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Robin Hilton
Was talking with Paul McCartney, your close personal friend. My close personal friend, Paul McCartney. No, honestly, I've been thinking about a conversation I did have with him in an interview that we did years ago, where we were, were talking about how there are so many Beatles songs that are made up of several different songs, Right. You know, like, they change so many times and change so completely that they're like a half a dozen different songs all stitched together. You know, a day in the life, Happiness is a warm gun. Even McCartney's solo stuff, like Band on the Run, like, bunch of different songs all stitched together. That was such a novel thing for a long time. And I wanted to talk with him like, just like, how does your brain go in so many different directions in a single song? But I've been thinking about it because I hear that sort of unpredictable musical adventure in so much music now. It is so common, particularly in the stuff that we're going to play today.
Sheldon
Yeah, you know, I definitely agree. I hear that across the Internet, soundscapes, people just sort of tinkering with all sorts of ideas. Maybe as a result of just like having a broader listening base and appreciating more music, there is a sort of different kind of thing happening from the first artist I want to play who keeps surprising us, the decorated alt country singer songwriter Brandi Carlisle. She's got a new album out. It's called Returning To Myself. And the final single from it is, Like Brandi. It's nothing like you've heard from Brandi Carlisle before. It's called Church and State.
Sam
While the empire was failing I was so far from home I heard a thousand sirens wailing so I was never on my own when the blackness slowly parted I saw the aborigines before the revolution started between the madness of the hours and they don't see what we say we believe we believe that they're not gonna to live forever Find tomorrow Never say here the death and the D forever Never say, never say never say we'll find a way we'll find a way Find a way Imagine if we go and then the days that quickly follow they began to turn to stone they couldn't stand or speak or swallow they couldn't get out of bed alone and when the frailty overcomes them and they began to crawl Reaching out their bloody hands Guess who gets to make difficult they don't see what we said but we believe we believe that they're not going to live forever Never pray they're here today Then they're gone forever Never say never say Never say We'll find a way I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislation should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof. Thus building a wall of separation between church and forever. Never say here today then gone forever Never say never say never we'll find a way we'll find a way Find a way Sam, think I've heard anything.
Robin Hilton
Even close to this from her before. Yeah, this is like an 80s muscle car top down, just burning down the highway, full throttle rock.
Sheldon
We know that she can do a lot of different things. Her music has encompassed Americana, folk, even streaks of blues and pop rock before. But this is like full on power pop. A little punkish even. Like there's real to the muscle car analogy. There is an engine revving at full capacity on this song. I mean, it's very different from the defining Carlisle songs like the Story or the Joke or even Right on Time. I'm not sure I've ever heard her at like full throat on like those. The we believes in this song. The Imagine if we could. She is really like milking every note and it's really, really invigorating.
Robin Hilton
I wonder if you. If you hear this. But when I was listening, I kept getting serious 80s rock vibe. Like almost like 80s era heart or even like Bon Jovi. Like there's this, I don't know, this sort of shimmery, epic feel to the guitars. Even that sort of spoken word thing coming through the megaphone. It all sounded like that big stadium sized mega rock of the 80s.
Sheldon
Absolutely. And she's harnessing that energy towards this like righteous indignation. Like, this is a song about rebellion against tyranny. It's a song about standing up to dictatorship. And it is like really leaning into the force of that with every note.
Robin Hilton
I wonder if part of it is that she's channeling a uniquely American idea with a uniquely American sound.
Sheldon
Yeah, y. Yeah, yeah, that sounds right on. I'm like, there are ideas about we the People like being the voice of the American nation. And you can sort of feel that rooted in like a classic rock and roll ideal. Anti establishment standing for the crowd and the people in it.
Robin Hilton
Well, that's incredible. Brandi Carlisle Church and state from the album. Returning to myself. I'm gonna play something that is pretty wildly different. Have you heard this new album from the singer Hannah Francis?
Sheldon
I have not.
Robin Hilton
Oh, it is incredible. It's called Nested In Tangles. The whole album is really a study in constant shifts and unpredictable turns like we were talking about at the top of the show, you know, not just across the album from song to song, but within a single song. A little bit of jazz, a little bit of classical, a little bit of folk in it, a little bit of lots of different things. The song I want to play from it is called the Space between, and it features Daniel Rawson from the band Grizzly Bear. He does a little bit of everything on it. He sings, plays cello, piano, he does some of the percussion. And again, the song is called the Space Between.
