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Stephen Thompson
Happy Friday, everyone. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson. Every week on New Music Friday, we speak to a member of the NPR Music network. And today, August 22nd, we are welcoming Tad Cautious from Vermont Public. Hey, Tad.
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Tad Cautious
Hey, how you doing?
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Stephen Thompson
I am doing well. It is a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome to New Music Friday.
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Tad Cautious
Likewise. Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk about all these records.
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Stephen Thompson
Yeah. So before we start, I want to just state up front it is an odd release week. Basically. There have been a ton of kind of late breaking titles in pop and R and B and hip hop, which made it tougher than usual to play. Plan this time of year always sneaks up on us. It's always a little frantic because we're coming up on the end of the eligibility window for next year's Grammy Awards. So the way we decided to deal with the glut is just pick five new records we love, regardless of popularity, regardless of how they're gonna perform or not perform on the charts or in awards shows, and then present for you a super sized lightning round at the end of the show. So in the meantime, let's kick off the show with Nourished By Nourished by Time has a new album called the Passionate Ones.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Of Connection with the touch of Dame Java.
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Please be careful with my Lorien. She's not a weapon.
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Stephen Thompson
So Nourished by Time is the kind of pseudonym for a singer, songwriter and producer from Baltimore named Marcus Brown. Kind of a self taught polymath who combines minimalist R and B, synth pop, new jack, swing, lots and lots of different sounds all kind of crashing against each other in really intriguing ways. Kind of feels of a piece with a lot of these artists. We've been talking about more and more people like Dijon and McGee and, you know, people who are kind of deconstructing pop and R and B and kind of finding new ways to make it sing.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah. And it's sort of in a time outside of genre when we're sort of a TikTok generation of like all things being considered on the same level. There's a real bravery to the way that he just sort of blends all those influences.
- [03:01]
Stephen Thompson
Yeah. And like many artists in this genre, you know, he has kind of a Background in home recording. He recorded his first album Erotic Probiotic 2 in his parents basement during COVID And so you just kind of get a sense that Nourished by time like other artists in this field, there's really something to this self taught quality. Just being a music obsessive and just pulling from every genre that has ever interested you in ways that you know, that. That still sound in many ways like pop music. There's a track on this record called Baby Baby that is just so busy and chaotic and it's just throwing every sound at the wall.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Make music young fel yeah, yeah.
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Yeah let's get it cracking Chemical reaction Low on money quite high on passion look at what I made you Little bit of fame to the sex ain't even fun yet Sick of getting blood test.
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Tad Cautious
I'm so glad to hear a record like this where he can be as passionate or as weird as he wants to be. It does, it does really feel like a music enthusiast's album. They're not trying to put themselves across as, you know, gosh, I should be a dance artist, I should be a rock artist, I should be like an R and B artist. There's a representation of each of those to just kind of take a little holiday into one style and into another. And the overall effect is you get the sense that this is just a very creative, passionate person. I use the word passionate a lot. I think it's a really great title for this album because it is. It's so unabashed and passionate and it really reminds me of the album title. The Passionate one sort of recalls the Beautiful Ones, the Prince song from Purple Rain, which has all of that sort of operatic melancholy and kind of unhinged emotion. So that for me, that. I don't know if it was meant to be that way, but that's what it recalled for me.
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Stephen Thompson
I definitely had that. That same thought. And I agree with you that it's a really effective title. It's also worth noting, you know, we've been talking a lot about the sound, but the substance of this album is in the lyrics and is in kind of some of the themes that are creeping into these tracks. There's a. There's a song called Cult Interlude that really dials up something much more unset. It gives the sense that this record is about more than just kind of letting genres collide. There's also commentary about online isolation, about, you know, the loneliness epidemic that so many people are talking about, about, you know, indoctrination and kind of the ways that you know that we get sucked into, into this stuff online. So, you know, he not only is like a throwback to Prince or, you know, or, you know, like working in this kind of new deconstructivist genre, he's also somebody who's doing of deep thinking about the world.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
How do you. How do you.
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Stephen Thompson
How do you. How do you. How do you. How do you get someone out of a cult?
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Tad Cautious
There are many.
