KEXP DJ Greta Rose on Australian producer and DJ HAAi

Manny Noir & Psychedelic Ensemble - "Where Were You…" from the 2022 album Nocturne on Everything Is Perfect / LIVE AT THE CLINIC. Southeast London emcee Manny Noir recently teamed up with producer Psychedelic Ensemble to release the collaborative record Nocturne in June. True to the album’s name, Nocturne is ten tracks of vibey downtempo hip hop perfect for the late hours of the evening. The combination of Manny Noir’s silky flows with Psychedelic Ensemble’s smooth, softly grooving production makes for a sexily uneasy nighttime soundscape. Our Song of the Day “Where Were You…” hones in on the feelings of longing and betrayal that often permeate the brain upon nightfall. “Where were you when I was hurting / I was hurting /I was hurt,” questions Noir over a thrumming beat punctuated by ghostly synths mimicking the fog of memories best left in the past. Read the full post and watch the video for Nocturne closing track "Let the Love In," directed by Marlon Francis, at KEXP.org.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Sep 20223min

Meskerem Mees - "Best Friend," from the 2022 Caesar EP on Mayway. Born in Ethiopia and raised in Belgium (where she still resides today), 23-year-old artist Meskerem Mees displays a maturity beyond her years in her beautiful compositions. She's won the Emerging Artists Award from Humo's Rock Rally, the Music Moves Europe 2022 Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Montreux Jazz Talent Award in 2021. On today's Song of the Day, she calls to mind Courtney Barnett with her speedy talk-singing style, but musically, it's stripped down to just her acoustic guitar and cello accompaniment by Frederik Daelemans. Against the minimal folk-pop instrumentation, her lyrics reflect on middle school days to just a year ago, and how her life has changed.  Today's Song of the Day will appear on the Caesar EP, to be released November 10th via Mayway. Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Sep 20223min

S H I R A N - "Habibi Inta حبيبي انت" from the 2022 album Fadaytak on Batov. Tel Aviv-based artist S H I R A N (real name: Shiran Avraham) uses her music to explore her Middle Eastern roots, combining the influences with hip-hop, Afrobeats, and more. Her production partner Ron Bakal returns on this latest LP to help her carry these songs to new heights, in a style they call “Electro Hafla,” a reference to "the large “'hafla' get-togethers full of music and dancing, common at family gatherings and religious ceremonies." She declares on Facebook: I am so proud of what we created Ron Bakal⁩. The album’s creation process was very special for me because all the songs were written in collaboration with a song writer from Yemen and been through a journey in all the places Ron and I love’s to travel. The truth is that the album was ready two years ago, it needed to release outside a long time ago but it postponed by a lot of reasons. COVID-19, our life routine and all kind of challenges that we have been through. We worked on it so hard and during our work I went through a process of my own that thought me a lot. I have learned that it is good to let go and not hold in.. listen to myself and let the art burst out without a lot of questions and thoughts. But I do believe that everything is happening in it’s time. After all, the album was made with love! Thanks to amazing people that took part If it and brought there talent and heart  Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6 Sep 20223min

Jitwam - "The Get Down" from the 2022 album Third on Roya Records. As KEXP's DJ Alex mentioned in 2018 when Jitwam contributed a Midnight in a Perfect World mix to us, "Jitwam is a bit of an enigma. He was born in Northeast India, he's currently based in Brooklyn, he spent his formative years in New Zealand and Australia, and has lived in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and washed out apartments in London." On his third album — helpfully titled Third — Jitwam focuses on nights in London and New York, specifically, while still infusing a lifetime of global influences into his rich tapestry of disco-funk. Today's Song of the Day is such a fast-paced dance delight, you can almost picture the Soul Train dancers doing one of their infamous line dances to it.  As he told Mixmag, "Being a diaspora kid, Third, for me, also has a lot of references to third culture. I’m trying to blur the lines between what we think of as different cultures, rhythms, and genres, and show that despite how different these genres are — or how different we are as people — we’re all grounded in the same drumbeat really." Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5 Sep 20223min