Sam
Sun Came Back and One Fell Swoop A sequence of grievances Turn to grace Yearning in the birds Murmuring above the range Pass as fast as love like shadows changing shape what remains Holds the weight Holds the weight Spin me away finally there's room for me in the space between as the flint strikes quick on the stone there's redemption in the fragile bone as the brightness of sorrow boundaries through the armor I filled around the harm and I'm sinking into the arms and I'm living into the. I wish you had been there Wish you more with me in this body There's a heart beating and it's my heart and it's your Sam Give I let it live in that space between what's gone and what's given if there is another way Let it move me and if there is a way out Let it be through me Jam Sam. It's Sam.
Sheldon
Well, just in that last two minutes alone, I mean, how many shifts sonic like evolutions does that song take? I mean, like chamber pop, psych, folk.
Robin Hilton
The found sounds of nature there, field.
Sheldon
Recording stuff, stuff art rock. It gets a little jazzy there for sure.
Robin Hilton
There's some Saxon other tracks on this album.
Sam
Really cool.
Sheldon
You can. You can hear a little bit of the Grizzly Bear influence on this song in particular.
Sam
Yeah.
Sheldon
But I mean, just. There's really like an almost like spellbinding meld of all these little minute shifts that occur throughout it. It is such a nuanced take on so many things that it ends up becoming its own thing. Just like a really special, special occurrence.
Robin Hilton
Yeah. Spellbinding is a great word for it and it is very subtle, especially on this track. I think this is one of the tamer cuts, honestly. As far as all the wild shifts go, like if you listen to the opening cut on the album, it really goes in some wildly different directions. But yeah, she's incredible. I don't know how I missed last year's album. It was called Keeper of the shepherd, which she says was kind of all about her father and the complicated relationship she had with him and coming to terms with his death. This album, nested in Tangles, is about her mother then. But honestly, I'm not sure how much you really need to know all of that or know any of the context, because there's just so much to get lost in while listening to this album, both in the words and in the sounds. It invites multiple listens, it invites deep listens, and I think you're gonna, you know, and it's just rewarding every single time.
Sheldon
It's really, really beautiful.
Robin Hilton
So Hannah Francis the album nested in Tangles and that song was called the Space Between.
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Robin Hilton
A reminder that we will have your weekly reset at the end of the show. Keep an ear out for that. You know you hear all those lovely birds at the end of the Hannah Francis that's what the weekly reset is, just a sort of ambient moment to reconfigure your day, your week that's coming up at the end of the show also. So if you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend and leave us a review on Apple Music or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Where do you want to go next, Sheldon?
Sheldon
In keeping with the theme, I want to go with one of my favorite composers and multi instrumentalists, Kelly Moran, whose music spans classical and electronic sounds. She has a new album out. It's called Don't Trust Mirrors. And I want to listen to the title track, which features her Warp Records label mate, Bibia.
Sam
Sat Sa Sat.
Robin Hilton
I've been thinking how we need to do another episode with songs to calm the nerves. I've been hearing a lot of great new stuff this year that would fit well in that mix. This is. This is certainly one of them. Which is interesting though, because there's so much metallic clattering and dissonance in this song, but it's still so calming.
Sheldon
Yeah. Well, Moran has dedicated much of her career to prepared piano, which is where you put objects between or on the strings of your piano and completely sort of alter the sound of it.
Robin Hilton
Right.
Sheldon
Moran said that the record is about, like the experience of observing yourself through distortion, reflection, and the slow work of piecing yourself back together again. And I think this cut really embodies that. I mean, you can hear all the fracturing spinning out in different directions. To your point about its metallic nature, it's a bit tinny. There are sort of bells and chimes like, glistening off on the horizon.
Robin Hilton
Yeah. I mean, in keeping with the mirror's metaphor or theme, there's a lot of reflecting going on, a lot of reflections and reflections off of reflections and delay and echo and everything and all the tinkling sounds. I guess maybe that that's partly bibio. I'm not really sure. I've watched some live performances of Kelly Moran and she can get just about all of that on her own with a single piano, a prepared piano in real time. So I'm not entirely sure exactly what's happening on that song, but I have heard a lot of prepared piano over the years and I think it's very hard to come up with with something that feels new in that space because, I mean, okay, you've dumped a box of ping pong balls in there or paperclips or like there's only so many.
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Robin Hilton
Or do to the strings and you kind of end up getting a lot of the same sounds. But yeah, I don't know. I think she's come up with something really distinctive here, you know, I mean, it's in the way that she's not only prepared the piano, but the way that she is choosing to interact with the way that she's prepared it because as you say, all those things you put in the strings end up sort of playing on their own and you have to react to what they're doing.
