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- [00:00]
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Joe Kendrick
A quick note before the show.
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NPR Announcer
This podcast contains explicit language.
- [00:22]
I'll take care of you.
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Stephen Thompson
Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music. Hey, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina. Hey, Joe.
- [00:39]
Joe Kendrick
Hey, Stephen.
- [00:40]
Stephen Thompson
Welcome to the show.
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Joe Kendrick
It's great to be here. I've been looking forward to this.
- [00:43]
Stephen Thompson
So before we start, we should acknowledge the major album that dropped at the beginning of this week. Tyler the Creator, just eight months after the release of Chromacopia, is back with a rowdy and upbeat new album called Don't Tap the Glass. It's an uncharacteristically brisk and brief album for Tyler the Creator. It clocks in at just under half an hour, and it's a real hairpin turn. We just wanted to make sure we at least mention it in this roundup of the best new albums. But we're gonna kick off our show with the new album from Tyler Childers. Tyler Childers has a new album called Snipe Hunter.
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Tyler Childers
I was embraced Kissed my face with the sk of my rifle I had shot it from a blind as in you'd be blind not to see that there's a man in the doorway of a motherfucking mansion aiming at the feeder where you decide to take a feast. That's what I said, that's what I did and it did not cut one corner As I carved that fat neck mother right down to the bone I let him hang.
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Stephen Thompson
So Tyler Childers, country singer from Kentucky, deep bluegrass and folk, bent to his music. He's been floating around kind of ever since a 2017 breakthrough with Purgatory. But he has just kind of been putting out really critically acclaimed album after critically acclaimed album. He put out a record in 2023 called Rustin in the Rain. That was like seven songs in 28 minutes, kind of speaking of short albums by people named Tyler. But this is really pretty epic, you know, 13 songs. It runs almost an hour. Big sound, big anthems, big voice. You know, everything on this record feels kind of built out.
- [02:49]
Joe Kendrick
This one produced by Rick Rubin and co produced by Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn, who adds a lot of layers with organ and synth and that expands his sound even more. I think he's going in some new directions musically it's an angry record, and Tyler Childers is known for being kind of that brash personality, but I think on this record, it's really front and center all the way through.
- [03:33]
Tyler Childers
I wonder how the old folks are at home.
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Stephen Thompson
There's a song called Getting to the Bottom, where it feels like Tyler Childer's voice is almost like punching through the dining in a way that I found really effective.
- [03:50]
Joe Kendrick
Tyler's vocals are almost clipping in most of this record, with a couple of exceptions, like the song Oneida, which is a fan favorite that he finally put on record, and it shows a little bit more nuance.
- [04:04]
Tyler Childers
Oh, Nita. I know that I'm younger than most, but I'm willing if you got the time.
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Joe Kendrick
Everywhere else, it's not only his voice, but it's, you know, guitars and drums and synths. It's all crashing and cascading. You might want to wear some PPE when listening to this record.
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Tyler Childers
High on my biting list Pretty plain I just don't like you Not a thing about the way you is. And if they're ever.
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Stephen Thompson
There's a song on the record called Biting List. It's this kind of Kiss off anthem. And the chorus has this line, if there ever come a time I got Rabies. You're on the biting list, which is just a way of kind of telling someone to buzz off. So it's kind of quotable and pretty profane along the way.
- [05:09]
Joe Kendrick
You know, thinking about rabies, it might flee in terror from Tyler Childers on a. You know, he may be immune. That sort of colorful speech, that ability to turn a phrase, is something that folks from the South, I think, especially have a knack for. And Tyler shows it all the way through. And when somebody drops an F bomb, it's totally different when Tyler Childers does it, because when he does it, it kind of leaves a mark. It's like, ow.
- [05:37]
Stephen Thompson
The cursing on the record feels earned.
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Joe Kendrick
I love the fact that Jesse Wells is on this record as well. I think his star is rising, deservedly so. He's kind of the consciousness of a new generation of folk and Americana artists, and his fiddle and his guitar is all through this record.
