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파란노을 (Parannoul) - 아름다운 세상 (Beautiful World) May 03, 2021

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파란노을 (Parannoul) - "아름다운 세상 (Beautiful World)" from the 2021 album To See the Next Part of the Dream on POCLANOS.

“I just hope there will be more active losers like me in the world,” South Korea-based shoegaze musician Parannoul says in the description of his sophomore album, To See The Next Part of the Dream. A self-described student writing music in his bedroom, Parannoul utilizes waves of fuzz and sensational melodic hooks to manufacture a fantasy world. To See The Next Part of the Dream is also a means of manifestation. Pulling from Parannoul’s nostalgia for the music of his youth and references to anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the album tells the story of a fictional 21-year-old aspiring musician with the mind of a child and no actual ability to play guitar.

Album opener “아름다운 세상 (Beautiful World)” sets the stage, well, beautifully. Waves of raucous guitars blitz against deliriously complex and invigorating math rock drum patterns. Hints of emo abound as well in Parannoul’s riffs and vocals. Translations of his lyrics find the album’s protagonist struggling against self doubt, culminating with, “I wish my young and stupid days to disappear forever/My precious relationships, now they're just in the memories.”

It’s an homage to the emotional push and pull of youth – the aspiration to be something greater than you are and feeling like it’s perpetually out of reach. Despite the characters’ shortcomings, Parannoul proves himself to be a more than adept artist, capturing adolescent angst perfectly with spectacular, distorted finesse.

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Kylie V - On My Mind Apr 30, 2021

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Kylie V - "On My Mind" from the 2021 self-released album Big Blue.

Singer/songwriter Kylie Van Slyke — who records as Kylie V — has been active in the Vancouver music scene since the age of 14. Their 2018 debut EP, Lotus Eater, was recorded on their iPhone. Now at age 17, their debut full-length, Big Blue, is a more sophisticated affair. Van Slyke recruited Sound Fountain (aka engineer, producer, musician, and artist Harley Small) to help co-produce the LP, with Small also helping out on instrumentation, along with twins Benito and Cristian Hobson-Dimas of Sleepy Gonzales on drums and bass, respectively.

Kylie V tells The Permanent Rain Press that today's Song of the Day is about “trying to find a balance between giving your time and energy to someone else and prioritizing yourself.”

"My songwriting style is constantly evolving, but I try really hard to be as honest with myself as possible in my lyrics because I really admire that in other people's writing," they explained to Cups N Cakes. "I write a lot about my feelings, but I tend to layer sensitive things under metaphors, personal symbolism/associations in my brain, or things that aren't exactly obvious. A lot of people comment on the imagery in my lyrics and that's where a lot of it comes from. Being neurodivergent is also a defining trait for my writing, as it makes me approach my feelings and things that are significant to me differently than I would if I wasn't autistic. I associate things in my brain really strongly which makes for some fun symbolism, as previously mentioned."

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Flock of Dimes - Price of Blue Apr 29, 2021

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Flock of Dimes - "Price of Blue" from the 2021 album Head of Roses on Sub Pop.

Wye Oak's Jenn Wasner returned to her solo project Flock Of Dimes for an album about heartbreak, titled Head of Roses. In a press release, she explains, "Part of the journey for me has been learning to take responsibility for the parts of things that are mine, even when I’m in a lot of pain through some behavior or action of someone else. If I’m expecting to be forgiven for the things I’ve done and the choices I’ve made and the mistakes that I’ve made, it would be incredibly cowardly and hypocritical to not also do the work that’s required to forgive others the pain they caused me.”

On today's Song of the Day, Wasner examines one of the biggest ways a relationship dissolves: lack of communication. “This song is about trying, and failing, to connect," she continues. “It’s about the ways in which, despite our best efforts, we misunderstand each other, and become so attached to stories that we’re unable to see the truth that’s right in front of us. And it’s about the invisible mark that another person can leave on your body, heart and mind long after their absence. It can be difficult to make sense of the memory of your experience when the reality on the surface is always shifting — when the story you’re telling, or the story you’ve been told, unravels, leaving you with a handful of pieces and no idea how they used to fit together.”

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Anjimile - In Your Eyes Apr 28, 2021

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Anjimile - "In Your Eyes" from the 2020 album Giver Taker on Father/Daughter Records.

On his debut album, Giver Taker, Boston-based musician Anjimile was inspired by “faith, addiction, and [their] own transition.” Today's Song of the Day examines the unfair perceptions of others, with Anjimile explaining in a press release, “This is another song about grappling with homophobia and ultimately recognizing that I am what I am. It’s a somber song, but the sorrow is for those who would live their lives constricted by such bigotry.”

He elaborates in an interview with American Songwriter:

When I was in fourth grade, my homeroom teacher gave us a sort of “family tree/genealogy” assignment. This included learning the meaning (if any) behind our given names, so that day I went home and I asked my parents what “Anjimile” meant. They told me that “Anjimile” means “denied” in Chichewa (the native language of Malawi, where my family is from), and that one of my aunts had cried out “oh, Anjimile” when I was born because she was hoping my parents would have a son. In this context, “Anjimile” means “denied a boy.” There’s a couple of lyrics in this song that go “Does my body divide / was my body denied?”, and they’re quite literal and based around the aforementioned context. The whole song is related to my relationship with my gender, my sexuality, my name, my family. Funny how things connect.

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Miss Grit - Grow Up To Apr 27, 2021

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Miss Grit - "Grow Up To" from the 2021 self-released album Impostor.

