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The world's biggest story keeps getting bigger this week on up first, we're tracking the escalating war in Iran, rising oil prices and a global economy on edge as the conflict spills beyond Iran. Our host, Layla Fadel, is on the ground in Iraq. Listen each morning for three stories you need to start your day on up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. A quick note before the show. This podcast contains explicit language, something I've
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been wanting to tell you for a long time. It might hurt you. Hope you don't lose your mind.
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Happy Friday, everyone. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Amelia Mason of WBUR in Boston. Welcome back to the show, Amelia.
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C
Thank you so much for having me back.
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A
This show is out on Friday, March 13, as we head into Oscars Weekend. Amelia, do you have any Oscars hot takes?
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C
Oh, boy. I don't know. I don't know if I should speak on it. There were some movies I enjoyed a lot and other movies I enjoyed a lot less.
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All right. You know, this show is technically all about love, but give me your hate related hot take.
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C
Okay. I really, really, really did not enjoy Frankenstein. I didn't like visually speaking, I found it to be it looked like a video game and just overwrought.
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A
And Overwrought is a pretty fair hit on that movie.
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C
It is overwrought. And I think, you know, the original story is overwrought, which is one of the things I kind of disliked about the book, honestly.
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A
So you're just anti Frankenstein, period.
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C
Maybe I just hate Frankenstein. What about you?
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Oh, I'm all about sinners. I'm not only is Sinners my favorite movie of the year, but I think it's gonna win best picture.
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C
I think it might, too. I think it's gonna win.
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That's the hill I'm gonna die on. We did a whole Pop Culture Happy Hour Oscars preview. If you go to the Pop Culture Happy Hour feed to hear that. And I'm like the one person who is, like, persistently ext. Extremely optimistic that Sinners is gonna have this, like, massively huge night.
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C
I think it has an edge right now. It seems to be not exactly a frontrunner, but, like, might have a bit of an edge, a little nose. I liked it very much. It wasn't my very favorite thing I saw, but I liked it a lot. I mean, it was truly original in many ways.
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Somebody take me in your arms.
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Well, we have lots of oscars coverage@npr.dotorg. we also in the AllSongs feed earlier this week, Robin Hilton and I wrote ranked the best original song nominees and actually disagreed about which was the best. Though we are both big fans of the top two. Let's get into this week's music. We're gonna kick things off with Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds, AKA Sturgill Simpson. Their new album is called Mutiny. After midnight Trying to talk to you
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I can't breathe and I'm turning blue what's the problem? What did I do? How can I cooperate if you don't want me to? I hear you scream Ain't telling me to get down I ain't telling me not to resist Hard to move with your knee on my neck Hard to have a conversation with what he feel Call it excited delirium Call it whatever you need Somebody tell somebody do something Somebody call my mama Cuz I can't
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breathe so Sturgill Simpson, for those who are unfamiliar, is. I would describe him as sort of a country music iconoclast. Never really makes the same record twice. He's done psychedelic country, psychedelic soul, kind of ZZ topish synth rock, anime music, bluegrass albums, Americana, always all over the map. He's been playing around with kind of different sides of his Persona and is actually here releasing his second album under the name Johnny Blue Skies. Now, in addition to all that musical iconoclasm I just described, this record is not being released digitally. He really wants you to buy, you know, kind of physical copies, hold it in your hands and kind of sit down with it. And I think, Amelia, this record warrants that kind of attention.
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C
Yeah, I would agree. I was pleasantly, I don't want to say pleasantly surprised. Well, I'm saying it, but that's not really what I mean. What I mean is I did not know what to expect. Exactly.
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You never know what to expect with Sturgill Simpson.
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C
I listened and I was like, heck, yeah, this is good. But, yeah, I was surprised at how much country twang he managed to merge with funk. And it made sense somehow.
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A
Yeah. I mean, musically speaking, this record really taps into this kind of hedonistic boogieing country funk. But on top of that and that, that only kind of scratches the surface of what we're getting here. This record also feels to me like an answer to the question, like, who says there are no protest songs? Right. We end up. There's been this kind of debate percolating that in this very tumultuous era, you don't have the same widely heard protest music kind of Speaking to this moment in time. And this record definitely contains songs that I think quite qualify as protest songs, starting with the lead track, the. The title of which I will have to censor slightly because this is npr, but it's called Make America F again. And this song is a mouthful.