Sam
Yeah.
Sheldon
Interaction feels like the key to her experience with the prepared piano. And that's where you get like the real artistry that comes in a song like this.
Robin Hilton
So that's the title. To cut to the album. Don't Trust Mirrors from Kelly Moran that is out now. I want to play something from the latest Blood Orange album, Dev Hynes. It's an album called Essex Honey. It came out at the very end of August. It's his first album as Blood Orange in a minute. It's been about seven years since he put out a full length album. This is another really ambitious, almost sprawling album. It takes a lot of chances both sonically and thematically. It's an album, you know, in part about growing up in Essex, but it's also about grief. Dev Hynes lost his mother a couple years ago and this song that I want to play is a reflection on her and that loss. It's called the Last of England. And I'll just note that the song opens with this home recording that Dev Hynes made. And it's of his mother and his sister and him at Christmas. And it was a couple of months. Months just before his mom passed away.
Sam
The country does bring up those issues, those type of gifts or feelings of people. People. Some people look simple. That was. That was so cutting in.
Robin Hilton
Did that's what you hear now back.
Sam
Then to be tapping into. I was like, you know when you read that message but it actually breaking through.
Robin Hilton
Very powerful message.
Sam
I know everyone's an interpreter. Nothing more to do but leave follow in the corners of the room Knitted heart they gave to me. I wash my hands and stare into the drain Sitting in the dusk of the room. You found a sea anywhere day th made it seem we can talk but then they took you away yeah all the things we had to do me see we can talk back then they took you away.
Robin Hilton
This song just so perfectly straddles both grief and like a celebration of life all at the same time. You know, it's like it's. It's a heartbreaking song, but then also kind of a euphoric song.
Sam
Yeah.
Sheldon
You think you know exactly what this song is doing. When it starts, it feels like a kind of really beautiful elegy. Sitting in the memory of being with his mother one of the last times that he was able to see her. And then it erupts into like drum and bass. And you're like, it can't just be sadness, right?
Sam
Yeah.
Sheldon
It's too propulsive.
Sam
And.
Sheldon
And you recognize in that moment that grief is also tangled up with joy. All the honor of knowing somebody, getting to spend time with them, having their memory and being able to carry it forward, being able to represent them in the future. And it feels like such a beautiful merger of the pain of sitting in that grief, but also the grace of knowing that it was an honor to have been in the presence of that person at all.
Sam
Yeah.
Robin Hilton
I lost my parents in recent years. And there's some lines in this song that really, really hit me, including the opening one when he says, nothing more to do than leave. You know, I've been in that moment. I've been in that moment where you're at the hospital, you've lost someone, and it feels like there should be more. Right. You know, like, well, okay, well, now what do we do? You know, what's next? This can't just be it. Right? But the truth is. And you have this moment where you realize, well, I guess there's really nothing for me to do but leave and go home and go on with my life. He does this a lot on this album where he captures these really, really big moments and big feelings with just the most plain spoken reflections.
Sheldon
Yeah.
Robin Hilton
And then he surrounds these super plain spoken reflections. You know, they're very direct. They're very unambiguous like that. And then he surrounds it with all this incredible music.
Sheldon
I mean, what's really beautiful about some of these moments is that they are often in conflict. Right. He says that early in the song that there's nothing else to do but leave. But then later in the song, he said he notes all the things we had to do.
Robin Hilton
Yeah. Something else that's clear when you get to the end of the song is that he does not leave. He has sat with her in that room after she's passed away because he says, at some point, time has made it seem like we can talk, but then they take you away. So he's been sitting there with her in that silence in the room, and it begins to feel like, well, maybe we could just strike up a conversation again. And then they come and take her away. Wow. What an incredible song.
Sam
Song.
Robin Hilton
What an absolutely incredible song.
Sheldon
Just amazing.
Robin Hilton
Yeah. So that's from Blood Orange, from his new album, Essex Honey, the song the Last of England.
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Robin Hilton
All right, Sheldon, I know you've got one more song that you want to take us out on.
Sam
Yeah.
Sheldon
In keeping with our broader theme of artists who just seem to be navigating a lot of different sounds all at once, I'm gonna go out on my favorite kitchen sink act, the experimental pop duo of Magdalena Bay. I mean, so much of their music is like, very shifty and distorted, dreamy and surreal. A bit uncanny. This song feels like it checks all of those boxes. They used to be a prog rock band, and I think you can hear that in this one.
