Wednesday MidDay Medley
Produced and Hosted by Mark Manning
90.1 FM KKFI – Kansas City Community Radio
TEN to NOON Wednesdays – Streaming at KKFI.org

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The 120 Best Recordings of 2023
(Part 2 of 4)

Thanks for tuning into WMM on 90.1 FM KKFI – Kansas City Community Radio. 
I’m Mark Manning. Today we present part 2 of our 4-week special: The 120 Best Recordings of 2023. Based on playlists of this little ole radio show, we’ve compiled representative tracks from our favorite full-length albums and EP recordings of 2023. We realize these “Best of” lists can seem subjective, so we ask that you please accept our list as a celebration of the year in music.

In 2023 we’ve broadcast nearly 900 different tracks on WMM over our 100,000 watts of 90.1 FM Community Radio Airwaves. Over 500 of these tracks were from New & MidCoastal Releases. We played tracks from National Releases, and MidCoastal Releases. 70 of the representative tracks in our “Best of” list are from MidCoastal Releases. We conducted over 150 interviews with 145 special guests. 50 of the bands and artists in our “Best of” list have joined us as guests on Wednesday MidDay Medley.

Tune into Wednesday MidDay Medley throughout December for our 4-week series: The 120 Best Recordings of 2023, on December 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th. This is our celebration of the year when we were able to survey over 1000 area musical releases.

This Wednesday, we’ll count down #90 through #61 with tracks from: Semper Viridis, Modern Day Fitzgerald, Kelly Hunt, The Noise FM, Friendly Thieves, Chris Hazelton, Approach, The Electric Lungs, Collidescope, Lonnie Fisher, LeVelle, Easy Match, Flooding, Adam Larson Trio, Gemini Parks, Shawn M. Stewart, Jess Williamson, Shamir, L’Rain, Hannah Jadagu, Geese, Yaeji, Sunny War, Jungle, PJ Harvey, Bodikhuu, Anjimile, Youth Lagoon, feeble little horse, and Everything But The Girl.

1. “Main Title Instrumental – It’s Showtime Folks”
   from: Orig. Motion Picture Soundtrack All That Jazz / Casablanca / December 20, 1979
   [WMM’s theme]

2. (#90.) Feeble Little Horse – “Steamroller (Radio Edit)”
   from: Girl With Fish / Saddle Creek / June 9, 2023
   [Songs written, recorded, and mixed by feeble little horse. Recorded and Produced by Sebastian Kinsler and Ryan Walchonski in Pittsburgh, PA + Washington, DC + Rochester, NY. Mixed by Sebastian Kinsler. Mastered by Heba Kadry, NYC. Songs by Ryan Walchonski, Sebastian Kinsler, Lydia Slocum, and Jacob Kelley. Vocals: Lydia Slocum (+ Sebastian Kinsler on Sweet, + Ryan Walchonski on Slide, + Jacob Kelley on Tin Man). Guitar: Sebastian Kinsler (all tracks), Ryan Walchonski (tracks 3-8, 10, 11). Bass: Sebastian Kinsler (+ Connor Peters on “Paces”). Drums: Jacob Kelley. Keyboard / synth: Sebastian Kinsler (tracks 2-11), Ryan Walchonski (tracks 2, 4, 7, 8), Lydia Slocum (track 9) // feeble little horse makes thrilling and wildly unpredictable songs that are a reflection of the joys that come with making music with your best friends. The Pittsburgh quartet’s sophomore album, Girl with Fish, was made focusing on intuition over intention: letting the magic of collaboration come first. “Anything that makes us laugh or puts a smile on our faces, we usually end up keeping in the songs,” explains drummer Jake Kelley. Across 11 self-recorded and self-produced tracks, the band careens from blissed-out pop to harsh noise, glitchy programmed drum beats, and off-kilter indie rock—sometimes all in one song. As a follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2021 debut Hayday, this LP, with its overwhelmingly inviting and emotionally resonant tracklist, is a document of four people trusting their instincts and most importantly each other. // Like the album name, which came from an inside joke the band shared about imagined painting titles at a museum, there’s a sense of humor that’s welcoming and light. The bruising opener “Freak,” for all its pummeling drums and guitar blasts, is a breezy track about an unrequited crush on a college star athlete (Slocum sings, “how can you be satisfied / she’s 5’1 and you’re 6’5”). “I think we just felt more confident on this album,” says Slocum. “We could have felt more pressure and more unsure of ourselves. But we just wanted to try new things, and learn from what people liked about Hayday but not make the same song again.” Girl with Fish is a testament to the power of self-recording, doing it yourself, and taking a leap with the people you are closest with. “Besides our friendship getting stronger and our songs becoming more interesting to us, nothing’s really changed,” says Kinsler. “It’s still us just hanging out: This is what we do instead of playing video games.” ]

3. (#89) Geese – “I See Myself”
   from: 3D Country / Partisan Records / June 23, 2023
   [n the summer of 2021, Geese emerged from out of nowhere, sparking a hype cycle unlike anything that had been seen for a young American rock band in recent memory. Suddenly a band that had previously planned to release some music, break up, and go away to college was touring the world. They made their TV debut on Colbert, were profiled by the NY Times, Stereogum Band To Watch, Consequence Artist Of The Month, Paste Best Of What’s Next, Rolling Stone called them “indie rock prodigies,” and they toured with Jack White and Spoon. // And during this entire process, that very same band everyone was getting to know ceased to exist. On a practical level, Geese are still the group we were introduced to in 2021: vocalist Cameron Winter, guitarist Gus Green, guitarist Foster Hudson, bassist Dom DiGesu, and drummer Max Bassin. But spiritually, Geese have returned as an entirely different prospect. ‘3D Country’ is the sound of a restless, adventurous band redefining themselves. // ‘3D Country’ fuses recognizable sounds with warped meditations on daily life in a world sliding out of view, Geese repurposing fragments of classic rock into a sound that is stranger and wholly their own. Right out the gates, the album kicks off with serpentine grooves underneath the armageddon visions of “2122,” before quickly ceding to the title track’s gospel-flecked chorus.“Undoer” is a slowburn simmer constantly building to something apocalyptic; “Crusades” travels back to Medieval times but chugs along on a “Heroes”-esque groove before strings swoop in around it. Later, Green and Hudson’s guitars bend and fry while Hudson also jumps in on vocals for an inhuman wail on “Mysterious Love,” and the whole album ends with the sideways piano elegy of “St. Elmo,” playing out like a saloon song viewed through a funhouse mirror. // With a heightened ambition fueling ‘3D Country,’ the band created a bugged-out, wild, unpredictable ride — an almost phantasmagoric reflection of contemporary life. Drummer Max Bassin sums up, “It feels like going to the circus and instead of having a good time, everyone is trying to kill you.” // Geese will tour extensively behind ‘3D Country,’ including a headline run of UK and European dates which they have shared today. Full dates below and here. More info: http://www.geeseband.com]

4. (#88.) Approach – “Again” (CD #4) (2:34)
   from: Jump (Maxi Single) 4-song EP / Datura Records / May 25, 2023
   [Lawrence based hip-hop artist. Written, Produced, Recorded, Mixed & Mastered By: Approach/Aikido Bray @Prosidio Garden in Lawrence, KS. Design & Layout: DesignedByMilk. Cover Photo Taken By: Approach]

5. (#87.) Sunny War – “No Reason”
   from: Anarchist Gospel / New West / February 3, 2023
   [I feel like there are two sides of me,” says the Nashville-based singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso known as Sunny War. “One of them is very self-destructive, and the other is trying to work with that other half to keep things balanced.” That’s the central conflict on her fourth album, the eclectic and innovative Anarchist Gospel, which documents a time when it looked like the self-destructive side might win out. // Extreme emotions can make that battle all the more perilous, yet from such trials Sunny has crafted a set of songs that draw on a range of ideas and styles, as though she’s marshaling all her forces to get her ideas across: ecstatic gospel, dusty country blues, thoughtful folk, rip-roaring rock and roll, even avant garde studio experiments. She melds them together into a powerful statement of survival, revealing a probing songwriter who indulges no comforting platitudes and a highly innovative guitarist who deploys spidery riffs throughout every song. // Because it promises not healing but resilience and perseverance, because it doesn’t take shit for granted, Anarchist Gospel holds up under such intense emotional pressure, acknowledging the pain of living while searching for something that lies just beyond ourselves, some sense of balance between the bad and the good. Credits: Produced by Andrija Tokic. Engineered by Andrija Tokic at The Bomb Shelter (Nashville, TN). Assistant Engineer: John Tellmann. Mastered by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering (Los Angeles, CA).]