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Feels like I'm waking up from a coma Looking around a room and trying to stand don't see my mama don't see my daddy Ain't got no friends but still got a baby Make America again Want to make America Want to love again Things have been worse But I can't remember when I want to start a revolution Watch it begin.
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C
I really love this song.
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A
It's extremely quotable, too, right. Like, it's referencing ketamine and antidepressants. And again, censoring doing dark stuff in dark rooms, while also touching on kind of a sense of, like, national frustration and malaise. This is a guy with a lot of thoughts on a lot of things who does a lot of sitting around and musing. And the song feels like the product of someone who feels that way, not somebody who is just kind of checking issue boxes.
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C
Yeah. You don't feel like you're being lectured to, but you do feel a perspective. Like he's not both sizing it at the same time. He's like, no, things are effed up, to quote him. I mean, he didn't say that actually, either.
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A
We're just gonna keep cleaning up language. Cause the next song I wanted to talk about also swears the closing track, ain't that a B?
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C
Yeah.
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A
I feel like such a prude not just saying these words, but, you know, for nearly seven minutes. This song contains, I would say, some of his most pointed and maybe most didactic lyrics. You know, there's. There's a line in the song. Keep the peasants scraping by on minimum wages. Lock up all the minorities, Put their babies in cages. Anybody speak out, you simply dismiss them.
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Yeah.
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Like, that is not opaque. That is not abstract.
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No democracy propped up. Our greed is unsustainable. Total control through fascism is attainable. Manufacture chaos with political theater Influencing public consent through content creation.
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C
It's one of those things I. I find is. I think is so hard in the protest song arena, where I've heard people write lyrics before that state very plainly what they think in a way that I find grating to the ear. I think it can. But he has a way of being straightforward and still being, I guess, original in his phrasing. He still surprises you. He's still. Yeah, the guy's Got away with words. It's almost like he does this for a living.
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Exactly.
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It reminds me a little of, I was going to say Tracy Chapman. Some, like just some of the stuff that she writes is just so pointed and like they're talking about real issues and they have a political perspective, but they are still. They're still poetry.
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But the loving is gone it ain't the time of the season how the hell are all these guys not in jail for treason?
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That is Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds, AKA Sturgill Simpson. Their new album is called Mutiny After Midnight. Next up, new album by James Blake. James Blake's new album is called Trying Times.
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It's the Enemy, the Endless Wheel
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Got
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the best of me that's the way it feels if the money comes, if it never comes through
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you don't want
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me to But I'll be there for you I'll be there for you
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but
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don't get my hope. Don't get my hopes up Bobby, you can't hear me cuz I never recover, You know I'll never recover.
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So James Blake, UK singer, producer, he's worked with everyone. Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Bon Iver, Frank Ocean. Certainly known for these kind of dreamy electro pop fantasias. His own beautiful falsetto kind of woven through all of them. But he has such a great gift for collaboration. You know, he turns up on a lot of people's records. A lot of people turn up on his records. And this record, you know, which is the first that he's put out on his own label after a long run with the majors, and has a really lovely mix of kind of dreaminess and forcefulness as he's kind of, you know, you heard the title, It's Trying Times like Johnny Blue Skies. You know, he is weary about the state of the world, as so many musicians and so many humans are. But he manages, I think, to kind of bring those two ideas together on this record.
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C
It is funny to talk about him immediately after Johnny Blue Skies, which I just think they take a very different approach to singing about politics. I do think it's more about the experience of living through these times, personally. It's more interior in how it explores. It's like the, you know, what are the psychic effects of watching the news?
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Yeah. I mean, take the title track, Trying Times. It's not like these times are trying. It is about we are trying to survive in our relationship through these trying times with the backdrop of feeling this kind of sense of dread about the state of the world.
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You know, I'm Shredded by this Every time I'm home Let Paula's dying phone and the jealous end up alone. Cause there are things that they can never know.
