In Our Headphones

Penelope Isles - "Sailing Still," a 2021 single on Bella Union. UK duo Penelope Isles — a project of siblings Lily and Jack Wolter — were able to use the pandemic lockdown to recover from the heavy touring they did for their 2018 debut album When The Tide Creeps In.  “Before the enforced break due to COVID we spent pretty much all of 2019 driving ourselves around Europe and America having some incredible adventures as a band and it seems that everything since then has been falling apart," Jack explained in a press release. Today's Song of the Day finds the Wolters reconnecting during the break. “I wrote the music for this song at my brother’s flat, on a really crappy electric piano, but always envisioned the whole thing as something widescreen, with a big sound to match," Lily remembers. "The lyrics took me a few months to finish, by which point the song had taken on many different meanings. Then I took it to band practice, where Jack and I wrote the end section together. It’s one of our favourite sounding songs on the record. We played around with pitch-shifting instruments to get it sonically sweet. Plus, it was the first time we ever heard strings with our music. That’s one tick off the bucket list.” For the video, Jack wanted to travel again, at least visually. "Writing and recording the new album was a huge part of the recovery process and making this film for 'Sailing Still' I wanted Lily and I to get back on the road somehow, as travelling has been such a massive part of our band ever since we began. So I had this idea of filming Lily in a myriad of places and scenarios, both urban and rural, coastal and inland. Mountains and rivers, council flats and tunnels, cafes and bridges. We drove up and down the country for a week, sleeping in the van, and waking up at the crack of dawn to start filming again. Reconnecting as a ‘band’ again but also spending time together as brother and sister was special for filming this real heartbreaker of a song.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Film School - "Superperfection" from the 2021 album We Weren’t Here on Sonic Ritual. Long-running west coast shoegaze group Film School return this fall with the full-length We Weren’t Here, a nod to pandemic-related conditions in which they recorded the album. Band members — bassist Justin LaBo, guitarist Nyles Lannon, frontman Greg Bertens, and keyboardist Jason Ruck — were divided between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, recording their parts from their respective home studios and then emailing files back and forth.  We Weren’t Here will be released September 24th via Sonic Ritual.  Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jarv Dee & Bad Colours - "Black Skin (feat. Stas THEE Boss)," a 2021 self-released single.   Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Skyzoo - "Bed-Stuy Is Burning" from the 2021 album All the Brilliant Things on Mello. New York has long been embedded in the work of rapper Skyzoo. Born Gregory Skyler Taylor in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, he cites his hometown as an influence, telling The Living Room, "There’s certain values and morals that come with the neighborhood and era that I grew up in. Those are important musically and just in life." However, he laments the gentrification of his city on today's Song of the Day and the album it comes from, the new LP All The Brilliant Things. He explains in a press release: With All The Brilliant Things, the idea was truly to try and tackle the realities of gentrification and this new era of cultural appropriation, commonly known as “culture vulturing”. The way they intertwine with one another, parallel at times, and how us as the residents of our long-standing homes and creators of these cultures have been stripped of it, or at times let it happen, all for what we assumed was our best interest. The irony of it all is, despite how it all makes us feel in hindsight, one would have to admit that the orchestration of it was truly brilliant. Brutal, and heinous, but somehow pretty brilliant. Hence the title of the album. The cover art, illustrated by Matt Rockefeller, shows my 3 year-old-son and I on the corner of Fulton St. and Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn, and I’m showing him a condo being built in our neighborhood, a neighborhood that’s rapidly dying, explaining it to him and trying to make sense of it all. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

K.ZIA - "Sanctuary," a 2021 single on Groove Attack. Brussels-born, Berlin-based artist K.ZIA unveils a "place beyond the physical" in today's KEXP Song of the Day. Born to a Martinican father and a Belgo-Congolese mother, she weaves the influence of her upbringing into this soulful single.  “I am building a realm for the unheard," she explained in a press release. "For the ones that never found boxes to fit in because of their differences. To be able to exist freely, we will have our own boundless space. A Sanctuary where together we rise around authenticity, depth and love. This song is about a special place where we can disconnect, connect, and reconnect with a special person, a spirit, a community, a divinity and re center around the essentials of Love.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