Robin Hilton
I don't know their music really well. You know, I guess I was thinking maybe almost kind of dance pop is what I was expecting from them. And honestly, when this song starts off, I'm. I was thinking like, okay, yeah, this. This is kind of what I was. But it does not stay there very long. I'm like, what is happening? Incredible song. I mean, it gets huge and then.
Sam
Yeah.
Robin Hilton
Great one to go out on from Magdalena Bay, the single Second Sleep. Thanks as always, Sheldon.
Sheldon
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Robin Hilton
And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.
Sam
Second sleep is calling out to me if I don't wake up oh I have the sense not to make a mess I fall into in life Just to hurt myself sad Got to get some help Sun's coming up Put the coffee on and shattering out the dark so can see this how we want to be if I only got this yeah World's waking night that's not so brutal it says now sleeping in Understanding that love is so demanding in the city L When you're winning yeah La la Sam A new life when we get settled Second sleep is coming out to me if I don't wake up we'll see you in my dreams that's not natural yeah I really need some help oh, take a b Time sitting down some better to me if I don't wake up it's up and I sh so far to get to where you are Understanding that waiting yeah Love is when you're bleeding yeah Sam.
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Date: October 28, 2025
In this episode, host Robin Hilton, with regular contributors Sheldon and Sam, explore adventurous new releases from established and emerging artists. The episode’s unifying theme is the trend of “unpredictable musical adventure” within contemporary music—how artists blend and shift genres, creating unexpected sonic journeys within their songs. Artists featured include Brandi Carlile, Hannah Francis (feat. Daniel Rawson), Kelly Moran (feat. Bibio), Blood Orange, and Magdalena Bay.
[00:19] Robin Hilton opens by referencing a conversation with Paul McCartney about the Beatles’ tendency to “stitch together” several distinct musical ideas in one song—a once-innovative approach now common among contemporary artists.
"There are so many Beatles songs that are made up of several different songs...You know, like, they change so many times and change so completely...now I hear that sort of unpredictable musical adventure in so much music..."
—Robin Hilton [00:21]
The episode’s selections exemplify this approach—songs that fuse styles and moods, often within a single track.
Quote:
"This is like an 80s muscle car, top down, just burning down the highway, full throttle rock."
—Robin Hilton [06:12]
Sheldon notes Carlile “milks every note,” painting the track as “power pop” with punkish energy.
The song’s lyrics and epic production invoke classic American rock and themes of anti-establishment and standing up for “we the people.”
Notable Moment:
Robin draws parallels to “80s era Heart or even Bon Jovi,” with “big stadium sized mega rock” guitar and a spoken word segment through a megaphone.
“She’s harnessing that energy towards this righteous indignation…a song about standing up to dictatorship.”
—Sheldon [07:41]
On “The Space Between,” Daniel Rawson of Grizzly Bear features, contributing vocals, cello, piano, and percussion.
The panel notes the track’s subtle but “spellbinding meld” of genres and moods:
"Well, just in that last two minutes alone, I mean, how many shifts...chamber pop, psych, folk, art rock...it ends up becoming its own thing."
—Sheldon [14:56]
Robin remarks on the album’s emotional depth, exploring relationships with family (last year’s album about her father, this one about her mother), but insists its “nuanced sound world” invites deep listening regardless of context.
"It invites multiple listens, it invites deep listens, and I think...it's rewarding every single time."
—Robin Hilton [15:49]
"There's so much metallic clattering and dissonance in this song, but it's still so calming."
—Robin Hilton [23:38]
"Interaction feels like the key to her experience with the prepared piano. And that's where you get like the real artistry..."
—Sheldon [26:03]
"It's a heartbreaking song, but then also kind of a euphoric song."
—Robin Hilton [31:04]
"You recognize in that moment that grief is also tangled up with joy...a beautiful merger of the pain of sitting in that grief, but also the grace..."
—Sheldon [31:42]
"I was thinking like, okay, yeah, this is kind of what I was...but it does not stay there very long. I'm like, what is happening?!"
—Robin Hilton [35:23]
True to the spirit of All Songs Considered, this episode provides a rich overview of artists who push musical boundaries, defying expectations through ever-shifting songs and crossing genres. The hosts share personal anecdotes and insightful analysis, highlighting how these contemporary works echo and expand upon the experimental spirit of past icons, while speaking directly to the cultural and emotional landscape of today.