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C
I feel like, sonically, this album is reflecting what it feels like right now. It's sort of fragmented and unreal, and sometimes it's dream and other times it has this, like, anxiety to it. I mean, it's very James Blake.
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Right.
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Sometimes I'm listening, I'm like, oh, God, like that. But then you remember, like, he's the reason music sounds like this. You know what I mean? Like, you listed his many collaborators, and I think his fingerprints are all over pop music now.
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Absolutely.
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It's easy to forget how original his ideas are.
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Absolutely. His ideas are not only all over pop music, but all over R and B, all over hip hop, you know, he has managed to kind of straddle these different genres. Kind of always there to use his voice as needed, as kind of his most haunting instrument. And that's something that really comes through throughout this record. I wanted to shout out the song Doesn't Just Happen, featuring the rapper Dave. Dave put out one of the best records of last year. And here, this just kind of continues that winning streak. You know, he really kind of. James Blake, kind of turns this song over to Dave, who raps about, like, trying to be a good person in unethical systems and think that pairing of sensibilities, the. The pairing of those two guys and the ideas that they bring to music, I think works really well. Yeah.
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If being a good man was easy I still be me can't do shit the hard way don't know who's who My girlfriend hates me Deep down maybe I do too we used to jack niggas in the morning Cuz most men didn't have cash when work's done this type of dinner have your jawline thinner Men gonna think you had work done See a man maintaining See a man wait nah See a man complaining I give her one order I don't need restraining none came easy man put my name on a wall only right you throw mud at it yeah, I got dirty money but show me a pound or a dollar and it doesn't have blood in it Left us.
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C
I also really love death of Love. It's tying a lot of these ideas together. You know, the death of love can mean so many things. And I think I know what he's. He's pointing at sort of like the death of love in society. But it is an elegant way, I think, to address some of these ideas and the way that the song feels, I don't know, it's almost at odds with the lyrics, gives you this hopeful feeling, even though the words are, you know, a little more ambivalent. And I enjoy the complexity of that.
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I don't know how we got here. I think we might be sleeping. I think we might be walking through the death of love. It never seems so hard
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to say
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what you really mean when everything you have seen is from above.
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James Blake, his new album is called Trying Times. We've got some more records we're going to talk about in depth. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's NEW Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Amelia Mason of WBUR in Boston. Amelia, tell me what's going on at the station.
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C
Well, just the ush, the news now. We're a member station, an NPR member station in Boston, one of two. And I cover arts and culture, which includes music. And I guess the thing that's coming up now that I'm really excited about is sort of following on the heels of NPR's Tiny Desk Contest, WBUR for many years, aka me, has put together our own little panel of local musicians and writers and listened through the Massachusetts entries to your contest. And we choose WPR's favorite entry, favorite local entry. And it's very fun because we listened to I mean, I think there's often around like 200 submissions from our state. And it has yielded some amazing discoveries, one of which, the very first year we did it years ago, was Anne Jimalee, who we are about to talk about, who has a record coming out and has done really well for himself. I feel very proud that we had a chance to cover him back in the day.
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Yeah, back in the day being 2018. And Jimalee's been entering the Tiny Desk Contest. They first entered in 2015, which gives you a sense A, of how long the Tiny Desk Contest has been going and B, one of the things that I think is so lovely about the Tiny Desk Contest is and it's not just about the winner, right? You get this huge body of submissions. We usually get 5, 6, 7,000 entries. They're generally posted to YouTube. And you can find your favorite artist, whether that artist actually wins or is like profiled on Top Shelf or whether it's a big part of the contest or not. And Tiny Desk Contest entries have gone viral independently of the Tiny Desk Contest itself. And I just think that's so cool. And one of the other things that I love, which we're about to talk about is when an artist enters the contest and years later, kind of makes it on their own. Like, the Tiny Desk contest still got to be a tiny piece of their story. As it was in the case of our next artist and Jimalee. Their new album is called you'd're Free to Go.
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There's something like a new being Growing on me. Through the summer through the morning through your body did you wake me? Did you heal me by the river. Should you call me when you need me I'll deliver. If that's enough that's enough that's enough that's enough why. Did I begin I begin I begin to cry.
