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L'Rain - Two Face Aug 24, 2021

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L'Rain - "Two Face" from the 2021 album Fatigue on Mexican Summer.

Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist L’Rain (real name: Taja Cheek) follows her powerful 2017 self-titled debut with Fatigue, a new album that infuses soul, gospel, jazz, and other styles into her experimental sound. Today's Song of the Day finds her reflecting on a failed friendship. As she states on her Bandcamp:

This is a song about a falling out with a friend. The friend was a gemini, hence the title ‘Two Face.’ The song is a disjointed imaginary conversation between us. The ‘spooky’ parts of the song have the most optimistic lyrics, and the ‘sunny’ parts have the bleakest lyrics. The song is mostly a reflection on regret, because the dissolution of our friendship was absolutely my fault and it still haunts me.

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Courtney Barnett - Rae Street Aug 23, 2021

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Courtney Barnett - "Rae Street" from the 2021 album Things Take Time, Take Time on Mom+Pop/Marathon Records.

Long-time KEXP fave Courtney Barnett has announced her third album, titled Things Take Time, Take Time, out November 12th on Mom+Pop Music / Marathon Artists. Today's Song of the Day features the opening track, the languid rocker "Rae Street."

Things Take Time, Take Time was written over a two-year period, marking what's called "a particularly joyful time in her life." It was recorded towards the end of 2020 and early 2021 with producer / drummer Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint, and the comfort can be heard in the resulting intimate songs.

Courtney will be stopping by Seattle on Tuesday, December 14th with Bartees Strange at the Paramount.

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Nox Novacula - Victim Aug 20, 2021

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Nox Novacula - "Victim" from the 2021 album Ascension on Manic Depression.

Seattle's Nox Novacula has brought a goth presence to the local music scene since 2017. On their debut full-length, Ascension, they combine electronic and post-punk sounds into a genre they call "Death Rock."

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Ash Code - Fear (Forever Grey Remix) Aug 19, 2021

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Ash Code - "Fear (Forever Grey Remix)" from the 2021 self-released EP Fear.

Throughout the pandemic, the predominant feeling has been "fear," which is what inspired the new EP from Italian darkwave trio Ash Code. Twin brothers Alessando and Adriano Belluccio and Claudia Nottebella had an album almost finished, but the lockdown just changed the mood.

"We had a lot of songs almost finished and the plan was to release them in late summer 2020 as part of a US and Latin America tour," Adriano told German website RTL, "But everything was canceled, we spent the first half of the year planning live streams like 'Ash Code vs COVID-19' and the Gothicat festivals in order to generate donations. And then we realized that most of the songs no longer suited us and we decided to write something new. Somehow the pandemic changed us."

The Fear EP features three remixes of the title track from Molchat Doma, Clan Of Xymox, and Forever Grey. Today's Song of the Day features the latter. "We met Forever Gray in Los Angeles in 2019," Alessandro explains. "Ever since we knew her we wanted to ask her if she would remix something for us. The track is very dark with an incredible bassline!"

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Balvanera - ¿Cuánto resiste el cuerpo? Aug 18, 2021

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Balvanera - "¿Cuánto resiste el cuerpo?" from the 2021 album Courses of Action on DKA Records.

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the duo of Balvanera bring an EBM aesthetic to their dark electronic music. Vocalist Agustina and multi-instrumentalist Lucas both came from the DIY punk and hardcore scene before moving into electronics.

"For some reason, electronic music feels like a continuation of punk to me," Agustina explained in an interview with Brutal Resonance. "Like in the '80s a lot of ex punks and industrial musicians were drawn to raving. In that sense I feel there’s a lot of similarities in the communal experience, ethics, DIY, etc."

Their latest album, Courses of Action, draws from the political fury of punk. "It’s a record that invites you to action, to movement; to gain consciousness of one's acts," Lucas said of the title.

"We felt the record sounded and demanded 'action'," Agustina continued, "And since last year was so hard, time itself put everything in perspective, demanding also to make choices in our own personal lives."

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NNHMN - Tomorrow's Heroine Aug 17, 2021

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NNHMN - "Tomorrow's Heroine" from the 2021 EP Tomorrow's Heroine on K Dream's.

Berlin-based darkwave duo NNHMN (pronounced Non-Human) released the EP Tomorrow's Heroine earlier this year, a mini-album they describe as "five songs of hope, desire, and sheer electronic magic." Band members Lee Margot and Michal Laudarg (who's a techno DJ on the side) take a minimal approach to their sensual synth sound, drawing influence from "New Brutalists theatre, experimental electronic music, and techno culture," as they state on their website.

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Camlann - Metropolitan Boy Aug 16, 2021

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Camlann - "Metropolitan Boy" from the 2021 album Circa 1983 on Cold Transmission.