- [06:11]
Stephen Thompson
There's also a track on this record called Turtha Yatra that references a Hindu pilgrimage. The song has lots of references to Dharma, and, you know, you get these reminders that kind of like his fellow Kentuckian, Sturgill Simpson, this guy's a searcher.
- [06:35]
Tyler Childers
It wouldn't be all different to how we're actually living, except we'd leave behind.
- [06:42]
Joe Kendrick
All our merge tirthayatra. So that is sort of the front porch philosopher aspect of Tyler's personality. And especially for a native Southerner myself, you know, that sort of oddball autodidactic tendency that certain folks in the south have. They're outcasts. And I think Tyler Childers has taken up that mantle with that song, especially Sing Hare Krishna.
- [07:09]
Tyler Childers
We play a song by God.
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Joe Kendrick
And he refers to. To his sort of hillbilly lineage with lines like coming from a cousin lovin clubfoot something something Backwood searcher. He would be one of the most interesting people to have dinner with. But again, I might be a little bit afraid to sit down with Tyler Childress. I mean, if you've ever seen him perform, he's got laser eyes.
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Tyler Childers
Down under this forever and a day.
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NPR Announcer
Down under this forever and a. Hey.
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Koala bears could live it when.
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Tyler Childers
They don't get eucalyptus.
- [07:58]
Stephen Thompson
That is Snipe Hunter, the new album from Tyler Childers. Next up, Patty Griffin is back with a new record called Crown of Roses.
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NPR Announcer
So that was the end.
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Stephen Thompson
And then.
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NPR Announcer
This world began In a very strange land it seems to me so I swallow my pride I got caught in life I told to myself Again and.
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Yoshika Caldwell
Again and again.
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NPR Announcer
And again.
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Joe Kendrick
Patty Griffin is legendary. She's had a fantastic career. She's back with an intensely personal record. She's gone through a whole lot. Crown of Roses is a beautiful record. It's all about reconciliation with her late mother. It reflects very largely her adopted state of Texas, originally from Maine. You'll see on the COVID her mother's wedding day photo. This record just has that sort of Southwestern feel musically and thematically throughout. I think that's front and center.
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Stephen Thompson
This is an album of newfound perspective. She's looking back on her relationship with her mother and how it's shaped her and how that relationship evolved. Patty Griffin is a cancer survivor. That cancer took a toll on her voice, you know, that she's still kind of reclaiming, but she's found ways to kind of sing through that and sing around that and find subtleties, you know, in ways that maybe she wouldn't have thought of before.
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NPR Announcer
So many things we wanted to see Wanted to change Wanted to free there's so many things we needed to be and we are. Yes.
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Joe Kendrick
She talks about how she's given up her sort of, I don't know what you would call it, male centric view of the world. She's quoted as saying, there's a lot of work to do and I'm glad I'm a Woman goes hand in hand with the sort of. The courageousness, that sort of theme that runs through so many of these songs.
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NPR Announcer
Secrets I don't sell ever to myself. I just keep moving. It's like working on a building with my eyes closed. Nothing's improving.
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Stephen Thompson
Well, the album kicks off, you know, with. With Back to the Start, you know, which. Which is kind of chugging bluesy vibes. It's kind of setting the tone of, like, just keep moving. Just keep surviving. There's a line in the song, you know, there's secrets I don't tell ever to myself. I just keep moving. It's this kind of anthem for anyone who's kind of feeling stuck. The world is conspiring to keep you from feeling happy or to feel like you're progressing in your life, but then also trying to stop and take stock in what has brought you to this point and what's gonna make tomorrow better than today.
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NPR Announcer
It isn't the end. You're just back at the start.
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Joe Kendrick
She starts and ends the record with songs that mention secrets. And in the first song, it's secrets that she won't share with herself. In the last song, it's a secret that she wants to share with you, whom I think she's referring to as her mother.
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NPR Announcer
A secret I had I want to share with him at dusk at dawn Till everything is gone and I believe in mornings after rain in broken things and stains and rivers Heading home again and ocean.