6. (#86.) The Electric Lungs – “Chances”
   from: WHERE I GO FOR WHERE I AM [EP] / Independent / October 17, 2023
   [The Electric Lungs are a KC based 4-piece band formed in 2012 by Tripp Kirby, Marc Bollinger, Eric Jones, and Jason Ulanet. The Electric Lungs released their EP THE ELECTRIC LUNGS on February 8, 2018. The Electric Lungs released their album, DON’T BE ASHAMED OF THE WAY THAT YOU WERE MADE on October 20, 2015, recorded mastered with Joel Nanos of Element Recording. The Electric Lungs released their breakthrough album, SIMPLIFIED AND CIVILIZED in 2013. The Electric Lungs joined us on WMM on April 8, 2015 and on October 18, 2023]

7. (#85.) Adam Larson Trio – “Cellular Snacks (feat. Obed Calvaire)”
   from: With Love, from New York / Adam Larson / April 7, 2023
   [Adam Larson (b. 1990) is an American saxophonist, composer, educator and author currently residing in the Kansas City-area. // Larson holds BM and MM degrees in jazz performance from The Manhattan School of Music and was a part of the vibrant NYC jazz scene for eleven years before relocating in 2019. While a resident of the KC-Metro, Larson has held positions at UMKC Conservatory, University of Kansas and The Kansas City Art Institute. Larson currently teaches Entrepreneurship at KCAI. // Larson continues to perform in NYC with some of the greatest musicians in the genre. // As a guest artist, Larson has been invited to present masterclasses on music business, improvisation and composition at more than one hundred universities across the globe. // Adam has recorded eight albums as a leader and maintains an active touring and clinician schedule, playing and presenting his original music and educational materials. http://www.adamlarsonjazz.com]

8. (#84.) Chris Hazelton – “Easy Talk”
   from: Easy Talk / Cellar Live – La Reserve Records LLC / August 11, 2023
   [Chris Hazelton – Hammond B-3 Organ, Brett Jackson – Baritone Saxophone, Jamie Anderson – Guitar, John Kizilarmut – Drums, Pat Conway – Congas (Tracks 1, 5, & 7). Executive Producer: Cory Weeds. Produced by Chris Hazelton. Recorded at Weights & Measures Soundlab (Kansas City, MO) on February 19th & 20th, 2022. Engineered and mixed by Duane Trower. Mastered by Adam Boose at Cauliflower Audio. Photography by Cory Weeds. // On his Bandcamp page Chris writes: “Dark (noun): a: a place or time of little or no light (ex: night, nightfall) b: absence of light. // I’ve always been somewhat of a night owl. I suppose it comes with the territory of being a jazz musician. We feel at home in dimly lit, hazy settings during the wee small hours of the morning. Something about nighttime has always been enchanting to me. There are endless possibilities, and one never knows what could happen before daybreak. // Towards the end of 2021, however, I found myself in a state of darkness that was truly unfamiliar to me. Like every other musician, the pandemic had brought my career to a grinding halt in the previous year. It seemed like losses were becoming a pattern and grief was becoming more than I could bear. At times, I even questioned whether I still WAS a musician. As the beginning of 2022 approached, I was faced with the reality that three of my greatest musical mentors had passed on, and I suddenly felt a new weight of responsibility for carrying on the tradition of the Hammond B-3 Organ in jazz. Consequently, I found a fresh sense of purpose and inspiration. // So with no real game plan in place, I booked a weekend in the studio and hired friends that I knew could deliver the feeling I was looking for. I have always had an affinity for the sound of a baritone sax in front of the organ trio. Going all the way back to George Benson’s first two albums with Ronnie Cuber and Lonnie Smith, as well as recent releases by my friends Adam Scone and Ian Hendrickson-Smith, the format has a certain grit and heaviness not found in other configurations within the jazz realm. // After dark, there is magic and mystique waiting… and maybe even some true darkness… but AFTER dark, there is always light! // from http://www.chrishazelton.com: Some things in life are just meant to be. The first time Chris Hazelton experienced a real Hammond B-3 organ, he knew instantly that it was the instrument he was destined to play. At the request of his college professor, the then-underage aspiring musician snuck into a dark Kansas City jazz club called Bobby’s Hangout to hear the man behind the console, jazz organ master Everette DeVan. After several weeks of coaxing, Mr. DeVan agreed to take Chris on a student, showing him the ins and outs of the complex machine. With a background in string bass and piano, Chris’ transfer to organ was a natural one. // From 2007 to 2009, Chris called the Big Apple home. New York City provided an education that can only be found by living there. The rhythm of the city and the constant presence of jazz royalty helped sharpen his playing into a potent combination of groove and artistry. During his time there, Chris regularly performed at legendary Harlem jazz clubs such as Minton’s Playhouse, the Lenox Lounge, and Showman’s Jazz Lounge. In 2009, Chris had the honor of studying with the world’s foremost authority in the jazz organ world, Dr. Lonnie Smith! // Upon returning to his native Kansas City, Chris has made a name for himself as one of the premier jazz organists in the midwest and recently made an appearance with the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. // His flagship ensemble, Chris Hazelton’s Boogaloo 7, was assembled in 2013 and held a impressive seven-year Friday night residency at Kansas City’s Green Lady Lounge. This seven piece unit focuses on funky, rhythmic soul-jazz that harkens back to the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, a time when Lou Donaldson, Jimmy McGriff, Charles Earland, Grant Green, Lonnie Smith, and a host of others packed dance floors and venues along the “Chitlin Circuit”. The Boogaloo 7 has released two 45rpm 7-inch vinyl singles and two full-length LPs on Sunflower Soul Records, a label established by Hazelton in 2014 that produces soulful recordings with unashamedly old-school, analog vibe. // For nearly 10 years, Chris served as the organist at “The Historic” Centennial United Methodist Church in the 18th & Vine Jazz District of Kansas City, MO – a church that was once home to Count Basie and Charlie Parker. He plays bass guitar with the popular soul ensemble The Freedom Affair. He is happily married to the love of his life, Erica, and together have a daughter named Evelyn and a son named Jaxon..]

[The Freedom Affair play recordBar 1520 Grand Blvd. KCMO, Sun, Dec. 31 NYE Show at 8:00 PM.]