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C
So, Ann Jimalee is a singer songwriter, originally from Texas. Got his start up here in Boston. We got to claim him for a while. And now he's in Durham, North Carolina, still putting out great music. I love Angem Lee. I've been a fan for a long time. It's been really amazing to watch him develop. I think he has a really distinctive lyrical style and an incredible ear for melody, which just always comes through for me.
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A
Absolutely. Like, those raw materials have been there from the beginning. But are continuing to be refined from record to record. You know, it's interesting, Amelia, when we were talking about Johnny Blue Skies, AKA Sturgill Simpson, you made a reference to Tracy Chapman. And kind of the attention to detail in the songwriting here. The comparisons to Tracy Chapman are not only in the detail of the songwriting, but also in this kind of dusky, distinctive voice, you know, I think. And Jimalee, from the beginning, has drawn a lot of comparisons to Sufian Stevens as well. And I think that comes through as well. I mean, you know, it's song like Turning Away, you know, which is setting. And Jimalee's kind of feathery, mysterious voice against these kind of delicate curlicues of guitar. You really get a sense of ornateness and care and craft that, you know, for me, certainly conjures up those Soufyan Stevens comparisons. But really, like, Angeli is his own artist.
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I'm not running I'm turning away. All for one and one for all all the money's gone Are we almost done? I'm not running I'm turning away
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When
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C
I first covered Anjimile, we talked about Sufian Stevens and how he loves Sufian's music. But, you know, as time has gone on, he's found his own way. You know, I think you can hear the commonalities, but there's a Now there's an An Ghibli Kind of like, flavor to the melodies that he's writing and, like, the accompaniment of the guitar. He has, like, a taste for kind of like, he'll go off in, like, weird directions melodically or, like, he'll do a weird time signature or something, and it's like, maybe more complex than you realize it. First and writes these, like, sort of quietly devastating songs. He's been open about what this album addresses, some of which is like, so he's trans. And his estrangement from his mother is something he's talked about pretty frankly in interviews, in the press for this. And there are definitely songs that could be about that. Just really, like, full of pathos and anger, but, like, sort of wrapped in these, like, gorgeous. These gorgeous melodies and arrangements.
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A
I mean, you want to talk about anger and gorgeousness, Take the song Point of View, which is, you know, a minute, 22 seconds long, you know, very Sufyani in its kind of arrangements. These all these, like, kind of plucked and bowed strings. Full song and miniature. But, like, at the end of the song, there is just this kind of bracing and profane angry closing line.
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I don't care. I don't care how you feel. You fucked up. You fucked up everything. You fucked up. You fucked up everything. You fucked up. You fucked up everything.
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C
I also really love the song Waits for Me, which is very much, I think, about sort of Angeli's experience being trans. And it's quite. Quite lovely. These lines. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be free. I wanted to be all the things my mother wanted me to be. And then by the end, he kind of writes it differently. When I was a little boy, I wanted to be real. I wanted to be all of the things my body wanted me to feel. It's just so succinct and elegant and deeply felt. I think you can guess what it's about. But it could mean so many things at the same time.
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When I fell in love My wonder burning in the sk Sun. Exactly like the sun. Exactly like a call of the wild. I almost didn't hear.
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That. Is njimale. His new album is called you'd're Free to Go. Next up, Kim Gordon has a new record. It is called Play Me
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Dropping In. You're comin'. I waitin'. I can see you. But I feel you. I can feel you. You're all over. You're all over. Higher dose life. Dose life. Inflating the heart. Inflating the head. Take my hand. No. Hands on the wheel. Let's go. Let's Go, let go, let go no hands on the wheel Let go, let go, let's. No hands on the wheel.
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A
So Kim Gordon, famous as one of the main members of the long running great art rock giant Sonic Youth, went solo a number of years back, kind of following her divorce from Thurston Moore, who, you know, was also one of the main voices in Sonic Youth. And since then, Kim Gordon, you know, she's written, you know, memoir, and she's put out these solo records that find her kind of expanding on and extending and finding her own solo voice outside of Sonic Youth. And they definitely feel, in some ways of a piece with Sonic Youth's records, but they are definitely their own very distinct excursions into hip hop, into spoken word, into kind of strange grinding art songs like no Hands, which kind of warps and breaks her voice into shards.