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Stephen Thompson
That song that closes the record, a word is just ooh. It is a devastating song and a really beautiful summation of a lot of these themes that have run through the record.
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NPR Announcer
There's a place out on the edge of this town where you find all the people like me.
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Joe Kendrick
She'S got a lot of Latin flavor to her music. On this record, she is quoted as citing Brazilian singer Rosa Passos, as well as Billie Holiday and Ricky Lee Jones and her late mother as main reference point for her singing style, which is, quote, delicate and to the bone.
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NPR Announcer
Had enough rest and dust in my chest I need music and smoke on.
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Joe Kendrick
The wind that delicacy, I don't think it's bone deep. There are a lot of scars that are just underneath that veil Someone sing.
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NPR Announcer
All the way home.
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They laid me.
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To rest and hope for the best but that's one place that I never.
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Yoshika Caldwell
Know.
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Stephen Thompson
In the song Long time there's this bluesy vibe, but there's also something seething and unsettling, and it's really appropriate. Like Robert Plant, with whom she's had this long relationship. He comes in and sings backup. And if you want ominousness in 2025, call on Robert Plant, this voice that has seen it all and kind of come out the other side.
- [14:10]
Tyler Childers
A little bit.
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Stephen Thompson
There's a song on the record called Born in a Cage. Looking at her relationship with her mother, kind of gaining perspective, offering forgiveness, understanding that sometimes things just didn't work out the way she wanted to because that's life. That sense of perspective, I think, is what really gives this record such heft.
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NPR Announcer
Mother still cry but after a while no one's searching Just a faded sign in the rain.
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Joe Kendrick
When I first heard that song Bird in a Cage, I thought it might be about human trafficking, but then I read the backstory on it, I was like, oh no, it's really about her late mother. But that's kind of perfect because I bet that Patty Griffin would think it's totally valid to have that interpretation of the song.
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Stephen Thompson
Her songs work best when there is a vagueness to them, when they're open to multiple interpretations. But she's such a deft songwriter, and she's so gifted. These are ragged stories because life that they reflect is ragged. And that. That's life.
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Joe Kendrick
Yeah, life well lived.
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Stephen Thompson
That is Patty Griffin. Her new album is Crown of Roses. We've got a bunch more great records coming up to talk about that are out today, July 25th. But first, let's take a quick break.
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- [17:20]
Stephen Thompson
It's NEW MUSIC Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina. Joe, tell me now for those who aren't familiar, where is Spindale?
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Joe Kendrick
Spindale is in the foothills of the Appalachians in western North Carolina. Our broadcasting tower is on Clingman's Peak, which makes it at practically the highest point on the East Coast. So our signal travels over parts of five states.
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Stephen Thompson
Wow. So tell me about the station.
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Joe Kendrick
We are largely a music based station, but we do have NPR News headlines, Morning Edition and shows like the World Cafe. We were one of the first five stations to carry the World Cafe. We've got kind of a sort of a buffet of new music to choose from. And it's more or less lined up, but you still have tons of choice. And the hosts get to make changes on the fly, take requests, having inspiration for themes.
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Stephen Thompson
And people can stream WNCW anywhere. They just go to wncw.org that's right.
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Joe Kendrick
And we're on tunein.
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Stephen Thompson
Well, next up on NEW MUSIC Friday, we've got an artist from North Carolina with Straight up, one of my favorite albums of the year so far. Indigo d' Souza has a new album called Precipice.
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NPR Announcer
Always holding space even when the distance tries to keep you laughing at the.
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Stephen Thompson
Chains.
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NPR Announcer
I have in my house.
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Joe Kendrick
All right, so Indigo d' Souza is a rising star from western North Carolina, from Asheville. And listening to that, that shiver and shake of pop that she's got here on an album Precipice, you know, it may not sound like the rootsy Americana that western North Carolina is so often associated with, but it is definitely we will claim her every day of the week all year long.