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Stephen Thompson
How do you. There are many different kinds of. How do. There are many different kinds of authoritarian cults, political cults, political cults, political cults, political. How do you get someone out of a cult?
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Tad Cautious
And with a cult, you really question sort of the fundamentals of what you believe in. You're just kind of replacing the foundational beliefs of your person. And it does feel like he's grappling with that and, you know, with the sort of slipperiness of online truth these days. It does seem very of the time.
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Stephen Thompson
In recent decades, some of the most notorious American cults include the Passionate Ones. That is the Passionate Ones. The new album by Nourished by Time. Next up, an album by Pino Palladino and Blake Mills. It's called that Wasn't a Dream.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Sam.
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Stephen Thompson
So Pino Paladino and Blake Mills are two of kind of the great collaborators and all around gearheads in music right now. Pino Palladino has worked with everyone. He's worked with, you know, Nine Inch Nails, d', Angelo, Erykah Badu, John Mayer, kind of a go to bassist and, you know, all around collaborator. Blake Mills is, you know, one of the best producers in the business. He's worked with Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple, the Alabama Shakes, but together they're making kind of instruments, instrumental music that has a real kind of liquid quality to it, but it doesn't fade into the woodwork. There's tension, there's percussion. There's a vibe that is more than just a vibe.
- [08:59]
Tad Cautious
Yeah, I was listening to this thinking, gosh, is this a jazz album? It doesn't really have any of the markers of jazz and both of these guys have pop bonafides out the wazoo. But what it does have is that same sort of sophistication and inquisitiveness and indulgence into setting out really ambitious themes and then following up on them.
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Stephen Thompson
Absolutely. And you know, there's one track on this record called Heat Sink that is almost 14 minutes long. And it is really, you know, taking you on a. On a. On a kind of an epic journey. I mean, if you're gonna. If you're gonna sprawl out for 14 minutes. It had better be an epic journey. But the rest of the songs on this record are pretty compact. They feel, at times, kind of pocket, you know, jazz pieces, but at the same time, there, there, there. Even though there are no vocals, there's always a voice. You know, sometimes that voice is. Is, you know, percussion, like in the song Taka, you know, that has this real chugging qual. At other times, there's. There's a real sense of discord, a jagged quality. There's a. There's a track called Somnambulista, which takes the jaggedness to a place that almost. It's almost unsettling. Like, whatever you call it, it's not smooth.
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Tad Cautious
That's one of the things that I really love about this record and also about Blake Mill's production overall, is that as a producer, he's created this really singular world where he can bring in these super weird sounds and they don't alienate, they don't sound pretentious. They take you to a weirder place than you think you would normally go.
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Stephen Thompson
Yeah. And I think that's part of not only the appeal of this record, but, as you say, kind of their appeal as collaborators. The great gift of a true collaborator, especially somebody who's working with kind of major stars who still have, like, very, very strong artistic impulses, is you have to have a willingness to follow people down some strange blind alleys. You know, you have to be willing to take weird turns and follow ideas that may not seem like they're gonna work in the moment, but you have faith in your collaborators.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah, I like what you were saying about how they can follow each other, because both as a producer and as sort of the quintessential consummate sideman, they're good at enabling another musician. And so they're listening and following and really going to places that you wouldn't get with a sort of a marquee artist.
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Stephen Thompson
Yeah, it's a really intriguing record. If you've ever seen their names and liner notes and wanted to hear more. This is just a really intriguing kind of side road for both of them. It's of kind. Pino Palladino and Blake Mills. Their new album is called that Wasn't a Dream. We've got some more records we're excited to talk about, but first, let's take a quick break.
- [12:26]
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Stephen Thompson
Ts and Cs apply from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Tad Cautious from Vermont Public. Tad, before we start talking about some more music, tell me about everything you're working on.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah, I just started a new show with Vermont Public about three months ago or so, and I'm just overjoyed because it's the station that I grew up listening to. It's the station that I really came to love public radio on. So now working with them is such a dream. It's a fantastic station that really reflects it's kind of everything that you want in local public radio. It reflects the character of Vermont, which is so idiosyncratic and diverse and fun. So. And they also just won, I should mention, an Edward R. Murrow Award for reporting on the Eclipse. So just amazing local news reporting and music.
