Kexp Song Of The Day

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. Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/li

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 ro

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 theNew 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, psychedel

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 theChicago 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 withNME. “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.” Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See om

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.”  Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 entren

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 t

Poppy Ajudha - MOTHERS SISTERS GIRLFRIENDS - from the 2022 self-released album THE POWER IN US On her debut album The Power In Us, Poppy Ajudha displays just that: a fearless force-of-nature, with songs about feminism, colonialism, gender politics, mental health, and other social issues on her mind. Today's Song of the Day, in particular, is a call to action for women's rights.  "Women don’t have to be just what they are taught to be," she emphasizes, via a press release. "There is so much more to us than Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Girlfriends and our relation to men. I want men to engage more heavily in feminism and really see how their defiance against it only holds both women and men back. There are so many boxes we put ourselves in; I want us all to break out of them." The South London-born artist adds, "Every song on this album touches on these issues because they are all I think about everyday, all I see around me in my friends and my family. I hope it flips a switch in your mind, like it did for m

Sampa the Great - Lane (feat. Denzel Curry) - a 2022 single on Loma Vista. Today's Song of the Day finds Zambian-born, Botswana-raised artist Sampa The Great taking up some well-deserved space, alongside guest vocalist and fellow rapper Denzel Curry. “We’re not going to stay in one lane, we’re going to create multiple ones,” she said in a press statement. “My truest self encourages me to explore different lanes, and go beyond what I think I know of myself.” She adds that the song is “about expressing the full range of who you are without being boxed by anyone else’s definitions of you. Connecting to your younger self means connecting to your truest self, and that truest self is not confined by any labels and any boxes. ‘Lane’ is about breaking those boxes, and staying true to yourself.” Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alabaster DePlume - I'm Good at Not Crying - from the 2022 album GOLD on International Anthem. Quirkiness is in the cards with a nom de plume like Alabaster DePlume. The London-based poet/songwriter (real name: Gus Fairbairn) has just released his cheekily-titled sophomore album, Gold, a 2xLP collection, captured chaotically. During the 2020 recording sessions, DePlume invited a different set of musicians each day to record the same songs at the same speed. Two rules were in place: one, that musicians wouldn’t be given enough time to rehearse, and two, that they wouldn’t listen back to the music they recorded. “They didn’t have enough preparation to be able to hide behind this piece of material or skill,” he said via his Bandcamp. “They had to look up and respond to each other, and that’s what we've recorded.” DePlume then took the recordings, slicing them together seamlessly. “The method is part of the mission. It wasn’t like school. We had mayhem. We were having fun. That’s the story and the process – and

Hollis - Burn Burn - a 2022 single on AntiFragile Music. After years as a supporting artist for artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and bands like The Flavr Blue, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Hollis (full name: Hollis Wong-Wear) is front and center on her solo album debut Subliminal, out now via Anti Fragile. "It’s an opportunity for me to sonically chart the spectrum of feelings," she shared in a press release, "from existential angst and the tension of our historical moment, to meditative reflection, to uninhibited joy, that was evoked during the pandemic and into today. I’m so happy to offer this album to the world in hopes that it can provide a space of healing and resonance the way that writing the songs did for me.” Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Zola Jesus - The Fall - from the 2022 album Arkhon on Sacred Bones. Zola Jesus returns with her sixth full-length later this month titled Arkhon. The artist, whose real name is Nika Roza Danilova, explains that the title translates to "power" or "ruler" in ancient Greek. "Arkons are a Gnostic idea of power wielded through a flawed god," Danilova elaborated via a press release. "They taint and tarnish humanity, keeping them corrupted instead of letting them find their harmonious selves. I do feel like we are living in an arkhonic time; these negative influences are weighing extremely heavy on all of us. We're in a time of arkhons. There's power in naming that."  Today's Song of the Day taps into that power. "I wrote ‘The Fall’ for myself," she said. "It was an exercise in using music as a tool for the sake of my own inner catharsis. I had a lot of turmoil and complicated emotions that I couldn’t process in any other way. I suppose some feelings require you to write a pop song in order to fully understand th

The Heavy Heavy - Miles and Miles - from the 2022 album Life and Life Only on ATO. Brighton, UK-based duo The Heavy Heavy channel the sun-drenched sound of the '60s with today's Song of the Day. “‘Miles and Miles’ is about driving across the country, trying to get from place to place — free and easy but with real energy and motion," band member Georgie Fuller said in a press release. "It was inspired by the landscapes of Easy Rider and Vanishing Point and this fantasy of racing down the highway. It’s fuel for the listeners’ imagination — whatever that may be. For the music video we wanted to create that feeling, and we were inspired by clips of the Stones and the Beatles on roadsides in the ’60s. It’s sun-soaked and fast-paced, and we wanted it to feel like a dream." Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Porridge Radio - "The Rip" from the 2022 album Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky on Secretly Canadian. Right before the pandemic shut the world down, Brighton band Porridge Radio dropped Every Bad, their first record on Secretly Canadian that would go on to receive a Mercury Prize nomination as well as a generous amount of airplay on KEXP. While not technically the first album under the Porridge Radio moniker, it felt like an introduction to the band, who blended UK post-punk with anthemic indie rock for a uniquely cathartic sound. Last month, they released the follow-up Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder to the Sky which broadens Porridge Radio’s sound without giving up any of their defining characteristics. Our Song of the Day is “The Rip” which is led by soaring synths and roaring guitars, as the song slowly builds and bursts. Frontperson Dana Margolin had this to say about the song: “‘The Rip’ was the last song to be finished for the album, and we finished it about a week before we went into th