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Stephen Thompson
She is so adept at, you know, just brash pop bangers. But this record is also bookended with these beautiful atmospheric songs that are ringing out big, deep emotions. A song like Be My Love, you know, is just such a beautiful tone setter. And then, you know, closing with this, the title track, Precipice, it's bringing to mind artists like Bon Iver.
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NPR Announcer
Take My Life and Let It Go. Let It Go, Let It Go.
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Stephen Thompson
She is so gifted at kind of bringing people from the indie pop world to the pop pop world and back. I feel like she's a gateway drug in both directions.
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Joe Kendrick
Then, you know, emotion, I think, is at the center of this record. It's kind of the meat on the bone, both musically and lyrically.
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NPR Announcer
Stubborn and moving walls coming to Precipice holding on for dear life Looking out into the world Everything has gone dark Heartbreaker, you got.
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Stephen Thompson
It's a no Skips record. There's a song on this album called Heartbreaker, which has big Mitsky vibes, and not just because Mitsky has a great song called Be Only Heartbreaker. This is not fitting into the box marked pop. You're also hearing this intelligence and depth and analytical quality of kind of looking at bruised relationships, but that are couched in songs that have a brightness to them.
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NPR Announcer
Good God, My heart can't take it no matter what I do I just can't shake it I'm gonna lose my mind Missing you.
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Joe Kendrick
Take a song like Be like water, Be like the water.
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NPR Announcer
Go where you're going say what you need to you know you're dying I won't be sorry and I won't be silent I'm temporary, I am an island.
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Joe Kendrick
Now that's closer to poetry than Pablum anywhere on the. On the planet, man.
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Stephen Thompson
There are two, like, really mile wide, you know, just pop bangers on this record. One is called Heartthrob.
- [22:38]
Joe Kendrick
Yeah, Heartthrob is an extremely catchy song, but it's also kind of scary. Listening to that song was like, whoa. Indigo's been through some things.
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NPR Announcer
I really put my back into it. I really put my back into it.
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Stephen Thompson
Western North Carolina has been through a lot, and she's been very publicly open about the fact that she has really. She really took a hit in these storms.
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Joe Kendrick
Yeah, she did. And I'm glad she didn't leave Stephen, because it would be so easy to pull up stakes and give up because the damage is still everywhere. Everybody was traumatized, Indigo d' Aza included. So I tip my cap to her for sticking through it.
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Stephen Thompson
Well, if you want to support Indigo d', Souza, one great way to do it is check out this record.
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NPR Announcer
Turn it on. You're going in blind. I'll tell you when I get there. Get there. You're doing it fine. I'll tell you when I get there get there I think I got a crush on you.
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Stephen Thompson
That is Indigo d'. Souza. Her new album is called Precipice. Next up, Joe, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is one of your year end top 10 list entries. It is by Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. It's called New Threats from the Soul.
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Ryan Davis
I jolted up to some new transference From a sliding door on a sister vessel and just let it play through I left my wallet in El Segundo I left my True love in the West La Fayette escape room she had the kind of smile to get a blue swine in trouble the kind of smile to get a violent one or two time felon boy My little Jessica Rabbit My Betty Rub My Moki Chair and my Peggy Bundy My Helen Troll But I thought that I could make a.
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Stephen Thompson
So Ryan Davis is from Louisville, Kentucky, and works with a number of kind of Kentucky musical icons. Bonnie Prince Billy shows up on this record. The great guitarist Nathan Salzberg wrote his artist bio. You know, he is definitely like Deep Kentucky, which kind of seems to be a theme this week. This is a deeply strange, idiosyncratic, very lyric dense record.
- [25:41]
Ryan Davis
Ain't a sunrise Worth a day Just the facts that hurt to say Forsaken punks flip for police force work and worse than get their King Horsey shirts away.
- [25:56]
Stephen Thompson
There's like a song on this record, Mutilation Springs, that is almost 12 minutes long. Sarcophagus morning True, kind of rambling epic, and it's almost all verses.
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Joe Kendrick
I think this is in my top 10. You ever have a record that you first hear it and you'll always remember what you were doing or where you were at the time.