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Stephen Thompson
That's wonderful. Now you're also doing something with SiriusXM with fish.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah. So a long time ago, back when Phish started doing their festivals back in 1996, they had the wild idea of having an on site radio station, a low wattage radio station. It would not only broadcast the band sets, but also traffic and safety information. And then in the other 20 hours of the day, just be a freeform radio station along the lines of a college radio station. So I've done that a dozen times over the years. And then during the pandemic started kind of a weekly little installment in exile of Festival radio on Fish's SiriusXM channel, the station and the name is called the Bunny. And that happens on Friday nights at 6pm Nice.
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Stephen Thompson
I'll have to check that out.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah.
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Stephen Thompson
All right. Well, next up, we've got a new album by Greg Freeman. Greg Freeman's new album is called Burnover.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Life. Spin your life wrapping all around you and always finding your form now it drifts like some blind drunk salesman Looking for you Door to door your clock beat twice they sounded the same One for every being here One closer to going away.
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Stephen Thompson
So I appreciate the way that Greg Freeman kind of bridges our two worlds, Tad, because Greg Freeman is originally from Bethesda, just up the road from where I'm currently sitting in a closet. Now he is based in Burlington, Vermont.
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Tad Cautious
Where I'm currently sitting in my bedroom.
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Stephen Thompson
Where you are currently sitting in your bedroom and listening to this record and kind of reading up on Greg Freeman. You know, his background is kind of as an artist, alt country singer, but as you listen to this record, you get a little bit of a seep of twang into it, but it's more like twangy indie rock than alt country. And at times he really manages to, you know, not only craft kind of big anthemic rock and roll, but sometimes put together something that's really riffy and shambolic.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah, it really is undefinable, and it escapes the trap of the singer songwriter genre or the alt country sound where you could put across a perfectly good record. But he's incorporating so many sort of. Yeah, like you said, shambolic, like, almost jazzy influences, but without sounding. It all blends together somehow without sounding pretentious or reaching. There's, you know, one of the things I want to celebrate about this record is that there's a saxophone on it. Like, you know, the saxophone has been such a huge instrument in pop music over the years and hasn't really made a comeback. You know, it gets attached to, like, Careless Whisper or, you know, Junior Walker and the All Stars. But there's a saxophone on this record that. That somehow fits this rock setting or this modern indie setting. There's also a lot more unexpected instruments in this than. Than you usually get in sort of a, you know, quote unquote, alt country or singer songwriter recording. There's strings, there's, you know, xylophones, and it does sound like a, you know, a thrift shop being thrown down the stairs sometimes in a rhythmic and exciting way.
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Stephen Thompson
I appreciate the way this record, you know, you mentioned kind of the instrumentation and the willingness to, like, bring in saxophones. And stuff like that. One of the things that that does is it really disconnects this record from a sense of any specific moment. And I think that really works in its favor. At times it feels like a night kind of a 90s indie rock record. At times it feels like a late 80s singer songwriter record, like a Marshall Crenshaw or somebody like that. There's a track called Gallic Shrug, you know, which is, you know, kind of a mid tempo jam. And it meets in the middle, I think, between alt country and power pop in a way that really reminded me of the student radio station. I couldn't quite hear from my tiny hometown of Iola, Wisconsin, where I was like constantly adjusting the dial trying to hear college radio. This sounds like what I should have been hearing.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
You don't know just how hard it is to watch Go to sleep and your pain punches the clock.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah, you're right that it doesn't feel bound in by any specific era. Like there's more than a little Springsteen in there too. When you're talking about sort of a Rust Belt town that's had a tragedy happen. Also, there's a little bit of like Dee Boone of Minutemen in there and Alex Chilton and also Meat Puppets too.
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Stephen Thompson
Oh, sure.
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Tad Cautious
Just that kind of rambling psychedelic indie rock country, you know. You end up saying a lot of these words, these genre words, because they don't, they don't. It's like put them all in a blender and then you get this, you know, chunky brine.