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No hands on the wheel no hands
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on the wheel this album, the production was very cool. I'm not sure I always thought it worked with her voice. I think it worked best in the songs that were more rock oriented in their sound. Like, I was confused hearing her over a hip hop beat, frankly. Even if it was a cool bit of production. But, like, Girl With a Look I think worked. I think there's something good, especially when she pushes her voice up into, like, more of its upper range and she's straining a little bit more and it gives it this urgency.
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Tell me what you want, you ought to see Touch, touch me touch, touch me Lying on the ground with a golden spoon Lead me on no come back, you're a boy with a hook I crouch for luck
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A
yeah, that's a more straight ahead kind of post punk song that isn't quite as experimental. And kind of in that same vein, the song Not Today, you know, feels like, you know, kind of like a. An indie rock art song, right? Kind of. You get more shimmery guitars. The beats feel a little more organic. She's singing more than speaking. Like, I hear that song. And I think that would have been like, a pretty gnarly, awesome Sonic Youth song.
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Can it be? It's true. Through you, through you.
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C
You know, when I was reading up on it and reading more from, like, the press materials essentially that come with this, and I learned some things that definitely made some of the songs more interesting. I know one of them, she's quoting Spotify playlist titles, like, she's very smart. She has these, like, cool ideas, you know, in the lyrics and how she's sort of commenting on the modern era and politics. She's just reflecting it back at us in a kind of warped funhouse mirror, you know.
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A
Yeah. I mean, you take a song like bye bye 25, you know, which is just kind of a list of provocative phrases set against this effect that sounds like you didn't fasten your seatbelt.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And that's just such a, that's such a, an odd, arty, kind of strange, challenging way, you know, to kind of close out this record, advocate pregnant person,
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immigrants intersex, link them male dominated care.
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A
That is Kim Gordon. Her new album is called called Play Me. We've got one more record we're gonna talk about in depth, as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite records out today, March 13th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's NEW MUSIC Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Amelia Mason from WBUR in Boston. Before we get to our lightning round, we've got one more record we wanted to talk about. BLESSING Jolie. Blessing Jolie's new album is called 20 Nothing Thing.
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Pray for a different climate. I ain't getting numb sleep hold me down, hold me down Two days and I'll never change time Just another face to hold me down, hold me down he stay not knowing my name. Side effects of growing pains I need a sugar cane Too late to be Y A I tried to try, got me feeling maybe another day A shucking job in this candy pang, two dice One life in my mirror and lovely gagging on my own name I blow my own shit up, yeah, I'm a propane
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C
so good. Blessing Jolie is a singer songwriter from Texas, and she's new to the scene and she's great. That's what I got.
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That's all you need to know.
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C
I mean, truly, this is her first album or mixtape or I'm not sure what they're calling it, an extended play. It definitely has that feel of a little bit of like a kind of ep, like we're trying a lot of things, which I really love about it. It's playful and inventive and it's incredible. I love this album.
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A
Yeah. I mean, she's really, you know, like many kind of Gen Z artists, you know, who kind of came up in the YouTube era. She has these this real ability to just kind of skid across genres without ever really bothering to land on one in particular. She mixes, you know, kind of indie folk and R and B. You get these strands of hip hop coming through, you know, with songs about God, the state of the world from the perspective of a young Person who's, you know, she's singing about streaming services and kind of the pull between music and day jobs and so. And also life as a Nigerian American, you know, who's of kind, kind of straddling the expectations of her family and her own desires as somebody who has really dreamed for a long time of making music. And this record is really meant to kind of chronicle her youth and kind of coming into who she is as a musician.
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C
Yeah, she's got this one song, software developer where she's like, I could have been one hell of a software developer. It's all about wanting to play music, but it's with this very wry kind of of self deprecating way about it.