10:29 – Underwriting

9. (#83) Everything But The Girl – “Nothing Left To Lose”
   from: Fuse / Buzzin’ Fly – Virgin / April 21, 2023
   [Everything But The Girl have revealed their new track “Caution To The Wind” and its accompanying lyric video. The track is taken from the band’s upcoming album Fuse out April 21st. The song is the follow up to current single “Nothing Left To Lose” which has seen fantastic support across radio and press, with BrooklynVegan calling it “one of the year’s most welcome surprises,” radio and editorial playlists. The track has topped one million streams on Spotify, and the video has been viewed over 1 million times on YouTube. // Written and produced by Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn over the spring-summer of 2021, Everything But The Girl’s new album Fuse is a modern take on the lustrous electronic soul the band first pioneered in the mid-90s. Thorn’s affecting and richly-textured voice is once again up front in Watt’s glimmering landscape of sub-bass, sharp beats, half-lit synths and empty space, and as before, the result is the sound of a band comfortable with being both sonically contemporary, yet agelessly themselves. // The pair recorded in secret at home and in a small riverside studio outside Bath with friend and engineer Bruno Ellingham. For the first two months, the artist name on the album files was simply TREN (Tracey and Ben), and early takes focused on ambient sound montages and improvised spectral piano loops recorded by Ben on his iPhone at home during his enforced pandemic isolation – ideas which later blossomed into atmospheric tracks such as “When You Mess Up” and “Interior Space.” // Everything But The Girl broke through on the UK indie scene in 1982 with a stark jazz-folk cover of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” They then released a string of UK gold albums throughout the 80s, experimenting with jazz, guitar pop, orchestral wall-of-sound and drum-machine soul. After Watt’s near-death experience from a rare auto-immune condition in 1992, the pair returned unbowed with the million-selling ardent folktronica of Amplified Heart in 1994. It includes their biggest hit, “Missing,” after New York DJ-producer Todd Terry’s remix unexpectedly made the leap from heavy club play to global radio success (Number 2 US Hot 100; Number 3 UK Top 40). The sparkling Walking Wounded – emotional songs brimming with ideas from the mid 90s electronic scene – followed in 1996 (Number 4 UK Album Chart). Spawning four UK Top 40 hits, the record became the band’s first platinum selling album. After their final show at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2000, the pair chose to quit Everything But The Girl on a high. // Everything but the Girl is an English musical duo formed in Kingston upon Hull in 1982, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, producer and singer Ben Watt. The group’s early works have been categorized as sophisti-pop with jazz influences before undergoing an electronic turn following the worldwide success of the 1994 hit single “Missing”. // The duo have accomplished four top ten and twelve top 40 singles in the UK and have received eight gold and two platinum album BPI certifications in the UK as well as one gold album RIAA certification in the US. Their cover of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” reached number three on the UK Singles Chart in 1988, a feat which would later be matched by “Missing”, which charted high in several countries and reached number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1995 and spent over seven months on the UK Singles Chart thanks to an extremely popular remix by Todd Terry which later led to a Brit Award nomination for Best British Single. // Their ninth album Walking Wounded (1996) set a new career best by entering the UK albums chart at number four; it spawned the top ten singles “Walking Wounded” and “Wrong”. The band went inactive in 2000, with Thorn declaring that she would no longer perform live. Thorn and Watt, who did not publicise their romantic relationship with each other while active, married in 2009, both released solo albums and said it was unlikely that Everything But the Girl would be active again. // However, in November 2022, Thorn announced that a new album had been recorded for release in spring 2023. Fuse, the band’s first new material in 24 years, will be released on 21 April 2023. // When Thorn and Watt met, they were both attending the University of Hull and both had contracted with the independent record company Cherry Red Records, as solo artists. Thorn was also a member of the trio Marine Girls. The pair each had solo album releases through Cherry Red: Thorn’s 1982 LP was A Distant Shore, an eight-track mini-album. Watt’s 1983 debut LP – the follow-up to his 1982 5-track EP Summer Into Winter featuring Robert Wyatt – was entitled North Marine Drive. // 1985 view of Turners, with the slogan Everything but the Girl. They formed a duo and adopted the name “Everything but the Girl” from the slogan used by the Hull shop Turner’s Furniture on Beverley Road. // EBTG’s debut single, a cover version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day”, was released in June 1982. After steady sales and exposure from a compilation album entitled Pillows & Prayers, the single was re-issued in August 1983. // Their debut album, Eden, was released in the UK in 1984. It reached number 14 on the UK Albums Chart, spending twenty weeks on the chart. It featured the single “Each and Every One”, which reached number 28 on the UK top 40. Thorn wrote in 2016 that her lyric was misunderstood: “Our first single, ‘Each and Every One’, was intended as an angry lyric about being a female musician, patronised and overlooked by male music critics. My band the Marine Girls had attracted several reviews along the lines of ‘not bad for a girl’ and so the opening lines addressed this: ‘If you ever feel the time/To drop me a loving line/Maybe you should just think twice/I don’t wait around on your advice’. It was the instructions of music critics I wasn’t waiting around for, but I wrote it too subtly, and so it was heard as a lovelorn lament, a lonely girl waiting for a letter from a boy.” // In spite of their early history as established independent artists, to newcomers Everything but the Girl was considered part of the jazz/popular music style known as “sophisti-pop”, alongside other British acts like Carmel, Swing Out Sister, Sade, Matt Bianco and The Style Council. Both Watt and Thorn were guest musicians on the Style Council’s Café Bleu album, while EBTG worked with producer Robin Millar and engineers Ben Rogan and Mike Pela—who also collaborated with Sade—on their early albums. Although Eden was released in the UK, a different recording, Everything but the Girl, was released in the United States on the Sire label. The US release contains six tracks from Eden, two UK singles and four alternate tracks. // The 1985 album Love Not Money was their second studio album release, and signalled a move away from jazz and Latin influences to a more traditional electric guitar, bass and drums arrangements. The US edition included two additional songs that were not on the original UK release: a cover version of the Pretenders’ song “Kid” and “Heaven Help Me”. // The next year they released Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, recorded with an orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.[1] They revealed the album’s inspiration by their choices of B-sides for its single releases: songs from Bacharach and Jimmy Webb on the 12″ versions (as well as a cover version of Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces”). The first single from the album was “Come on Home”, followed by “Don’t Leave Me Behind”. // In 1988, EBTG released Idlewild. Blending acoustic instrumentation with sequenced drums and synthesisers, it reached number 13 on the UK Albums Chart, spending fifteen weeks on the chart.[8] A cover version of Danny Whitten’s “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”, previously a success for Rod Stewart, was released as a single shortly afterwards. It reached number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and was added to the latter issues of the album. Around this time, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions asked Thorn to contribute vocals to the song “Big Snake” on their final studio album Mainstream. // Tommy Lipuma produced the band’s 1990 album The Language of Life, which featured the single “Driving”. “Driving” received heavy rotation on American adult alternative radio. The album featured a host of leading west coast session musicians including Omar Hakim, Joe Sample and Michael Brecker. Stan Getz contributed a tenor sax solo on the song “The Road”. // In 1991, they released the self-produced album Worldwide. It charted at number 29 on the UK Albums Chart. // 1992 saw the release of the acoustic Covers EP. It reached number 13 on the UK top 40. The lead track was “Love Is Strange”. It also included cover versions of Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest”; Cyndi Lauper’s “Time after Time” and Elvis Costello’s “Alison”. These four tracks were included on the US only album, Acoustic. // In the summer of 1992, the duo was forced to curtail recording and touring for several months when Watt developed Churg–Strauss syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease. Hospitalised for 10 weeks, and enduring several life-saving operations, he subsequently wrote a memoir, Patient, about his near-death ordeal. // In 1993, EBTG released two EPs in the UK. One featured a cover version of Paul Simon’s “The Only Living Boy in New York”. The other spawned a subsequent top ten UK hit, “I Didn’t Know I Was Looking for Love”, for Karen Ramirez. // 1994 saw EBTG release their seventh album, Amplified Heart, a hybrid of folk rock and electronica featuring contributions from guitarist Richard Thompson, double bassist Danny Thompson, drummer Dave Mattacks, and producer/programmer John Coxon. Producer Todd Terry remixed the track “Missing”, and when released as a single, it became an international success. It reached the top ten around the world, including the US, where it peaked at No. 2 in the Billboard Hot 100. // While recording Amplified Heart Thorn and Watt wrote lyrics and music for two tracks – “Protection” and “Better Things” on Massive Attack’s second album Protection. Thorn sang lead vocals on both. The single “Protection” reached number 14 on the UK top 40. The album reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart. // Buoyed by the recent successes and out of contract at WEA, EBTG released the self-produced Walking Wounded in 1996 exclusively licensed to Atlantic Records for the United States and Canada and Virgin Records for the Rest of the World. Featuring collaborations with Spring Heel Jack and Howie B it ushered in a new electronic sound for their own work. It charted at number 4 on the UK Albums Chart and spawned two top ten UK singles – “Walking Wounded” and “Wrong”. Two further singles – “Single” and “Before Today” – reached number 20 and number 25 respectively. // In 1999, the duo followed it up with their ninth and final studio album, Temperamental. It charted at number 16 on the UK Albums Chart. // “Self-awareness is a dangerous thing: by about the third or fourth record, people were throwing comparisons at us and you have to be very tough to withstand it. And by the end of the ’90s, we were playing to 5,000 people a night. I’d stand on stage, looking out, thinking, “I don’t want to be this big.” —Ben Watt in 2012, recalled a lacklustre feeling from the late 1990s, during the latter years of EBTG. // Between 2000 and 2022, there were no new recordings from Everything but the Girl. In 2002, 2004 and 2005, the duo curated compilations of their material. The 2004 compilation, Like the Deserts Miss the Rain, was a DVD release that included footage of a 1999 performance at the Forum venue in London, UK, for which John McKenzie and long-time collaborator Martin Ditcham performed alongside the pair as session musicians. // From 1999, Watt concentrated on DJ and production/remix work, finding success as one half of Lazy Dog, with partner Jay Hannan, and collaborating with Beth Orton on her 1999 album Central Reservation and her 2002 album Daybreaker. Watt then proceeded with a new angle on his solo career that included launching the Buzzin’ Fly record label in 2003, and becoming the part-owner-founder of the Neighbourhood and Cherry Jam nightclubs from 2002–2005. Watt released a string of club-oriented productions including the Bright Star EP, with producer Stimming and British singer Julia Biel, on Buzzin’ Fly in 2010. // In 2005, Thorn co-wrote and recorded vocals for the song “Damage”, a collaboration with German band Tiefschwarz that appeared on their Eat Books album. Thorn’s second solo album, Out of the Woods, was then released in 2007, followed by her third solo album, Love and Its Opposite, in 2010. In October 2011, Thorn released a cover version of The xx’s “Night Time”, on which Watt played guitar and sang backing vocals. This was their first recording together in over a decade, although it was not an Everything but the Girl release. // In an April 2011 interview, Thorn was asked whether she would ever work again with Watt as Everything but the Girl. Thorn responded, “Yes, we do keep saying we are nearly ready to maybe do some work together again. There are certain obstacles, some practical, some psychological, that we would need to overcome. But it may well happen.” A collection of Christmas songs, Tinsel and Lights, for which Thorn recorded cover versions of Christmas songs with two new original songs, was released in October 2012 on Buzzin’ Fly’s sister record label Strange Feeling. Watt and the couple’s children provided backing vocals on the original song “Joy”. // In 2012, the band’s first four albums were reissued by Edsel Records as “deluxe” double CDs, with demo recordings and other additional material. At the time, Watt explained that Warner Music Group still maintained control over their back catalogue: “our big fear was that one day we’d wake up and they’d have reissued them, without telling us.”; when the representative from Edsel, a company that specialises in reissued material, made contact, the couple decided that the time was appropriate. Additionally, Thorn stated that the thought of reforming the band and playing live filled her “with cold dread”—upon re-listening to the early EBTG records, Thorn experienced a sense of “Gosh, well, I’m not really that person any more.” // A second tranche of Demon/Edsel reissues, covering the four albums released between 1990 and 1994, was announced in September 2013. According to the EBTG website, “Once again, Ben and Tracey have helped at every stage of the process, sourcing demos, rarities and memorabilia for the releases.” // The band’s final two albums, Walking Wounded and Temperamental were given the deluxe treatment and were reissued by Demon/Edsel on September 4, 2015. // Watt hit the pause button on his record labels and DJ activities to return to his folk-jazz singer-songwriter roots in 2014. His first solo album since 1983, Hendra was released on April 14, 2014. It featured collaborations with Bernard Butler, formerly of the band Suede, Berlin-based producer Ewan Pearson and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. The album won the ‘Best ‘Difficult’ Second Album’ category at the AIM Independent Music Awards 2014. It was included at No 27 in Uncut’s Top 75 Albums of 2014. He followed it up in 2016 with Fever Dream. It continued his relationship with Bernard Butler, and added guest cameos from MC Taylor of North Carolina folk-rock band, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Boston singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler. It received a 9/10 review in Uncut magazine. In a four-star review, The Guardian said: ‘In his early 50s, he is making some of the best music of his career.’ // In addition to solo music projects, both Thorn and Watt have written books. Thorn’s 2013 memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen, covers a significant portion of the history of EBTG as a band. // In July 2017, Everything but the Girl reclaimed the rights to eight of their albums, plus the American rights to Temperamental and Walking Wounded from Warner Music Group; this catalogue will now be distributed through Chrysalis Records under licence from Watt’s Strange Feeling label. // On November 2, 2022, Thorn announced on Twitter that a new Everything but the Girl album had been recorded and would be released in spring 2023. // The first single from their forthcoming album Fuse, “Nothing Left to Lose” premiered on BBC Radio 6 Music on January 10, 2023. Fuse will be released April 21, 2023 and will feature “Nothing Left to Lose” and nine more original songs both electronic and acoustic.]