Julia Jacklin - "Lydia Wears A Cross" from the 2022 album Pre Pleasure on Polyvinyl. Four years after charming the socks off of us with her 2018 record Crushing, Julia Jacklin is finally releasing its anticipated follow-up. Titled Pre Pleasure, the record was conceived upon returning home at the end of a mammoth Crushing world tour and finished in a frantic few months of recording in Montreal. Our Song of the Day is the lead single and opening track off the record, “Lydia Wears a Cross.” Harkening back to her Catholic upbringing, a young Jacklin struggles with an understanding of what she’s being fed while deeply enjoying the pageantry of the church. “I'd be a believer /If it was all just song and dance,” she sings on the chorus. In a statement, Jacklin describes the song like this: “The song is about a lot of things but mainly being a 7yr old Jesus Christ superstar fanatic attending catholic school trying to figure out which way is up. The music video was filmed by my constant collaborator and friend Nick

These Arms Are Snakes - "Camera Shy" from the 2022 album Duct Tape & Shivering Crows on Suicide Squeeze. Thirteen years after the unceremonious breakup of post-hardcore outfit These Arms Are Snakes, the Seattle band have released the double LP Duct Tape & Shivering Crows. While it’s not made up of entirely new material, the record gives a thorough overview of the band’s expansive experimentations over their seven-year run. Our Song of the Day is the track “Camera Shy.” Originally released on their 2008 split-LP with Chicago’s Russian Circles, the song utilizes a crisp, throbbing rhythm section as a platform for Ryan Frederiksen to lay his always-intense spacey yowls. Following These Arms Are Snakes’ reunion shows in Seattle last August, the quartet is hitting the road for a run of five dates in Denver, Chicago, Brooklyn, Oakland, and Los Angeles starting in June. Watch the visualizer for “Camera Shy” at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omny

We believe that everyone who runs should have a great soundtrack. Not one curated by an algorithm, but one that’s hand-picked by a DJ who runs too. The Runcast with John Richards brings you a dynamic mix of music and inspiration to keep you company and motivate you on your run, no matter what your level. Subscribe to KEXP's The Runcast with John Richards, wherever you podcast, and enjoy new episodes every two weeks, June 3 - October 7, 2022. Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kraus - "Anyone" from the 2022 album Eye Escapes on Mutual Skies. Will Kraus has been releasing his unique brand of caustic shoegaze under his surname since 2016. Since then, the Dallas musician has released four records, with his latest being 2022’s Eye Escapes. A collection of recordings from 2016 - 2021, primarily from a lost album between Path and View No Country, the 11 tracks were mastered by the legendary Sacramento-based producer Blank Body, who also recently dropped a new record - his first in five years. Our Song of the Day, “Anyone,” is another excellent addition to Kraus’ discography of lush, dissonant sounds. Anchored by heavy distortion, his soft vocals float angelically yet indecipherably over the semi-caustic soundscapes. Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hunt - "I Can’t Stand (Zola Jesus cover)" from the 2022 album Todo Muere SBXV on Sacred Bones. This year, Brooklyn-based label Sacred Bones Records celebrates its 15th anniversary, and to commemorate this occasion, they've devoted the latest volume of their annual Todo Muere compilation to artists on their roster covering other artists on their roster.  And who better to reunite for this release than The Hunt? The post-punk duo helped launch the label with their very first release, a 7" single from the band. While both band members — Jasper McGandy & Christian Kount — have sinced moved on to join Cult of Youth, they've reconvened to cover labelmate Zola Jesus for this special release.   Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Automatic - "Skyscraper" from the 2022 album Excess on Stones Throw. Los Angeles trio Automatic tap into consumerism on their latest single, “Skyscraper,” channeling a materialistic yuppie type, obsessed with consumer culture. “It’s about spending your life making money and then spending it to fill the void created by said job,” explained bassist/vocalist Halle Saxon, with bandmate Lola Dompé cheekily adding, "Kind of like going to LA to live your dreams."  The track will be released on their forthcoming full-length Excess, out June 24th. Automatic plays Seattle on September 10th and 11th, opening for Osees at Neumos. Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.