watch the lyric video for recent single “For Tomorrow,” off 2022’s How To Be EP and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Death of the High Street - "Chancer" a 2022 single on Bubblebrain.

Post-punk quartet Death Of The High Street return with their second KEXP Song of the Day this year, a sneering slice of razor-sharp alt-rock titled "Chancer."

In an interview with Edge of Arcady, the band describe the main character of the track as "a Frank Gallagher meets Del Boy character who’ll sell you a TV just as soon as he’s lifted it from your living room." The accompanying video — written, filmed, and edited by the band themselves — follows Chancer in a day-in-the-life clip. Check it out below. 

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Cliché Cult - "Slippy" a 2022 single on Blaggers.

Post-punk band Cliché Cult formed in the height of the pandemic, but the lockdown hasn't hampered their rise. This past August, the Leeds quartet played their first live hometown show. "It's probably my favourite gig that we've played so far," they told Rebel Noise. "The crowd were chanting along to our tunes! The venue was quite small as well so it was a sweaty night."

If you can't get enough of their dark, '80s-influenced sound, the group are aiming to release a new single early next year.

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Fever Ray - "Carbon Dioxide" from the 2023 album Radical Romantics on Mute.

Swedish artist Fever Ray (aka Karin Dreijer) returns early next year with their third LP Radical Romantics. It's their first full-length in five years, and features production from her brother (and former partner in The Knife) Olof Dreijer. Contributors include Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Nídia, Aasthma (Johannes Berglund, Peder Mannerfelt, and Pär Grindvik), and Vessel. 

Radical Romantics will be released March 10th via Mute.

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Tona - Triple Crown (feat. Drezus & Shad) a 2022 single on District Entertainment.

Toronto rapper Tona has been churning out a massive amount of high-level, collaborator-heavy music for years now and received the coveted Juno Award for Best Rap Recording in 2015. Recently he dropped GE20, the follow-up to 2021’s Good Energy, which sees Tona hone in on optimistic thoughts during the most pessimistic scenarios and how they can affect your health.

“Good Energy does not mean you ignore life's less pleasant situations, just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way,” reads the Bandcamp description for the record. And nothing brings better energy than collaborating with talented friends. Our Song of the Day, “Triple Crown,” features Rwandan-Canadian rapper Shad and Calgary-based indigenous artist Drezus trade the mic to speak on their various perspectives. But, as Tona states in his opening verse, it’s, “For all people.”

This is what he had to say about the song:

"This record came about from a conversation of truth, our truths. Featured artists Shad & Indigenous lyricist Drezus have always been advocates for speaking their truths about equality and freedom the same way I do with my content. The fight against racism in Canada, the U.S. and abroad is far from over. The Black community has been grieving for the Black lives lost due to police brutality, racial inequality, systems inflicting trauma, historical injustice and the many injustices faced daily for a long time as well as the indigenous people. There are intense feelings of helplessness, anger and emotional pain. It might be uncomfortable for those not affected by race, but the dialogue must continue to stay open to allow room for responsiveness and not reactionary tactics. All of these emotions are captured on this record produced by The Kount."

Watch the self-directed video for “Triple Crown” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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SoulChef & Uptown Swuite - Bless The Child a 2022 single on SoulSwuite Music.

New Zealand-based rapper SoulChef has been churning out soul and jazz-inspired hip-hop for well over a decade now, starting with 2010’s Escapism. He focuses on invoking serenity through his thoughtful lyricism, meticulous productions, and head-bopping beats. He’s also an endeared collaborator.

For one of his latest singles, “Bless The Child,” SoulChef teams up with Bay Area-bred rapper and member of the Digital Martyrs collective Uptown Swuite, for a breezy jam steeped in nostalgia. In the song, the rappers forgive their former adolescent selves for their mistakes since it’s not their fault they were products of broken homes.

This isn’t the first time the two have worked together. In 2020 the duo dropped the collaborative album SoulSwuite. At the time, Uptown Swuite told HipHopDX this about their relationship:

“Soul Chef and I are of Samoan descent. Although I reside in California and Chef lives in New Zealand, New Zealand is like my second home. I used to live there and have real strong roots in the music/Hip Hop community of New Zealand. With this album, we really just wanted to capture the Samoan experience all around via our eyes — whether it be a Samoan living in California, New Zealand or even the motherland Samoa/American Samoa.”

Watch the video for “Bless the Child,” directed by Digital Martyrs, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Danielle Ponder - "Some Of Us Are Brave" from the 2022 album Some Of Us Are Brave on Future Classic.

After working as a Public Defender for five years, Rochester-based singer/songwriter Danielle Ponder left to focus on her music full-time. But her life-long pursuit of justice continues through her songs, as you can hear on her debut LP Some of Us Are Brave. 

"I read a book in law school, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: But Some of Us Are Brave," Ponder explains in a press release. "I first fell in love with the title, I immediately felt seen. The book is essentially one of the first to address intersectionality. Often when we talk about feminism, we forget the issues that uniquely impact Black women and the same when we speak about race. The book is a collection of Black women writers pushing against invisibility, speaking loud and clear and telling our unique story. To me, this song was just a moment to pause and pay homage to Black women. The album is named that because that's where I get my biggest inspirations. My biggest cheerleaders are my sisters, my mother, Black women. And I think bravery is what I've needed to become a full-time artist.''

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Arima Ederra - "Steel Wing" from the 2022 album An Orange Colored Day on Arima's Lab.

Today's Song of the Day came to singer/songwriter Arima Ederra in a moment of anger. As the firstborn daughter of Ethiopian refugees, the Los Angeles-based artist was rattled by the refugee crisis that forcibly displaced a record 68.5 million people. In a press statement, she reflected:

“When the former president put a ban on refugees in 2017, I remember sitting in my room very angry and couldn’t help but think about my family in East Africa. When the news came, a melody followed, kind of in the form of a chant. I recorded a little voice note of it, tucked it away and didn’t really think much of it til later in the year. When we started making the music, it felt like a soundtrack to my rebellious teen years and I felt called to explore the parallels of my youth to my father’s journey as a refugee. The hook is kind of like a conversation between the two of us. 'Steel Wing' pays homage to not only my family, but all refugees, women and young girls to continue to take up space, rebel and explore their curiosity and freedom in everything they do.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Carsen Gray - "Cracks" a 2022 single on Nettwerk Music Group.

Canadian singer/songwriter Carsen Gray brings the beauty of her homeland of Haida Gwaii, BC to her music. 

“It’s very chill, beautiful, laidback, and peaceful,” she says of her home in a press statement. “The people are nice and welcoming. We all support one another and cheer each other on. Because of where I’m from, I feel like I was able to come out with such a warm project. We’re in a safe little place up here. I’m proud of my heritage, where I come from, and the land I live on.”

She brings that "chill, beautiful, laidback, and peaceful" vibe to today's Song of the Day, which showcases Gray's soulful voice against an acoustic guitar.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Among Authors - Fears We Hold, a 2022 single on Squaremoss.

Five years after releasing their debut album I AM BECOME, atmospheric art-rock outfit Among Authors finally returned last month with a gripping new single. The Seattle-based band is led by Ian Ketterer and the song details the crippling anxiety he’s felt his entire life due to being born without a right thumb or ear coupled with the scars left from multiple invasive surgeries - one to fix a Tracheoesophageal fistula and the other an open heart surgery.

This isn’t just vanity at play, it’s struggling to fit into what is considered “normal” in a very ableist society. But it also hits home for all of us quietly brooding over what we consider to be our imperfections. In “Fears We Hold,” Ketterer sends a message to his younger self that the world isn’t as scary as he thinks it is and that nobody’s out to get him. Led by sparse piano, the song builds and swirls as Ketterer bellows, “So pull back your hair /And roll up your sleeves /Cause nobody cares /Or sees what you see.”

In a reflective and deeply vulnerable Instagram post, Ketterer had this to say about the song:

“I have struggled with hiding the right side of my body my entire life. Everything from my clothing style down to my body movements and positions are all so ingrained in my subconscious and all tailor around making sure nobody can see my right hand, or my missing ear on my right side. I have worn long sleeves my entire life, long hair, even the seemingly simplest every day tasks like going to get Starbucks puts my head in a space where without even thinking about it, I am pulling out my card to pay for my drink in a specific way so my right hand isn't seen. Or when talking to people, always positioning myself so the right side is hidden. Oh god don't even get me started with when I am approached by someone to shake their hand with my right hand. You know what I do? I grab their hand with both my hands so that they don't sense that I have a missing thumb on my right hand. I have lived in my own self-doubt my entire life.

As a musician, I have always had this fear that when my band makes it big some day, and we're at some dumb photoshoot, that my big "lie" will be revealed, we'll get kicked off our record label (which we've yet to have) for not being sellable from a look standpoint, and our music career will be over.

That's all nonsense. I have held onto these unnecessary and irrelevant fears for way too long.

This is who I am.”

Watch Among Authors’ KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Martha - Hope Gets Harder from the 2022 album Please Don't Take Me Back on Specialist Subject.

British pop-punkers Martha have been spreading messages of anarchy since 2014 when they released their debut album Courting Strong. They’ve dropped three more records since, with the latest being this year’s Please Don’t Take Me Back. The record proves that the band from a small town called Pity Me continue to pity no one, especially the Powers That Be controlling the state of the UK.

Our Song of the Day, “Hope Gets Harder,” hones in on this idea, targeting the rich and powerful who are killing hope and optimism at a rapid rate. “Drain the blood from every diamond /On this damp and hateful island,” they cry over a sprititedly brisk riff before closing the song with the pointed claim, “Every day the hope gets harder/ England is a funeral parlor.”

In a lengthy statement about the song, the band don’t mince words on what they mean by that:

“‘Hope Gets Harder’ is a song about England: a uniquely fucking terrible idea,” the band said in a statement. “A place governed by the most absurdly mediocre people in history. Selfish, rich, thick, malevolent ghouls propped up by a bootlicking, self-congratulating, stenographic, client-journalist news media that puts North Korea to shame. England is a grey, damp artifice, vibrating to a quasi-fascist background hum, where the majority live miserable hopeless lives, so that a tiny minority can live in extravagant luxury. As we lurch violently from one crisis to the next, it feels like the light of any hope for the future is slowly dying. But we have to try and find hope in one another, and together we have to fight like hell for a more socially and ecologically just world. No fate but what we make for ourselves. Abolish england. Fuck the king.”

Watch the cleverly illustrated music video for “Hope Gets Harder” by Nathan Stephens-Griffin and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Metronomy x Jessica Winter - “I lost my mind,” a 2022 single on Because Music.

Following the release of their seventh LP Small World, Metronomy return with a "reimagined" version featuring re-worked versions of tracks from that album from Sébastien Tellier, Bolis Pupul, and on today's Song of the Day, London-based singer/songwriter Jessica Winter. 

Winter cited Kylie Minogue as an inspiration for the reimagining, saying in a press release, “As soon as I heard the held high notes in the chorus I thought the song could go in a Kylie direction; the key change at the end then went quite ABBA.” She added, "“Everything on the track was made from analogue synths and drum machines and there’s real strings on there too; if you listen closely you can hear a hook pinched from a different track on Metronomy’s latest album.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Fanfara Station - “Lafoo” from the 2022 album Boussadia on Garrincha Edizioni Musicali.

On their latest LP Boussadia, the trio Fanfara Station aim to celebrate the culture of each band member. 

Multi-instrumentalist Marzouk Mejri grew up in Tunisia; not only does he bring an inspiration of North African rhythms to the group, but he explores traditional woodwind and percussion instruments in his music. He met DJ/producer Marco Dalmasso (aka Ghiaccioli e Branzini) after relocating to Italy in the '90s; his electronic expertise elevates Mejri's compositions to dance-floor bangers. American horn player Charles Ferris arrived from San Francisco on a Fulbright scolarship to research the chants of Campania, 

The album was recorded in Tunisia, in order for the artists to "immerse and breath the culture," and most of the tracks were born from live improvisations, to "capture the energy of their concerts."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Mykki Blanco - “French Lessons (feat. ANOHNI and Kelsey Lu)” from the 2022 album Stay Close to Music on Mykki Blanco/Transgressive.

On today's Song of the Day, poet/musician Mykki Blanco pays tribute to fellow speak-singer Lou Reed. 

“The song is a reflection on the possibility of true love, on the notion that one truly can experience what we see in the Hollywood films,” Mykki states in a press release. “The song is also this ode in a way to Lou Reed. I’m not what I would consider a singer at all, I’m a talk-singer so I look to people in history who have that same style: Tom Petty, Jonathan Richmond of the Modern Lovers, Lou Reed – these are all AMAZING ‘talk singers’ and I feel comfortable in that style vocally. The song was originally composed by FaltyDL and it encapsulated so much sonically of what I was trying to articulate with my own music. FaltyDL has a way of touching on the spiritual subtleties of life. He is able somehow to create mystery out of banality, to create tranquility and fill a room with zen like vibrations, something unnameable and yet so familiar a feeling.”

The song features a guest collaboration with Kelsey Lu. (On the album version of the song, ANOHNI contributes to the track.) Mykki continues, “Kelsey Lu I’m sure will go on to become one of the legendary artists of my generation. A classically trained virtuoso with a voice that sounds ancient like a bell ringing for the first time, like something out of a Greek odyssey. I have been a long time super fan of Kelsey’s and collaborating with her on this song has been a very special moment for myself and FaltyDL.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Multiplayer - Cosmic Quest from the 2022 self-released album Multiplayer.

Matt Williams is a Seattle-based, Phoenix-bred, Kansas City-born pianist and vibraphonist who has worked with a seemingly endless amount of names in multiple jazz communities, many of which might only be familiar to niche jazz aficionados but carry a heavy mantle of respectability. His latest project Multiplayer is an improvisational project that feels both modern and nostalgic.

Our Song of the Day, “Cosmic Quest,” comes from his recently-released debut self-titled album and very much feels like one searching the galaxy for something more. With a sparse synth-fueled start, the song's unhurried build feels like a floating object just searching for some purpose. Things tighten up quickly, as the target is acquired and, while we may not feel like we’re moving at the speed of light, we’re still boldly going where no man has gone before.

Watch Multiplayer's live session at the old Cafe Racer back in 2019 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Yves Tumor - "God Is A Circle," a 2022 single on Warp.

Shortly after the end of spooky season, Yves Tumor dropped the chilling single “God Is A Circle” to the delight of the many fans who have been gripped by the Turin-based artist’s enigmatic take on glam rock. The single follows last year’s EP The Asymptotical World and 2020’s full-length Heaven To a Tortured Mind.

Produced by Noah Goldstein (Frank Ocean, Arcade Fire), and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails), the song is built upon a beat of labored breaths for a moody post-punk-indebted rocker that features squelching guitars, fuzzed-out bass, and desperate shrieks. Swedish electronic artist Ecco2K and Lebanon-born artist Thoom bestow backing vocals as Yves Tumor sings about detachment and strained relationships, “There’s places in my mind that I cannot go / There’s people in my life I still don’t know.”