10. (#82.) Bodikhuu – “Guest Performance”
    from: Tokyo / Farsi Records – Mississippi Records / March 24, 2023
    [Mongolian producer BODIKHUU returns with a sonic journey through Japan in the form of 13 instrumental hip- hop vignettes. // “I wanted to portray the 80s Japanese atmosphere through my style,” Bodikhuu writes from his home in Ulaanbaatar, the coldest capital city on earth. “Even though I have never been there, this is my way of saying that I have seen the place.” // Unable to travel to Japan, Bodikhuu instead conjures an imagined city through sound. “Tokyo” evokes the neon, sweat, traffic, exhaust, gloaming towers and “monotonous lonely lives” of the sprawling megalopolis through its music. The album is a rich collage of cast-off sounds and razor sharp interpolations of city pop, obscure Japanese jazz, and 80s J-pop, all expertly chopped up on one of the few MPC-1000s in Ulaanbaatar. Faded voices over thundering drums give tracks like “Office Melancholia” and“Subway” a sense of place and emotional weight uncommon in beat tapes. // “Tokyo” builds on the international success of 2019’s “Rio/Bodianova” (the first Mongolian hip-hop record on vinyl), which found Bodi traveling through Rio on a lush bed of 1970s bossa nova and tropicalia. On this album, we’re jet-propelled into the 80s – all smooth surfaces, shimmering synths, and twinkling lights. // Collaged cut-up artwork by Digital Sting (Feel- Free Hi-Fi), warm analog master from Dave Vettraino (International Anthem) and loud-cut 160gm vinyl from Smashed Plastic in Chicago complement Bodikhuu’s considered beats. // A note from Bodikhuu: “The album’s idea came from my friend Jargalan aka Jack. I wanted to portray the 80s Japanese atmosphere through my style. Basically it represents the tremendously busy lifestyle of Tokyo – subway stations, roads, towers, factories monotonous and lonely lives of people in it. Even though I have never been there, this is my way of saying that I have seen the place. All of the samples come from city pop, j-pop, Japanese jazz & funk music and the production was done on an MPC-1000.]

11. (#81.) Yaeji — “For Granted”
    from: With A Hammer / XL Recordings / April 7, 2023
    [Kathy Yaeji Lee is known professionally as Yaeji, is an American singer, DJ, and producer based in Brooklyn, New York City. Her style blends elements of house music and hip hop with mellow, quiet vocals sung in both English and Korean. // She was born August 6, 1993, in Flushing, Queens, as a single child in a Korean family. She moved from New York to Atlanta when she was 5, and then to South Korea in the third grade. While living in South Korea, Yaeji switched between different international schools on a yearly basis, leading her to find friends on the Internet, where she would first discover music. She also briefly attended school in Japan before moving back to Korea. // Yaeji eventually moved back to the United States to study conceptual art, East Asian studies, and graphic design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She embraced DJing as a hobby while attending Carnegie Mellon, crediting the afterhours electronic music dance party Hot Mass with her “indoctrination into nightlife.” Yaeji learned how to use Traktor and began DJing at house parties. She DJed for two years before learning Ableton, making her own music and debuting on Carnegie Mellon’s college radio station WRCT. Yaeji graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2015. // After graduation, Yaeji moved back to New York City to get involved in the music scene and to DJ. Her first single, “New York ’93”, referring to her year of birth, was issued on the New York City label Godmode on February 29, 2016, followed by a cover of “Guap” by Australian DJ Mall Grab that May. She had previously uploaded songs to SoundCloud, although they were removed; this included “Areyouami”, which was released when she was at college. // Her debut eponymous EP, including both prior singles, was released by Godmode on March 31, 2017. // She began to gain attention following her first Boiler Room session in May 2017, which involved a remix of Drake’s single “Passionfruit”. The song was later released officially on Godmode’s SoundCloud page. The first of several stand-alone singles, “Therapy” was issued in July 2017, followed by a two-track digital single, Remixes, Vol. 1, on August 1 and the “Last Breath” single on August 28. The music video for the single “Drink I’m Sippin On” was released on 88rising’s YouTube channel in October 2017, quickly gaining over one million views in two weeks. On November 3, 2017, Yaeji released her second EP, EP2, to positive reviews and moderate commercial success. The video for “Raingurl” was released on November 16. // Yaeji was named to the BBC’s Sound of 2018 longlist in November 2017. She also performed at the 2018 Coachella Festival. // In 2021, “Raingurl” made it into New York Times’s T magazine Spotify playlist, “Right Here: Asian Women Artists in the West.” She also performed at BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! music festival, where she was rushed by fans. // A year after her release of “What We Drew”, and a year into the global COVID-19 pandemic, Yaeji released her first collaborative work with Korean Indie band front man Oh Hyuk of Hyukoh. The release consisted two tracks: “Year to Year” and “29”. Despite being artists of different genres, both artists were able to rediscover the joy that they feel when creating music because of the collaboration. Her debut album, With a Hammer, was released in April 2023. The lead single, “For Granted”, was released in January 2023. “Done (Let’s Get It)” followed in February 2023. Yaeji performed at Coachella 2023.]

12. (#80.) Levelle – “Only If”
    from: Promise To Love / SRC Records / June 9, 2023
    [LeVelle, also referred to as “LB,” is an R&B/ Neo-Soul artist and songwriter from Kansas City. LeVelle’s drive and dedication for his music career is personified through his ecstatic personality. This coupled with his soulful voice gives way to the talented artist that is LeVelle. // The inspiration for his musical career stems from his early exposure to different forms of music. Drawing influence from artists like Sam Cooke, Al Green, and Gerald LeVert, he has an assorted range of musical role models. These influences alongside his life experiences have allowed for the development of his unique musical style. // LeVelle was blessed with the opportunity to be Charlie Wilson’s background singer, and has graced the stage with other award-winning and talented artists such as Anthony Hamilton, Tank, and Robin Thicke, to name a few. //Promise To Love, is not just the name of his new project, but its his way of life concerning his music career.]

13. (#79.) Youth Lagoon – “Prizefighter” (radio edit)
    from: Heaven is a Junkyard / Fat Possum Records / June 9, 2023
    [Youth Lagoon is amidst “a striking reclamation of artistic identity” (Pitchfork). The cherished project of Trevor Powers released “Prizefighter,” the new single/video from his album (and Youth Lagoon’s first in eight years), Heaven Is a Junkyard, on Fat Possum, with a massive tour of North America, his first in 8 years, and will be playing songs from his entire catalog. Following lead single, “Idaho Alien,” “one of Powers’ best feats of songwriting to date”(Paste), “Prizefighter” explores the bond between two brothers, leaving undefined what is fact and what is fiction. // Powers explains:”4 years ago, I started writing a song about brothers. I grew up with 3 of them, so our house was doomsday but with more sugar cereal. Our love was strong and so was our barbarity. It was real joy — the kind you didn’t have to look for cuz it smacked you in the face or pushed you off the bed into a file cabinet. Beyond that, we were homeschooled. 4 fuckin’ weirdos home all day who adored each other and hated each other and played baseball everyday in the backyard and threw rocks at each other’s heads and laughed ’till we threw up. Our bond is forever. That song I started those years ago meant too much to me to finish. I was scared of it. Scared of not making it great… so I tabled it. // A couple weeks before leaving to make the record, I went through some old voice memos while watching a VHS of Drugstore Cowboy. I listened to that 30-second sketch called “Prizefighter.” It was like an angel fell from the sky to tell me how to finish it. “Don’t make it great,” she said. “Make it true.” I finished the song in 2 days.” // Throughout Heaven Is A Junkyard, Powers stitches together a lyrical style that feels both punk and western. With whispers of country, Heaven Is a Junkyard is mutant Americana in a world of love, drugs, storytelling, and miracles — held together by Powers’ voice and an upright piano. In Powers’ own words, “Heaven Is a Junkyard is about all of us. It’s stories of brothers leaving for war, drunk fathers learning to hug, mothers falling in love, neighbors stealing mail, cowboys doing drugs, friends skipping school, me crying in the bathtub, dogs catching rabbits, and children playing in tall grass.” ]

