The Contenders, Vol. 22: Geese, Dijon, Juana Molina, more

Summary

Podcast Summary:

All Songs Considered – The Contenders, Vol. 22: Geese, Dijon, Juana Molina, more
Host: Robin Hilton (NPR)
Guest: Dora Levitt
Date: October 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode is part of All Songs Considered’s “Contenders” series, in which the NPR Music team updates their running list of the year’s best songs—tracks they can’t stop playing and are strong candidates for the final Best of 2025 list. Robin Hilton is joined by Dora Levitt for a deep dive into standout releases from Geese, Juana Molina, Dijon, Devon Shafer, Agriculture, and Alien Boy. Expect insightful analysis, personal stories, and playful banter as they navigate this diverse musical landscape.

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Main Discussion Points & Highlights

1. Opening Banter & Show Context

• [00:19–01:03]
  The episode starts with a humorous exchange about the awkwardness of seeing parents cry or encountering teachers outside of school, establishing a relaxed and intimate tone.
  • Quote:
    • Dora: "Seeing your parents cry, it's awful. It's like seeing your teacher outside of school." (00:19)
    • Robin: "Is it awful seeing your teacher?" (00:24)

---

2. Geese – “Islands of Men”

• [02:06–10:31]
  Dora’s Pick
  • Geese is the first highlight, with their track “Islands of Men” from the album Getting Killed.
  • Robin praises the song’s “16 minute crescendo” and describes their sound as a “slippery” hybrid of styles.
  • Quote:
    • Robin: “This song is like one long crescendo…it just keeps getting bigger and bolder and wilder.” (08:14)
    • Dora: “Cameron Winters’ completely moaning, whining voice…feels like pulling taffy and just rushing forward. It's so beautiful and feels like what it is like to see the sun.” (08:23)
    • Robin calls the sound “chaotic,” yet rooted in longing and wonder.
  • Dora and Robin play “spot the influence,” referencing Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, Tom Waits, Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain,” funk, and others, while emphasizing the album’s unclassifiable nature.

---

3. Juana Molina – “Siesta Aji”

• [11:00–17:50]
  Robin’s Pick
  • Celebrating the return of Argentinian singer-electronic-folk artist Juana Molina with her first release since 2017.
  • Debuts “Siesta Aji” from the forthcoming album Doga (out Nov 5).
  • Dora likens the song’s atmosphere to “living in a video game…jumping around in a large pixelated field. Kind of like Minecraft.” (16:12)
  • Robin praises Molina’s superpower of “making digital glitchy sounds feel alive, like they're coming from a magical creature, not a machine.” (16:21)
  • Dora reads the song as about craving closeness and catching obsessive nostalgia in its layered, glitchy repetitions.
  • Robin plugs Molina’s classic 2000 album Segundo.

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4. Dijon – “Yamaha”

• [19:37–28:27]
  Dora’s Pick
  • Dora reveals that Dijon’s “Yamaha” is in heavy rotation for her, especially for its sampling of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman.”
  • Discussion of earworm songs, “brain radio," and the delight of discovering musical references:
    • Dora: “‘O Superman’ by Laurie Anderson at any moment... And it drives the people that I love insane.” (20:30)
    • Robin: “You really have a good ear. I wouldn’t have made that connection.” (25:48)
  • Both note the influence of Prince’s 1980s sound on Dijon, particularly in production and thematic focus on devotion and family.
    • “It's so Prince in the production, but also just in the themes of desire. It's written for his wife, about his wife…just his devotion to his family.” (27:07, Dora)
  • Robin notes how both Dijon and Geese refuse to be easily categorized, stitching together doo wop, gospel, funk, and soul into something warped yet cohesive.

---

5. Devon Shafer – “All My Dreams Are Coming True”

• [28:27–34:58]
  Robin’s Pick (inspired by Dora)
  • Dora introduces Robin to Devon Shafer; Robin is instantly smitten by her song, “All My Dreams Are Coming True,” from upcoming album Patience (Nov 3).
  • They both comment on the song’s emotional vulnerability and bittersweet themes of longing for home and the “in-between” feeling of early adulthood.
    • Robin: “She really captures this feeling when you're grown up and on your own, but you still have the safety net of your parents if you need to escape.” (32:50)
    • Dora: “The numbness in this song…almost total apathy saying all my dreams are coming true, but also…I’m sitting around doing nothing as if to ignore all the emptiness.” (33:51)