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For my anatomy growing up A lot of my amigos they was blancos Sleeping with my phone unplugged and worry about no narcos no Think I finally feel the pressure Knocking on my door and bold as fuck I see say who is it? Oh, it's just that comic book.
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C
She reminds me a little bit of Olivia Rodrigo sometimes in her lyricism or the sound. I actually think there's a whole crop of female singer songwriters, some of them very famous, who write really well with this kind of self deprecating rye tone. But she has her own way into it. And there are times where this album really, I feel like is very influenced by rap and hip hop in her lyricism, just how dense it is, how many references there are, how many kind of internal rhymes and wordplay is going on. It's amazing.
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A
Yeah, I mean, you take regular schmegular girl, you know, which is kind of. It feels a little bit like old school hip hop, like inspired by almost like 80s and 90s hip hop, but kind of in the choruses. It goes full on rap rock, you know, complete with record scratches.
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C
Yeah, she references Limp Bizkit in her like.
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A
Yeah, and I mean Olivia Rodrigo. I mean Olivia Rodrigo references a lot of other people's music, but I don't see her going that far.
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No God damn bitch I ain't no regular schmegular Begging her ditch type girl Bitch, I ain't no regular schmegular Begging her ditch type girl Begging her ditch type type girl girl begging her ditch type girl Begging her ditch type girl Girl girl begging her ditch type girl look at me.
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C
The other thing about Blessing Julie is just her again, her melodic sense. This is something I'll always. I'm very partial to. You'll hear me saying it with any artist I like. I was going back and looking at some of her lyrics for her. And the opening track on this 20 teens. I was reading the lyrics and I could hear the melody immediately because that's how sticky it is. Like, it was in there instantly. And that is hard to do, Darling,
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B
how you leave me like that. Stupid.
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A
That is really hard to do. And the fact that she has that. I mean, we say innate gifts. She has talked very openly about, like, working on the craft of music. Yes.
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C
Feeling like she didn't have innate gifts, which it seems crazy to me.
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A
No, but. But I mean, but I think that's such an important thing to remind people. And such a great thing for her to be talking about is, like, musicians do not just come out. Like, they don't just, like, form in the ether and, like, emerge fully formed. They have to work on their craft. And if you. If you love music and you try writing your own song and playing your own song and you've never done it before, it's probably gonna be hot garbage. Yeah. Like, this, like, music is a craft and a skill like anything else. And having a point of view is a craft and a skill. You don't just emerge with a point of view. You have to have lived experience. And I really love the way this record. You know, one of the things that we were talking about with Sturgill Simpson up at the top of the segment is like, if you're a singer songwriter, you want to be quotable. Like, you want to be, like, saying things in a way that other people aren't saying them, and having a point of view that is really specific to you, but accessible beyond you. And that's something I think she does so well throughout this record.
- [34:37]
C
Yeah. I mean, you took the words right. Right out of my mouth, because that's what I was going to bring up, Although in a slightly different way, which is when you're talking about musicians having to hone their craft and practice a lot and be bad for a while and make mistakes to get better. I do think one of the things that you can't always teach, or that is maybe undervalued, is the point of view. It's that having something to say and figuring out how to say it, and also having. Having your own taste and knowing what you like. So you might not be able to strum a guitar yet, but if you know what you like and you have something to say and you think you know how you might want to say it, that's gonna serve you really, really well once you've figured out how to play music.
- [35:19]
A
I'm excited to hear more from her. She's kind of talked about this record as like a snapshot of a time in her life where she's kind of moved beyond some of these songs. I can't wait to hear where she goes next. I think she's really exciting. That is blessing Jolie. Her new album or mixtape or whatever we Wann is called 20 nothing now. Amelia yes, we could not possibly get to every great record out today, March 13, and we've kind of taken to throwing this segment open to some of the other members of the NPR Music team. But I do wanna shout out one record. Before I ask you for your Lightning Round pick, I wanna talk about the singer songwriter Morgan Nagler. Her songs have this kind of low rumbling, menacing quality to them, but her voice also works as kind of a leavening. 8 Listening to songs like Cradle the Pain, you get a lot of what I love about bands like Wednesday, you know, the heaviness, the twang, the attention to lyrical detail. But she's been around a lot longer. She came up alongside members of Rilo Kiley. She's made records with the band Whisper Town. She even co wrote Kyoto with Phoebe Bridgers, one of the freaking best songs of the last decade. Now Morgan Nagler has a fantastic new solo album with a perfect title. It's called I've got Nothing to Lose and I'm Losing It.