George Riley - "say yes (feat. Joe Armon-Jones)" from the 2021 self-released album interest rates, a tape. She may only be 23-years-old, but West London-based artist George Riley draws on her lifetime of influences on her latest release, interest rates, a tape. Her Jewish mother and Jamaican father would play R&B icons like Stevie Wonder, Aretha, and Sade in the house, and her dad was briefly a drummer and backing vocalist in '70s reggae group Steel Pulse. She channels all of that into interest rates, a tape, explaining to Crack Magazine, “This is me wanting to show the breadth of sounds that have inspired me, because I don’t subscribe to just one thing.” Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Khrysis - "The Disrespect (feat. Rapsody & Sa-Roc)" from the 2021 album The Hour of Khrysis on Jamla. It's no surprise it took Khrysis 12 years to return with his fifth full-length, The Hour of Khrysis. The Durham, NC producer/rapper/engineer also serves on Jamla Records' in-house production team, The Soul Council; crafted beats for the Netflix dramedy The Forty-Year-Old Version; and has worked with Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, De La Soul, Redman, Problem, Bad Lucc, and more. The work has built connections with the star-studded line-up of guests on The Hour of Khrysis, including Busta Rhymes, Pharoahe Monch, De La Soul, and on today's Song of the Day, Rapsody and Sa-Roc.  Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mia Day - "Rosie," a 2021 self-released single. A self-described "groovy, fairy, cowgirl witch," Seattle singer/songwriter Mia Day recorded today's featured track in a barn outside of Seattle, with some of her closest friends. "It's a reverse perspective song that is a deeper exploration into my mental health," she explains via her Soundcloud. "I wrote it as an assignment for one of my college songwriting classes. I knew that I wanted to create a sad song that I could dance to. I was inspired by Oasis and Waxahatchee while recording it." Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Suburbs - "Summertime" from the 2021 album Poet’s Party on Suburbs Music. The Suburbs have been crafting their unique brand of pop-punk joy since 1977. They've been credited as one of the godfathers of the "Minneapolis Sound,” a scene including bands like The Suicide Commandos, The Replacements, and Hüsker Dü.  While vocalist Chan Poling and drummer Hugo Klaers are the only remaining original members, they're accompanied by longtime saxophonist Max Ray, and new additions Stevie Brantseg and Jeremy Ylvisaker on guitars, Steve Price on bass, Janey Winterbauer on backup vocals, Rochelle Becker on baritone sax, and Stephen Kung on horns and keys. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Vega Bodegas - "All My Fish Are Dead," a 2021 self-released single. Cardiff post-punk band The Vega Bodegas is led by Jimmy Watkins, formerly of Future Of The Left and Strange News From Another Star. They've been laying low since the 2018 release of their debut full-length, A Complete History of Witchcraft, but have re-emerged to share the single "All My Fish Are Dead." Watkins described to Birthday Cake Breakfast how today's featured track was inspired by two books: At the time I was reading a book called Strangers by Rebecca Tamás, and it was changing the way I thought about the modern world. It was terrifying, but at the same time it had answers about how we could change things like capitalism and the destruction of the planet. It introduced me to panpsychism and I was fascinated by this idea that our surroundings influence how we think. I was also reading a book called American Cosmic by D.W Pasulka. In that book she meets people who believe their great ideas have come from aliens. I used that for the lines about “operating on a whole other level… outside on my mile high decking” and about our body parts being full of galaxies. Together, those two books painted a picture of humans destroying the planet whilst also receiving messages of hope and innovation from outer space. That was a pretty surreal combo for me, so I went for it lyrically and described a modern world full of chaos and weird beauty. I wanted to paint a dreamlike landscape which was driven by capitalism and greed, but had a soft middle where it talks about how magical the human body can be. I have no idea if I succeeded, but for the first time in my life I can listen to a song we’ve recorded and think to myself that I’d put everything I could into the lyrics. Read the full behind-the-scenes story of the making of today's Song of the Day here. Read the full post on KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.