---

6. Agriculture – “Hallelujah”

• [35:37–42:09]
  Dora’s Pick
  • Dora spotlights Agriculture’s “Hallelujah” from their new album The Spiritual Sound, lauding the band’s emotional reinventions and use of space and silence.
  • Robin discusses the intentional “flattening” of modern music consumption and how Agriculture “forces you to lean in and stop everything and really start engaging” through their strategic use of pauses. (40:41)
    • Dora: “Every pause…feels like it restarts. And I wanna grab the lyrics and the words out of the air. They feel so tang and so there.” (40:10)
  • The band's style—"ecstatic black metal"—merges heavy, chaotic sections with folky undercurrents, creating a unique dynamic.

---

7. Alien Boy – “Cold Air”

• [42:09–end]
  Robin’s Final Pick
  • Robin wraps up with Alien Boy’s “Cold Air” off You’d Want to Fade, connecting the band’s guitar-driven sound to the shoegazy legacy of Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine.
  • Dora pushes back against the claim that “guitar rock is dead,” highlighting the raw energy and shimmery quality of Alien Boy’s sound.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dora (08:23): “Cameron Winters’ completely moaning, whining voice…feels like pulling taffy and just rushing forward. It’s so beautiful and feels like what it is like to see the sun.”
• Robin (10:31): “Any reference I come up with is so fleeting…bits of Tom Waits’ ramshackle vibe…Talking Heads…glam rock…hints of funk. It’s so wild.”
• Dora (16:12): “It felt like jumping around in a large pixelated field. Kind of like Minecraft. I love Minecraft.”
• Dora (20:28): “Oh, Superman by Laurie Anderson at any moment…drives the people I love insane…”
• Dora (27:07): “This whole album is about his wife and his new baby and just his devotion to his family. Sometimes I listen…and I just start crying…he loves his family so much.”
• Robin (32:50): “She really captures this time…between the adult that you've become and the life you had to say goodbye to…”
• Dora (40:10): “Every pause…feels like it restarts. And I want to grab the lyrics…out of the air. They feel so tang and so there.”

---

Key Timestamps for Song Highlights

• Geese – “Islands of Men”: [02:53–09:12]
• Juana Molina – “Siesta Aji”: [12:31–17:50]
• Dijon – “Yamaha” & Laurie Anderson reference: [21:14–28:27]
• Devon Shafer – “All My Dreams Are Coming True”: [29:25–32:21]
• Agriculture – “Hallelujah”: [35:56–41:24]
• Alien Boy – “Cold Air”: [43:53–end]

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a rich tapestry of both genre-pushing and emotionally resonant new music picks, peppered with personal stories, sharp observations, and infectious enthusiasm from both Robin and Dora. Their conversation offers insight into each artist's unique appeal, musical ancestry, and why these tracks stand out in 2025’s crowded field of contenders.

For new music fans or podcast listeners seeking compelling, boundary-defying music and thoughtful commentary, this episode encapsulates exactly why All Songs Considered remains NPR’s flagship for music discovery.

Transcript

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[Dora Levitt]

Seeing your parents cry, it's awful. It's like seeing your teacher outside of school. It's terrible.

[Robin Hilton]

Is it awful seeing your teacher?

[Dora Levitt]

It's just like you don't know what to do.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dora Levitt]

And I had, like, two teachers, and I learned that they weren't married or living in the classroom.

[Robin Hilton]

What do you mean?

[Dora Levitt]

Like, there was like, main teacher and associate teacher.

[Robin Hilton]

Right.

[Dora Levitt]

And I remember learning that they're not married and they go home, too.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, you assumed that the two teachers.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah, they came there in the classroom.

[Robin Hilton]

And when was this?

[Dora Levitt]

Probably my last year of college. I learned.

[Robin Hilton]

Wow.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah. I think everyone was in on it.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Oh.

[Robin Hilton]

It's All Songs Considered. I'm Robin Hilton. NPR Music's Dora Levitt. Back.

[Dora Levitt]

Dora, thank you so much for having me on again. I'm so excited to be here again.

[Robin Hilton]

I gotta be honest. You really killed it on your debut show, which was. What was that? It was like a month ago. Has it already been about a month?

[Guest Singer/Performer]

I think so.

