chong the nomad - Two Colors

Arlo Parks - "Softly," a 2022 single on Transgressive. This week's Song of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, in honor of International Women's Month. Re-listen to our kick-off day of programming, and explore articles and live sessions from some of our favorite female artists here. Last year, Arlo Parks - the musical nom de plume of Anais Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho - released her highly anticipated debut record Collapsed in Sunbeams. The intimate, compassionate lyricism combined with earworm pop musicality made the album an instant classic that was a KEXP favorite of 2021. Parks recently returned with the single “Softly,” which while bubbly and upbeat in tone, is, in reality, a heartbreaking story of a relationship on the verge of cessation. “‘Softly’ is a song about yearning, about how fragile you feel in the dying days of a relationship when you’re still desperately in love,” the Grammy-nominated singer - who’s up for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album - explained in a statement. “The song is about how it feels to brace yourself before the blow of a break up and reminisce about the days where it all felt luminous.” The song was released alongside a video by Zhang and Knight that sees a cityscape disintegrate behind Parks. The directorial duo had this to say about the video: “For us ‘Softly’ explored the idea of wanting something that was once perfect to end in a gentle way, and we wanted to express this using the world surrounding Arlo. We were instinctively drawn to the warm toned, hazy nostalgia of the 1960s, as we loved the idea of something universally romantic being slowly stripped away throughout the film. We based the colors of the bricks, trims and doors on mid-century painting in order to bake this romanticism into everything. The production itself was a huge challenge, as everything was captured in-camera with each piece of the set built on wheels operated by several production crew. However, we knew it was all worth it when we saw the skyscrapers dancing around Arlo for the first time.” Arlo Parks will be in Seattle on Wednesday, March 23rd to play the Paramount supporting Clairo. The 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, April 3rd. Watch the video for “Softly” at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

11 Maalis 20223min

50 Foot Wave - "Staring Into the Sun," a 2022 single on Fire Records. This week's Song of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, in honor of International Women's Month. Re-listen to our kick-off day of programming, and explore articles and live sessions from some of our favorite female artists here. Two years after the long-awaited 10th studio album from Throwing Muses, frontwoman Kristin Hersh is back with a new record from her heavier side project 50 Foot Wave. Titled Black Pearl, the record is out April 15th and follows the 2016 EP Bath White. Our Song of the Day is Black Pearl’s lead single “Staring Into the Sun.” Joined by Throwing Muses member Bernard Georges on bass and drummer Rob Ahler, Hersh creates a massively lush and gloomy soundscape for their first new music in six years. Featuring throbbing, droney, distortion-filled riffs, “Staring Into the Sun” is 50 Foot Wave at their most metal. Kristin Hersh is doing a long run of solo shows starting this March at SXSW and then jumping over to the UK and Europe into early Summer. Check out a full list of dates here and watch Hersh’s KEXP in-studio session from 2017 at the link below. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

10 Maalis 20225min

Adwaith - "ETO," a 2022 single on Libertino Records. This week's Song of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, in honor of International Women's Month. Re-listen to our kick-off day of programming, and explore articles and live sessions from some of our favorite female artists here. Post-punk trio Adwaith have announced their sophomore full-length Bato Mato will be out July 1st via Libertino Records, their eagerly-awaited follow-up to their Welsh Music Prize-winning 2019 debut Melyn. The album's first single (and today's Song of the Day) was written the day after performing at the UU.Sound festival in the city of Ulan-Ude, Siberia in 2020. “We really wanted to write a heartfelt song about being infatuated with someone," the band said in a press release. "This isn't something we normally write about and we wanted to approach this song differently to our other ones. We felt inspired to write a big pop song." In fact, the entire album is colored by that impactful trip. Vocalist Hollie Singer shared in a press release, "Our journey through the Siberian and Mongolian wilderness influenced the writing and sound of the album to be as open and big as the limitless sky around us there." Bassist Gwenllian Anthony added, "It was a life changing trip that really inspired us to write this album. The barren landscape and brutalist architecture really seeped into these songs and the use of world instruments was heavily inspired by this journey." Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

