Martin Frawley - End of the Bar

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.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

25 Mai 20232min

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.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 Mai 20232min

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.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

23 Mai 20233min

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.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 Mai 20234min

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.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

19 Mai 20233min

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.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

18 Mai 20233min

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.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

17 Mai 20234min

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.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

16 Mai 20234min