- [26:18]
Stephen Thompson
So this usually on my couch.
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Joe Kendrick
All right, well. Or driving to work. But this one, I'm washing my car on a sunny day listening to this record going, what the. You know, the whole time like, oh my gosh, then this happens and then this. And there's break beats.
- [26:34]
Ryan Davis
Better times used to let me find them Hiding in the shade of the.
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NPR Announcer
Wound.
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Ryan Davis
Better times used to let me find Back when I was someone else Better times used to let me find.
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NPR Announcer
Back when I was someone else country.
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Joe Kendrick
Is going to get attached to any description of this record, and it does have a pedal steel throughout, but you know it. It's coming at it from a completely different angle, kind of in the way that artists like Lee Hazelwood or Graham Parsons might be labeled country, but they're really kind of not. Or even some parts of Lamb Chop, you know, those would give you an idea of the complexity at least as. As far as a comparison to Ryan Davis.
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Ryan Davis
I can change I can change for the better if you make me.
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Stephen Thompson
You know, when you listen to this record unit, you hear Kathryn Irwin from Freakwater shows up. The people who are working with Kathryn Irwin, they stay in this business for a long time because they have something to say. And this record is by a guy who has something to say.
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Joe Kendrick
Some 3,800 words in the lyrics to this album and almost none of them repeat, right.
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Stephen Thompson
There's a track called Better if youf Make Me. And you know, at six minutes, it kind of feels like the closest thing to like a single, you know, in part because it has a repeated chorus, you know, unlike a lot of these songs that kind of unfold more, more like rambles. But it's still, it's so quotable and it's so clever.
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Ryan Davis
Earth sign sipping Exo cognac in the back of the donkey show Everything is a secret. Everything is a secret, secret, everything is secret til somebody knows.
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Joe Kendrick
It's so rock and roll, I think stream of consciousness almost the way he writes his lyrics. You'll take like OJ did it on a license plate. Lightning strikes and ignites the day. I'm pushing this lawnmower down Broadway in a windstorm twirling like a sex tape in a microwave. I'm just thinking of Odalay era back right there. You have to sing it like Ryan Davis, who does really sound a lot like Bonnie Prince Billy when he sings, especially that line. This is a dense record and it is going to uncover new things with repeated listens.
- [29:30]
Ryan Davis
The Spanish moss who weeps in mourning of not only personal but also planetary laws, not just for the bloodshed, but back on for what the Bloody Mary's comes. It weeps for the beauty queen that.
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Stephen Thompson
Is Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. It's called New Threats from the Soul. We've got one more record we want to talk about in depth as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite new albums out today, July 25th. But first, let's take one more quick break.
- [30:09]
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- [30:38]
Stephen Thompson
From NPR Music, it's NEW MUSIC Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Joe Kendrick from WNCW in Spindale, North Carolina. Next up, we've got a new album by Yoshika Caldwell. It's called on the Wing.
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Yoshika Caldwell
It'll never be enough, but I still can't let it go. I hold on for too long. You told me you were right, you know. And everything that I saw has disappeared to blood. And everything that I had I gave.
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NPR Announcer
Back.
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Yoshika Caldwell
Because it just loses its shine and it just becomes another day in the line and it all loses its magic, doesn't it? Don't you think so? I watch the decade ending.
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Joe Kendrick
Yoshika Culwell has given us her debut album, on the Wing, and what a breath of fresh air. She was raised in the English countryside and this is a record that really sounds like it. Although she took a meandering path to get to where she is in her early 30s. For a number of years she was with a trip hop group called Luna.
- [32:21]
Stephen Thompson
Luna with two U's. Not to be confused with the other band.
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Joe Kendrick
Yeah, not the Dean Wareham Luna.
- [32:26]
Stephen Thompson
Yeah. The word I kept coming back to when I was kind of taking notes on this record was luminous. These songs like Almost Glow and there's a track called In Bloom, you know, which has this, you know, this sunny vibe that kind of suits its title.