- [36:51]
B
Between Gray Flowers.
- [36:53]
A
Coming
- [36:57]
C
so Tinaruen is a collective of Tuareg musicians. They're from the desert in the Sahara, so southern Algeria, northern Mali. The music they play kind of combines the sounds of rock music and then African music from that area. They've been around for decades and decades. They, I mean, they're very political. You can really go down a rabbit hole on this band. They have an incredible story. You know, they just keep putting out freaking great music. And it is this album is just so groovy like it always is. There's some new voices in it. They've brought in some younger musicians that join the them. And if you haven't heard them before, you, you really got to check them out. Tanari Wind's new album is called Hugar.
- [37:51]
A
All right, up next, I'm going to throw it to my dear wonderful colleague Felix Contreras, co host of NPR's alt Latino vocalist and songwriter Jorge Drexler is a big deal in Latin America and he's probably the best known musician from the small southern Latin American country of Uruguay, which is nestled between Argentina and Brazil. The thing about Jorge Drexler, he's been incredibly popular in the Spanish speaking world, and it's largely because he's created a sound that is uniquely his, with just traces of his native Uruguay. But for his latest album, Takara, for the first time, he leans heavily into the 18th century Afro Uruguayan tradition of Candombe, which is having a resurgence in his home country these days. His trademark magically literate lyrics bounce among the polyrhythms, always on a slow but intense burn. He is one of the most awarded Latin Grammy artists out there, and I imagine he'll be adding a few more for this album. Album Takara by Jorge Drexler. Check it out. Let's turn things over to our classical music correspondent, Tom Heisenberg. The album I'm really thrilled about this week comes from the fabulous choral group from England called the Tallis Scholars. They are singing music by American composer Nico Muley, who was a choir boy in his youth. And he really loves the old school, intricate blending and layering and building up of sound like music from the High Renaissance. And we'll hear this little snippet of no Resting Place where Muhly does something pretty extraordinary at, I think at the end of the Latin text, he adds quotes in English from a group of immigrants. Even though they were legally living in the uk, they were suddenly denied benefits and some were even deported. So you'll hear the choir sing, I don't feel at home anymore. That's the Tallis Scholars singing music by Nico no Resting.
- [40:07]
B
I feel as if everyone is looking at me and saying, what are you doing here? What are you doing here?
- [40:21]
A
And finally, the fantastic, striking Viking himself, Lars Gottrich. Hey, y'. All. This one, actually, surprise, dropped last Friday, but it's such a big deal that we had to include it in this lightning round. A new Fugazi record. Okay, not actually a new Fugazi record, but one that's been bootlegged for decades. Here's some story. In the fall of 1992, the D.C. punk band went into Steve Albini's basement and made an entire album's worth of songs. Basically all of in on the Killtaker Steve Albini. This is the guy who made Jesus Lizard's early records sound so loud and wild. But both Fugazi and Steve Albini decided not to release these recordings. And now, 34 years later, we finally get an official release. These sessions are raw and aggressive. It's the rough draft of a pivotal album, an alternate universe where you're placed at the center of an emotional explosion. That's Albini Sessions by Fugazi right now, only available on Bandcamp. And that is our show for this week. Thank you, Amelia Mason, for taking taking time out of your week at WBUR in Boston.
- [41:55]
C
Thank you so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.
- [41:57]
A
It is always a pleasure to have you on, Amelia. Thank you for being here. 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 Elle Mannion and edited by Otis Hart. Our production assistant is Dora Levitt. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Mohammed. Hazel Sills will be back next week. I will be off because of the Oscars to discuss new music with Francesca Harding of KCRW in Los Angeles. Until then, take a moment to be well, get yourself to the nearest sunshine and treat yourself to lots of great music.
- [42:46]
B
Sam.