The song is paired perfectly with a campy horror-movie-style video by Jordan Hemmingway which adds to the ominous feel of the song. Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Kelela - "Happy Ending" a 2022 single on Warp

It's been five years since we last heard from L.A.-based artist Kelela. Her 2017 debut LP Take Me Apart was a masterful set of adventurous electro-R&B, and her recent return to music — with the singles “Washed Away” and now, "Happy Ending" — show she hasn't missed a beat during that brief hiatus.

Today's Song of the Day features production by LSDXOXO with additional production from Bambii. Drawing inspiration from "the rapture of a club crush" (as a press release states), it's fitting that the accompanying video (co-directed by Alima Lee and Kelela) captures the Black rave scene in NYC.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Floating Points - "Problems" a 2022 single on Pluto / Ninja Tune

Throughout the year, British electronic musician Floating Points (aka Sam Shepherd) has been releasing some excellent stand-alone singles, including today's Song of the Day. Just last week, he announced the songs will be collected and released on limited vinyl for the first time on December 16th. 

Today's featured track is accompanied by a video directed and produced by the creative team Hamill Industries, a frequent Floating Points collaborator. In a press statement, they wrote: "'Problems' is meant to agitate every single room that its ecstatic sound waves reach. We wanted to celebrate it with movement and dance and reshape it through sound, by using techniques that allow the sonification of images. We have used lasers that spin and move with the music, making visible their sinuous shapes. It was important that this video shaped the electrical feeling you get when being on a dancefloor, the urge of dancing when sound waves reach your ears."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Empress Of - "Dance For You" from the 2022 Save Me EP on Major Arcana

Brooklyn-based artist Empress Of (the electro-pop recording project of Lorely Rodriguez) released her five-song EP Save Me over the summer, which features the stand-out (and suitably-titled) track "Dance For You."

“I love the lyrics on this song,” Rodriguez said in a press statement. “I made this in Minneapolis with BJ Burton. It was freezing outside. I was in a cave-like studio in the snow literally dancing as I wrote this. ‘Surrender to me like this’ is a touching lyric for me because I’m not hurt over this person anymore. I’ve come out the other side.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Jason McCue - "Kingdom" from the 2022 album Screen, Turn On on Fluff & Gravy.

KEXP has long been supporters and fans of local artist Jason McCue. First bursting on the scene as the 2017 winner of Sound Off!, which sees artists under 21 showcase their talent for a shot at the coveted prize. Since then, he’s gone on to release three records, 2018’s Pangaea, Wasteland in 2019, and, most recently, Screen, Turn On.

Recorded during the pandemic, the record sees McCue grapple with his reliance on technology as the world became a more insular place. Our Song of the Day, “Kingdom,” hones in on other vices that often sneak up and then terrorize those in vulnerable headspaces. In the song, our narrator experiences a heavy night of drinking, leaving them lost and bloody, with their lover pleading with them to stay the night before doing anything else wreckless.

In a tone that sounds as if Elliot Smith was reincarnated, McCue quavers “But my baby said to me /Don’t you go home /Stay here with me /I know you’ve been drinking all night long /Don’t you go home” over an urgently strummed acoustic guitar while another electric guitar offers warbled flourishes. The intensity of the message and the vulnerability of the narrator’s position is felt through the constantly changing dynamics that slow down at the end with layered vocals mimicking the narrator’s fading mind and resolve.

Watch McCue’s KEXP in-studio performance of the song “Ocean" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Glüme - "Do Me a Favor," a 2022 single on Italians Do It Better.

Describing Glüme could be easy - a wide-eyed chanteuse who channels equal parts Marilyn Monroe and Lana del Rey - but it would be reductive. Especially considering her status as one of the newest additions to the Italians Do It Better roster, who are known for their icey cool-as-hell synth-filled soundscapes. How does the pouty, Monroe-reincarnated pop princess fit in with the leather-clad cool kids?

The answer is something along the lines of: the girl’s got chops. On our Song of the Day, “Do Me a Favor,” the latest single from Glüme, is an upbeat ode to the insecurities that often plague one’s mind from being burned too many times. How can you recognize if something is real after so many heartbreaks? Sometimes the answer is sometimes just in the other person making the bold moves. “Do me a favor and take me,” she begs.

The single is off her forthcoming sophomore record Main Character, out on Valentine’s Day 2023 and follows 2021’s lauded The Internet. It comes with a gay western-themed video in which Glüme is dressed in a red leather dress and gets wooed by a cowgirl that leads them to an onslaught of debauchery in a tiny tumbleweed town. Watch the video, directed by George Baron, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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WITCH - "Waile" a 2022 single on Desert Daze/Partisan.

It's been almost 40 years since WITCH (which stands for "We Intend To Cause Havoc") caused some havoc.

The Zambia-based band were early adopters of the "Zamrock" sound, a combination of traditional African music with psychedelic rock, releasing seven albums back in the '70s and '80s. After Zambia-born hip-hop artist Sampa The Great featured them on her latest LP As Above, So Below, WITCH decided to reconvene, releasing the single "Waile."

"'Waile' was one of the songs that I brought to the WITCH when I joined in 1978," explained keyboardist Patrick Mwondela via a press release. "While it was played live often back in the day, it was never recorded until the new formation of the band picked it up 43 years later during a rehearsal on an island in Kenya, where the band embraced it and made it their own. A few months after that, they gave it a new lease of life by recording it in Lusaka’s legendary DB Studios. Sang in my native language Luvale, the subject matter is a nostalgic wailing for home of ancient African tribes that would eventually settle in Zambia."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Cuffed Up - "10 for 10," a 2022 single on Corduroy Recordings.

Los Angeles-based trio Cuffed Up return with a punk-pop pep-rally anthem for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome.

"It's deeply rooted in confidence," vocalist and guitarist Ralph Torrefranca told Atwood Magazine. "The dialogue in the song follows a creative, trying to understand the negative thoughts that plagues their mind every time they feel the imposter syndrome. The chorus is the heavy-handed conclusion that they arrive to every time but the bridge is the 'big aha! moment' where the character finally realizes that they are amazing at what they do and are in fact, 10/10."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Winter - "sunday" from the 2022 album What Kind of Blue Are You? on Bar/None.

Songwriter Samira Winter (who records as Winter) returns with her sophomore full-length, What Kind of Blue Are You?, described as an "emotional excavation of [her] purest self." The new album features guest appearances from artists like Hatchie and Sasami. "“I feel like I’ve come full circle, making an album that my 22-year-old self who just started Winter would love," she says in a press release. "It’s my inner shadow girl, revealing herself in all her brokenness, despair, and beauty.”

Winter describes today's Song of the Day as "a fever dream meditation on social media toxicity," a topic she says is "always on my mind and generates a lot of fear and anxiety for me. It’s a critique on social media’s effect on mental health and contorted beauty standards for women."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Lydia Ramsey - “I Will Wait For You” from the 2022 self-released album Like A Dream.

Lydia Ramsey is an Indianola, WA-born, Seattle-based Americana artist that’s been channeling the vintage folk sounds of Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt since 2016. Her wistful melodies and enchanting vocals and often simple in presentation: just a guitar or banjo, perhaps some twinkling piano, and showstealingly lovely coos.

Her latest record Like A Dream was released in September and hones in on the collective thoughts, anxieties, and loneliness felt during the pandemic. Our Song of the Day “I Will Wait For You” is especially relatable looking back on those lockdown days but also for many still, as she speaks to a friend - or perhaps to herself - in the depths of despair, encouraging them to keep moving forward.

“Running through your head /What if this lasts forever,” Ramsey quavers. “It’s bitter end in these days without being close together.” Resiliently, she presses on, hoping, waiting, and praying for the day in which things “will be better than ever.”

Ramsey collaborated with a number of longtime musician-friends, engineer Johnny Bregar, and New York-based engineer/producer, D. James Goodwin (The National, Kevin Morby, Blitzen Trapper) on Like A Dream. Watch the intimate Jacob Rosen-directed video for “I Will Wait For You" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Rival Consoles - “World Turns” from the 2022 album Now Is on Erased Tapes.

Ryan Lee West has been making electronic music under the name Rival Consoles since 2007, experimenting with a diverse range of styles and influences primarily with analog equipment. His latest release Now Is was made during the pandemic and sees the English producer in a contemplative mood, painting an atmospheric kaleidoscope of occasionally glitchy sounds. He had this to say about the record:

“There are some pieces that are influenced quite strongly by the isolation and anxiety of these times. There are also pieces which are more optimistic and vibrant, which I think is a consistent attitude of my records, as I want art to express many aspects of life.”

Our Song of the Day, “World Turns,” thrums with spacey energy, slowly unfolding and retracting. Not quite a dancefloor jam, the song mimics the spinning orb we live on and the twinkling stars that sit amongst it, making the song a perfect late-night headphones listen.

Check out Rival Consoles' Boiler Room set from 2016 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - “When the Lights Go” from the 2022 album When the Lights Go on Nice Age.

Over the past decade, Orlando Higginbottom has been thriving under the name Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. The British producer scored a Grammy nomination for his collaboration with Bonobo, and has released several singles and EPs since his 2012 debut LP Trouble.

Ten years later, he shares his sophomore full-length, When The Lights Go, which he says is "about love and the end of the world." 

“I think that the record starts and all the ideas are quite direct, and then it gets murkier and murkier as it goes on,” he told Rolling Stone UK. But as we move further away from the lockdown, the apocalypse isn't quite as front of mind. “It’s kind of nice to get this material off my chest. The next record I’m working on is much more hopeful. I’ve come out and I’m very far over the other side now.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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United Freedom Collective - “MERCY (feat. FACESOUL)” from the 2022 Am Ta EP on Dama Dama.

At the core of the United Freedom Collective are three musicians: Mathieu Seynaeve, WaiFung Tsang, and Robbie Redway. The trio convened in a remote barn in Cornwall, in South West England, to create music inspired by Zen Taoism, Buddhism, Jungian analysis, meditation, yoga, and more. “It’s supposed to be something more than us” they explain in a press statement, “it’s music with intention, music for healing”.

This open and experimental approach can be heard on their debut EP Am Ta. The intentional band name of "United Freedom Collective" leaves the door open for frequent collaborators, and on today's Song of the Day, we hear from Somali-born, U.K.-based singer/songwriter FACESOUL, who the band describe as "a dear brother who spent some time with us in Cornwall earlier this year to cook up some magic with his unbelievable voice." 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Bill Callahan - “Coyotes” from the 2022 album YTI⅃AƎЯ on Drag City.

Singer/songwriter Bill Callahan is shaking up reality — literally, with the backwards title of his latest LP, YTILAER, out now via his long-time label Drag City. 

“It felt like it was necessary to rouse people — rouse their love, their kindness, their anger, rouse anything in them. Get their senses working again,” he shared in a press release.

On today's Song of the Day, that reality takes us to his backyard, where the titular animal made its presence known. “We lived for awhile in a house in the hills,” he explained. “Coyote hills. The coyotes would start their song at dawn. Dawn and dusk were their main appearance times. Our dog would sleep outside sometimes in the morning and our boy was still bite-size. The coyotes would come take notes, edging closer each day. Mornings on the kingsize outdoor daybed. Like a righteous floating tide the coyotes would drift into our world. Predator and prey, blurred. Past and present, blurred. The young, the aged are to be snatched and devoured. Past lives edge in closer to try to speak to us. Current lives eye the past ones like sleeping dogs. And love spans all, that is why the feeling is so deep — deeper than one lifetime.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Grynch Paper Route (feat. Sir Mix‐A‐Lot) from the 2022 self-released album Born in '86.

Nearly fifteen years after dropping his debut full-length, My Second Wind, Grynch is back with his first solo record since 2014 titled Born in ‘86. While it may be a solo record, that doesn’t mean the Seattle-born-and-bred rapper isn’t still open to sharing the mic. The deeply collaborative artist invited artists like Boom Bap Project, Blake Lewis, Prometheus Brown, and Daz Dillinger to help add color to the nostalgia-hued record.

But there’s no collaboration more deeply Seattle than our Song of the Day. “Paper Route” sees none other than the big-booty-loving Sir Mix a Lot join Grynch for a song that recognizes the resilience it takes to continue on the winding and fickle journey of being a longstanding musician. “I could never do a thing that I aint about,” Grynch spits on the chorus, “Suckers out here running miles /Chasing clout /But when it’s all said and done and they faded out /I’m gonna still be getting mine on my paper route.”

Watch Grynch's KEXP in-studio performance of fan-favorite “My Volvo” from all the way back in 2010 and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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4348 Kevin Cole Thursday 10/27/22 Bosq Song for Ehi (feat. The Ibibio Horns and Kaleta) a 2022 single on Canopy Limited.

Bosq is the musical pseudonym for Benjamin Woods, who has been utilizing Afro-Latin music in fusion with Funk, Disco, Reggae, House and Hip Hop to dazzling effect for a decade now. The Boston-bred, Colombia-based musician has released 4 full albums, heaps of EP's of original music, and countless collaborative singles and remixes with artists like Fania Records, Orchestre Poly Rhythmo de Cotonou, Poolside, Nickodemus, and many more.

He recently teamed up with the horn section of Ibibio Sound Machine as well as vocalist Kaleta for a fiery new single released via Portugal-based label Canopy Records, whose specialty is “Sub-Saharan synth swagger, re-calibrated and re- celebrated.” Titled “Song for Ehi,” the track is a combination of classic Edo-funk, Afro-disco and reggae disco with a groovy meandering bassline, soaring horns arrangements, and timbale breakdowns. While it may be cold outside, the group is bringing the heat!

Watch Ibibio Sound Machine’s recently-released KEXP in-studio session from September and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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You Said Strange - "So Sorry" from the 2021 album Thousand Shadows Vol.1 on Le Cèpe Records / Modulor.

For their debut album, Salvation Prayer, the French band You Said Strange recorded in Portland with Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter G Holmström. For they're latest LP, titled Thousand Shadows Vol​.​1, they hunkered down at home, building their own studio in Évreux, equipped with a vintage analog console and microphones gathered during previous tours. 

The band told Psychedelic Baby Magazine that the change enabled them to "become autonomous with our gear, build a cocoon and stretch our creation on a bigger space of time. Taking time to refine our sound and our compositions." As a result, the group's sophomore full-length is a thoughtful, intimate affair, produced by Daniel James Goodwin (This Is The Kit, Kevin Morby, Wand).

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Love'n'joy - "Psy Summer" from the 2022 self-released album Half Home.

Kyiv-based band Love’n’Joy completed their latest album Half Home just three days before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Vocalist/guitarist Anton Pushkar explained to Psychdelic Baby Magazine, "The idea of ​​the album title was mainly connected with the loss of Crimea, the place where me and Sergey (Zlobin, drummer) were born and raised and where our relatives live under russian occupation. After the events of February 24, when we had to leave our native Kyiv, this feeling multiplied.”

While touring in support of the new LP, the band established the Musicians Defend Ukraine fund, a way for them to support "Ukrainian artists who defend their cities and work as volunteers." 