14. (#78.) Shawn M Stewart – “Come To My Room”
    from: Easter Eggs / Shawn M Stewart / June 10, 2023
    [Singer songwriter Shawn M Stewart is a constant collaborator as part of the indie punk band Critterz and in the single release “Rocket in My Pocket” with Stephonne. Shawn Stewart has had 10 songs inducted into the TV/Film Sync Publishing catalogs. In 2021 he release his album POP containing songs in multiple genres for multiple programming choices. Several singles made the year end lists of favorites of 90.9 The Bridge listeners. But for 2023, Shawn worked on a project very personal to his own interests. He got into a songwriting mode by attempting to tap into the spiritual energy of the late rock and roller Syd Barrett. Shawn worked to receive Sid Barrett’s energy, and he was really happy with the new songs he created. Shawn writes: “What I don’t have is a single song that any major publisher is going to want to publish. That’s okay-they’ve already scooped up two Critterz tunes, But what I do have is the best work of art I’ve ever created.” // Shawn continues, “EASTER EGGS is a reimagining of what Syd might have written if he’d written it 56 years later than his brief catalog. It’s 100% modern, incorporating the very newest of software and effects. There are lots of titular easter eggs- sound effects, voices, AI imitating voices, all lurking just slightly below the surface. Oh, and the songs will jump tracks between consciousness, meta-conscious states, other eras, video games and the matrix, without warning.” Shawn continues, the “EASTER EGGS (album) is the first I’ve ever attempted to self-produce and mix.” More information at: ww.shawnmstewart.com ]

15. (#77.) Collidescope – “Dodo Bird”
    from: FunHouse / Collidescope / October 13, 2022
    [“The Blackness” is from the upcoming album “Clown Town” that Collidescope hopes to release in early 2023. Collidescope is essentially a duo that includes: Hadiza. on vocals, beats, & synthesizers; and Madison Monroe on guitar, bass, beats, synthesizers, mixing & vocals. On December 31, 2020 Collidescope released their 7-track album DEEP TAPE. DEEP TAPE includes Victoria Falls Stillwater on addition sound production and vocals, and was mixed and mastered by J.Ashley Miller. DEEP TAPE is a follow up the band’s debut EP SYSTEMIC released December 16, 2017. Hadiza also released her solo album SHADOW WEIGHT on Nov. 22, 2019. More info at: http://www.hadizaisnothere.bandcamp.com or http://www.acollidescope.bandcamp.com ]

16. (#76.) Jungle – “Back On 74 (Radio Edit)”
    from: Volcano / AWAL Recordings / August 11, 2023
    [Jungle are back in 2023 with their new album Volcano. This record builds upon the success of the 2021 album Loving in Stereo, which was met with critical and commercial success, becoming one of the most acclaimed albums of the year. With Volcano, Jungle has once again proven themselves to be one of the most exciting and innovative artists in electronic music. With the infusion of disco, soul and hip-hop elements, Jungle continues to push the boundaries of their sound, creating an uplifting and free-spirited album which is sure to be one of the highlights of the year, solidifying the duo’s status as one of the most important voices in contemporary music. // Jungle’s journey began in Tom McFarland’s bedroom in London, where he and childhood friend Joshua Lloyd-Watson began experimenting with music production. With a passion for creating soulful, funky beats and an affinity for live instrumentation, the duo quickly developed a unique sound that would set them apart from their contemporaries. Jungle’s music quickly gained traction, and they soon found themselves performing at some of the most prestigious music festivals and venues around the world. // The Mercury Prize-nominated, Gold-certified debut and 2018’s follow-up For Ever both entered the UK Top 10. Loving in Stereo then amplified Jungle’s success further, reaching number 3 in the UK charts, whilst rocketing to #1 in the US Billboard Dance Album Chart. These three records have since amassed over 1,000,000 equivalent album sales and gained over a billion streams. From the confines of Tom’s bedroom, Jungle is about to embark on its next journey with the release of Volcano, a testament to the power of passion, creativity, and hard work. // With Volcano, Jungle are expanding their sound even further, with more innovative and forward thinking production. From intricate and complex beats to soaring synths and soulful melodies, this record is testament to Jungle’s skill as producers and their ability to create music that is both timeless and modern. Collaboration is a key feature of this album, with legendary artists such as Roots Manuva, Erick the Architect, Channel Tres and Bas all appearing across the record.]

10:59 – Station ID

17. (#75.) Shamir – “The Beginning”
    from: Homo Anxietatem / Kill Rock Stars / August 18, 2023
    [Shapeshifting Philadelphia-via-Vegas artist Shamir shares a sentimental third and final single & video “The Beginning”from Homo Anxietatem the 9th album & debut for Kill Rock Stars out August 18, 2023. “The Beginning” dives into the missteps of a relationship gone by, while feeling emotionally trapped as time barrels forward. Opening with a jolting record scratch, then seamlessly flowing into a driving guitar strum, the building chorus evokes a nostalgia akin to the soundtrack of a coming-of-age film. With playful lyrical snacks like “I wish I could turn back time, just like Cher” to the painful reality check “we’re so caught up on having a happy ending…we forgot the beginning” – you can’t help but dance & cry along to Shamir’s ever poignant songwriting. The new track follows healing first single “Oversized Sweater”, bittersweet “Our Song”, and surprise release “Crime” featured in HBO’s Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York. // Shamir (he/she/they) directed the hometown video filmed in Bartram’s Garden with musician friends, including members of the band Friendship and Accidental Popstar Records’ own Ladifa, saying “’The Beginning’ is a song I wrote when I was 14 years old and had never experienced love, yet I was already inundated by all the typical tropes. Even back then I realized a happy ending was contingent on a healthy beginning. The video represents the healing power of being around friends after a break up.” // Homo Anxietatem releases August 18, 2023 . For the 9th Shamir album in eight years, and his debut for the legendary Kill Rock Stars label, the shapeshifting songsmith tries on yet another shade of perfect popcraft. After a run of critically acclaimed heavy rock and industrial-tinged records, Shamir forms his literally unforgettable tunes into alternately subdued and soaring alt-pop. For a 28 year-old, Shamir’s amassed a huge body of work. His live show and recorded output are more closely aligned than ever, holding close to guitar-bass-drums combos. The songs are elemental, yet flawless in their own Shamir-ness. And with the studio polish provided by Hoost (Rina Sawayama, VC Pines), the barebones songwriting becomes the foundation for Shamir in a more introspective mode. This is what happens when one of the most prolific songwriters of a generation calms down a bit: the search for meaning becomes mundane. What happens when someone who lives a chronically unstable life finds solid ground? Well, out comes a perfect pop-punk-rock record. // All songs Written by Shamir Bailey with the exception of “Appetizer” written by Grant Pavol. // All songs Produced by Justin Tailor with the exception of “Appetizer” Produced by Grant Pavol and Justin Tailor and “Words” produced by Teddy Thompson. // All guitar, bass, and live instrument performed by Shamir Bailey and Justin Tailor with the exception of “Appetizer” guitar, bass, and drums performed by Grant Pavol and “Words” bass by Teddy Thompson. // All songs Mixed by Charlie McClean // Mastered by Amy Dragon.]

18. (#74.) PJ Harvey – “Seem an I (Radio Edit)”
    from: I Inside the Old Year Dying / Partisan Records / July 7, 2023
    [The story behind PJ Harvey’s tenth album – I Inside the Old Year Dying – goes back six years to the end of touring around her previous record The Hope Six Demolition Project, and Harvey’s keen feeling that somewhere in the endless grueling cycle of albums and shows, she had lost her connection with music itself. “I was quite lost,” she says. “I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to do: if I wanted to carry on writing albums and playing, or if it was time for a change in my life.” // Eventually (thankfully), she once again began to feel pulled in the direction of new songs, music, and sounds. The resulting body of work is audacious and original even by the standards of an artist who has always ensured that each phase of her progress has taken her somewhere new. Full of a sense of a cyclical return to new beginnings, it combines its creative daring with feelings of openness and invitation, in the most fascinating way. Collectively, the songs emerge as one of the most powerful and arresting statements of Harvey’s career. // Anchored by her nearly thirty-year creative partnership with her most trusted, long-term musical associates John Parish and Flood, Harvey set out with an explicit mission: to avoid anything reminiscent of their musical past. She draws on the creative freedom she had felt in past musical work on soundtracks, and in the theater. Her perspective shifts away from the big themes of previous albums Let England Shake and Hope Six (“looking out, at war, politics, the world”), towards something more intimate, eerie, and human. “I instinctively needed a change of scale,” she says. “There was a real yearning in me to change it back to something really small – so it comes down to one person, one wood, a village.” Meanwhile, her voice has become, if anything, a more intensely pure instrument over the years. // With I Inside the Old Year Dying, Harvey builds a sonic universe somehow located in a space between life’s opposites, something embodied by Wyman-Elvis, a Christ-like presence in some of the songs who symbolizes the thin line between life and death – and, for that matter, between recent history and the ancient past. Scattered with biblical imagery and references to Shakespeare, all these distinctions ultimately dissolve into something profoundly uplifting and redemptive. “I’m somewhere where I’ve not been before,” Harvey says. “What’s above, what’s below, what’s old, what’s new, what’s night, what’s day? It’s all the same, really – and you can enter it and get lost. And that’s what I wanted to do with the record, with the songs, with the sound, with everything.” // PJ Harvey has commanded attention since the start of her career and is the only musician to have been awarded the UK’s Mercury Music Prize more than once, winning first in 2001 for Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea and again in 2011 for Let England Shake. An accomplished poet and visual artist, as well as a musician and songwriter, her work is striking in its originality: vivid, absorbing and distinct. Since the release of The Hope Six Demolition Project, which went to #1 album in her native UK, she has contributed compositions for stage and screen; most recently for Sharon Horgan’s acclaimed Bad Sisters mini-series.]