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Stephen Thompson
Yeah, well, chunky is a good word for a track like gone can mean a lot of things, you know, which is kind of leaning pretty hard on his heavier side and being really unafraid to just dispense massive riffs, you know. There's another kind of anthemic rager called Point and Shoot, which is just like big ringing rock. And again, we kind of keep coming back to this point about an album that's kind of out of time. That kind of stuff is where being out of time really works in your favor. Because these songs would work in any era.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
They cut the scene and saw blood on the cameraman she could see the frame but never the picture Live round spun in a split second flicker throw the depth of field like the neck of the hangman.
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Tad Cautious
And it's lyrically ambitious too, when we're talking about that sort of, all things included, it's just kind of this fire hose of phrases and images. Looking at his website, he's got the lyrics all printed out in a solid block of Text, which is kind of the way that it strikes you. A lot of these lines or images or phrases will just kind of wow you with the sound of them before you really kind of parse out what the actual image is. So there's. That's fun and ambitious.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Yeah.
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Stephen Thompson
And at the same time, like, he does have a more pensive side that comes through in some of these tracks. There's a track called Sawmill, you know, which you were mentioning. Kind of the instrumental diversity on this record, you know, that's bringing in strings, you know that it wears really, really well. So it's not just this like kind of lunch pail, working man's rock or whatever. He's also weaving in a lot of, of different stuff.
- [22:24]
Tad Cautious
Yeah. And he can for sure dial it in on a song like Burnover, which is kind of a Springsteen esque telling of a small town story. So, yeah, there's these kind of bigger, kind of rolling, more sort of psychedelic lyrics and then there's a real like straight retelling of a classic story as well.
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Stephen Thompson
Yeah, that's Burnover. New album by Greg Freeman. Next up, Kathleen Edwards has a new record. It's called Billionaire.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
People change, people grow. You can take it and stride or slam a door. You can go quiet, you can run, say goodbye, tell no one. The easiest thing for me would be to get someone to speak for me. Get somebody else to tell you how I feel. The hardest part about the truth. Saying something that might have hurt you. The hardest part about life.
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Stephen Thompson
So Kathleen Edwards is a Canadian singer, songwriter, put out her first record all the way back in 2002 with Failor. She's been kind of a, you know, a critics favorite, you know, for nearly 25 years now and has put out, you know, a string of, of, you know, beloved records. But at the same time, you know, over the course of her career, she's kind of dipped in and out of music. You know, famously in 2014, she quit music to open a coffee shop and called it Quitters.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
- [24:25]
Stephen Thompson
And then, you know, came back, you know, with her, with her, you know, first album in eight years, you know, called Total Freedom in 2020, which is kind of in part about, you know, leaving it all behind and kind of figuring out what you, you know, what you still want in your, in your life. And now she's back with her first album in five years. And for me it just picks up right where she left off. She is just, she is such a.
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Tad Cautious
Welcome voice and I respect so much that choice of your Own. Choosing your own life over some kind of perfect career arc that people have. Have laid out for you. I was thinking specifically regarding her sort of how much we demand of our artists, that listeners demand that artists be these pure people who live on air and must stay dedicated in this really unsustainable way. So to know that someone is taking some time to be a person in the world when they come back, it just means so much more, you know, that. That they're at the helm.
- [25:41]
Stephen Thompson
Listening to these songs, you really get this sense of somebody who has spent those years observing the world and finding new things to say and new ways to say them while still having real kind of instrumental heft to it. You know, there's a. There's a, you know, kind of a bluesy rock epic on this song called Need a Ride.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah.
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Stephen Thompson
And, you know, as the song is kind of unfurling, you get these Neil Young style guitars, you know, kind of kind of billowing in. But then you listen to the song and it's, it's. It's this rumination on, like, how worked up everyone is nowadays.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah.
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Stephen Thompson
So you listen to the song and you're like, oh, this is somebody who's been paying attention.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
People get worked up about everything. People get worked up about an outdoor cat. People get worked up about a baseball hat. People get worked up about a uniform they've never had to where before. You get worked up about a truck I drive Cry me a now you need a ride.