“Different parts of the world [are] trying to support somehow,” Pushkar told Kerrang. “[You] can sell your records, collect money, organise a show – there’s lots of options available. And for [promoters] you can also just have a Ukrainian band play, because I guess all of the bands who are outside the Ukraine right now are raising money. We have a really big volunteer movement in Ukraine, and in a really horrible time it’s really nice to know and a really warm feeling that everybody cares for each other. And to see how people from Europe and U.S. help us, that’s really important.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Elsy Wameyo - "River Nile" from the 2022 Nilotic EP on Music in Exile.

Over the past few years, Nairobi-born, Adelaide-based artist Elsy Wameyo has made a name for herself in hip-hop, garnering both the Young Kenyan of the Year award in 2018, and the People's Choice Best Hip Hop Award at the annual South Australian Music Awards in 2019.

Her debut EP, titled Nilotic, is a tribute to her indigenous roots to the people of the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. In a press release, she explains that today's Song of the Day is an exploration of her newfound strength. “‘River Nile’ was a revelation, a turning point that led me to understand who I truly am. I had been so weak, fighting a battle that was never mine. This song came about after I learnt how to strategically use the power within. I journeyed with this song to find a place of rest. I reached a level where I no longer had to work. Instead, I used the forces around me to gain altitude. The moment I found it, it was game over for everyone else.”

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Enumclaw - "Jimmy Neutron" from the 2022 album Save the Baby on Luminelle Recordings.

It can often be tough to trace exactly where and when a band “broke” but for Enumclaw, it’s pretty straightforward. KEXP’s own Martin Douglas first wrote about the Tacoma band on KEXP’s website and, shortly after, major publications like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs. Bear, and The Fader followed suit. So, for all intents and purposes, we claim them as ours.

Last week, the quartet - made up of Aramis Johnson, Nathan Cornell, Eli Edwards, and Ladaniel Gipson - released their debut full-length Save the Baby. Produced by Gabe Wax, who’s also manned the boards for Soccer Mommy, Palehound, and Ian Sweet, the highly anticipated record continues their streak of ‘90s-inspired indie rock. Our Song of the Day, “Jimmy Neutron,” is a dreamy rocker about the desire for love and the pitfalls of making it a reality.

"This song is about getting so close to love that you can almost taste it," says Johnson of the track. "All the highs of being in love and how ridiculously unlike yourself it can make you act. All the daydreaming you do about what things could be and how they might go. There's always a catch though and in this story as soon as you reach out to grab 'love' and have it in your hands you drop it."

Enumclaw is currently touring the US, check out their scheduled dates to make sure you don't miss "the best band since Oasis." Recently, Martin Douglas spoke with Enumclaw and revisited the beginning of his relationship with the band for KEXP. Read the full post and watch the John C. Peterson-directed video for “Jimmy Neutron" at KEXP.org.

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Cheekface - "I Feel So Weird!" from the 2022 album Too Much To Ask on New Professor.

In times like we’ve been living through the past handful of years, humor has become more and more tantamount to survival. Cheekface understands that and displays it with aplomb. The Los Angeles-based band made up of Greg Katz, Amanda Tannen, Mark “Echo” Edwards channels Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, and Stephan Malkmus with their speak-singing but has plenty of wisdom behind their absurdist, critical, and, dare I say, cheeky lyricism.

Our Song of the Day “I Feel So Weird!,” off the band’s recently released third record Too Much To Ask, is an excellent example of Cheekface’s ability to make you spit-take with laughter at the same time as saying to yourself, “I feel that.” Over a mellow, bass-heavy rhythm Katz spews goofy statements like, “The difference between me and a dog is I am taller /Think about it, just think about it” before getting into a pretty great allegory for the feelings that anxiety often riddles upon a body, which is also an allusion towards dogs. Plus the Das Racist reference of “I'm at the combination Jamba Juice and therapist” makes it the gold standard of satirical lyricism.

While Cheekface isn’t big on music videos currently, watch the lyric video for other Too Much To Ask highlight “Featured Singer” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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PVA - "Untethered" from the 2022 album BLUSH on Ninja Tune.

South London trio PVA have gained a reputation for their live sets, with their dark, industrial-tinged dance music and frontwoman Ella Harris' deadpan vocals. (Early in their career, the band came up with the term “country-friend techno” to describe their sound.)

With their debut LP BLUSH, the group channels the raw energy of their shows, while displaying an increased confidence in the studio. “We wanted to surprise people and do something more than just get across how we sound at a gig,” percussionist Louis Satchell conveyed in a press release. “It’s quite an anxious record sometimes that is relating to mental health issues but also an everyday anxiety of making the album. It’s been a rocky ride but we always pick ourselves up.” 

Harris says today's Song of the Day is about "being in a straight relationship that is restrictive and closed off. It’s basically an expression of this really frustrated anger at masculinity and a resentment at being unable to free yourself from that heteronormative situation and explore the world.” The group elaborates, "'Untethered' is a song about release. It’s our current set opener and an introduction to our industrial arm. We wrote it in one session in a burst of chaotic catharsis. The lyrics follow a character being freed from imaginary tethers and experiencing the earth under their feet again."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Benedek - "Emotional (feat. Devin Morrison)" from the 2022 Zebrano EP on Apron Records.

Los Angeles-based producer/musician Benedek (real name: Nicholas Benedek) began playing guitar at the age of nine, and first started composing beats using his Nintendo Game Boy Camera software. With admiration for artists like Herbie Hancock and Jeff Beck, he's developed a unique style drawing from funk, hip-hop, soul, house, as well as science fiction and '90s video games. 

On today's Song of the Day, Benedek teams up with the soulful singer Devin Morrison for this '80s-inspired jam. (Do I detect a Bell Biv DeVoe inspiration?) Bandcamp calls the track a "slow burning ode to the West Coast," and with Morrison's laid-back vocals and that smooth R&B groove, it's the perfect song to make you forget it's autumn now. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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STR4TA - "Turn Me Around" from the 2022 album STR4TASFEAR on Brownswood.

Just before the world shut down in 2020, renowned DJ/record label owner Gilles Peterson joined acid jazz legend Jean-Paul Maunick (better known as "Bluey") for an improvised jam session in Bluey's parents’ garden shed in London. The result became STR4TA, and last year's debut LP, Aspects, draws influence from the '70s/'80s Brit-Funk sound they both grew up with. 

Their sophomore full-length, STR4TASFEAR, will be released on November 10th via Peterson's own Brownswood Recordings, and is described by Peterson in a press release as "a continuation from our first project, celebrating the ground breaking Brit-Funk era of the late 70s/ early 80s while continuing the story with the rise of the drum machine; paying homage to the Acid Jazz and Electro Soul that followed and the evolution that inspired club culture and new Jazz of recent times." He continues, "For me it's a record of parallels, not only in music but a lot of the issues we are experiencing today began in that Brit-Funk era. The parallels in the political landscape of that time and today are poignant and the moment of overall change we are living in is reflected in this record. Bluey is a significant executer of exhibiting the important social questions through music from a Black British perspective and it's an honour to work with him."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Taabu, Shad - Red Sky at Night - Remix a 2022 single on Distorted Muse.

Snotty Nose Rez Kids are a Polaris and Juno Award-nominated indigenous hip hop duo that are beacons amongst their community for addressing the generational trauma affecting indigenous people with wit, humor, and bars for days. Their most recent album Life After dropped in 2021 but recently they unveiled a remix of standout track “Red Sky at Night” featuring veteran emcee Shad and producer Taabu.

While the original was a vibey late-night track that showed off the duo’s dexterous verbal ability and is absolutely incredible on its own, the remix is a fiery hard-hitting journey meant to melt faces. Shad’s gracious opening verse sets the tone before Yung Trybez and Young D speak their truth, “Rez Kids on that red carpet /Tell the homies that this feature is free /Get best bargain like red target, all love.”

Turns out, Shad was actually supposed to be on the original version of the track but submitted his verse too late. “He showed us mad love when he heard it,” says SNRK to Complex of Shad. “...and sent us a verse back a little late when it came to getting it on the original [song], but that’s what remixes are for! His verse was recorded before we even thought about ours, and he set the damn bar!”

Snotty Nose Rez Kids were featured on an episode of Sound & Vision last year to discuss the change they want to be in their community. Check it out and watch the visualizer for “Red Sky at Night (Remix)” at KEXP.org.

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Bobby Sanchez - Trans 101 (Scarim) from the 2022 Prophecy EP on Harawiq Records.

Bobby Sanchez carries a plethora of identities on their shoulders - poet, musician, painter, model, activist. The American-Peruvian Indigenous artist is vocal about speaking on the topics close to their heart such as Indigenous displacement, gentrification, environmentalism, and gender identity. Their most recent EP Prophecy covers all of these in just four short yet vibey tracks.

Based solely on the number of Tik Toks that have used “Trans 101 (Scarim)” over the past few months, our Song of the Day has clearly hit home for a lot of trans people. Over a jazzy piano sample, Sanchez effortlessly flows about the beauty and danger of being trans. In one of the more triumphant verses, Sanchez coos, “Trans bodies are like temples I could see you worshipping /Trans bodies sentimental more beneath the surfaces /Trans bodies love each other and the love is permanent /Trans bodies will prevail and you cannot circumvent.”

Watch the video for 2018 single “Plutonomy” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Byron Nicholai - "Tengauryugtua (I Want To Fly)" from the 2022 album Ayagnera (The Beginning) on Tuallu Entertainment.

Back in 2014, a young Byron Nicholai went viral when he began posting videos of himself singing in the Indigenous Yup'ik language on Facebook. The media even dubbed him the "Justin Bieber of Alaska." 

Since then, he's relocated from the coastal town of Toksook Bay to Anchorage, to "get faster internet," he confessed to KYUK. “I feel like it would mess with my momentum a little bit, 'cause sometimes I’d be excited to work on a track, but then having internet problems would just kind of wash that away.”

The move worked, because now, almost ten years later, he's returned with a new album, titled Ayagnera [The Beginning], a collection of rap, R&B, and dance songs, all sung in Yugtun, the Indigenous language he grew up speaking.

“I came up with the title Ayagnera [The Beginning] because I felt like it was the start of Yup’ik modern music," he told Rolling Stone India. "There’s currently no other Yup’ik music that is released like this other than what I’ve put out.” 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Digging Roots - "Tall Grass" from the 2022 album Zhawenim on Ishkōdé Records.

Canadian duo Digging Roots returned this summer with their fourth LP Zhawenim. Since 2004, the husband-and-wife team of Raven Kanatakta Polson-Lahache and Sho-Shona Kish have crafted an award-winning blend of folk, hip-hop, and more with traditional Indigenous music. (Sho-Shona is Anishinabe, from Batchewana First Nation, while Raven is Anishinabe and Mohawk, from Winneway, Quebec.)

The album title of "zhawenim" translates from Anishinabemowin to "to love unconditionally." As they write on their Facebook page, "Each of us has a thousand Ancestors standing with us. This collection of songs is for all our Ancestors, past, present and future. We’re dedicating Zhawenim to the children. Those living now, those yet to come and to those little ones who were stolen and never made it home to their families. We will always live life to its fullest for them, play music and dance for them, and feast for them. Niikaanaagaanah." 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Mare Advertencia - "Escribiendo La Historia" from the 2022 Siempreviva EP on Derretida Ent / MuyMAL.

An Indigenous Zapotec artist, rapper and activist Mare Advertencia Lirika has been using her voice to amplify underrepresented communities since she burst onto the scene in 2003 alongside Dj TBear. "My life context has taught me that I can use my voice,” she told Refinery 29 last year, “And maybe that’s a privilege of mine, one I shouldn’t have, but I trust very much what I have to say. I don’t fear what I have to say.”

On her 2020 EP SiempreViva, she combines rap and funk to help express her reflections on feminism, cultural identity, and social inequality. She said in a press release at the time, "It is a material that invites us to learn to live despite death and violence, proposes a metaphor with the everlasting flower that reminds us that, despite adversity, hope is always with us. We have the possibility to reinvent our reality, the way life is presented to us and to find ourselves in community."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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TeZATalks - Lex Luthor a 2022 self-released single.

Since 2016, TeZATalks has been enchanting fans with her unique genre-blending sound that explores electronic, hip-hop, metal, and dark pop in bewitching fashion. The self-described “Hard-Core Popstar” was born in Oahu but calls Seattle home and we’re more than happy to have her represent the diversity of music that breeds here.

“Lex Luther” is the artist’s most recent release and the first taste from her upcoming debut full-length, of which she currently hasn’t dropped any details on yet. What we do know is that if this what we can expect the record to sound like, then we’re in for a wild ride. Produced by Grammy-nominated artist, writer, and producer Blakksoul, “Lex Luther” taps into the hardest, grimiest aspects of TeZATalks’ sound, turning the heat up full throttle for a breakup song zeroed in on the anger and resentment felt for her ex.

In a recent interview with American Songwriter, who premiered the track, she calls the song an, “anthem for victims of a fuck boy.” And goes on to say, “I found myself reminiscing on a past relationship. The experience was so bad I guess there was some left over hurt on my mind that needed to get out. I decided to write a 20 reason letter as to why I should have dumped him sooner.”

Now, That’s What I Call Therapy.

Watch TeZATalks’ absolutely mindblowing KEXP in-studio performance from February 2020 (right in the nick of time) and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Disq - "Cujo Kiddies" from the 2022 album Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet on Saddle Creek.

Wisconsin-based quintet Disq are releasing their sophomore record Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet this Friday two years after dropping their debut Collector. Our Song of the Day and the album’s lead single “Cujo Kiddies” emphasizes the band’s ability to craft eclectic art rock but is also a deeply personal song for vocalist/bassist Raina Bock. In a lengthy statement, Bock had this to say about the song:

“I wanted to make a song that sounded like a freight train full of clowns and silly toys, barreling through the dark, observing and taking note of the various gloomy landscapes of my brain (without dwelling too long or taking any of it too seriously).I wrote the first half of ‘Cujo’ from deep inside the hole of substance abuse and loneliness. The song was meant to function as a blueprint for how I wished my reality could look. Six months later, sitting in an ocean of boxes all packed up for what would be my fourth time moving that year, I wrote the second half.The experience inspired what I hope to be my lifelong approach to songwriting going forward… To write songs not with the goal of reflecting on where I am at a given moment, but as a tool to pull myself out of the way things are and toward the way I’d like them to be.I wrote ‘Cujo Kiddies’ for nobody else’s ears but my own, so while it is now making its way out into a strange world where I am not the only living person on earth, I truly from the bottom of my heart hope you all enjoy— but if you don’t, rest easy in knowing that it is no skin off the author’s back either way. This song has already done everything I could have ever hoped it would.”

Disq will be in Seattle on Tuesday, December 6th to play Barboza with opening support from local band Sea Lemon. Watch the official video for other Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet single “The Hardest Part” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Miss Grit - "Like You," a 2022 single on Mute.

New York-based, Korean-American artist Miss Grit (real name: Margaret Sohn) shares the new single "Like You," her first track released since signing to Mute Records. “Mute is one of the labels I put on a pedestal in my mind, so the fact I was even on their radar was really flattering,” Sohn said in a press release. “And then to think they believed in my music enough to want to work together made me so happy.”