19. (#73.) Gemini Parks -“Hell”
    from: Mom, Why is everyones a Hoe? / Love You Tons Records / Sept. 29. 2023
    [Gemini Parks is the Genre-Bending Funk Project of Kansas City Musician Josh Berwanger. Josh Berwanger is known for the bands: the Anniversary, and The Only Children. Gemini Parks is on a mission to make you dance. On March 39m 29023 Gemini Parks released the single “Snake Charmer (featuring J. Arrr & Backwood Sweetie) recorded with Oklahoma producer Jarod Evans (Broncho, Flaming Lips) in 2021 at Blackwatch Studios, Berwanger later added Mitch Hewlit on drums and J-Swamp on bass.. Gemini Parks released the debut single “Up All Night” on August 4, 2022, followed by “Price You Pay in September 2022, and “Hypocrisy” on June 28, 2023.]

20. (#72.) Lonnie Fisher – “If I Could Live Forever”
    from: BEAUTIFUL STAR / Lonnie Fisher / February 9, 2022
    [Last year, Lonnie Fisher’s 8-song, solo album FAMOUS GIRL was part of WMM’s 120 Best Recordings of 2022. FAMOUS GIRL was released January 19, 2022 and was engineered by Ed Rose and Duane Trower with contributions from: Chris Nunez. Tim Jenkins, Tim Manning, and Julia Reynolds. On October 22, 2021 with his band, Lonnie Fisher And The Funeral released, HAUNTED with Lonnie Fisher on lead vocals, 5 String Guitar & Keyboards; Tim Jenkins on guitars; Chris Nunez on drums, Tim Manning on bass, & Julia Reynolds on vocals & keyboards.Lonnie Fischer played a solo album release show for his new album BEAUTIFUL STAR at The Brick, 1727 McGeee Street, KCMO, on Friday, December 23, at 8:00 PM with The Criterz and Killer City. More information at: http://www.lonniefisher.bandcamp.com.]

21. (#71.) Modern Day Fitzgerald – “City Burning”
    from: MEET ME ON ARMOUR ROAD / Modern Day Fitzgerald / September 13, 2023
    [This is a concept/rock opera that takes place on Armour Road in North Kansas City, Missouri. This is a love and hate letter to the music scene. From playing a late night show in a small run down club to waking up early to go to back to work. The album deals with the excitement of being in the music scene, falling in and out of love, the stress of wanting to be recognized and heard, and the burnout. The majority of the album was recorded in a studio inside a music venue on Armour Road with producer Alex Garnett. Modern Day Fitzgerald is: Mica-Elgin Vi on guitar & lead vocals, Noah Bartelt on bass & vocals, Sean East on drums. The band wrote all of the songs. More information at: http://www.Moderndayfitzgerald.net]

22. (#70.) The Noise FM – “Distant Lover”
from: Deleted Scenes: Unreleased Hits 2013 – 2023 / The Record Machine / November 3, 2023
[Formed by the core duo of brothers Austin and Alex Ward in the small town of Fort Scott, Kansas, The Noise FM plays melodic, beat-driven indie-rock. Sometimes the band’s songs get really loud, emphasizing bombastic drums, fuzzed-out synthesizers, and intricate guitar riffs — a sound inspired by the brothers’ love of the 90s alternative bands they grew up watching on Canada’s MuchMusic channel (inexplicably, Fort Scott aired MuchMusic instead of MTV, likely making it the only rural Kansas town with a teenage population fluent in Canadian alternative rock). At other times, The Noise FM’s music focuses on tight, danceable grooves and harmonized vocal melodies. / Following multiple years touring behind the release of 2014’s full-length record Attraction (The Record Machine), the band temporarily shifted its focus to outside projects with Alex & Austin moonlighting as members of successful Chicago garage-pop group Archie Powell & The Exports and internationally touring rock group Hembree. / After living nearly 9 years in Chicago, the brothers recently relocated to Los Angeles to pay significantly more in rent while completing The Noise FM’s long-awaited follow-up to Attraction. // Austin and Alex Ward also play in the band Hembree // Austin and Alex Ward also play in the band Scores with CJ Calhoun, and Greg Panciera. Scores just released the 5-track EP Vol. 2 through Oread Records on October 6, 2023] [The Noise FM played 20 Years of The Record Machine featuring Soultru, Black Light Animals, Monta and Pala Zolo, on Saturday, November 11, 2023, at recordBar, 1520 Grand Blvd. KCMO. Info at: http://www.therecordmachine.co]

The Noise FM Discography

Dream of the Attack / 9-track Album / November 14, 2008
Enclave / 6-track EP / May 14, 2010
Attraction / 10-track Album / The Record Machine / January 28, 2014
Road Warrior Remix / 8 Remixes / The Record Machine / December 2, 2014
Hot Sauce: The Noise FM Live From recordBar/ The Record Machine / December 9. 2016
“Cooler Heads Prevail” / “Who’s Watching Who?” / Singles / The Record Machine / 7 / 31 / 20
“Will You Spend Merry Christmas with Me?” / Single / The Record Machine / Dec. 1, 2022
Deleted Scenes: Unreleased Hits 2013 – 2023 / The Record Machine / November 3, 2023

23. (#69) Hannah Jadagu – “What You Did”
    from: Aperture / Sub Pop Records / May 19, 2023
    [Fresh out of high school, Hannah Jadagu released her debut EP, What Is Going On?, a collection of intimate bedroom pop tracks recorded entirely on an iPhone 7, which was, at the time, Jadagu’s most accessible mode of production. An off-the-cuff approach to music making and instinctive ability to write unforgettable hooks belied the intensity of Jadagu’s subject matter. In a short run time, What Is Going On? confronts some of the nation’s most urgent struggles all through Jadagu’s compassionate perspective. “I want my songs to be both super intimate and still universally relatable,” Jadagu says. “With the EP, so many people told me that the songs resonated with them on a personal level, and that’s what I’m always hoping for.” // Resonate it did; What Is Going On? is Jadagu’s first Sub Pop release, but she’d been putting out music on SoundCloud for years, garnering a small online fanbase as she settled into an aesthetic, and recognition from a broader audience was overdue. “It really took off when I became a percussionist in my middle school’s band,” she says. “Writing songs started as a hobby and quickly became a passion to the point that I spent all my free time recording.” // On May 19th, 2023 Jadagu premiered Aperture, her first LP and most ambitious work to date. Written in the years between graduating from high school in Mesquite, TX and her sophomore year of college in New York, Aperture finds Jadagu in a state of transition. “Where I grew up, everyone is Christian; even if you don’t go to church, you’re still practicing in some form,” Jadagu says, laughing. “Moving out of my small hometown has made me reflect on how embedded Christianity is in the culture down there, and though I’ve been questioning my relationship to the church since high school, it’s definitely a theme on this album, but so is family.” // As a kid, Jadagu followed her older sister – a major source of inspiration who she refers to as “the blueprint” – to a local children’s chorus, where she received choral training. “I hated it,” Jadagu admits. “But it taught me how to harmonize, how to discover my tone, how to recognize and write melody.” The aching single “Admit It” is dedicated to Jadagu’s sister, whose boundless love and impeccable taste has been a constant for Jadagu ever since she was a kid. At home, the siblings were raised on mom’s Young Money mixtapes and the Black Eyed Peas (to whom she credits her love of vocoder) but it was in the sanctity of her sister’s car that Jadagu discovered indie artists who would go on to inspire her work. // “Lose” showcases Jadagu’s love of contemporary indie auteurs as it weaves a spare and unpretentious guitar riff with barebones piano chords all while Jadagu sings about the thrill and underlying fear that comes with beginning a new relationship. It is, in her words, a “classic pop song.” “The things we haven’t done/ Play out in my mind/ Would you just give me time?” she sings, nearing the end, as the skittering drumbeat propels the song from a place of contemplative yearning to defiance. “Every track on this album, except for “Admit It”, was written first on guitar, which is an instrumental throughline,” Jadagu says. “But the blanket of synths I use throughout helps me move between sensibilities. There’s rock Hannah, there’s hip-hop Hannah, and so on. I didn’t want any of the songs to sound too alike.” // Emblematic of this ethos is the single “Warning Sign,” which starts out as an acoustic, R&B slowburner before a muscular electric guitar enters the mix and the song morphs into something akin to psychedelic. “I knew I could make another album on my phone, but I wanted to make sure that I was leveling up, especially for the debut,” Jadagu says. So she began the difficult process of searching for a co-producer capable of complementing her work without dominating it. Enter Max Robert Baby, a French songwriter and producer who captured Jadagu’s attention with his take on Aperture’s lead single “Say It Now.” The duo worked together remotely, sending stems to one another via email, before eventually meeting in-person for the first time at Greasy Studios on the outskirts of Paris. // “When I recorded my EP, it was all MIDI, but in the studio Max and I worked with a ton of analog instruments,” Jadagu says. “There’s some Glockenspiel on the album, calling back to my percussionist days, and some synth warping that adds texture.” While What Is Going On? was heavy on layered reverb, making Jadagu’s vocals feel “shy,” she took what she calls a more “intimate, up close” approach while recording her voice for the LP. That experimentation is best heard on the rousing “What You Did,” which leverages crushing accusations against the song’s unnamed subject. Screaming static and a crunchy guitar part softens under Jadagu’s calm delivery as she sings: “Act like it’s best if we make amends, but I don’t wanna talk to you again.” // An aperture is strictly defined as an opening, a hole, a gap. On a camera, it’s the mechanism that light passes through, allowing a photographer to immortalize a moment in time. For Jadagu, the word perfectly encapsulates the mood of her debut album. In the years it took her to complete, she faced moments of darkness, sure, but the process of making it, her first ever in a professional studio, was ultimately a cathartic experience, one she now shares with you, the listener. Let the light in.] [Hannah Jadagu played the Bottleneck in Lawrence Kansas on Friday, September 29, 2023]