[Robin Hilton]

I think it was around a month ago. Honestly, I still share that episode with people. I really do. I shared it with someone just today, in fact, because it was a lot of fun having you on. Your picks were great and I wanted to get you back on. But this is one of our contenders episodes where we update our running list of the year's best songs. These are the the tracks we can't stop playing or that we love so much that they're in the running for a spot on our final best of 2025 lists at the end of the year. Dora, I think you should go first because you've got a couple of things that are like, supernova high right now. It's like the only two things I've heard anyone talking about for about a month or so now, and you've got both of them.

[Dora Levitt]

So then obviously we should start with geese.

[Robin Hilton]

Geese, yes.

[Dora Levitt]

Which is every time I open my phone, my Instagram algorithm only gives me pictures of geese. The band.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, the band.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

I thought you were gonna say, like.

[Robin Hilton]

It overheard you say geese at some point. And so now it's just feeding you pictures of geese because it's listening to.

[Dora Levitt]

You, you know, Is absolutely listening to me. Anyways, geese is a band, and the song I want to play is Islands of men.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Like you been ditch the islands of man thought you'd find what it means Peace of mind. You can't keep womankind in your dreams. You can't keep running away from what is real and what is fake. You can saf right away from what is real. You love me. You have seen islands of men.

Sink.

And lo as you speak I'm much surprised. Will you stop running, running away from what is real and what is fair? Will you stop running away from what is real? And what is your faith?

Oh, will you stop right Running away.

Running away from what is real? Will you stop running away? Will you stop running away? Will you stop running away?

Sa.

Away Running away, running away all the time.

Away.

[Robin Hilton]

This song is like one long crescendo, like 16 minute crescendo. It starts off so small and just keeps getting bigger and bolder and wilder.

[Dora Levitt]

The drum click with the. The guitars and Cameron Winters just like completely moaning, whining voice. Just feels like pulling taffy and just rushing forward. It's so beautiful and feels like what it is like to see the sun.

[Robin Hilton]

I love the image of pulling taffy and what'd you say? Running forward, running and pulling taffy at the same time. I don't know if I've heard a band honestly though, that has a sound quite as slippery as theirs. It just refuses to be any one thing. This song is maybe. I don't know if I'd call it conventional because there's all this like trash can percussion and other weirdness going on. But wouldn't you say when you listen to the whole album that this is maybe one of the more straight ahead sort of rock tracks on it?

[Dora Levitt]

Completely. I mean the whole album is amazing and it's so hard to place and I feel like I've been trying to. I listen to the album a lot and I've been trying to make sense of. Of what the hell he's saying. Like what Cameron Winter's talking about even.

[Robin Hilton]

Does this mean.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah, yeah. And what they're trying to reference. And I almost feel like it's. The point is to not try and figure it out and to just like take it at face value. And I really like how this song, like you said, does break that chaos. But I mean amazing chaos and is just this song of longing to me and wondering what is beyond your life. And it's just so relatable.

[Robin Hilton]

Do you know Girl Band? I think they're called Gila Band now. I think they changed their name. They made this. It was just sort of like end of times rock. Super abrasive and Chaotic and unpredictable. There are moments on this Geese album that sound like that, but then there are moments that I hear the Talking Heads and the Rolling Stones and Fool.

[Dora Levitt]

In the Rain by Led Zeppelin is something that I always think back to when I listen to this album. The percussion and just. Fool in the Rain is one of my favorite songs of all time. But that's kind of the only reference I've been able to grab onto.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, any reference I come up with is so fleeting. It's like, oh, I just got a hint of Tom Waits. Sort of ramshackle vibe of Tom Waits. Oh, no, I got a little bit of Talking Heads in there, you know, but it's like glam rock and even hints of funk and it's so wild. So the album Getting Killed, which is a great album name, getting Killed, already out that song Islands of Men from Geese. So do you know Wanna Molina at all?

[Dora Levitt]

I've heard Wanna Molina songs in my life, but I've never focused on it.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, okay. Well, so one of my all time favorite artists, Wanna Molina, singer, electronic, and sort of folk artist from Argentina. Always excited when she's got something new coming out and which you. You kind of never know because she can go years between projects. In fact, her most recent album was in 2017, eight years ago. It was called Halo. But she just announced she's got a brand new album coming out later this fall, an album called Doga D O G A And the first track that we get to hear from it is called Siesta Aji.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Sam sa Sam Thirsty.

[Dora Levitt]

That is what I think it must feel like to live in a video game.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, really?

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah, that was my first thought.