Today's Song of the Day is an electropop groove that builds into a radiant burst of synths. The lyrics take inspiration from the 2014 film Ex Machina, the story of a computer programmer interacting with a beautiful robot.  “I had the character of Ex Machina in mind as the voice I was singing from. Her arc in the movie felt really beautiful to me, and I wanted to reach the same ending as her in this song.”

Listen to song below, and check out their 2021 Live on KEXP at Home session, too. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Ty Segall - "Distraction" from the 2022 album "Hello, Hi" on Drag City.

From glam rock to garage to experimental noise, Ty Segall has covered it all over his 14-album discography. On his latest, titled “Hello, Hi”, he takes an intimate acoustic approach to songs that gestated during the pandemic. The album title itself acknowledges the strange isolation of that period, and how he missed just talking to people.

“It’s a simple sentiment,” Segall told Esquire. “A salutation. And just, how nice that is. When you can’t do it. And it’s like, you don’t ever think about it, until it’s gone. Just saying, ‘Hey!’ It’s a simple thing.” He adds, "It was like, ‘now here I’m in this room, and I’m daydreaming about all this weird shit around me, just, the window and the cement floors. And I just want to say hi.” 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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MorMor - "Seasons Change," a 2022 single on Don't Guess / AWAL.

On today's Song of the Day, Toronto-based artist MorMor (real name: Seth Nyquist) encourages listeners to seize the day. "I won't leave it to fate / as seasons change," he sings against a laid-back, electro-pop groove, reminiscent of fellow Canadians Broken Social Scene.

"‘Seasons Change’ is a song about the constraints of time," he explained via a press release. "The sentiment is that if you are to live once, why not give into your natural desires.”

The track will appear on his long-awaited debut album Semblance, out November 4th. You can catch him next year on February 1st at Neumos.

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Cumulus - "Sunbeam" from the 2022 album Something Brighter on Share It Music.

KEXP’s love and respect for Cumulus has been at least a decade in the making, spanning before the release of their 2013 debut I Never Meant to Be Like This. Back in 2018, our coverage of Cumulus’ sophomore record Comfort World was glowing and persistent, and for good reason. Alexandra Lockhart (née Niedzialkowski)’s ability to convey a wide range of introspective feelings while keeping every single song immensely catchy is a skill few have.

At long last, Cumulus is releasing their third record Something Brighter on October 21st via Share It Music. The name is an apt representation of the tone of the record because, despite being written and recorded during the darkness of the pandemic, Lockhart’s ability to find hope and light is stronger than ever.

A big catalyst for that lightness is the love Lockhart found with her now-husband and that comes out in our Song of the Day, “Sunbeam.” “When you’re next to me /It’s like I’m sleeping in a sunbeam,” coos Lockhart. “Oh, the way you love me /It gets into my bloodstream.” It’s *almost* too sweet and pure for those of us not currently in the throes of love but also conjures hope, just knowing that Lockhart and her husband have found that.

She told Atwood Magazine this about the song:

“’Sunbeam’ is probably the purest love song I have ever written, or at least it is the first time that I have written and released a song in the throes of love,” Lockhart tells Atwood Magazine. “Not looking back longingly, not heartbroken and missing something, just in it, appreciative, feeling wrapped in safety and reflecting on all the time I spent wondering if I’d ever find it. Finding your person is such a wild journey. I come from a family of divorce, and I think I built up some walls and codependent notions in my pursuits of young love as a result, and my journey with partnership wasn’t always healthy.”

“This is a song about the realization that when you do meet the right person, it’s not complicated. It’s easy. It’s not that it doesn’t take hard work, but it doesn’t feel like work. I also wrote this song in pandemic times, and wanted to write something to document how good this person makes me feel, how grateful I am to have them next to me.”

“Sunbeam” comes with a video directed by Sébastien Deramat, of Special Explosion and Seacats, in which Lockhart and her husband lock eyes amongst a horde of animal sculptures made of driftwood. Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Big Joanie - "In My Arms" from the 2022 album Back Home on Kill Rock Stars.

British punk trio and International Clash Day alums Big Joanie are releasing this sophomore record Back Home on November 4th via Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz’s Daydream Library Series (UK) and Kill Rock Stars in the US. Ahead of its release, they’ve dropped a string of singles including “Happier Still” and our Song of the Day, “In My Arms.”

Led by a rambling guitar, the nostalgic track looks back on a past relationship with regret and melancholy. “I’ve compromised too many times /In my life,” sings Stephanie Phillips. “One day I’ll make the great escape /And send another you away /But now I dream /Of you in my arms.” Frontwoman Stephanie Phillips said this of the song in a statement:

“At this point I was getting tired of living in London and dreaming about another life. It’s about knowing you should go another way in life but you end up dreaming about the road you’ve already travelled down even though you know it won’t take you where you need to go.”

On the flip side, the Lydia Garret-directed video for the track is joyful in celebrating queer love and friendships. Focusing on a group of teens over the course of an exhilarating day where they explore a theme park, have a bonfire on the beach, and finish off with a personal dance party with Big Joanie as the entertainment.

Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Peter Matthew Bauer - "Skulls" from the 2022 album Flowers on Fortune Tellers.

With The Walkmen still on hiatus, multi-instrumentalist Peter Matthew Bauer continues their anthemic style of indie rock on his latest solo LP, Flowers. On today's Song of the Day, he displays the ways he's developed musically since the band took a break.

"'Skulls' was inspired by a new style of guitar playing that I stumbled on," he told Under the Radar. "In all the years I’d made music, I’d never figured out a way to take a guitar solo before. I started using a distortion pedal and a space echo, playing these kind of waterfalling guitar riffs over some farfisa chords. It felt really loose and brought me a lot of joy. From there, I tried to write a very joyous melody to match it. There’s a record by Peter One and Jess Sah Bi, it’s a kind of 1980s country rock record from the Cote d’Ivoire. I feel like their style of melodies really inspired me throughout this album. Just the rhythm and the way they’re both laid back but really letting go."

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Rocky Votolato - "Little Black Diamond" from the 2022 album Wild Roots on Spartan.

Long-beloved local artist Rocky Votolato returns with his most personal album yet. Wild Roots is his first new album in seven years. Written during the pandemic, Votolato sought to craft an album about "family connection," adding to People magazine, "but on a deeper level, it's about the human struggle and overcoming and surviving anything that is handed to you." (You can hear and read more about this album in an upcoming interview here on KEXP!)

Today's Song of the Day was inspired by Votolato's niece Carissa. As he writes on social media, "it’s a song about loyalty and how much keeping your word and telling the truth means to the ones closest to you. I wrote it after we went for a walk one day and she helped me find a little stone that I carried around with me in my pocket for years and years on every tour I did. That little rock came to represent loyalty to me and was a constant reminder of all the people in my life who love me and why I was trying to stay alive and do the work on myself to become a better person."

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Karate, Guns and Tanning - "Enchanter," a 2022 self-released single.

Indianapolis-based band Karate, Guns & Tanning formed out of the 15-year friendship of bassist/vocalist Valerie Green and keyboardist/vocalist Paige Shedletsky. “We basically share a brain,” Shedletsky told Post-Punk.com.

Together, they craft a dark, riot grrrl-tinged shoegaze, influenced by David Lynch and Hunter S. Thompson. On today's Song of the Day, they evoke the chilly synths of Ladytron with a soaring '80s-style guitar solo in the center. It's a first look at the band's next EP, slated for release this fall. 

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Livt - Let It Go (feat. Dave B) from the 2022 album Pink and Orange on LIV Free Media / DAY ONE ENT.

If you weren’t able to make it to our KEXP 50th anniversary party earlier this summer, then you missed an incredible performance by local artist LIVt kicking the festivities off. KEXP has become a major champion of the Tacoma, WA-raised musician’s poetic lyricism touting messages of radical self-love and acceptance.

Her most recent record, 2022’s Pink and Orange expands on the soulful soundscapes LIVt created on 2020’s Flowers in the Void. Our Song of the Day “Let It Go” sees her team up with another local hero, Dave B, for a laid-back bop with the cathartic (if not exactly radio-friendly) message of, “Fuck it /Let it go.”

LIVt stopped by KEXP back in March for an in-studio with Gabriel Teodros. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Lil Silva - Still (feat. Sampha & Ghetts) from the 2022 album Yesterday Is Heavy on Nowhere Music Ltd.

It may have taken Lil Silva over a decade to finally drop his debut full-length, but he proved it was worth the wait. Since 2010, the UK producer has been winning over fans as a beatmaker who could bring emotion to the dancefloor. Eventually, Silva started to incorporate his airy vocals into his work, expanding his tapestry of sounds.

Yesterday Is Heavy is not only a tapestry of sounds but also collaborators. Lil Silva is clearly well-liked because everyone from Little Dragon, BADBADNOTGOOD, Charlotte Day Wilson, and serpentwithfeet join him on the record. Our Song of the Day, “Still,” is just one of two tracks South London singer Sampha lends his vocals to alongside some help from grime MC Ghetts.

The smooth track gently grooves until the beat kicks in and Sampha leads with anxiety-riddled lyricsm about wanting to love but knowing he’s not in the right mental place for it. Ghetts backs him on the sentiment with his compelling verse, “Just come back from my therapist /Wouldn't recommend it /I opened up too much /Book in every sentence /I don't need an analyst /To tell me I'm an anarchist.” Silva’s touch is light but his gentle coos back the boys for the intimate posse cut.

Watch the video for Yesterday Is Heavy opening track "Another Sketch" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Son Little - "6 AM," a 2022 single on ANTI-.

Philadelphia-based R&B artist Son Little (real name: Aaron Livingston) found inspiration from acclaimed sci-fi author Octavia Butler for today's Song of the Day. 

“Dawn is my favorite Octavia Butler book,” he said in a press release. “It’s also my favorite time of the day— the time I have my clearest most exciting ideas and also the time when I sometimes spiral into emotional/mental chaos. Wrote a song about it.”

"6 AM" is available on his latest LP Like Neptune, out now via ANTI- Records. You can catch him Monday, November 7th at Neumos in Seattle. 

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Mystic - "Here, Alive (Spirits High)" from the 2022 album Dreaming In Cursive: The Girl Who Loved Sparklers on Beautifull Soundworks.

As KEXP's Gabriel Teodros says, "Every Mystic album is an event, and something to come back to for years and years."

The long-running Bay Area-based artist/activist (real name: Mandolyn Wind Ludlum) returns with her third full-length Dreaming In Cursive: The Girl Who Loved Sparklers, another release of "healed Black woman music," as she puts it.  

Her debut full-length — 2001's Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom — had a huge impact on Teodros. As he writes on Instagram, "Mystic’s debut album was a record that changed me, an album that made me feel loved in a way I hadn’t felt from other hip-hop albums before: that real kind of love that will hold you accountable, see your flaws and your beauty and just love you to your best self… all in the music though!"

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Kingsley Ibeneche - "Asked For Light" from the 2022 album Udo on Dirty Deity.

Nigerian-American artist Kingsley Ibeneche truly opens his heart on his debut album Udo, which was released last Friday. In a press statement, the full-length is described as an "emotional experience of an empathic person who stays bound to their kin sometimes to the detriment of themselves, but who refuses to give up the quest for elation, personal peace and self-actualization in the process."

Today's Song of the Day, in particular, is "very special" to him and his longtime collaborator, Lee Clarke. It's a beautiful, meditative piece, with a plaintively plucked acoustic guitar and serene washes of soul. As he stated on Instagram, "We spent a good amount of time carving and molding the shape of this song. I’m a lucky dude to be able to work with Lee. He has always believed in me and supported me in the fullest way possible. I learn from him up close and from afar." 

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Nada Rosa - "The Process of Dying" from the 2020 Personas EP on OTHERWORLDS.

Brandi Diaz is a Seattle-based musician and first-generation Cuban/Dominican American making intimate surf-tinged cosmic soul under the moniker Nada Rosa. The name takes inspiration from the concept of infinite potential (everything comes from nothingness/nada) as well as the name of her maternal Grandmother Rosa, who represents authenticity, power, and strength.

Our Song of the Day “The Process of Dying” is a gentle strummer that hinges on Diaz’s angelic vocals that pack a punch in just a little over two minutes, harkening a gentle rally towards finding freedom from the anxieties that plague the mind. “I give myself /What I need /And I set myself free,” she coos before admitting, “I may not know what’s coming /But I set myself free.”

In an exclusive quote for KEXP, Diaz says this of “The Process of Dying”:

“This song came to me in the middle of a bubble bath actually…. It was the middle of 2020, and I had a whole lot of time of my hands. I decided to take mushrooms that day and go inward. Submerged in the water, I began to notice my hair, and realized how hair lives on even after it leaves our body. For some reason, that moment sparked something in me, and the lyrics to Process of Dying began pouring in. I jumped out of the water, ran to my bedroom and began recording. It was one of those songs that came out almost like a birth, completely intact, and as a total release. The lyrics were a profound realization for me that I have the power to take care of myself always, and that the only certainly in life is that there IS no certainty, other than the fact that this time on earth is temporary. For me, that is the most freeing thing to know. My wish for this song is for it to be a meditation and reminder for everyone that hears it, that we always hold the key to our own freedom, if we can let go of certainty, care for ourselves, and fully belong to this moment.”

Watch the video for "The Process of Dying," co-directed by Diaz and Jane Urban, and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Meridian Brothers - "Metamorfosis (feat. Grupo El Renacimiento)" from the 2022 album Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento on Ansonia Records.

For Eblis Álvarez, frontman and figurehead behind Bogotá band Meridian Brothers, the imaginary is a primary source of inspiration. His latest record, and 11th since the band’s inception in 1998, is a collaboration with a fictional band called Grupo El Renacimiento. Creating an entire backstory for the band, Álvarez claims them to be a 1970s salsa group from a small village in Colombia who had a small amount of fame but then were forgotten after the band delved further into drugs and partying.

But that’s not the only story on Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento. There’s also a Kafka-esque storyline on today’s Song of the Day “Metamorfosis,” in which the formerly-human protagonist wakes up to find themselves transformed into a robot. “Memory is dying,” reads the English translation of the lyrics. “They’ve already connected the internet to my lung /To my heart.”

“Salsa singers in the '70s, they used to sing about, you know, like, actual problems,” Álvarez told NPR in an interview. “Social problems, political problems, human problems of emotional problems. So I decide to imitate that attitude - ‘Metamorfosis’ - that tells about this dystopian world where technology takes over the human brain, takes over the human body, takes over the human societies and control it.”

This record is also important because it marks the first release in 30 years from long-standing label Ansonia Records. Created in 1949 by Puerto Rican immigrant Rafael ‘Ralph’ Pérez, the New York-based label was the home for a surprisingly large, diverse, and important catalog of seminal recordings featuring traditional and popular Latin rhythms and sounds. Genres such as música jíbara, plena, bomba, danza, son, guajira, bolero, danzón and merengue are well represented, as are guaracha, mambo, cha-cha-cha, pachanga and boogaloo.

Watch the lyric video (in both English and Spanish) for “Metamorfosis” and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Omar Apollo - "Archetype" from the 2022 album Ivory (Marfil) on Warner.