24. (#68.) Kelly Hunt – “Lost Highway”
    from: Ozark Symphony / Compass Records / October 13, 2023
    [Kelly Hunt released her critically acclaimed album, EVEN THE SPARROW through Rare Bird Records on May 17, 2023. The daughter of an opera singer and a saxophonist, Kelly Hunt was raised in Memphis, TN, and grew up performing other people’s works through piano lessons, singing in choirs, and performing theater. “It was a very creative, artistic household,” says Hunt. During her teenage years, influenced by musical inspirations as diverse as Norah Jones, Rachmaninov, and John Denver, she began writing her own songs on the piano as a creative outlet. After being introduced to the banjo in college while studying French and visual arts, Hunt began to develop her own improvised style of playing, combining old-time picking styles with the percussive origins of the instrument. “I’m self-taught, I just started letting the songs dictate what needed to be there,” she says. “I heard a rhythm in a song that I wanted to execute, so I figured out how to do it on the drum head while still being able to articulate certain notes in one motion.” After college, Hunt followed a rambling path that took her through careers in acting, graphic design, traditional French bread making, and medicine, all the while making music as a private endeavor. “I wanted to get serious about a responsible career choice, but music kept bubbling up. I was writing a lot and playing a lot and started to not be satisfied just playing to my walls of my room.” After moving to Kansas City and discovering her mysterious Depression-era tenor banjo, Hunt began recording Even The Sparrow in Kansas City alongside collaborator Stas’ Heaney and engineer Kelly Werts. “It took almost two years to record,” she says, “learning how to let the songs dictate the production.” Having finally come to light, the album displays Hunt’s penchant for masterful storytelling and intriguing arrangement, as researched and complex as they are memorable, punctuated by her articulate melodies and a well-enunciated and creative command of lyrical delivery infused with deft emotional communication. While reminiscent of modern traditionalists such as Gillian Welch–a number of her songs even borrow titles and phrasing from traditional American music (“Back to Dixie,” “Gloryland”)–Even The Sparrow reveals an ineffable quality that hovers beyond the constraints of genre, à la Anais Mitchell and Patty Griffin. In “The Men of Blue & Grey,” what begins as a Reconstruction-era ballad about the repurposing of Civil War glass plate negatives in a greenhouse roof soon becomes a meditation on the hope that growth and life may one day be able to emerge from the ruins of suffering and haunting of violence. “Across The Great Divide” turns an otherwise traditional accounting of spurned love into a philosophical epic of the ethics of forgiveness and freedom, evoking the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard and Walt Whitman.] [Kelly Hunt’s EVEN THE SPARROW was in the TOP TEN of WMM’s 119 Best Recordings of 2019.] [Kelly Hunt played an Album Release & The Matchsellers 10 Year Bandiversary at The Warwick, 3927 Main Street, KCMO, Friday, August 18, at 6:00PM to 10:00 PM]

11:28 – Underwriting

5. (#67.) Jess Williamson – “Hunter”
   from: Time Ain’t Accidental / Mexican Summer / June 9, 2023
   [Endless prairies and ocean waves; long drives and highway expanse; dancing, smoke, sex, and physical desire – the core images of Jess Williamson’s new album Time Ain’t Accidental revel in the earthly and the carnal. After a protracted breakup with a romantic partner and longtime musical collaborator who left Williamson and their home in Los Angeles at the start of the pandemic, the album’s reckoning with loss, isolation, romance, and personal reclamation signals a tectonic shift for Williamson as a person and as an artist: from someone who once accommodated and made herself small to a woman emboldened by her power as an individual. // A daringly personal but inevitable evolution for the Texas-born, Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Time Ain’t Accidental is evocative of iconic Western landscapes, tear-in-beer anthems, and a wholly modern take on country music that is completely her own. Above everything, sonically and thematically, this album is about Williamson’s voice, crystalline and acrobatic in its range, standing front and center. Think Linda Rondstadt turned minimalist, The Chicks gone indie or even Emmylou Harris’ work with Daniel Lanois. Ringing boldly and unobscured, it’s the sound of a woman running into her life and art head-on, unambiguously, and on her own terms for the first time. // Last year, Williamson and Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee released I Walked With You A Ways under the name Plains; a critically acclaimed record filled to the whiskey-barreled brim with feminine confidence, camaraderie, and straight-up country bangers and ballads. After past records Cosmic Wink (2018) and Sorceress (2020), both released on Mexican Summer, Williamson felt primed to shift in a new direction. Revisiting what she loved growing up, simplifying her process, and making music with a friend proved to be the best step forward for Williamson. // In early 2020, while getting used to the new estrangement and in quarantine with her thoughts, Williamson wrote and recorded the stripped-back standalone single “Pictures of Flowers” by herself at home. This experience became the foundation on which Time Ain’t Accidental was built. The song’s lyrical themes were terrestrial and plain-spoken, with Williamson’s voice set against a drum machine and paired with textural guitar by her friend Meg Duffy (Hand Habits). Soon, Williamson realized that musically she was just as good—better, even—on her own. Tours with Weyes Blood, Kevin Morby and Hamilton Leithauser, and José González bolstered this newfound self-assurance, letting her voice ring out in rooms the size of which she hadn’t played before. // Amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic, Williamson began dating in Los Angeles and tracking demos centered on the realness of those experiences, filled with excitement, anxiety, and disappointment. The drum machine stuck around (this time in the form of an iPhone app), as did her determination to forge a new path as a truly solo singer and songwriter; as a woman finding the sound of herself without anyone else’s input. It was a lonely, but revelatory, period. // The core essence of that time is summed up in the opening line of “Hunter.” “I’ve been thrown to the wolves and they ate me raw,” Williamson sings, clear-eyed and with resolve, having come out the other side. Though tumultuous, the process of dating in LA revealed the album’s North Star, which anchors the song’s chorus and the album’s underlying sentiment more broadly: “I’m a hunter for the real thing.” // This theme comes up on the vivid torch song “Chasing Spirits,” when she sings, over whispers of steel guitar, that “the difference between us is when I sing it I really mean it.” The same energy resurfaces on “God in Everything”, with Williamson turning to the supernatural as a way of rising above the earthly realities of dating and rejection. “Being in lockdown alone, fresh out of a breakup, was a real hard time for me,” she remembers. “What I’m grateful for is having a period of stillness and desperation that forced me to turn inward and find comfort in a power greater than myself”. // In the album liner notes, Williamson too included a quote from Carl Jung that was sent to her by a close friend during this era of uncertainty and upheaval. It reads: “To this day God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans, and intentions, and change the course of my life for better or worse.” // After many months spent alone and searching, Williamson finally found the realness she’d been longing for. First came the idea of Plains and the subsequent writing and recording sessions. Then, on one of her regular drives between her adopted home in southern California and her native Texas, Williamson found and rescued her dog, Nana, who had been abandoned and was running alongside a desert highway in New Mexico. // But all good things come in threes, and she soon found new love with an old acquaintance in Marfa, Texas, addressed straightforwardly in the title track “Time Ain’t Accidental.” “We fell for each other when I was out in West Texas visiting a friend, but then I left to go back to LA,” Williamson explains. “I wasn’t sure if or when we’d see each other again, but I felt so full of love and I hadn’t felt that way in a very long time. I wrote this song the day I got back home. It’s really the story of a day together—we flirted by a hotel pool bar and went on a drive, we had a sweet night—and then I had to go, neither of us really knowing what, if anything, would come next.” // Williamson brought the suite of demos and her newfound assurance to Brad Cook (who’d produced Plains) in Durham, North Carolina. The familiar setting fostered a safe environment for the deeply personal material, and Williamson unleashed her voice with total unselfconsciousness. They tracked her vocals in just a couple of takes for each song. “I kept thinking, ‘my voice feels different now – it’s been liberated,’” Williamson reflects. Cook encouraged Williamson to keep the iPhone app drum machine beats she’d programmed for some of the demos, then married it with banjos and steel guitars for an evident sense of old-meets-new. // Williamson now splits her time between Marfa, Texas and Los Angeles. Time Ain’t Accidental, with its synthesis of traditional country instrumentation with digital effects and modern sounds, unequivocally embodies the energy of the two very different places that she calls home. The album’s artwork, subtly menacing and neon in awareness and strength, displays, in Williamson’s words, “that supernatural forces are acting all around us, that we can trust that we will be in the right place at the right time.” // While Time Ain’t Accidental is remarkable for its bare confidence born of searching and longing for something real, Williamson also recognizes the mysterious whims of time that bricked her path (and she memorialized them on the title track). Ultimately, these unseen forces lured the singer back into her own. The timing was, indeed, no accident. // All songs written by Jess Williamson. Recorded at Puff City (Durham, NC). Produced by Brad Cook. Engineered by Gerard “Jerry” Ordonez, Brad Cook and Paul Voran. Mixed by Brad Cook and Paul Voran. Mastered by Heba Kadry (New York City, NY). Cover photo by Samuel Walker. Inner photos by Jess Williamson. Cover photo retouching by Mike Krol.. Layout by Alex Tults // Jess Williamson – Vocals, Acoustic guitar, Piano, Drum programming; Brad Cook – Acoustic and electric guitar, Piano, Wurlitzer, Organ, Synths, Electric bass, Synth bass, Drum programming, Background vocals; Phil Cook – Banjo, Dobro, Acoustic guitar, Piano, Wurlitzer, Organ; Matt Douglas – Tenor sax, Clarinet, Baritone sax; Deshawn Hickman- Sacred Steel Guitar; Matt McCaughan- Acoustic drums, Percussion, Modular synth, Drum programming. All songs published by Orgasmic Bliss c/o Covertly Canadian Publishing (BMI)license]