[Robin Hilton]

That's funny because it seems pastoral to me, but I guess, yeah, sort of a pixelated pastoral universe.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah, that's what I was getting. It felt like jumping around in a large pixelated field. Kind of like Minecraft. I love Minecraft.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, it's interesting because I think the thing that has always been one of her superpowers is that she can take these weird little digital glitchy sounds and make them sound alive in a way. Like they're coming from not machines, but from some sort of magical creature.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Do you hear that?

[Dora Levitt]

I really do. Especially when I was reading the lyrics and it was talking about feeling close to another person and feeling close to how someone makes you feel and craving that feeling. I was really hearing that. In those glitchy repetitive moments that were playing over and over. I wrote down like obsessive nostalgia, getting caught up in a feeling of the past.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, there's a sweetness to it I think for sure. If you don't know a lot about her older stuff, you should really go back and dig into her catalog. She's actually I think this is only her eighth album or so and she's been putting out music for about 30 years. Her first album came out in 1996 so like I said, she can go a really long time between records, but definitely like if you only pick one. Listen to Segundo. Segundo came out in 2000. Still a mind bending and blowing album. She she is so good at this. So again, that song Siesta Aji is from the album Doga D O G A and it is out on November 5th.

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[Robin Hilton]

All right, keep listening. We're going to have your weekly reset at the end of the show. And also a reminder that if you enjoy the program, please leave us a review on Apple Music or Spotify wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also drop us an email if you'd like, with any feedback. It's always welcome. Our email address is allsongspr.org Dora should we get to the second thing that basically everyone I know is talking about?

[Dora Levitt]

Absolutely. What do you think it is?

[Robin Hilton]

Do you know what it is?

[Dora Levitt]

I have to guess it's Dijon. But it also could be agriculture, which is.

[Robin Hilton]

Is everyone talking about agriculture?

[Dora Levitt]

Just me and my brother. Okay so do you have one song that feels perpetually always stuck in your head?

[Robin Hilton]

Just one. Like, it's always the same song.

[Dora Levitt]

Just one? Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

No, not really. But, I mean, there are some that are more insidious than others, for sure. And I very often will, almost nightly, in fact, I'll have some song stuck in my head, can't get out, and I'll reach for another song just to push that one out just so that I can mix it up.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah. I call that Brain Radio.

[Robin Hilton]

Brain Radio. Well, my dial is broken. Why do you ask? Is there a single song that you. That's always in your head?

[Dora Levitt]

Yes.

[Robin Hilton]

What is it?

[Dora Levitt]

Oh, Superman by Laurie Anderson at any moment. And it drives the people that I.

[Robin Hilton]

Love insane because it's got that doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah. I'm always like, huh?

[Robin Hilton]

You can do it. That's the whole. Basically the whole song. O Superman.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Yeah.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah. Well, anyways, I was so excited when I heard that Dijon in his song Yamaha, pretty explicitly, at least to me. Samples. Oh, Superman.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Baby, I want it more and more than I can.

[Robin Hilton]

Can you.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

See this particular motion? You shouldn't have had. Whatever you and I shower, baby, feel it all right. Beautiful Friday today I am on call you see your sa.

[Robin Hilton]

I totally missed, in all the times I've listened to it, that that sound at the beginning could have been Laurie Anderson's oh, Superman. So now let's hear a little bit of oh, Superman. Well, for sure. And do you think that's the same sound here in the Dijon?

[Dora Levitt]

I feel like it's the same key, at least.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, it sure could be. Yeah. Wow, you've got a good ear. I wouldn't have made that connection, but, you know, he clearly has a love for 80s sounds and 80s production. Oh, Superman came out early 80s, if I had to guess, I'd say 81, 82, somewhere around then. Prince.

[Dora Levitt]

It's so Prince.

[Robin Hilton]

It's so Prince. But that particular era of Prince, 80s era Prince is all over this album.

[Dora Levitt]

And I think the fact that the Laurie Anderson breathing goes unnoticed and can go unnoticed so easily is just a testament to how much that song can just kind of act as a metronome. As a really beautiful metronome. Whenever I hear a song that references another song I love, it feels like it's written. Like, for me, I feel so excited and so seen. I mean, I'm like, well, it's an Easter egg.

[Robin Hilton]

It's like getting a little Easter egg. Yeah, it feels like, oh, I. And I alone have discovered this thing. No, it's cool. I totally get it. It's a cool feeling. I always love little moments in albums and songs like where I catch something that I know was meant to be discovered. Right. That was put in there with the hopes that somebody would discover it.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Yeah.