This week's Songs of the Day were selected by KEXP DJs Albina Cabrera and DJ Chilly, hosts of El Sonido, in honor of Aquí y Ahora: Without Borders. Join KEXP September 12 through October 14 for a month dedicated to amplifying the contributions, resilience, and music of Latinx, Hispanic and Latino-identified communities worldwide. More info here.

Only four months after releasing his debut album, IVORY, Mexican-American artist Omar Apollo returned with a deluxe edition — titled IVORY (Marfil) —featuring five bonus tracks, including today's Song of the Day. 

As KEXP's Albina Cabrera described in her Living Singles segment back in July, "It’s a classic Omar Apollo love song, which is definitely a way we should start defining songs that show up, interpret your feelings, turn into constant soundtracks, and stay by your side for at least half a year."

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Mediopicky - "quien te llamo" from the 2022 album mediopicky on Salsa Fegol.

This week's Songs of the Day were selected by KEXP DJs Albina Cabrera and DJ Chilly, hosts of El Sonido, in honor of Aquí y Ahora: Without Borders. Join KEXP September 12 through October 14 for a month dedicated to amplifying the contributions, resilience, and music of Latinx, Hispanic and Latino-identified communities worldwide. More info here.

"I was borned, i learned to pruduce, and now you are dancing."

This is the Bandcamp bio for Dominican Republic-based artist mediopicky (real name: Pablo Alcántara). Since 2011, he's been releasing some serious bangers, combining tropical rhythms with hip-hop, funk with electronica. Today's Song of the Day is a fuzz-heavy, reggae-tinged trip with eerie overtones.

Throughout it all, his ultimate goal is to get you moving. As he says on his website, "What interests me is that people feel something from what I can create, no matter what it is, but that they feel something and dance without thinking about what kind of music they are listening to."

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Doris Anahí - "Aprendiendo por las Malas" from the 2022 Aprendiendo por las Malas EP on Casa Mija.

This week's Songs of the Day were selected by KEXP DJs Albina Cabrera and DJ Chilly, hosts of El Sonido, in honor of Aquí y Ahora: Without Borders. Join KEXP September 12 through October 14 for a month dedicated to amplifying the contributions, resilience, and music of Latinx, Hispanic and Latino-identified communities worldwide. More info here.

Doris Anahí Muñoz was a long-time music manager, overseeing emerging Latinx artists like Cuco and La Doña. She's the founder of Casa Mija (FKA mija mgmt), a program for BIPOC youth interested in a career in the music business. Her story is detailed in the Disney original documentary Mija, which follows this ambitious activist on her mission to change the industry. 

Now, she's taking the mic herself, recording under the name Doris Anahí. Her debut EP is titled Aprendiendo por las Malas, or "Learning the Hard Way," which is something she surely did during her time as a music manager.

In an interview with LatinPlug, she says the EP "really tells the different stories of that whole chapter of my life." She adds, "Where I felt like all these repressed songs came from all these lessons that I had to learn the hard way these last few years. Largely because I didn't follow my gut, because I was so stubborn and clinging to a version of myself, the version that people wanted me to be. In the end, you end up learning the hard way. When you're not honest with yourself, you're not honest with others, and that's exactly where the hard lessons come in." 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Beverly Crusher - "Vacuum" from the 2022 album Waste of Waves on Freakout.

Seattle punk rock band Beverly Crusher has been chipping away and threatening a full album for about three years and finally have come to the point they can share said forthcoming new album Waste of Waves, out on Freakout Records.

Said Cozell Wilson (guitar and vocals) of their brand new LP,

"We had so many set backs, development, and growth working on this album that all we can be is ecstatic that it finally printed in its final form on a sick record label that really believes in us and bends over backwards to support independent music. 17 year old us wouldn't believe this is real."

Watch their KEXP in-studio session and read the full post at KEXP.org

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Manny Noir & Psychedelic Ensemble - "Where Were You…" from the 2022 album Nocturne on Everything Is Perfect / LIVE AT THE CLINIC.

Southeast London emcee Manny Noir recently teamed up with producer Psychedelic Ensemble to release the collaborative record Nocturne in June. True to the album’s name, Nocturne is ten tracks of vibey downtempo hip hop perfect for the late hours of the evening. The combination of Manny Noir’s silky flows with Psychedelic Ensemble’s smooth, softly grooving production makes for a sexily uneasy nighttime soundscape.

Our Song of the Day “Where Were You…” hones in on the feelings of longing and betrayal that often permeate the brain upon nightfall. “Where were you when I was hurting / I was hurting /I was hurt,” questions Noir over a thrumming beat punctuated by ghostly synths mimicking the fog of memories best left in the past.

Read the full post and watch the video for Nocturne closing track "Let the Love In," directed by Marlon Francis, at KEXP.org.

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Meskerem Mees - "Best Friend," from the 2022 Caesar EP on Mayway.

Born in Ethiopia and raised in Belgium (where she still resides today), 23-year-old artist Meskerem Mees displays a maturity beyond her years in her beautiful compositions. She's won the Emerging Artists Award from Humo's Rock Rally, the Music Moves Europe 2022 Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Montreux Jazz Talent Award in 2021.

On today's Song of the Day, she calls to mind Courtney Barnett with her speedy talk-singing style, but musically, it's stripped down to just her acoustic guitar and cello accompaniment by Frederik Daelemans. Against the minimal folk-pop instrumentation, her lyrics reflect on middle school days to just a year ago, and how her life has changed. 

Today's Song of the Day will appear on the Caesar EP, to be released November 10th via Mayway.

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S H I R A N - "Habibi Inta حبيبي انت" from the 2022 album Fadaytak on Batov.

Tel Aviv-based artist S H I R A N (real name: Shiran Avraham) uses her music to explore her Middle Eastern roots, combining the influences with hip-hop, Afrobeats, and more. Her production partner Ron Bakal returns on this latest LP to help her carry these songs to new heights, in a style they call “Electro Hafla,” a reference to "the large “'hafla' get-togethers full of music and dancing, common at family gatherings and religious ceremonies."

She declares on Facebook:

I am so proud of what we created Ron Bakal⁩. The album’s creation process was very special for me because all the songs were written in collaboration with a song writer from Yemen and been through a journey in all the places Ron and I love’s to travel. The truth is that the album was ready two years ago, it needed to release outside a long time ago but it postponed by a lot of reasons. COVID-19, our life routine and all kind of challenges that we have been through. We worked on it so hard and during our work I went through a process of my own that thought me a lot. I have learned that it is good to let go and not hold in.. listen to myself and let the art burst out without a lot of questions and thoughts. But I do believe that everything is happening in it’s time. After all, the album was made with love! Thanks to amazing people that took part If it and brought there talent and heart 

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Jitwam - "The Get Down" from the 2022 album Third on Roya Records.

As KEXP's DJ Alex mentioned in 2018 when Jitwam contributed a Midnight in a Perfect World mix to us, "Jitwam is a bit of an enigma. He was born in Northeast India, he's currently based in Brooklyn, he spent his formative years in New Zealand and Australia, and has lived in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and washed out apartments in London."

On his third album — helpfully titled Third — Jitwam focuses on nights in London and New York, specifically, while still infusing a lifetime of global influences into his rich tapestry of disco-funk. Today's Song of the Day is such a fast-paced dance delight, you can almost picture the Soul Train dancers doing one of their infamous line dances to it. 

As he told Mixmag, "Being a diaspora kid, Third, for me, also has a lot of references to third culture. I’m trying to blur the lines between what we think of as different cultures, rhythms, and genres, and show that despite how different these genres are — or how different we are as people — we’re all grounded in the same drumbeat really."

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Franklin Gothic - Mr. Hangman from the 2022 album Into the Light on #veryjazzed.

Franklin Gothic is the solo project of Portland-based artist Jay DiBartolo. In August, he released his debut record Into the Light via split release with Very Jazzed ad Pleasure Tapes. Made in collaboration with producer/local luminary Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, Tacocat, Pickwick), the album covers a variety of genres including ‘90s indie, Americana, and shoegaze for a dynamic and colorful listen.

Our Song of the Day is the early single “Mr. Hangman.” Influenced by DiBartolo’s childhood and using the game Hangman as an analogy for feeling cut off from the world and left hanging, the song is, conversely, one of the more vibrant tunes on the record. DiBartolo had this to say about the song:

"The original version we intended to record for "Mr. Hangman" was this sweet, little boppy tune, which had been bugging me because it felt inauthentic. After laying down the drums in the studio, I took the song back home and experimented a bit on guitar by noodling with various phrasings over the existing chord progression. That's when this dissonant feeling emerged that juxtaposed the original version and captured what the song's about. I sent it to Erik and he replied back with a champagne emoji, so I knew that was it."

The song comes with a glitchy VHS-style video directed by Sean McGuirk. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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Brijean - Take A Trip from the 2022 album Angelo on Ghostly International.

Vocalist/percussionist Brijean Murphy and producer/multi-instrumentalist Doug Stuart have been making sweltering groovy soundscapes as Brijean since 2019 and recently followed up their 2021 full-length Feelings with the EP Angelo. Named after their 1981 Toyota Celica, Angelo was born out of a period of immense grief, in which the duo leaned heavily on each other and music as a way to cope.

Our Song of the Day “Take a Trip” celebrates those moments of cruising windows-down, as well as the more psychedelic types of trips, in which the journey is through the mind. “Travel with me down, down, down /Hear the colors, taste the sounds /Through the window, out the door /Spaces in my mind I've never seen before,” coos Murphy. A meandering bassline leads the scorchingly sunny song while a bevy of sounds including hand-claps, cuíca hiccups, whip-cracks, even a horse neigh add color to the already-heated track.

“This song is an inquiry into shifting perspectives—a way to deepen our lived experience by becoming aware of the unexplored facets of our own perception,” says the duo of “Take a Trip” which comes with a music video from Nathan Castiel inspired by Dreamcast-era video games that interplays lo-fi 3D animation with the warmth of 16mm film.

Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.org

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Flying Lotus - "You Don’t Know (feat. Devin Tracy)" from the 2022 album The Room on Warp Records.

DJ/producer Flying Lotus teams up with soul singer Devin Tracy for today's Song of the Day, a laid back summer-y groove perfect for these final days of the season. 

FlyLo's been busy this year: he wrote the theme song to the AppleTV+ Magic Johnson documentary series, They Call Me Magic, and wrote the score for Netflix's YASUKE anime series. He's currently working on his second film, titled Ash. The film was written by Jonni Remler and focuses on a woman who "wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed, her investigation into what happened setting in motion a terrifying chain of events." In addition to directing, Flying Lotus will also compose the score. 

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Yaya Bey - "alright" from the 2022 album Remember Your North Star on Big Dada.

On her latest LP, Remember Your North Star, Brooklyn-based artist Yaya Bey explores the themes of Black womanhood against a mix of R&B, jazz, reggae, and hip-hop.

"I saw a tweet that said, "Black women have never seen healthy love or have been loved in a healthy way." That's a deep wound for us," she stated in a press release. "Then I started to think about our responses to that as Black women. So this album is kind of my thesis. Even though we need to be all these different types of women, ultimately we do want love: love of self and love from our community. The album is a reminder of that goal."

Read the full story at KEXP.org

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Santigold - "High Priestess" from the 2022 album Spirituals on Little Jerk.

Santigold returns with a vengeance for Spirituals, her first new full-length in six years. 

She explains in a press release, "I loved the idea of calling it Spirituals because it touched on the idea of Negro spirituals, which were songs that served the purpose of getting Black people through the un-get-throughable. In the absence of physical freedom, spirituals have traditionally been music whose sound and physical performance allow its participants to feel transcendental freedom in the moment. That’s what this record did for me."

Today's Song of the Day came out of a collaboration with Ray Brady and Boys Noize, with additional creative contributions from Psymun and Gayngs’ Ryan Olson. 

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Slang - Chipped Tooth from the 2022 album Cockroach In A Ghost Town on Kill Rock Stars.

In one of the most ultimate Northwest powergroup collaborations to come in recent history, Slang seemingly appeared out of nowhere. In fact, Drew Grow and Janet Weiss (the latter needing no introduction and Grow being a IYKYK frontman of Modern Kin and the Pastors’ Wives and in-demand producer) have been slowly working on Slang for over a decade.

Bringing with them a bevy of notable names for their first record Cockroach In a Ghost Town, including Kathy Foster (Roseblood, The Thermals) on bass and Anita Lee Elliot (Viva Voce) as well as appearances from Sam Coomes (Quasi), Stephen Malkmus (Pavement), and Mary Timony (Helium, Ex Hex, Wild Flag), it’s a who’s who of the Northwest Gen X scene.

Our Song of the Day, “Chipped Tooth,” is an existentialist viewpoint of examining all the rough edges of yourself - be it your ragged brain, running wild with thoughts that slip into darkness quicker than you’d like, or the jagged points of a chipped tooth - always existing but not always noticeable until it’s the only part of you that you can think about.

“I think it’s more our mutual appreciation of music that grabs you and grabs hold and shakes you to the core,” explained Weiss to KEXP’s Eva Walker during their in-studio recorded in July. “I think we feel like this band has that potential to kind of get inside a person a give them strength and hope and just a joie de vive. Things get really hard and I feel like music is our saving grace so we all kind of look to music to lift us up.”

Watch said in-studio and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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The Beths - Silence is Golden from the 2022 album Expert in a Dying Field on Carpark.

New Zealand indie pop outfit The Beths are on the verge of dropping their highly anticipated third record Expert in a Dying Field on September 16th via Carpark Records. The follow-up to 2020’s Jump Rope Gazers sees the band delve into character sketches of relationships and their aftermaths, with an emphasis on the aftermath.

Our Song of the Day is the single “Silence Is Golden.” Frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes spews lines at a brisk clip, nimbly quipping lines like, "I wish that I could freeze time, go to the wild, soak up the quiet / Till I'm dripping wet with it / Then I would drive home, go to my room, wring myself out / That would be the end of it." According to the band, the song conveys the, "stress and anxiety manifesting as an intolerance to noise, where each new sound makes you more and more stressed.”

With fuzzy guitars and a screeching guitar solo contrasting that message, the song is a roaring and nervy antidote to silence. While silence may be golden, a Beths song gleams just as bright.

Watch the video for “Silence Is Golden" and read the full post at KEXP.org

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Momma - "Lucky" from the 2022 album Household Name on Polyvinyl.

On today's Song of the Day, Brooklyn duo Momma aimed to write "a sappy and sentimental love song." The track is a stand-out on their latest LP Household Name, which is a powerhouse of '90s influences and grunge-y guitars. 

“I wrote it after my significant other and I had to spend an unknown amount of time apart from each other on opposite sides of the country,” guitarist/vocalist Etta Friedman said in a press statement. “I wanted it to feel anthemic, like a sappy and sentimental love song, but I still wanted to speak on how exciting it feels to know you found true treasure with someone you are in love with.” 

For its accompanying music video, they tapped directors Emma Penrose and Zack Shorrosh for a clip inspired by Green Day’s “Walking Contradiction.”