It's fitting that the Jakarta-based darkwave trio Camlann named their latest album Circa 1983, because they easily channel the sounds of Depeche Mode and Soft Cell, despite the fact that its members weren't even born at the time. The self-described "dark disco" group consists of Ony Godfrey (17) on vocals and guitar, Bayu Triyudanto (17) on bass, and Fauzan Pratama (16) on synths. (There's also Chariszan (17), their producer and music collaborator.) As they declare on their Bandcamp page, the new LP is a "statement to the world that they are here to bring you their own version of modern nostalgia." Check out the lyric video for today's Song of the Day below, directed by band member Pratama.

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Tycho & Benjamin Gibbard - Only Love Aug 13, 2021

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Tycho & Benjamin Gibbard - "Only Love," a 2021 single on Mom + Pop.

Step aside, Jimmy Tamborello. Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard is lending his distinctive voice to a new electronic producer, Tycho (real name: Scott Hansen).

In a press release, Hansen explained how the two came to collaborate:

I had been a fan of Ben’s work for a long time when, in 2016, I had the chance to do a remix for Death Cab for Cutie’s track “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive.” Ben’s voice was a very inspiring element to work with from a production standpoint, I felt it really meshed well with the kinds of sounds and instrumentation I gravitate towards. ‘Only Love’ started life as an instrumental, but something was missing. I sent a rough demo to Ben and he recorded some vocals over it. The first time I heard the rough vocals the whole song suddenly made sense and the arrangement flowed out of that. After my early experimentations with vocals on Weather this felt like a great opportunity to put everything I had learned during that process into practice. It was certainly an honor to be able to work with such an iconic voice.

Gibbard described how his lyrics came together:

In 2014, while reading This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein, I came across a quote from Montanan goat rancher and environmentalist Alexis Bonogofsky that moved me immensely. Speaking about the fight to protect public lands in southeastern Montana from the mining company Arch Coal, she said: ‘(The) connection to this place and the love people have for it, that’s what Arch Coal doesn’t get. They underestimate that. They don’t understand it so they disregard it. And that’s what in the end will save that place. It’s not the hatred for the coal companies or anger, but love will save this place.

When Scott sent me the music for ‘Only Love,’ it seemed perfect for this statement. Since reading Alexis’ words, I’ve carried them as a universal truth; that the only way we preserve the people, places or things we care for is with love, not hatred. This is often easier said than done, of course. But I find myself coming back to her statement as if it were a mantra.

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Mac McCaughan - Dawn Bends Aug 12, 2021

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Mac McCaughan - "Dawn Bends" from the 2021 album The Sound of Yourself on Merge.

Superchunk frontman and Merge Records co-founder Mac McCaughan returns this fall with his second solo album, The Sound of Yourself. The release features a slew of guests including Mary Lattimore, Sabrina Ellis (A Giant Dog), TORRES' Mackenzie Scott, Telekinesis' Michael Benjamin Lerner, Annie Hayden, his brother Matt McCaughan, and on today's Song of the Day, drummer Jon Wurster and Yo La Tengo. ("I am aware of the irony of an album called The Sound Of Yourself with this many guests on it!," he shares in a press release.)

Like many great albums coming out right now, The Sound Of Yourself came out of the lockdown. "Each day is blurring into the next, so what are we doing today?” he would ask himself during the pandemic. “How can I disrupt this? I think what resulted was a theme of subdued… ‘joy’ is the wrong word, but it’s at least comforting if not propulsive to have something open-ended to work on every day without any kind of structure or deadline or rules.”

The Sound of Yourself will be out September 24th via Merge Records (of course).

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Penelope Isles - Sailing Still Aug 11, 2021

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Penelope Isles - "Sailing Still," a 2021 single on Bella Union.

UK duo Penelope Isles — a project of siblings Lily and Jack Wolter — were able to use the pandemic lockdown to recover from the heavy touring they did for their 2018 debut album When The Tide Creeps In.

“Before the enforced break due to COVID we spent pretty much all of 2019 driving ourselves around Europe and America having some incredible adventures as a band and it seems that everything since then has been falling apart," Jack explained in a press release. Today's Song of the Day finds the Wolters reconnecting during the break.

“I wrote the music for this song at my brother’s flat, on a really crappy electric piano, but always envisioned the whole thing as something widescreen, with a big sound to match," Lily remembers. "The lyrics took me a few months to finish, by which point the song had taken on many different meanings. Then I took it to band practice, where Jack and I wrote the end section together. It’s one of our favourite sounding songs on the record. We played around with pitch-shifting instruments to get it sonically sweet. Plus, it was the first time we ever heard strings with our music. That’s one tick off the bucket list.”

For the video, Jack wanted to travel again, at least visually. "Writing and recording the new album was a huge part of the recovery process and making this film for 'Sailing Still' I wanted Lily and I to get back on the road somehow, as travelling has been such a massive part of our band ever since we began. So I had this idea of filming Lily in a myriad of places and scenarios, both urban and rural, coastal and inland. Mountains and rivers, council flats and tunnels, cafes and bridges. We drove up and down the country for a week, sleeping in the van, and waking up at the crack of dawn to start filming again. Reconnecting as a ‘band’ again but also spending time together as brother and sister was special for filming this real heartbreaker of a song.”

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