Franklin Gothic - Mr. Hangman from the 2022 album Into the Light on #veryjazzed. Franklin Gothic is the solo project of Portland-based artist Jay DiBartolo. In August, he released his debut record Into the Light via split release with Very Jazzed ad Pleasure Tapes. Made in collaboration with producer/local luminary Erik Blood (Shabazz Palaces, Tacocat, Pickwick), the album covers a variety of genres including ‘90s indie, Americana, and shoegaze for a dynamic and colorful listen. Our Song of the Day is the early single “Mr. Hangman.” Influenced by DiBartolo’s childhood and using the game Hangman as an analogy for feeling cut off from the world and left hanging, the song is, conversely, one of the more vibrant tunes on the record. DiBartolo had this to say about the song: "The original version we intended to record for "Mr. Hangman" was this sweet, little boppy tune, which had been bugging me because it felt inauthentic. After laying down the drums in the studio, I took the song back home and experimented a bit on guitar by noodling with various phrasings over the existing chord progression. That's when this dissonant feeling emerged that juxtaposed the original version and captured what the song's about. I sent it to Erik and he replied back with a champagne emoji, so I knew that was it." The song comes with a glitchy VHS-style video directed by Sean McGuirk. Watch it and read the full post at KEXP.org.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2 Sep 20223min

Brijean - Take A Trip from the 2022 album Angelo on Ghostly International. Vocalist/percussionist Brijean Murphy and producer/multi-instrumentalist Doug Stuart have been making sweltering groovy soundscapes as Brijean since 2019 and recently followed up their 2021 full-length Feelings with the EP Angelo. Named after their 1981 Toyota Celica, Angelo was born out of a period of immense grief, in which the duo leaned heavily on each other and music as a way to cope. Our Song of the Day “Take a Trip” celebrates those moments of cruising windows-down, as well as the more psychedelic types of trips, in which the journey is through the mind. “Travel with me down, down, down /Hear the colors, taste the sounds /Through the window, out the door /Spaces in my mind I've never seen before,” coos Murphy. A meandering bassline leads the scorchingly sunny song while a bevy of sounds including hand-claps, cuíca hiccups, whip-cracks, even a horse neigh add color to the already-heated track. “This song is an inquiry into shifting perspectives—a way to deepen our lived experience by becoming aware of the unexplored facets of our own perception,” says the duo of “Take a Trip” which comes with a music video from Nathan Castiel inspired by Dreamcast-era video games that interplays lo-fi 3D animation with the warmth of 16mm film. Watch the video and read the full post at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1 Sep 20222min

Flying Lotus - "You Don’t Know (feat. Devin Tracy)" from the 2022 album The Room on Warp Records. DJ/producer Flying Lotus teams up with soul singer Devin Tracy for today's Song of the Day, a laid back summer-y groove perfect for these final days of the season.  FlyLo's been busy this year: he wrote the theme song to the AppleTV+ Magic Johnson documentary series, They Call Me Magic, and wrote the score for Netflix's YASUKE anime series. He's currently working on his second film, titled Ash. The film was written by Jonni Remler and focuses on a woman who "wakes up on a distant planet and finds the crew of her space station viciously killed, her investigation into what happened setting in motion a terrifying chain of events." In addition to directing, Flying Lotus will also compose the score.  Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

31 Aug 20222min

Yaya Bey - "alright" from the 2022 album Remember Your North Star on Big Dada. On her latest LP, Remember Your North Star, Brooklyn-based artist Yaya Bey explores the themes of Black womanhood against a mix of R&B, jazz, reggae, and hip-hop. "I saw a tweet that said, "Black women have never seen healthy love or have been loved in a healthy way." That's a deep wound for us," she stated in a press release. "Then I started to think about our responses to that as Black women. So this album is kind of my thesis. Even though we need to be all these different types of women, ultimately we do want love: love of self and love from our community. The album is a reminder of that goal." Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

30 Aug 20223min