"We didn’t want to get too cheesy and literal," Penrose shared, "so, Etta suggested some ideas from the Green Day ‘Walking Contradiction’ video as well as the fun and etherealness of certain Beabadoobee videos. In the end, we feel like the video displays how much fun it was to film."

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NoSo - "David" from the 2022 album Stay Proud of Me on Partisan.

Singer-songwriter Baek Hwong named their musical project NoSo (as in North/South) after being asked one too many times, "which Korea are you from?". The Los Angeles-based artist channels the frustrations stemming from their Asian American heritage into their songs, as well as their experience as a queer non-binary person. Today's Song of the Day taps into that feeling, inspired by a dream Hwong had where they were trapped in the body of a white man named "David." They explained in a press release:

"One summer night, I had a dream that I was a white dude sitting in a church pew; I saw the way girls giggled and whispered to each other excitedly upon noticing me, and other men gave me nods of respect. The way I was perceived in such a positive and palatable way hit me in the gut; I even recognized it was a dream when it was happening."

"I woke up emotional and so disappointed in myself; I had done a lot of work to unlearn internalized racism, and I had been feeling so proud of my identity. But I had to be gentle with myself and remember that it's a plethora of issues; bullying from peers, the media we consume that spotlights euro-centric beauty standards, and the desperate desire to not feel like you inherently take up too much space. It seems to be a universal experience for POC (especially during childhood) to look in the mirror and resent your own features. That dream (and writing this song) reminds me that these kinds of issues don’t disappear overnight; it sneaks up on your subconscious in layered ways."

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Ambar Lucid - "La Torre" from the 2022 album La Torre on 300 Entertainment.

In tarot, the "Tower" card is said to represent sudden upheaval and unexpected change. Today's Song of the Day is based on this Major Arcana card, which the Dominican-Mexican artist Ambar Lucid told Flaunt “reflects the phase of life that I'm currently in the process of trying to transition from. A lot of these songs were written during my tower moment. This song is a sonic manifestation of childhood PTSD.” 

“Since I started reading tarot, most of my songs are inspired by tarot cards because they are part of my creative process,” she continued. “Before I start writing a song, I shuffle my cards and I'm like, 'alright God, what should I talk about today?' Tarot cards inspire me in so many different ways — visually, just helping me tap into my inner worlds, and lyrically.”

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Smokey Brights - “Ocean Shores,” a 2022 single on Freakout.

Husband-and-wife duo and KEXP regulars, Smokey Brights, have been steadily churning out singles since their third record, 2020’s I Love You But Damn. Released in the midst of the pandemic, the album was a bright spot amidst the bleakness of the world in which it was birthed and a sign of perseverance.

Their latest single continues the Seattle band’s streak of sunshiney optimism. Named after the sleepy seaside Washington town, “Ocean Shores” sparkles with glimmering synths and kicks off with chorus of bellowing cries before mellowing out to focus on Kim West’s saccharine vocals that recount a story of spending time in the idyllic town while in the midst of battling depression and the mental gymnastics that take place when trying to get out of your head to appreciate beauty.

Read the full post and watch Smokey Brights' KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 at KEXP.org.

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Young Fathers - “Geronimo,” a 2022 single on Ninja Tune.

Scottish genre-benders, Mercury Prize-winners, and KEXP favorites Young Fathers released their third record Cocoa Sugar in what feels like a lifetime ago, 2018. At long last, they finally returned with the single “Geronimo.” In a world where we’re still stretching our legs and feeling out how to get back into the swing of “real life,” the trio - made up of Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and ‘G’ Hastings - are doing the same.

In their most soulful, downtempo song to date, Young Fathers are both sonically and literally dipping their toes back into the waters of music. While in the past, they’d often caustically throw themselves at you, pushing the doors down with the heels of their feet, the trio is gentle in their approach, as if to tap on the door and ask, “Do you mind if I enter?”

Of course we don’t mind. But, personally, I’m not opposed to a gentle approach these days. This is what the band had to say about the song:

“A good time trying. That’s what Ma said, she was smiling, but it was meant as a warning.

It’s a track about contrast, because life is contrast - pushing through, giving up, all at the same time. Wanting everything and then wanting nothing, then wanting everything again. It’s kind of reflective of where we are at the moment, trying to remember how to do this again.

Trying to make music and all of the other stuff that comes along with it. Trying to forget all the bad bits, just trying to get somewhere. And that’s where we are right now, trying to get somewhere.

It’s the tenderness in toil, we had expelled a bunch of stuff with a lot of drive and wilder energy beforehand but this one had focus. It widened the scope again for us personally, that’s where the real high comes from. We grew another arm. We surprised ourselves.

So coming back with a track called ‘Geronimo’ feels quite fitting. Just the 3 of us again, but still in a fucking basement.”

Read the full post and watch their 2018 KEXP in-studio at KEXP.org

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Beach Bunny - “Entropy” from the 2022 album Emotional Creature on Mom + Pop.

From TikTok buzzband to their sophomore album Emotional Creature, Chicago-based band Beach Bunny have earned a devoted following, including producer Butch Vig and actor Bob Odenkirk, who even appears in one of their music videos. 

A huge part of their appeal is the confessional and, ultimately, relatable lyrics from frontwoman Lili Trifilio. On today's Song of the Day, she tells Stereogum, she took inspiration from the Jonas Brothers for this infectious, polished pop song. Reflecting on her journey as a musician, she continues, "As a young kid I was watching Hannah Montana thinking that was the most unrealistic expectation of all time. But now here I am and all of it happened organically; it just goes very slowly over many, many years. If you want to do something in a creative field, make it a passion project and try it for a few years. You’ll learn what you want to do, or you’ll get to go on a journey. Embark on your journeys! Don’t settle! I mean it! Oh, and don’t date toxic boys. Or I guess, if you do, at least you’ll have songs to write about them."

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Hermanos Gutiérrez - “El Bueno Y El Malo” from the 2022 album El Bueno Y El Malo on Easy Eye Sound

Swiss-Ecuadorian siblings Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez bring their love of '50s Latin American music to their musical project Hermanos Gutiérrez. In fact, their forthcoming full-length, El Bueno Y El Malo, takes its name from the 1966 Spaghetti Western film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. with its iconic score by Ennio Morricone. 

“We think that everybody has a good side and a bad side,” Estevan said in a press release. “It’s every person, every moment, every situation. Everybody has these two faces.”

El Bueno Y El Malo was co-produced alongside The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, and will be released October 28th via Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound imprint.

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High Vis - “Blending” from the 2022 album Blending on Dais.

London-based band High Vis has its roots in the UK hardcore scene, but evolved into a less-shout-y post-punk vibe on their 2019 debut LP, No Sense No Feeling, and now explore a more new wave vibe on their sophomore album, Blending, which comes out September 9th via Dais Records. The album's title track has a softer sound, reminiscent of The Cult or late-era Ride. In a press release, frontman Graham Sayle explains the song's meaning.

“It became about cloaking yourself in whatever you present to the world, but you’re not defined by that. Just because I wear a trackie, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t read a book. The message of the album is you’re not who you think you are,” he continues. “You’re not your class background. Whatever it is, you’re not that. Don’t resign yourself to thinking you can’t be this and you can’t be that.”

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Sango - "Tongue Tied (feat. asante)" from the 2022 album Great Lakes Influence on Wright Music Group.

Beloved former-Seattlite Sango recently returned with the mixtape Great Lake Influence in June, two years after the release of SHANGO. Described by the sought-after beatmaker as “A homage to where I’m from,” the collection of songs sees Sango dip his toes in techno-house which is very of the moment, as we’ve seen Drake and Beyonce also delve into this realm with their recent releases.

Our Song of the Day, “Tongue Tied” is an excellent example of Sango’s pristine ability to make something that’s currently popular still sound fresh and unique. Bringing back frequent collaborator asante on vocals, the track is bright and bubbly and made for the dancefloor. Moving away from his prior South American influences toward more African sounds is a natural move and one that Sango does with ease.

On his website, Sango says, “I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can change things. I feel change is the first thing we as humans either love or hate. There isn’t a middle. I took a side and I love change. It challenges me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I also figured something out. I can't change the world, but I can change my world, which allows others to see inside of it and hopefully I can influence them to feel/do the same, and hopefully that trend goes on to the next person.”

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BLK ODYSSY - "COMPLEX OF KILLING A MAN (feat. Baby Rose)" from the 2022 album BLK VINTAGE: THE REPRISE on BLK ODYSSY / EMPIRE.

BLK ODYSSY aka Juwan Elcock is a dynamic artist who nixed his former Americana sound for a soul-infused hip hop solo project. The Austin-based musician dropped his debut album BLK VINTAGE under the moniker in August of 2021 and, after the record slowly caught fire for its rich jazzy soundscapes and deeply personal and political lyrics about the plight of Black Americanhood, is now following it up with the deluxe edition BLK VINTAGE REPRISE.

One of the new tracks to be included is “COMPLEX OF KILLING A MAN.” With Grammy-nominated R&B singer Baby Rose adding her lush vocals, the song is a downtempo slow burner with heated lyrics about being caught in a culture of violence and oppression with seemingly no way out. “What's the complex of killing a man?/ Can't help but think that this scenario's part of a plan/ That's word to Willie Lynch and Uncle Sam.”

The story is one that hits close to home for Elcock, as his brother was killed at the hands of police offivers when living in New Jersey. With that in mind, the chorus of “Ghetto child, ghetto child/ Running wild, running wild/ This Glock gon' change your ways/ So count your days” hits especially hard.

Watch the video for "COMPLEX OF KILLING A MAN" and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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CARRTOONS - "Lighta (feat. Rae Khalil)" from the 2022 album Homegrown on Wichita Recordings.

Producer/multi-instrumentalist CARRTOONS (real name: Ben Carr) teams up for a second time with Grammy Award-winning artist Rae Khalil, a track from his latest album, Homegrown. Carr provides a soulful groove for Khalil to drop her breezy, speedy rhymes, playing on the song title as both a noun and a feeling: "I feel a lil lighta / where is my lighta."

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Ricki Monique - "CEREAL (feat. MMYYKK)" from the 2022 GOOD SEEDS EP on Tangible Records.

Minneapolis-based artist Ricki Monique teams up with producer/multi-instrumentalist on today's Song of the Day, a serene, soulful track she wrote to boost her confidence.

“This song was created as a sonic affirmation to remind me that I was built to be great," she told Lyrical Lemonade. "I put affirmations from my mother and sisters in the hook and brought up feelings of depression and hardships in the first verse to portray a sense of everything-ness. I am both powerful and weak at times. I wrote this song to remind myself to lean into my strong parts.”

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Zap Mama - "Dessiné" a 2022 self-released single.

A French poem set to song, the latest from Belgian artist Marie Daulne (better known as Zap Mama) is a vibrant expression of love. "Dessiné" loosely translates to "drawn," and the lyrics capture a person sketching the facial features of the one they love. It's the first single from her forthcoming full-length Odyssée, which will be released this fall. 

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dsrt flwr - "Of Discernment," a 2022 self-released single.

Leave it to Larry Mizell Jr. to scope out a song that’s on the verge of blowing up. While “Of Discernment” may be the sole single from up-and-coming artist dsrt flwr, it’s gotten some movement on Tik Tok which, whether you love or hate the clock app, is fast becoming the new medium for a new artist’s rise. It’s currently the sole place where I can find any information on dsrt flower, who uses her platform to speak on the issues she faces as a Muslim woman in America as well as share her music.

“Of Discernment” may be short, at only a minute and forty-six seconds but packs a punch with its truth-telling lyrcism and vibey down-tempo R&B flow. “What's it doin for me/ Will it make?/ All the suffering in life just fade away,” questions the Seattle-based artist before concluding. “If not then be well and/ Take it somewhere else/ If it's something that I need/ Then I can find it for myself.”

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Bruno Berle -" É Preciso Ter Amor" from the 2022 album No Reino Dos Afetos on Far Out Recordings.

When Bruno Berle first quietly appeared in 2014, it was with the intimate MPB-folk solo record Arapiraca, Maceió, 2013, which garnered a decent amount of acclaim for seemingly coming out of nowhere. The Brazilian artist has a long musical history, first cutting his teeth in the soft-rock outfit Troco Em Bala and forming the "supergroup", The Mozões alongside fellow Alagoas artist Ítallo França. Most recently, Berle dropped No Reino Dos Afetos, which appears to be his first non-Bandcamp, *very official* release.

Unlike the softly strung releases before it, No Reino Dos Afetos sees Berle experiment with a number of genres including indie, bedroom pop, hip hop, and MPB but never loses the starry-eyed earnestness that Berle has mastered. Our Song of the Day, “É Preciso Ter Amor” closes out the record with a hazy vignette that’s mostly instrumental besides Berle’s reverberating echoed coos, like fading into a dream. “It’s an album that was built from my desire to find beauty”, Berle says and, indeed, he has.

Read the full story and watch the video for No Reino Dos Afetos track "Quero Dizer" at KEXP. org

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Σtella - "Another Nation"from the 2022 album Up and Away on Sub Pop.

Greek artist Stella Chronopoulou (who records as Σtella, with a sigma) makes her Sub Pop Records debut with a collection of dreamy electro-pop influenced by her family's music collection of Greek folk-pop from the ‘60s and ‘70s.

“Growing up I loved playing ‘Sousourada’ by Nikos Gounaris on my grandfather’s old gramophone. I was thrilled by Greek folk-pop artists like Grigoris Bithikotsis and the great Tzeni Vanou, as well as international artists like Tony Motolla and Julio Inglesias,” she says in a press statement; “Living in a close-knit community by the mountains and sea, I vaguely recall being woken by neighbouring shepherds’ sheep bells… everything back then was so pure and innocent!”

For her first LP, she teamed up with fellow Greek artist and producer Tom Calvert (aka Redinho). "Tom had a similar desire of creating a vintage sound," she continues. "Instantly stars aligned; I was time-traveling, singing songs as The Chiffons or The Crystals would.”

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Daphni - "Cloudy" from the 2022 album  on Jiaolong.

Canadian composer Dan Snaith is perhaps best known as Caribou, but he shakes off his old "Daphni" moniker for today's Song of the Day. The title track from his forthcoming full-length is a joyful seven-minute hypnosis. 

He said in a press release, "The essence of this one is keeping it aloft — like occasionally nudging a balloon that’s only just heavier than air to keep it afloat. For something so buoyant, I’m surprised how much it bangs in a club."

Cherry will be released October 7th via Jiaolong. 

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George Riley - "Sacrifice," a 2022 single on PLZ Make It Ruins.

West London-based artist George Riley teams up with DJ/producer Vegyn for today's Song of the Day. Vegyn is best known for his work on Frank Ocean's Blonde and Endless, and brings that soulful sensibility to this dreamy slow jam. (He's also released it on his own PLZ Make It Ruins label.) 

The track serves as a sneak peek at her forthcoming full-length, Running In Waves, to be released on September 9th via Vegyn's aforementioned label. 

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Bryson The Alien - "I'm Out (feat. Signe Baburin)," a 2022 single on PNKSLM.