9 Maalis 20224min

LOTTA - "Léonard" from the 2021 Seafarer EP on Deadred Records. This week's Song of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, in honor of International Women's Month. Re-listen to our kick-off day of programming, and explore articles and live sessions from some of our favorite female artists here. On her debut EP, Seafarer, Slovakian singer/songwriter LOTTA (real name: Dagmar Mišíková) presents four songs inspired by the seasons, with today's Song of the Day capturing the fading days of autumn. The release is a collaboration with producer/multi-instrumentalist STROON (real name: Dalibor Kocián), who says via a press release, "Some moments of cooperation were so inspiring and informative for me that I approach my work even more experimentally... I feel a personality about it. It's not structured pop, it's stories.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Maalis 20223min

Clarissa Connelly - "Holler" from the 2020 self-released album The Voyager. This week's Song of the Day were selected by KEXP DJ Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time, in honor of International Women's Month. Re-listen to our kick-off day of programming, and explore articles and live sessions from some of our favorite female artists here. Combining the technology of her Korg M1 synthesizer with inspiration from ancient lands, Copenhagen-based artist Clarissa Connelly crafts beautiful baroque pop songs, highlighting her diaphanous melodies with lyrics that sow the seeds of Celtic folklore. In fact, the album was released simultaneously with an app named Vandringen that spotlights these foregone Danish locations, not viewable on Google Maps. "Many of the places are forgotten to some extent, at least when I was there back in 2018," Connelly told The Wire last year. "Since the pandemic, people’s interests have turned back to what’s around them in a really beautiful way. But I’ve always been interested in how the landscape was formed, either by humans or by the ice age pushing the soil back and forth creating mountains, or ice holes that become a lake two ice ages later. Imagining that timespan gives me a huge feeling of wanting to create. I’m fascinated by old buildings in cities – like a church, looking at the stones and wondering who built it – but they’re only maybe a thousand years old. Looking at these more ancient sites, the burial mounds and Viking fortresses, that’s even further back into history. I just get awestruck and want to sing or write about it." Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Maalis 20223min

BRoc - "Black Rainbow (feat. Porter Ray)," a 2022 self-released single. Brian Ovalles, AKA BRoc, is a Seattle-based producer and DJ who’s worked extensively with Central District Seattle MC Porter Ray. He is a part of the label/collective called Intratecque, family to the Black Constellation. Read the full post on KEXP.org Take a journey through the Black Constellation on KEXP's new podcast, Fresh off the Spaceship (coming March 18)Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4 Maalis 20222min

Sevdaliza - "High Alone," a 2022 single on Twisted Elegance. It's been two years since her stunning sophomore release Shabrang, but Dutch-Iranian artist Sevdaliza re-emerges on the new EP, Raving Dahlia. On today's Song of the Day, she continues to explore the gothic electronic sound of those earlier releases, adding cinematic elements like the spoken-word piece against an ethereal harp background. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

3 Maalis 20223min

Fly Anakin - "Ghost (feat. Nickelus F)" from the 2022 album Frank on Lex Records Ltd. Described by Madlib as "one of the illest MCs," anticipation has been high for the debut full-length from Richmond, VA-based rapper/producer Fly Anakin. On March 11th, that release will drop, titled Frank, via Lex Records. He notes the album draws inspiration from the "classic R&B and Soul" his dad played for him when he was a child. Today's Song of the Day features guest vocals from his "hero and mentor", as well as a fellow Richmond resident, Nickelus F, a seven-time "Freestyle Friday" champion on BET's weekly hip-hop show 106 & Park. Together, with Grammy-nominated producer Like (of Pac Div), they deliver a somber track befitting of the title "Ghost." Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2 Maalis 20223min