KEXP DJ Greta Rose on Australian producer and DJ HAAi

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. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

23 Jun 20224min

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

22 Jun 20225min

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

21 Jun 20221min

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

20 Jun 20223min

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

17 Jun 20223min

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

16 Jun 20224min

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 mine.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

15 Jun 20223min

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

14 Jun 20222min