[Dora Levitt]

But, yeah, this song is so great, and it's so Prince, and it's so Prince in the production, but also just in the themes of desire. It's written for his wife, about his wife. This whole album is about his wife and his new baby and just his devotion to his family. Sometimes I listen to some of the songs, like Baby, off the album Baby, and I just start crying because I'm like, he loves his family so much.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. I also actually think this has a lot in common with the Geese record and that both refuse to be any one thing. And they're kind of all over the place, but still work and feel cohesive. You know, there's, like, hints of doo wop on that title cut, in fact, that you were talking about. Baby. There's a little doo wop. There's gospel, there's funk, there's soul, then there's rock. And that actually fits with Prince really well also, because Prince straddled all these worlds right where he was rock, but also kind of R and B and kind of lots of different things.

[Dora Levitt]

It almost feels like if anything was just slightly out of place, was slightly off, or was slightly different, it wouldn't work as well. It's such a well crafted mishmash.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. I mean, it's chopped up. It's really, really warped and surreal at times, but still holds together so perfectly.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

So the album again, is called Baby, and that song, Yamaha from Dijon. Well, I want to play a cut that you turned me onto, and I really thought you were going to play it this week. When you first shared this with me a couple weeks or so ago, I just sat on it. I thought, oh, I want to play this so bad, but I know Dora's going to come on and do the show again, and I don't want to steal this from her. And then when you didn't pick it this week, I was like, I'm totally playing this. This is a singer I did not know until you told me about her. Devon Schaeffer.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah, I didn't know her either. I was looking at new releases for our New Music Friday podcast, and I stumbled upon the single and became obsessed.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, you know me well, I guess, because the second I heard it, I immediately loved it. Devin Shafer has an album coming out in November. It's called Patience. And the song that you shared that I want to play is so beautiful. It is called All My Dreams Are Coming True.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

I been looking at that time for so long I think it's mine I in watching the big fly in my room Wondering if he'll die soon all my dreams are coming true Tell my parents come home soon I been pacing back and forth for so long I think it is old I am living in a screen where I can disappear in everything all my dreams are coming true I don't need to think about you and I can't feel a thing can't feel anything no, I can't feel a thing can't feel anything.

[Robin Hilton]

So much in the song that is so beautiful to me. I mean, her voice obviously insane, but there's just this sadness and this weariness to it that just really hits me.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah. I find it kind of hard to listen to this song without crying. I was listening to it yesterday and just completely sobbing and I didn't even realize. It's so heart wrenching.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Dora Levitt]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

I think the moment that gets me is maybe when she says, tell my parents I'll be home soon because there's a lot going on in the song and we can talk about it. But she really captures this time in this feeling. I think when you're grown up and you're on your own, but you still have the safety net of your parents to escape to if you need to. It's kind of this in between period of your life in a way, between the adult that you've become and the life that you've created for yourself and the one that you grew up with that you had to say goodbye to when you became an adult and left home.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Right.

[Robin Hilton]

And I don't know. That's just a time and a place and a feeling that always gets me.

[Dora Levitt]

It's like almost being weightless. It's like freedom, but there's still this freedom. But, yeah, this longing for a safe feeling. It's so beautiful and so real.

[Robin Hilton]

Is that. What do you think got you when you listened to it?

[Dora Levitt]

What really got me is the numbness in this song. And it's almost total apathy saying all my dreams are coming true, but also saying, I've been kind of stuck in this loop of time. I'm sitting around doing nothing as if to ignore all the emptiness and just kind of keep telling yourself but all of my dreams are coming true.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. It seems pretty obvious that she's not serious when she says all my dreams are coming true. I mean she talks about watching this big fly in her room and just wondering when it's gonna D and she's pacing around and she's so restless but stuck at the same time. Yeah, well, a great find. Dora. Devin Shafer. This album Patience, it is out November 3rd calling it her debut studio album. She did have another album, I saw it came out in 2021. I listened also very lovely called in my Dreams I'm there. But maybe that was home recorded or something. But studio album called Patience from Devin Shaffer out November 3rd.

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[Robin Hilton]

Dora, you've got one more that I know you want to play.

[Dora Levitt]

I do. The other band that just everyone's talking about all the time.

[Robin Hilton]

You and your brother, right?

[Dora Levitt]

It's just me and my brother. This is a band called Agriculture and their second album, the Spiritual Sound just came out a few weeks ago. And this is their song Hallelujah.

