KEXP DJ Greta Rose on Australian producer and DJ HAAi

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

5 Apr 20232min

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

4 Apr 20234min

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

3 Apr 20233min

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

31 Mars 20232min

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

30 Mars 20234min

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

29 Mars 20233min

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

28 Mars 20235min

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

27 Mars 20233min