Portland-based rapper/producer Bryson the Alien is about to break out in a big way with his forthcoming record The Great Adventures of Bryson the Alien. His debut with lauded Stockholm label PNKSLM is due out September 16th and sees the prolific artist and member of the SUMALIENZ and Unexplained Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) collectives utilize a long list of genres for one-of-a-kind sounds and textures.

Our Song of the Day, “I’m Out,” is evidence of this perfectly constructed genre smash. Sunny indie pop and Motown soul come together for a light and bouncy summer jam, while Bryson and his teenage Swedish collaborator Signe Barburin tell a darker tale of coming out of a dysfunctional relationship. Barburin’s melodic, almost childlike coos blend with Bryson’s soft and laid-back, near-whispered baritone rhymes in unexpected harmony. It’s a song whose elements don’t feel like they should work together, but somehow they absolutely do.

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Elizabeth M. Drummond - "Crisis," a 2022 single on Young Poet.

While the idea of starting a band with your childhood friends that almost immediately breaks it big, tours the world, and even works with Aaron Dessner sounds like an absolute dream, the pressure can take a toll. That’s the simplified backstory behind Elizabeth M. Drummond's new path as a solo artist, after leaving the popular Australian indie folk band Little May. Her experiences and the overwhelming feelings that accompanied leaving the band are told through her recent singles “Crisis” and “Congratulations.”

Our Song of the Day, “Crisis,” is particularly gutting. While the instrumentation is light and lovely, the lyrics tell the story of someone who knows it's time to move on from painful past relationships but is having trouble sorting out who they are without them. “There’s a hurricane/ It’s in your eyes,” Drummond coos. “I don’t want to be a part of this thing anymore/ I’d rather run into a fire.”

Speaking of the song, Drummond had this to say:

"I wrote 'Crisis' when I had moved cities after leaving Little May and a long relationship. I felt like everything I ever identified with had just exploded in front of me. I also realised I had been living on auto-pilot for as long as I could remember, and that I had been ignoring what I actually wanted for my life. At this point, I had started to feel a huge amount of relief and humour in surrendering to the idea that things couldn’t get any worse. In many ways I felt like I had become 'no one,' and this started to become liberating. This song marks that time and those feelings for me."

Watch the video for “Crisis,” directed and edited by Richard Clifford, at KEXP.org

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Brimheim - “can't hate myself into a different shape” from the 2022 album can't hate myself into a different shape on W.A.S. Entertainment.

Copenhagen-based artist Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff chose Brimheim as her recording name, as a tribute to her roots in the Faroe Islands. The word translates to "home of the breaking waves," which gives a visual reference to her emotionally-rich alt-pop, and the musical rise-and-fall on today's dramatic Song of the Day. 

On her debut LP can’t hate myself into a different shape, Brimheim explores the topic of self love, inspired by her own experience with a "deep depression hole" she experienced during the pandemic. In an inspiring interview with Get In Her Ears, she says, "I felt like I’d been in this black muddy place, not able to see anything and kind of drowning, and then I slowly started emerging from that through this process of transforming these ideas into arrangements and recorded music with a structure. It was so life affirming."

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Alvvays - "Pharmacist" from the 2022 album Blue Rev on Polyvinyl.

Canadian indie-pop quintet Alvvays return this fall with Blue Rev, despite numerous misfortunes that came before it. A thief stole a recorder full of demos from frontwoman Molly Rankin's apartment. The very next day, a basement flood nearly ruined all the band’s gear. On the plus side, they recruited two new band members — drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell  — but, on the bummer side, COVID-related border closures prevented band rehearsals. 

But the band persevered to craft their most mature (and longest!) LP yet. Keyboardist Kerri MacLellan and guitarist Alec O’Hanley contributed more to the songwriting process this time, adding fresh perspectives to their melodic sound. 

Blue Rev is named for a "sugary alcoholic beverage Rankin and MacLellan used to drink as teens on rural Cape Breton," and the songs within express that sweet, dizzy, exuberant feeling. 

Blue Rev will be released October 7th via Polyvinyl, with an October 22nd date at The Moore Theatre in Seattle. 

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Stone Gossard and Ani DiFranco - "Disorders," a 2022 single on Loosegroove/Righteous Babe.

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard unearthed a six-year-old demo and teamed up with alt-folk icon Ani DiFranco for an anthem for abortion access. The music was composed by Gossard, along with Josh Evans, Skerik and Stanton Moore, with vocals and lyrics by DiFranco. All proceeds will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds, which aims "to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access by centering people who have abortions and organizing at the intersections of racial, economic, and reproductive justice."

"...Women in every Republican stronghold in this country are left treading in a sea of unnecessary suffering, just trying to keep their heads above water," DiFranco declared. "Poor women will be drowned by the score. That is why this track is a fundraiser for abortion access — to help women who don’t have resources but who desperately need abortions. I am so grateful for men like Stone, Skerik, Stanton — not just for the blessing of this track and the honor of being invited into it, but for actually seeing women in their full humanity and being willing to stand with them.”

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Mt Fog - "Behind a Silent Door" from the 2022 self-released album Spells of Silence.

KEXP's own Jasmine Albertson spotlighted today's Song of the Day in her recent segment of Living Singles, introducing us to the gorgeous, melodic synth-pop of Mt. Fog, a project of local artist Carolyn B.

During a lonely time in Olympia, WA, living in a house with no internet, she began experimenting with making loops on her sister's old keyboard with a pirated version of Reason, she says in this interview with Tape Deck Podcast. She brings to Mt. Fog her previous experience as a classical violinist and as a member of a Slavic chorus who sang mostly traditional Bulgarian women’s music. The result is a unique sound she dubs ''forest folktronica'' on her Bandcamp page. Stay tuned for her upcoming sophomore LP, Spells of Silence.

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Courting - "Tennis" a 2022 single on Play It Again Sam.

UK band Courting set the course with their 2020 single "Football" and the title track off last year's EP, Grand National. Now they return with another sporting track, the playful post-punk ode "Tennis," featuring frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill talk-singing over a Krautrock beat. 

“‘Tennis’ is a paypig’s personal redemption narrative, set in “the city”, and told in two parts,” the band in a press release. “A twisted tale of two lovers’ back and forth, bound by cricket, bodybuilding, and money. A story as old as time.”

“We named the song 'Tennis' as a logical (but unrelated) sequel to our two previously released sports-related songs. To us, this felt like a natural ending to that idea. Dynamically, the second part of the song is supposed to represent a shift in tone for the character in which they realise their own worth and leave the situation that is set within the first part of the song.”

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Hello Mary - "Looking Right Into the Sun" from the 2022 album Looking Right Into the Sun on Frenchkiss Records

Brooklyn trio Hello Mary continue their ascent with a recent signing to Frenchkiss Records. They followed the announcement with a melodically gritty new single, today's Song of the Day, which they say touches on the "general themes of feeling stuck and restricted by circumstances out of one’s control."

"For us specifically it relates to us having to practice as a band during COVID, not being able to play shows, and being stuck in the thick of writing songs out of a need to cope," they shared in a press release. "The main repeating line of the song ‘Looking Right Into the Sun,’ plays with the idea of confronting something with such duality — the sun is beautiful and mesmerizing yet looking directly at it will blind you — kind of like confronting a hard truth and turning it into a sick song."

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Jasmyn - "Crystal Ball" from the 2022 album In the Wild on ANTI-

Having unraveled herself from the band Weaves, Toronto singer/songwriter Jasmyn Burke was ready to slow down. She moved from the city to the quiet of Hamilton, soaking in the outdoors and the serenity of Lake Ontario. Inspired by her surroundings, she decided to embark on a solo career under the name Jasmyn. She speaks to the experience in today's Song of the Day.

"“I was writing about being afraid of moving into the future but also getting excited by it," she said in a press release. "I knew that I had to change my life and follow my heart in order to evolve and be happy. I think I leaned on nature to do that. Staring at the sun go down, watching birds just float. Nature seems to move without regret or worry. I wanted to write about leaning on my intuition and charging forward into the future with what felt right. I was hit with fresh love and fresh air and a new beginning -- it was exciting. I think this song is about the concept of having a personal renaissance. Looking inward and finding that consistency for yourself even if it means letting go sometimes. Happiness is on the other side.”

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Xenia Rubinos & El Individuo - "Madrugada" a 2022 single on ANTI-.

Last year's album, Una Rosa, was so fantastic, artist Xenia Rubinos is revisiting it with reimagined versions of those tracks. Last year's single "What Is This Voice?” has been reworked into today's Song of the Day, "Madrugada," adding guest vocalist, Cuban rapper El Individuo. She told Stereogum:

El Individuo had just arrived to NYC from Habana for the first time and came straight into this session without us ever having met and just blew us all away.

It feels like the thaw of Spring, like the last frost leaving, like the first flower buds starting to poke through. In the lyrics he talks about dawn and the mysterious vale of those hours right before the morning light hits. I added in a Rhodes line in post production at the end of the track that kind of reminded me of the melody that clocks play, “Westminster Quarters” and the main riff from Mt. Airy Groove by Pieces of a Dream. Creating this rework in a whirlwind cypher with this supergroup of musicians felt like opening a secret trap door we found in the original song.

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 Alec Shaw - "Spinning" from the 2022 self-released album Quantity.

Seattle-based singer/songwriter Alec Shaw splashed onto the local scene in 2016 with the record Car Town, landing him a gig at famed venue Neumos and perking ears of those in the know as an artist to watch. Since then, Shaw’s subsequent records 2017's Uh Oh and the Oh Wells and 2019's Thinking Place led to KEXP’s own Marco Collins dubbing him one of the “Top 3 PNW artists he would sign immediately.”

Earlier this year, Shaw dropped his fourth record Quantity, recorded during the pandemic and produced by Andy Park (Death Cab For Cutie, Noah Gunderson, Macklemore). The six songs represent that moment in 2020 when life was slowed down and thus more time and effort could be spent in creating fully-realized projects.

“I didn't leave any song on that I was unsure of,” Shaw says of the album. “And because of this I'm thinking of naming the project Quantity as a testament to the thing I had to let go of during this trying time. In the past I would get caught up thinking more is better. ‘More money, more songs, more instruments, more shows, larger audiences.’”

Our Song of the Day, “Spinning,” is a clear highlight on a record already filled with highs. Led by twinkling pianos, soaring strings, and church choir-esque backing vocals, Shaw belts his heart out for the dynamic and emotionally charged track. It’s one you’ll definitely want to spin endlessly.

Alec Shaw will be playing the Sunset Tavern on Saturday, July 30th. Read the full piece and watch a gorgeous live performance of “Spinning” recorded at Studio X Seattle at KEXP.org.

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Banditos - "Here Tonight" from the 2022 album Right On on Egghunt Records.

Birmingham-born, now Nashville-based six-piece Banditos initially started over a decade ago as a searing honky tonk band that bled only the most American of sounds integrating pedal steel, bango, upright bass, and even kazoo for a delightfully scrappy sound. With nearly seven years since their self-titled sophomore record and 2022’s Right On, the country rock band has refined their sound for something decidedly adult and yet no less energetic.

Our Song of the Day, “Here Tonight,” is an excellent representation of this new era for Banditos, with Mary Beth Richardson taking on the role of lead singer which was a good call because the girl has got pipes! Stephen Pierce, initially the band’s banjo player, has also stepped in for bassist duty and the complex strutting rhythmic structure of “Here Tonight” proves that was yet another good call.

Striking the line between sad and hopeful, the song follows a couple of bar patrons drunkenly reminiscing over mistakes and memories, finding comfort in shared errors and repeated plays of singular songs. Mary, as our narrator, helps to quell their haunted hearts with the chorus of, “Life is a drag and then you die /Sometimes, baby, you gotta get high /There ain't no mountain too rugged to climb /Live for today 'cause you're here tonight.”

Watch the video for "Here Tonight" and read the full article at KEXP.org.

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Kevin Morby - "A Random Act of Kindness," from the 2022 album This is a Photograph on Dead Oceans

With today's Song of the Day, Kevin Morby aims to explore the duality of language on this impassioned piece of Americana. He explains in a press release:

In ‘A Random Act Of Kindness’ I set out to write a song where each line could be interpreted in two completely different ways. For example; when I sing the words ’out of trust…’ it could be heard as either I have lost my sense of trust in something or that I am committing an act with trust as my motive. It’s a song about the menacing nature of the sun rising during a dark time in one’s life only to further illuminate their pain and suffering – and how during these periods it is often the selfless acts of strangers that keeps a person going.

Sonically I am so proud and surprised by where we ended up with this one. Producer Sam Cohen and I had set out to make a sort of windows-down-mid-tempo-cruiser and somehow, with weeks of exploration, made a sonic rocket ship that shoots you out into outer space over the course of 4 minutes. Enjoy!

Morby returns to Seattle on November 11th, playing The Showbox.

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Wild Pink - "Q. Degraw," a 2022 single on Royal Mountain.

Wild Pink – a New York-based group led by John Ross – reflect on the experience of burnout in today's Song of the Day. He's joined by guest vocalist Catherine Vianale of Winded on this six-minute long, heavy, expansive —  yet ultimately uplifting — track. 

“This song is about my experiences with some health problems and how an extremely stressful situation can sharpen your focus on what’s important in life," he shared in a press release. "It’s also about how that stress can sometimes cause you to dissociate from yourself.”

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Panda Riot - "Extra Cosmic" from the 2022 self-released album Extra Cosmic.

Not only do Chicago quartet Panda Riot tap into My Bloody Valentine's Loveless by sharing the same hot pink color on the album artwork to their fourth LP, Extra Cosmic, they also capture that dreamy shoegaze sound with their soaring, swooning guitars. (I'm also detecting a nod to the Cocteau Twins' Heaven or Las Vegas with the purple/pink theme.) Frontwoman Rebecca Scott's girlish voice is way higher in the mix than MBV though, which is a very good thing! Today's Song of the Day is a dream-pop delight with Beach House synth vibes layered throughout.

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Khingz - "Fort Cash Money" from the 2022 album Over The World on OTOW/ freshcutflowers.

Khingz has long been an influential force in the Seattle hip hop scene, with the crowning achievement of Best MC of the Year in 2009 according to Seattle Weekly for his groundbreaking record From Slaveships to Spaceships. A powerful collaborator, Khingz has worked with Geologic of Blue Scholars, Macklemore, and KEXP’s own Gabriel Teodros in the hip-hop supergroup Good Medicine, with B-Flat and Crispy of Godspeed as the trio Hi-Life Soundsystem, and, once again, with Teodros as well as rapper Nam under the project The Livin Yard. His latest single and our Song of the Day reiterates Khingz’ affinity for collaboration.

Over a twinkling piano line and vibrant high hats, Khingz waxes poetic about his desire to bring up the people around him and the power and importance of doing so in “Fort Cash Money.” “Please God make me useful for those I love,” Khingz pleads. “I just wanna be the plug /I just wanna bring them power.”

The song comes from Khingz’ latest full-length and first in 13 years, Over the World, released last month. Khingz will be playing the Clock Out Lounge on July 23rd for the latest installment of The Good Foot alongside notable names such as the aforementioned Geologic and Grynch.