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Tad Cautious
Yeah. There's a real authority in her singing voice and then also just in her. The voice that's writing the record that's confident, that is. Takes its time. And even in the writing, you know, there's. She can write up. She can write the heck out of a pop song just with like, syllables that hang on to a rhythm. Or she can kind of drift off to say whatever she needs to say. There's an expert level to that, like, almost like a jazz player who knows the head but is going to riff on it.
- [27:39]
Stephen Thompson
Yeah. And, you know, I. You know, sometimes it's easy to kind of get bogged down in comparisons, but there were comparisons that were springing up for me again and again in a really positive way of other lifers, of other people whose humanity and lived experiences really come through in their songwriting. And the two names that I came back to again and again were Laura Veers and Nico Case. And she and Laura Veers kind of share this ability to kind of allow songs to unfurl as conversations, you know, in ways that you're able. If you kind of follow either artist's biography, you get a sense of, you know, what this song is saying about where she was at that point in her life. And that's, you know, somebody who, you know, you know, both of those artists are, you know, artists who are now decades into their careers and still finding ways to stay vital. You know, the Veers comparison for me really came through in this kind of billowy singer songwriter jam called Save youe Soul, you know, which is so it's catchy and it's clever, but it also just feels really lived in.
- [28:56]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Short fall to the ground when you dig your own hole Line your pockets with gold Line your pockets who's gonna save your soul? When your mother's no cold who's gonna save your soul?
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Tad Cautious
I remember in the 90s hearing Beck talk about Neil Young, where he was kind of a young artist at the time, looking to Neil Young, saying, like, it's it was hard for him for Beck in the moment to see what the future looked like. And here was Neil Young being like, oh, here's something that I could grow up into. Here's somebody who's really led their own career in a self driven way that didn't pander and that took its own time. So in a similar way, both Laura Veers and Kathleen Edwards are really creating these trajectories that future artists can follow.
- [30:10]
Stephen Thompson
That is Kathleen Edwards. Her new album is called Billionaire. We've got one more record we're going to talk about in depth, as well as a super sized lightning round of some of the other albums out today, August 22nd. But but first, let's take a quick break.
- [30:27]
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- [31:19]
Stephen Thompson
From NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson Here with Tad Cautious of Vermont Public. Before we get to the aforementioned Super Sized Lightning Round, let's talk about a new record by Mac DeMarco. Mac DeMarco has a new album called Guitar Thought.
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Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
That you have woken up by now what a nightmare. Who thought she would still be hanging round but she's still right there Roll up those sleeves, boy Smoke the whole pack there's no turning back from this.
- [32:33]
One.
- [32:36]
Stephen Thompson
So Mac DeMarco has been making kind of DIY, kind of slackery indie rock for years and years now. He's put out a string of records, EPs and side projects and compilations, all really kind of done on his own strange terms. And this record really feels like the work of one person making the record that he wants to make in the moment. This record was made over the course of just 12 days in November, written and recorded over the course of 12 days in November of last year at his home in la. And you just get a portrait of an artist. You know, this is a theme we've talked about kind of throughout this episode. An artist making exactly the music that he wants to make in that moment.
- [33:23]
Tad Cautious
I hate to say that it's mature as an artist who has been so sort of, you know, youthful and ragged and roguish, but it really does show you a side of him that is at home. I think when you're young, you're traveling a lot, whether you're doing it physically or, you know, through different beliefs or masks of yourself or relationships. But then when you really arrive at home, there's this peacefulness and a side of yourself that you kind of have to get to know.
- [34:00]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Rock and roll I must be dreaming no control.
- [34:14]
Stephen Thompson
Over my feelings this word is so easy to throw out in a conversation about this record, but this record is so intimate. Yes, this record is so like you really are just getting a portrait of somebody who is really fearlessly presented aside of them that they've certainly. I mean, Mac DeMarco's music has been all over the place. So it's not like he's never explored, you know, this kind of quality before. But really getting it kind of contained in one record with like 12 songs in 32 minutes. The longest one is like three minutes long. These are, you know, kind of portraits in miniature. That's really sweet and really impressive in its own way. And, you know, there's a track on this album called Rock and Roll, you know, and appropriately enough, it kind of gives guitar the album its title because while it's kind of a sing songy, you know, little kind of simple ditty. It's also got a bunch of kind of gnarly guitar solos that are, you know, proficient but also a little janky in ways that really feel consistent with the whole tone of the.