- [32:41]
Yoshika Caldwell
Clouds again Losing touch with my childhood friends One day up, another day down Think that I'd be used to it by now.
- [32:53]
Stephen Thompson
Elsewhere it's, you know, it's slower and more. More pensive and reflective. There's a. The song Turn My Face Away.
- [33:02]
Yoshika Caldwell
Listen to your. What do you really believe?
- [33:12]
Stephen Thompson
At one point it kind of reminded me a little bit of Emily Haynes from Metric when she put out this gorgeous solo record, Keep Coming Back to Kentucky. A little bit of Joan Shelley. If I'm comparing somebody to Joan Shelley in any way, shape or form, that means I'm a fan.
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Yoshika Caldwell
There's a distance between us.
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NPR Announcer
It'S growing.
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All the time.
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Yoshika Caldwell
There's a distance between us I think it's all right to turn my face away Turn my face.
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NPR Announcer
Away away.
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Joe Kendrick
Comparisons like Sandy Denny, I think, are not out of line. Absolutely. Or a more modern day comparison, Laura Marling. There's a Stephen Hawking quote that says, quiet people have the loudest minds. I'm pretty sure that Yoshika Cwell is a quiet kind of person, but man, she can deliver some blows. Like on the very first song, the lyric. And the world spins on and on and it's taking all I have just to get it wrong and it just stopped me in my tracks.
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Stephen Thompson
I'm like, that's a great line.
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Joe Kendrick
You've probably felt that at some time, but have you put it into those words?
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Yoshika Caldwell
And the world spins on and on and it's taking all I had just.
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Stephen Thompson
To get it wrong the amount of effort it takes to screw things up should not be discounted. There's a song called Last Night, you know, where it. And it's got harps, you know, kind of strewn throughout it. You can almost feel like night falling around this song.
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Yoshika Caldwell
We were in the. In between. You were telling me something.
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NPR Announcer
You put.
- [35:36]
Yoshika Caldwell
Your head into my lap and then there was no going back. Wordlessly, we made a pack to never speak of it again.
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Joe Kendrick
The violin, the cello being in the same song with say, pedal steel and electric guitar. And it is like you said, it's luminous.
- [36:21]
Stephen Thompson
That's Yoshika Caldwell. Her debut album is called on the Wing. Now, Joe, we could not possibly get to every great record that is out today, July 25th. This is a busy release day and a really, really good one.
- [36:40]
Amazon Pharmacy
Just the way God planted Ho Chi.
- [36:41]
Joe Kendrick
You can't stand it. We don't die, we multiply like rabbits.
- [36:44]
Stephen Thompson
I'm gonna kick off our lightning round with Freddie Gibbs and the alchemist back in 2020. Freddie Gibbs, he's a veteran rapper, put out an album with the Alchemist, who's an extremely inventive producer. That album in 2020 was called Alfredo and it matched Freddie Gibbs kind of evocative, hard bitten flow with the Alchemist's production, which is really sample rich, kind of throwback, kind of vintage retro feel. Alfredo was a big critical and commercial hit. It got nominated for best rap Album at the Grammys. So I suppose a sequel was inevitable. Today it is here, complete with guest appearances from Anderson, Paak, Jid and Larry June. That album is called Alfredo 2.
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Joe Kendrick
Make that hope Come back with Action. Corey Hansen's new record, I Love People. If you don't know the name Corey Hansen, perhaps you know his other band, Wand, or some collaborations that he's done with artists like Ty Siegel, also Bill Callahan and Bonnie Prince Billy.
- [37:54]
Stephen Thompson
Everything comes back to Bonnie Prince Billy.
- [37:56]
Joe Kendrick
It does, doesn't it? Now, Corey Hansen, he's been into these rock and roll context, you know, Ty Siegel is just screaming rock and roll. And on Cory Hansen's album Before this Western come, it was very guitar centric. But this has got way more in common with say, Rufus Wainwright or even Elton John than any of those artists. And it's like so much of this is almost like a velvet painting of a record.