[Robin Hilton]

And we should say before we play this that there is a long gap.

[Dora Levitt]

I was gonna say that. I forgot.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean you can hear kind of a low rumbling hum in there, but it's a long gap, almost like a hidden track.

[Dora Levitt]

It's 20 seconds.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, but the gap is part of it. So when you get to the gap in the song, just sit and wait and just let it sort of sink in.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Sam, how do you call out to God.

[Robin Hilton]

If you say that?

[Guest Singer/Performer]

The great words of the moon on the water.

My head is on fire My head is above.

Cut off my.

Lips stare at the stone wall.

[Robin Hilton]

Could.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

You pacify my mind For Sam it. Sam.

[Robin Hilton]

What a wild evolution this song has. Like, it starts right out the gate. It's got this kind of a kind of a chugging groove, I think, oh, this is going to be like a T. Rex glam rock jam. And then it just as quickly kind of dies out. And it's not that it doesn't turn into that sort of rock thing, but then at the end after this long break, it does turns into this total.

[Dora Levitt]

Kind of Midwest emo, like American Football League, just jam. You have really big shoes to fill when you write a song called Hallelujah. Yeah, Just like huge shoes to fill. And this song is so subtle and it's so present. And every pause. Cause it's made up of so many pauses, it feels like it restarts. And it's really sitting with you. And I wanna grab the lyrics and the words out of the air. They feel so tang and so there.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, it's interesting because I read that the band was really inspired in part by this idea that music consumption, the way we receive and listen to music, or hear music anyway, that it has been really flattened out over the years and kind of sanitized. And everything is just background noise now. No one is really, you know, having any kind of deep engagement with music. And that kind of fits in with this song in a way. Right? Because that pause in the middle forces you to lean in and stop everything and really start engaging with it completely.

[Dora Levitt]

I even didn't really realize that there was still that low hum under the pause.

[Robin Hilton]

There is? Yeah. You can't. Like, if you're in a car or on the metro or something, you're not going to hear that. But, yeah, get a good pair of headphones, a quiet room. There actually is a low rumbling. And it's almost like you've suddenly descended into this murky other world.

[Dora Levitt]

And this whole album, Agriculture. They call themselves ecstatic Black metal. And the album is kind of split into these two pieces. There's this really heavy black metal loud sound for the first half. And then throughout the entire album, there's this folky undercurrent that you really hear in this song that's kind of peeled away. I am not the most knowledgeable person on black metal. You would have to ask Lars about that, probably.

[Robin Hilton]

I was gonna say, I bet Lars loves this band. This is wild. Because I have not listened to the rest of the record. But now you really got me wanting to go back and listen to the whole thing. Good stuff. Agriculture. So the album, the spiritual sound that just came out, just came out on October 3rd. Well, I've got one more that I wanna play. And this is something that I've been sitting on for a while. Because it's from an album that came out all the way back in May. Although I think they had a deluxe version maybe at the top of August. But it's from a band called Alien Boy.

[Dora Levitt]

I'd heard of Alien Boy, and when I listened to this, I think you said a few weeks ago you were like, someone said that guitar rock is dead and it was in reference to Andy DeRusso.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Right?

[Dora Levitt]

Right. And I heard the song and I was like, who told you that? Like, who said that guitar rock is dead?

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, this album, it's like shoegazy Smashing Pumpkins crossed with My Bloody Valentine. The guitars, they've got that sort of metallicy, shimmery quality, but also just so raw and ragged, too. Well, the name of the album that they put out in May is called you'd Want to Fade. And so many songs I could have played from it. But I want to go out on the song Cold Air. Dora Levitt, always a great hang. Thanks so much for doing this.

[Dora Levitt]

Thanks for having me. Always the best hang.

[Robin Hilton]

Robin Hilton, could you say that again? But kind of like in the clear, so if I need to cut it in with anything else I use.

[Dora Levitt]

Right?

[Guest Singer/Performer]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Robin Hilton.

[Dora Levitt]

Robin Hilton. Robin Hilton. Robin Hilton.

[Robin Hilton]

At 4, NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton. It's ALL SONGS Considered.

[Guest Singer/Performer]

SAM I feel a little safe when I'm thinking about your always love me always cold always need when air gets cold I gave up a good life to living a dream I don't like and I don't even know what you like but baby, I yeah, I'm free through. Try to remember feeling Is it something I just can't describe or is it easy I just don't want to try it's feeling fragile, the touch I think I want to break all that I want.

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