- [35:24]
Tad Cautious
It. Yeah, I love the kind of Richard Thompson ness of those guitar solos. It's like reminds me of trying to be Richard Thompson in my, in my bedroom, myself. This record feels focused to me. It feels like some of my favorite, most focused records. You know, Nick Drake's Pink Moon, certainly Robin Hitchcock's album I and Blue by Joni Mitchell. There's these real sort of, I don't want to say the word again, but just, but focused statements from an artist that feel like they're in their home making some kind of getting to know themselves or presenting a grown up version of themselves.
- [36:37]
Stephen Thompson
That is guitar the new album by Mac DeMarco so as we've hinted throughout the course of this episode, there are a ton of new albums out today, August 22nd. We could not possibly get to all of them. So we are going to do a super sized lightning round just to cover some of what is out today. I'm going to kick us off and I'm going to, I'm going to go. I'm going to do two at a time. I'm going to kick us off with Levi. She's an Icelandic singer songwriter. She's become a global superstar on the strength of a timeless kind of classic pop sound that's informed by jazz, musical theater, classical music and the great American songbook. Her ability to bring vintage sounds to the TikTok generation has made her a massive star as well as a Grammy winner. Her new album is called A Matter of Time.
- [37:25]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
The skyscrapers causing vertigo. The countdown begins in Tokyo. 27 days alone means 27 many million ways to cope without you I'm in a reckless.
- [37:48]
Stephen Thompson
The singer songwriter known as Somber, that's Somber without the e is a 20 year old gen Z star who's had a massive year. He's blown up on TikTok, had multiple hits, and is now releasing his full length debut album as he mounts a campaign for Best New Artist consideration at next year's Grammys. Mark it down, that's probably happening. And he's doing it with songs that sample from pop and rock and R B in propulsively catchy ways. Somber's new album is titled I Barely Know Her.
- [38:17]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
You had a dream you wanted better. You were sick of holding your sweater. You looked at me and wondered whether I was the lamp close to which you were deader. I'm looking at you and you're looking at me.
- [38:51]
Tad Cautious
For the Lightning round, I wanted to highlight a record called the Prophet and the Madman. It's this wildly ambitious and really impressive debut album from singer Ami Taf? Ra. She's a longtime collaborator of Kamasi Washington who also produces the record. The album features a number of musical settings of Khalil Gibran poems, just these deep, spiritually resonant lyrics and also arrangement wise has this appropriately beautifully wide, sweeping, grand, broad sound that we've come to associate with Kamasi Washington's work. It's just a feast of an album.
- [39:30]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Amen. Amen.
- [39:48]
Stephen Thompson
So we didn't get an advance listen to the new Deftones album, but the metal powerhouse is back with its 10 10th full length record in 30 years and the two singles that have come out give reason for big time optimism. These are thundering, swirly, catchy, hypnotic swirls of metal and shoegaze, the work of a band that hasn't lost anything off its fastball after all these years. Deftone's new album is called Private Music. Country and hip hop have proved to be a hugely lucrative mixture, as folks like Shabuzzi and Lil Nas X will gladly tell you. The rapper Big X the Plug has already had a huge hip hop country crossover, this with his Bailey Zimmerman collaboration All the Way. Now he's got a full album of country collaborations with guests like Darius Rucker, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett, Ella Langley, and more. Big X the Plug's new album is I hope you're happy.
- [41:06]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
I hope you hear me every time you play a song I hope you meet the right person But y' all never get along I hope you know that you ain't right and you so good at burning bricks I hope you finally find some love and every day he hurt your I hope you I hope you turn your heater on and it blow cold I hope you leave your car running at the stove when it gets stolen I hope you have a nightmare every single day of your life I hope you have a bad morning and one hell of a night.
- [41:31]
I hope it's hella night.