- [38:30]
Ryan Davis
Half Ben and Milk made.
- [38:32]
NPR Announcer
Magic Hour, Prophet, Desert Rat, Doormat, Short Skirt Man.
- [38:39]
Stephen Thompson
The New Jersey indie folk singer Quinny writes songs with a deceptively childlike quality. They plum emotional depths, but they sound playful and strange as they do so. Quinny released a terrific debut album called Flounder a couple couple years ago. And now she's back with a follow up that explores themes of alienation and isolation. Her roots in bedroom pop show throughout. But there's also a real expansiveness to her work. Quinny's new album is called Paper Doll.
- [39:09]
NPR Announcer
Just How Love.
- [39:25]
Joe Kendrick
In case you haven't heard, bluegrass is having a moment. Thanks to superstars like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, folks are coming around to bluegrass from all sorts of angles. I think from the country world, also from the jam band type world. But bluegrass has had a long storied tradition and continuing in more of that straight ahead direction is western North Carolina band Unspoken Tradition and their new album resilience. You've got two brothers in the band, Audie and Zane McGinnis, Ty Gilpin on mandolin, bassist Saf Sankaran, and this hits all the sweet spots for anybody that's familiar with bluegrass. You've got at one point triple fiddles, which is just so rich, but just those stacked harmonies that in a way that that sounds so sweet only like bluegrass can do. Resilience is in large part a reference to the resilience of the region in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Unspoken Tradition is also spearheading a set at the upcoming Earl Scruggs Music Festival. It's called Healing the Hollers, which is a benefit for Blue Ridge National Heritage Area and Blue Ridge Music Trails, which benefits a lot of the musicians affected by Hurricane Helena in the area.
- [41:10]
Stephen Thompson
MC Yala is a Kenyan rapper based in Uganda who raps in four languages with a dense and intense flow. Even when you can't understand what she's saying, it's performed with such ferocity that it barely matters. She's been floating around the East African hip hop scene for more than a quarter century, but she's still being discovered here, including by me. I'd never heard of her. She's amazing. A great place to start is her fiery new album. It's a collaboration with the French producer Deb Master called Gaudencia. Now Joe, give me the pick of the litter. Give me one song that you're taking away from this experience.
- [41:59]
Joe Kendrick
This is so difficult, Stephen. It's.
- [42:01]
Stephen Thompson
I know this is a really good week.
- [42:02]
Joe Kendrick
So many great picks. But since I already mentioned that Ryan Davis in the Roadhouse Band is very likely in my top 10 for the year, I'm gonna have to go with the title track to New Threats from the Soul.
- [42:18]
Ryan Davis
New questions forming at the center point. Feels like hell is getting higher and the sky's getting.
- [42:30]
Stephen Thompson
Well for me. In addition to the fantastic array of records that are out today, there's also a remastered 30th anniversary edition of an album called Music for Nitrous Oxide by one of my favorite ambient bands in the world, really one of my favorite bands in the world, Stars of the Lid. We couldn't fit it into this week's show, but it's gorgeous and it's more than just a hint of the wondrous music that Stars of the Lid would go on to make. But if I only get to pick one thing, it's gonna be something from that Indigo d' Souza record coming to a Precipice.
- [43:06]
NPR Announcer
Holding.
- [43:08]
Stephen Thompson
I'm gonna go with the title track, precipice, which closes this record. It is so beautiful. I'm doing it in a really reflective, gorgeous way that I'm gonna come back to to again and again. That is our show for this week. Thank you, Joe Kendrick, for taking time out of your week at WNCW in North Carolina.
- [43:34]
Joe Kendrick
Thank you, Stephen, for having me on. It's been great.
- [43:37]
Stephen Thompson
It has been great to have you. If you enjoyed this week's show. We always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Simon Rentner and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Muhammad. We'll be back next week to discuss new music with Liz Warner from public radio station WDET in Detroit. Until then, take a moment to be well support public media and treat yourself to lots of great music. Foreign.
- [44:19]
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NPR Announcer
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Amazon Pharmacy
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