Under the moniker of "Miss Grit", songwriter Margaret Sohn explores the struggles of “impostor syndrome” on her aptly-titled EP Impostor. Self-produced at Brooklyn’s Virtue and Vice Studios, Impostor reflects on Sohn masking her half-Korean heritage in the predominantly white suburbs of her hometown in Michigan, and the apprehension she felt after the success of her debut EP Talk Talk, and feeling like she was "someone who was impersonating a musician.”

In a press release, she elaborates, "I’ve gone my whole life feeling really uncomfortable defining myself. I realized that a lot of the time, I’m more comfortable with other people defining me and making up their mind about who I’m supposed to be." On today's Song of the Day, she explores her obsession with "what's next," adding, “the lack of content with the present leads to the chaos and collapse of this song.”

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Japanese Breakfast - Be Sweet Apr 26, 2021

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Japanese Breakfast - "Be Sweet" from the 2021 album Jubilee on Dead Oceans.

Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast is one busy lady. Mere months following the release of her memoir Crying in H Mart, she's releasing her third album, Jubilee, on June 4th via Dead Oceans. Today's Song of the Day is the first single, the joyous, upbeat “Be Sweet.”

“I wrote ‘Be Sweet’ with Jack Tatum from Wild Nothing a few years ago. I’ve been holding onto it for so long and am so excited to finally put it out there,” she said via a press release. The track was accompanied by a self-directed music video featuring Zauner and Missy of Mannequin Pussy as FBI agents, inspired by the TV show The X-Files.

The song's effervescent feel is reflective of the new LP, a change of pace after previous albums — Soft Sounds from Another Planet and her debut Psychopomp — reflected on the loss of her mother in 2014, from pancreatic cancer. “After spending the last five years writing about grief, I wanted our follow up to be about joy,” Zauner continued. “For me, a third record should feel bombastic and so I wanted to pull out all the stops for this one.”

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Night Beats - New Day Apr 23, 2021

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Night Beats - "New Day" from the 2021 album Outlaw R&B on Fuzz Club.

Danny Lee Blackwell — who records as Night Beats — returns June 4th with his fifth album, Outlaw R&B, an album he says "is music for the borderless, the free, the outcasts and the forgotten." He continues in his press release, "The outlaw is the runner. Those whose minds aren't sold by perfect pitch and clean fingernails. Through this medium you can escape the confines of mental feudalism and bask in the euphoric glow of psychedelic R&B."

He describes today's Song of the Day as his "postcard from purgatory," adding, "Upon going into lockdown I holed myself up with Akira Kurosawa movies and canned goods. This is the result of sleepless nights while hearing the world crumble outside my window. I sing of desperation and loss, while grinning in the face of an uncertain future."

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Wax Tailor - Just A Candle (feat. Mark Lanegan) Apr 22, 2021

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Wax Tailor - "Just a Candle (feat. Mark Lanegan)" from the 2021 album The Shadow of Their Suns on Lab'Oratoire.

French producer Wax Tailor returned this year with his first new album in five years, The Shadow Of Their Suns, a star-studded affair featuring special guests like Del the Funky Homosapien, D Smoke, Gil Scott-Heron, Adeline, and, on today's Song of the Day, Mark Lanegan of The Screaming Trees. In a statement to Under the Radar, Tailor explains:

“I started working on the demo, early 2019 & immediately called it ‘Candle.’ I had this vision of a candle as an allegory of life. The candle that illuminates us, burns out, and one day turns off. I had scenes in mind and I wanted to play on the contrast between a dry and dark rhythm and incandescent arrangements to illustrate this path of life. I added the gimmick of the blown candle that illustrates the unknown. I then invited Mark who injected his print to the song.”

“The first time I heard Mark Lanegan I was still in high school, and his friend Kurt Cobain was still alive. 30 years later, it’s hard to get into an exhaustive list of his discography, between the Screaming Trees, his solo albums, his albums with Isobel Campbell, Queen Of The Stone Age, and many others. I’ve been hoping for a long time that one day I’d have a title for him. When I started the demo, I immediately thought it was the right one. I contacted him in the spring of 2019 to propose it and he answered me in the simplest way possible. We met during his last tour in France and we continued to work remotely. I am very proud of this title, this meeting, and what Mark brings to it. In a music industry where bending your back is often a conditioned reflex, Mark is a great humble man who goes through the decades without artifice, with talent and righteousness.”

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The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Don't Ever Pray in the Church on My Street Apr 21, 2021

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The Reds, Pinks & Purples - "Don't Ever Pray in the Church on My Street" from the 2021 album Uncommon Weather on Slumberland.

With his project The Reds, Pinks and Purples, San Francisco-based singer/songwriter Glenn Donaldson pays tribute to his hometown with his third and latest album, Uncommon Weather. The Inner Richmond district is captured in muted, pastel colors on the album artwork, giving it a nostalgic feel, mournful for the days when it was a reasonable place for musicians and artists to live. Uncommon Weather was self-recorded and mostly self-performed, with Donaldson channeling his hero Dan Treacy of Television Personalities.

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Morcheeba - Sounds of Blue Apr 20, 2021

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Morcheeba - "Sounds of Blue" from the 2021 self-released album Blackest Blue.

Trip-hop trailblazers Morcheeba return with their tenth album, Blackest Blue, which comes out this Friday. Vocalist Skye Edwards and multi-instrumentalist Ross Godfrey used the lockdown to really take their "time to write songs and really get to hone them." Edwards adds in their press release, "There weren’t so many pressures so we could really take our time getting the songs right."

Today's Song of the Day is a dreamy slice of down-tempo soul with Edwards' singing of her free diving experience in Thailand and her “new found confidence and love of the ocean above and below.”

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