- [41:35]
Tad Cautious
The other record I wanted to highlight in our Lightning round comes from one of my favorite independent record labels, F Spot Records out of Los Angeles, and it's a project by a band called the Night Owls. They're kind of a house band, like a studio band, in the tradition of the Funk Brothers and the Wrecking Crew. The album is called Versions 2. It's the second collection of classic soul covers done in a traditional Jamaican roots, style reggae, rocksteady, lovers, rock. Each one features a different singer, everyone from Eli Paperboy Reid to Holly Cook. And it just feels like a party and something that you want to own on vinyl. I got a vinyl copy and I've been putting it on on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. Just a super fun record of classics.
- [42:19]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
You think I love you for just one thing do you my love? This may be the way it seems But I love the way you carry yourself. I even think the way you wear your hair and that love in you.
- [42:45]
Stephen Thompson
The R and B singer, songwriter, actor, director and all around polymath Teyana Taylor hasn't released an album in five years, but she is back with an ambitious new set of songs that among other things comes with an army of heavy hitting narrators. Her songs have loads of guest singers and producers, big names like Lucky Day, Jill Scott and Kay Trinata. But the narrators are arguably even bigger. Taraji P. Henson, Sarah Paulson, Nisi Nash, Issa Rae, Kerry Washington, Regina King, on and on. Teyana Taylor's new album is called Escape Room.
- [43:35]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Baby, come deep within, deep within your pride we catching hell still alive Heaven is here tonight baby.
- [43:52]
Stephen Thompson
And finally I want to do a quick Even faster than a lightning round Lightning round sub lightning round of hip hop titles out today. First up, the rapper, singer, actor, all around omnipresence Kid Cudi returns today with a new record called Free all we.
- [44:09]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
Had was dark times walking on the.
- [44:11]
Tad Cautious
Sand line Fading down, going up, coming down Using up my nine lives just.
- [44:17]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
To buy the goodbyes.
- [44:22]
Stephen Thompson
Then the odd future veteran and adventurous rapper in his own right, Earl Sweatshirt is back with a new fifth official album. It's called Live Laugh Love. And speaking of superstar rappers who've emerged from unpredictable collectives, the Wu Tang Clan's ghost features Face Killa is back with his latest of many albums. It is called Supreme Clientele 2. So Tad, I am going to ask you an impossible question. You and I have listened to a ton of music in preparation for this episode. What is the one song you heard, the one you'll remember the most after all those hours of listening?
- [45:00]
Tad Cautious
You know it is a tie in my brain. You just said the word one about three different times and it made me think that I should have really dumbed down to one. Without question. I'm gonna wake up at 3am in the morning sometime coming up and hear tossed away by nourished by time in my head it just repeats so beautifully and is so hypnotic. But I gotta say that my electroreceptors are set to receive Little Red Ranger by Kathleen Edwards. I think that's gonna be a song that you'll hear at open mics and around campfires. It's such a beautiful, crystalline portrait of a person and a feeling and a beautifully sentimental tribute.
- [45:38]
Guest Musician or Artist (performing lyrics)
It's old to you, but it's new to me. Pick me up at the Roosevelt Windows down or Two Doors Suit too.
- [45:56]
Stephen Thompson
Well, those are both really excellent picks I'm gonna try. I'm gonna go in a completely different, different direction. And if you ask me five minutes from now, I maybe pick a different song. Maybe it's because I didn't get a chance to hear the whole record, but I'm just so tantalized by those little niblets I've gotten of the new Deftones record. And I realized listening to those songs, a how, how ready I am for a new Deftones album and b, how nice it is to just get a little heaviness in your life every now and then, just as a palette cleanser, as you're just, you know, all of these, you know, these different sounds. It's good to just get whomped with something every now and then. So I'm going to go with My Mind Is a Mountain, a killer new song from the Deftones new album, Private Music. That is our show for the week. Thank you so much, Tad Cautious, for taking time out of your week at Vermont Public.
- [46:55]
Tad Cautious
My pleasure. Thank you so much. It's been so much fun to nerd out on music with you. It's like my number one favorite thing to do.
- [47:01]
Stephen Thompson
Mine, too. It has been a pleasure to have you. Can't wait to have you back. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Mohammad. We'll be back next week to discuss new music with NPR Music Music's Hazel Sills and WMOT's Jesse Scott in Tennessee. Until then, take a moment to be well, chuck your cell phone into the sea and treat yourself to lots of great.
- [47:53]
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- [48:25]
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