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Mejiwahn - "Heart String Special (feat. Liv.e)" from the 2022 album BEANNA on Hot Record Societe.

Mejiwahn, who previously recorded under the name Art Vandelay (which personally I love greatly as someone finally watching Seinfeld in whole), is a bit of a mystery. Like the fictional character that George makes up in a job interview, there are few photos, quotes, or general living artifacts to prove that Mejiwahn exists. And yet, the producer is a very real and influential musician in the Oakland scene.

Our Song of the Day, “Heart String Special” was the third single to drop from his latest Beanna full-length, which dropped this week. Featuring Dallas R&b chanteuse Liv.e on vocals, the two create a sunny, sultry downtempo summer jam that’s loose and free like we all should be during these few summer months. Made for the sunsets and sunrises, the comedowns or the comeups, it’s a perfect accompaniment to getting grounded.

If I may steal from the Quietus’ review of Beanna, Mejiwahn, “Worked with R&B-jazz singer-songwriter Liv.e on her 2020 debut Couldn’t Wait to Tell You. Like that record, Beanna finds its strength in the fluidity of soundscapes, with lo-fi beatmaking and production, psychedelic backdrops and cinematic instrumentals all contributing to this nomadic and meandering feel.” Sometimes other writers just say it perfectly.

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FKJ - "Greener (feat. Santana)" from the 2022 album V I N C E N T on Mom + Pop.

How do you get legendary guitar virtuoso Carlos Santana to perform on one of your songs? Well, according to multi-instrumentalist FKJ (that's short for French Kiwi Juice, but his real name is Vincent Fenton), you just need to ask nicely. As he explains in a press release, "I told him I would listen to the radio as a young boy, in the days before Spotify, waiting for his song 'Smooth' to come on so I could tape it, and that he plays his instrument like it has its own language and it speaks to me. I just didn’t think he’d end up saying he’d be happy to play on my track."

Santana himself had this to say about their soulful jam: “It is a joy to collaborate and share music with my brother Vincent (FKJ) on ‘Greener.’ Together we have painted a canvas of color, texture and musicality that we know will bring you courage and a deep awareness of your own light and life. Once that happens, there’s no division, separation, or fear. It’s just joy.” 

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Xênia França - "Ancestral Infinito" from the 2022 self-released album Em Nome da Estrela.

Straight out of the gate, Brazilian artist Xênia França scored two Latin Grammy nominations for her 2018 debut album, Xênia, and the single “Pra Que Me Chamas?” 

She returns with her self-released sophomore effort, Em Nome da Estrela, which translates to "in the name of the star." França expands on the rich influence of her homeland (she even covers a song by tropicália pioneer Gilberto Gil), bringing a sultry R&B vibe with a touch of psychedelia. 

She writes on her Facebook, "I hope this album can take everyone on an enlightened journey, full of love and access their ancestral technological power." 

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Coco Peila - "Remember" from the 2022 Whose World? (The New Normal) EP on Miss Behave Records/La Vida Diosa Publishing.

With her latest EP, Whose World? (The New Normal), Bay Area-based MC, singer-songwriter, and producer Coco Peila continues to use music as a platform to speak on causes she feels passionately about. (Her last KEXP Song of the Day spoke out against outdated beauty norms.) This new release is described as a "Hip Hop and Climate Justice audio-visual initiative," presented by BlackGold Movement and developed as a part of Creative Wildfire, "a collaborative call to action from frontline communities, represented by Climate Justice Alliance, New Economy Coalition, and Movement Generation."

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Supercrush - Perfect Smile - from the 2022 self-released Melody Maker EP.

While Seattle power pop band Supercrush have technically been a band since 2013, they only just released their debut LP Debt Offensive in 2019. With time to makeup, the band, led by veteran hardcore, punk, and metal musician Mark Palm, quickly followed that up with SODO Pop in 2020 and just dropped the EP Melody Maker in early June via Supercrush’s own KR Records. Made up of five soaringly sweet hook-laden songs, the EP is tailor-made for the sunny days that have finally emerged, including our Song of the Day “Perfect Smile.”

In America, we put high precedence on good teeth. And, unfortunately, it usually takes money in order to acquire perfect teeth. “Perfect Smile,” delves into how easy it is for one who does not have them to fall fast and hard for someone who does. Perhaps, the love interest has other qualities that their narrator also loves but it’s the one quality of obsession that comes into play here. While we could admonish them for their admiration for something that most people can only control to a limited extent, who doesn’t love an incredible smile?

Supercrush are currently in the middle of a US tour, with a tour-ending hometown show in Seattle on Saturday, July 16th at the Vera Project. Watch the visualizer for “Perfect Smile” at the link below.

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Penelope Isles - Play It Cool (Alt Mix) - a 2022 single on Bella Union.

It’s a family affair for Penelope Isles, the sibling songwriting duo of Lily and Jack Wolter, who have channeled the energy of their UK homeland the Isle of Man for some seriously dreamy sounds over the course of two records. Now based in Brighton, their latest record, 2021’s Which Way To Happy, sees the band recruit the help of Henry Nicholson, Joe Taylor, and Hannah Feenstra to fill out their expansive soundscapes for an intoxicating leap forward.

Still, a lot of those sounds aren’t exactly accurate to what the band is playing on tour which is why they decided to re-imagine a few of those songs and release them as alternate mixes. Our Song of the Day (and third from Penelope Isles) is the alternate mix of stand-out track “Play It Cool.” Slightly stripped down but no less gorgeous, bouncy, and effervescent, the song only builds excitement to see the band deliver the songs on stage. This is what they had to say about the single:

“We have been working on how to re-imagine songs from Which Way To Happy for our festival shows this summer…. Play It Cool seemed to fall into place a lot easier than others… maybe because we stripped a lot of things away that are in the album version, so we felt that it would be ‘cool’ to re-mix and create an alternative version, where the arrangement and sonics are more like how we are doing it live. Everything is pretty hard panned in the stereo mix, so the drums are on one side and the bass on the other. It’s kind of fun to pan to one side and isolate things. Inspired by those early Byrds and Beatles mixes.”

Penelope Isles is currently on tour behind Which Way To Happy but, unfortunately, currently solely in Europe and the UK. Watch their 2019 KEXP in-studio performance at the link below while we eagerly wait for them to hop the pond.

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Oceanator - "Beach Days (Alive Again)" from the 2022 album Nothing's Ever Fine on Big Scary Monsters.

"By the ocean /

Is where i wanna be /

When this all comes to an end"

On her 2020 debut album Things I Never Said, Brooklyn-based songwriter Oceanator (real name: Elise Okusami) pondered the apocalypse against grungy guitars and Green Day-inspired pop/punk. On her follow-up LP Nothing’s Ever Fine, she continues to explore similar themes... except on today's Song of the Day.

“I feel like summer is supposed to be the good times,” she told Under the Radar. “I wanted to write some songs about some of the good parts of life, and a lot of those are — for me at least — in the summer.”

Her sophomore full-length was co-produced by Bartees Strange and her brother, Mike Okusami, who each brought their musical expertise to the table. “Bartees and Michael both have this really extensive knowledge of sound and gear,” she explained. “So, it was extremely helpful to be able to translate what I was saying into sounds. Maybe I could have gotten some of the sounds on my own, but it would have taken like 10 years.”

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Camilla Munck - "Blessed Be" from the 2021 album Aeon on Moondrop Records.

Danish artist Camilla Munck began with a background in soundtracks and sound design. On her debut album AEON, she taps into these skills for an emotive, atmospheric experience. On her Facebook page, she describes today's Song of the Day as "a song about finding oneself in and outside communities. to dare step in and out of them. about following oneself, following one's curiosity. and about finding peace in the movement."

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Confidence Man - "Holiday" from the 2022 album TILT on Heavenly Recordings/[PIAS].

With today's Song of the Day, Australian electro-pop duo Confidence Man aim to make the party last forever.

“We’ve been trying for the most epic, hands up, euphoric anthem for a while and this is the first time we’ve come close… Turns out it’s pretty difficult, but nothing’s too hard for Con Man,” said vocalist Sugar Bones.

His bandmate Janet Planet added: “No one tells Confidence Man what to do. Who said a Holiday can’t last forever? Spend big and live free, that’s our motto. And it can be yours too. A vacation is just sunburn at premium prices but a holiday is a state of mind.”

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Beautiful Freaks - "CROCODILE," a 2022 single on Scream Queen Records.

Constantly evolving in their sound, Beautiful Freaks has always been a band built more on energy and experimentation than a specific genre tag. Formed in 2013, Peter Bryson and James Bonaci came together over their love for metal, jazz & punk. Their 2018 debut Cameo Artist was hardcore glam at its most frenzied and visceral but the former Bellingham band now resides in Seattle and is entering the next phase of their evolution with the recently released singles “Slugs” and “Crocodile.”

More refined and vocally driven than their prior work, “Crocodile” features Meg Hall shining on lead vocals to tell the story of a not-so-good guy that meets his demise. The angular hooks, spacey guitar wails, and unique time signature make the song some sort of math rock/psychedelic/post punk hybrid and an exciting new direction for the queer & trans band.

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Chainsaw Girl - "Chainsaw Girl"  from the 2021 self-released Chainsaw Girl EP.

Portland’s Chainsaw Girl were brought together with a combination of fate and Yu-Gi-Oh. Guitarists Manny Ruiz and Kei Iguchi met at a conference for the Japanese manga series in 2016 and found their common interests spanned beyond Yu-Gi-Oh and into a deep love for music. Vocalist Cricket Greene was later asked to join after their loud and constant singing could be heard through Iguchi’s walls. With the rest of the crew found either through Craigslist or mutual friends, their self-described “Boring Dystopia-core” band was complete.

While very far from boring, finding a better label for the band is difficult. Pulling from a wide range of influences including Title Fight, Joyce Manor, J-rock bands like Number Girl and Polka Dot Stingray, Bay Area DIY bands such as Pllush and Pardener, as well as Mitski, Hayley Williams, and Caroline Polachek as vocal inspirations, Chainsaw Girl straddle the line somewhere between vulnerable indie rock and harder punk.

Our Song of the Day is the eponymous opening track off their self-titled EP which implies it to be Chainsaw Girl’s manifesto. “Chainsaw Girl / Never learned to play guitar,” howls Greene in the opening line. Iguchi describes the song as “an experiment in abstract character development through lyrics.” Each bandmate wrote their part in separation and brought them together, creating a full and diverse picture of who each bandmate considers the character of Chainsaw Girl to be.

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Ethel Cain - Hard Times - from the 2022 album Preacher's Daughter on Daughters of Cain Records

The album title Preacher's Daughter is on point for 24-year-old artist Ethel Cain. Raised and home-schooled in a tight-knit Southern Baptist community where her father served as deacon and her mother sang in the church choir, Cain (legal name: Hayden Silas Anhedönia after a name-change at age 20) struggled against her conservative upbringing. At the age of 12, she came out as gay to her mom, and was sent to religious therapy. “My therapist was the first person in my whole life to ever tell me I wasn’t going to hell,” she told the New York Times. “I guess she didn’t understand the assignment.”

On her debut album, she explores the gothic Americana of her southern roots, with dark lyrics tapping into her difficult adolescence and love of horror films. “I love overkill — I’m nothing if not dramatic,” Cain continued. “It’s over-the-top American melodrama, it’s Thelma & Louise and the most ridiculous, psychotic, psychedelic things.”

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Dreamer Isioma - Dream Girl - from the 2022 album Goodnight Dreamer on Dreamer Isioma/AWAL.

Goodnight Dreamer may be the debut album for 21-year-old Nigerian-American artist Dreamer Isioma, but it's hardly their first foray into music. 

“Well, it started before birth,” Isioma told the Chicago Tribune, revealing their parents enrolled them in Mommy & Me music classes before they were even out of the womb. “Basically, my parents had a plan. They’re like, this child is either gonna do music or be an athlete or both.” 

Their parents' dream was realized with Isioma's soulful, genre-defying first release. “I think that people will also see themselves in my writing, which is what I’m most excited about," they shared with NME. “I make music for people who aren’t like everyone else, or who are just trying to find themselves and figure out what’s going on with [them] or the world around them. And hopefully, that’s what people hear.”

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Tasha - Perfect Wife - from the 2021 album Tell Me What You Miss The Most on Father/Daughter Records.

With her sophomore full-length Tell Me What You Miss The Most, Chicago-based singer/songwriter Tasha invites the listener to nestle in to each track, allowing yourself to be enveloped by the warmth and light. "These are swaying songs," she says of the swoonful new release. “I was inspired by a distance I felt from myself,” she continues in a press release, “the writing was kind of born from this desire to get back to an intimacy, or honesty, with myself.” 

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Musician, producer, sound engineer, and all-around creative force Erik Blood is known for a lot of things - one-half of Knife Knights alongside Ishmael Butler, his recent funkified sensual project Pink Lotion with Rachel Ferguson, Black Constellation all-star contributor, and a solo artist in his own right. Something you may have missed was his 2011 foray into music soundtracking which saw the multi-hyphenate write an album’s worth of original music for the Brazilian film Center of Gravity.

Without having even seen the movie, the haunting soundtrack Blood created tells a powerful story on its own, full of tender longing and heartwrenching aching. The description of the film describes it as dealing with, “universal questions about love and our expectations toward the beloved, the thin line that simultaneously divides and unites one another.”

Our Song of the Day, “Or Am I Wrong?” expresses that extremely thin line as our narrator questions their ex’s ability to move on while they’re still so hopelessly entrenched in the memory of their shared past. Backed by a spaghetti-western-esque beat that pairs perfectly with our narrator’s cinema-sized reimagining of past love, the song was made for the widescreen. With lyrics like “That place we were /Can we ever go back /This fear of me being phased out /Or instantly replaced is just so strong,” it’s easy to imagine a montage of loving moments past or rain pouring down a protagonists head as they stare at their ex-love’s window.

For the full lowdown on Erik Blood, listen KEXP’s episode on him for our Fresh Off the Spaceship podcast which delves into the boundless world of the Black Constellation. Below, watch Erik Blood's KEXP in-studio performance from 2016.

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In April, Chaz Bear dropped the seventh studio album from his constantly evolving project Toro y Moi titled Mahal. One of his jammier records, Mahal veers heavily towards psych-funk and features a hefty list of contributors including Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Neilson, Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo, visual artist and musician Sofie Royer, and jazz duo the Mattson 2.

Our Song of the Day is the breezy track and early single “The Loop.” Led by a funky bassline and a meandering guitar, the song slowly ambles while Bear mellowly muses on the trappings of modern life in the digital age where it’s imperative to stay up to date. “East Coast friends fill me in, I know you get the early scoop,” Bear croons. “Online trends that border cringe start to feel overused."

The video for the song follows Bear and his friends over the course of a pretty incredible day in San Francisco where the squad skateboards, rolls through the streets in go-carts and jeepneys, and has one heck of a meal at FOB Kitchen in Oakland. Watch the video below and catch Toro y Moi on Saturday, July 23rd at Capitol Hill Block Party.

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