26. (#66.) Friendly Thieves – “You Better Run”
    from: Til Death / Friendly Thieves / October 31, 2023
    [Friendly Thieves released their single “Redbone” on October 4, 2023. Friendly Thieves released their single “Rush” on July 31, 2023. Friendly Thieves released their debut single “You Better Run” on October 28, 2022. The five-piece alt-funk band Friendly Thieves are: Sam Wells on lead vocals, Jamae Breeze on lead guitar, Sam Millard on bass, John Goss on drums, and Ben Baker on saxophone. // From Michelle Bacon’s piece in http://www.bridge909.org: Friendly Thieves describes themselves as if “Alabama Shakes and Young The Giant had a Vulfpeck-inspired love child,” and well, that’s pretty spot on. Their single captures that intersection of vibrant indie-rock energy and exceptional musicianship, with an intriguing funk aroma. // The bands show at ULAH is their only KC show so far this year before the ban sets off on tour to Austin, Chicago, Denver, and Nashville. // Sam Wells released her debut EP, FOR THE DEFLATED on French Exit Records on December 31, 2020. Sam Wells is a Kansas City, based singer songwriter who has shared stages with Betsy Phillips, Kelly Hunt, Andrew Ryan, The Zack Pietrini Band, and The Phantastics. She was featured as a composer and performer in the Kansas City Repertory Theater production of “Ghost Light” performed on the lawn of The Nelson Atkin Museum of Art in October, 2020. Sam has also performed in Troostival (2020), Kansas City Porchfest (2019) and Jamdemic. In 2019, Wells released her debut single “Lesson Learned.” In early 2020 Wells released her second single “Sugar” producer and engineered by Riley Corbin at the Lawrence Kansas Public Library recording studio. It was only a decade ago, Sam Wells sat in her bedroom learning the Corrine Bailey Ray classic “Put Your Records On”. This was all it took to ignite a lifetime love affair with music. With her smooth and sultry voice and the warm tones of a baritone ukulele, she shares stories of love, loss and everything in between. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, Sam Wells has lived in Lawrence, but now calls KC home. Sam Wells also contributed to The Black Lives Matter Compilation from French Exit Records that featured tracks from 22 acts from the area, and was released on July 6, 2020. Sam contributed the song, “Dear Black People”. On WMM we featured tracks from: Blackstarkids, Daniel Gum, Crystal Rose, UpKeep, Bream, Heavy Surface, Palace Intrigue, Self Harmony, and Sam Wells. All proceeds donated to One Struggle KC’s Liberation Fund, a Black-led coalition of KC activists seeking to connect the struggles of oppressed communities, locally & globally. French Exit Records launched in 2018, and is an independent music label based out of Kansas City, Missouri founded by Brad Girard. French Exit Records has released albums for No Magic and Raymond, and has organized live events. The Black Lives Matter Compilation is available on French Exit Record’s Bandcamp page: http://www.frenchexitrecords.bandcamp.com. More information at: http://www.whoissamwells.com. Sam Wells was on WMM on May 13, 2020 and January 20, 2021.][Friendly Thieves played MUSIC UNITES, a Benefit for KKFI w/ Calvin Arsenia onNov. 2, 2023 at 7:30 PM on the Drexel Hall Stage at KC Irish Center, 19 Linwood Blvd, KCMO.]

27. (#65.) Easy Match – “Best Thing”
    from: Easy Match EP / Claire Adams / November 1, 2023
    [“Best Thing” was originally released as a single on March 25, 2023 Easy Match is another of the multiple musical projects Claire Adams is involved with. In this case the band is a trio of Claire Adams, Alyssa Murray, and Steve Gardels (wh each have their own multiple, musical projects.) About Easy Match Claire Adams writes: “I’m so proud of these five songs and so honored to have collaborated with Alyssa and Steve… this was the first project in a long time where I had the chance to write the songs with specific musicians in mind, and I feel like it pushed all of us to lean into building a sound that really felt like our own. The project name comes from a line in the third song ‘Pass The Time,’ but is also inspired by the many uses of the word ‘match,’ which all make appearances throughout the EP, a connection, a contest, a combustible… we had a blast making this music.” // Claire Adams also released the single: “It’s All in Fun” on June 30, 2023. Claire Adams told Michelle Bacon at The Bridge, “”I wrote the string arrangement in the summer of 2021 and we went in to record it this past spring,” Adams said. “I’ve had the happiness of working with Alyssa Bell (viola) and Carmen Dieker (violin) for several years now, mostly playing my songs as arranged by others and I wanted to give a try to arranging a song myself.” “I feel like having an understanding of everyone else’s styles and strengths gives me a sense of direction and focus on what can otherwise be a really abstract craft,” she said. On bass, she, Guillen and Williams comprised the acclaimed trio Katy Guillen & The Girls for seven years, while she has consistently been working with Murray in the years to follow. The four of them got to work with Duane Trower, who has recorded and engineered the majority of Adams‘ solo songs. “Going into [Duane’s studio] Weights & Measures with Katy, Steph and Alyssa was a total comfort zone, and this song just came together out of that,” she said. Claire Adams released “If It Isn’t Right (Alyssa Murray Remix)” on April 15, 2022. This featured Rewound and Alyssa Murray. Our friend Claire Adams recently wrote “Alyssa Murray made a super cool remix of one of the songs off the last album and I wanted to share it with you. The song is ‘If It Isn’t Right’ and also features the Rewound string trio and an arrangement by Peter Lawless. Alyssa really made it her own and gave it a whole new spin, she’s amazing!” Here are the full credits: Vocals: Claire Adams, Alyssa Murray, Fritz Hutchison. Synths and Beats: Alyssa Murray. Cello: Ezgi Karakus. Viola: Alyssa Bell. Violin: Carmen Dieker. String Arrangement: Peter Lawless. Mixed and Mastered by Duane Trower at Weights + Measures Soundlab. Cover Art by Cassie Allen. ‘If It Isn’t Right’ written by Claire Adams. This song was originally on Claire’s acclaimed album YOU KNOW I KNOW YOU originally released April 24, 2020. The album was lost in the COVID 19 of 2020. The album was properly given a “release show” and put out on CD in 2021. 10 songs all written by Claire Adams. Recorded at The Blue House in Kansas City, MO. Additional tracking at MARZ Studios in Nederland, TX. Mixed & mastered at Weights + Measures Soundlab in KCMO. Written by Claire Adams, with Claire Adams on guitars, bass, and vocals; Alyssa Murray on keyboards & vocals; and Fritz Hutchison on drums & vocals. // Claire also released: Words of Love on Feb. 5, 2021 – Recorded and Produced by Claire Adams at Casa 34 in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Mixed and Mastered by Duane Trower at Weights + Measures in Kansas City, MO. Cover Photo by Hugo Parasol. ‘So This Is Love’ written by Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. ‘Pocketful Of Rainbows’ written by Ben Weisman, ‘Till There Was You’ written by Meredith Wilson. “Words of Love” written by Claire Adams. ‘Calico Skies’ written by Paul McCartney. Claire also released the EP Moras under the moniker, Mismo Sismo (same earthquake) on July 21, 2021. Claire Adams wrote and recorded this EP at home during the first months of the COVID-19 quarantine. The three songs are meant to be played all together but also stand alone. Mismo Sismo is a collaboration with photographer Hugo Parasol. Claire played guitar on True Lions album THE FEMPIRE STRIKES BACK. In 2020 Clairplayed with the band Ondist for their three full length albums, No Coincidence on June 12, and Electricity on Aug. 14, and Mise en Place on Nov. 13, 2020 with songs recorded at Weights & Measures with Duane Trower with Sam Platt on drums, Eddie Moore on keyboards, DeAndre Manning on bass, Jamie Anderson on guitar, Claire Adams on vocals, and Jillian Riscoe on vocals. Claire also participated in Katy Guillen and The Girls Reunion shows in summer of 2021. Claire Adams on WMM on April 7, 2021. More info at: http://www.easymatch.bandcamp.com]

28. (#64.) Anjimile – “Father”
    from: The King / 4AD Records / September 8, 2023
    [Queer & trans song-maker / boy king Anjimile Chithambo, is better known as Anjimile. He released the lead single, ‘The King’, accompanied by a visualiser by Daniela Yohannes, whose striking painting takes centre stage on the album cover. // Highlighting the artistic shift from Giver Taker to now, ‘The King’ opens with a lofty, melodic choir, an intro that belies the song’s motives. Suddenly, sinister arpeggios interrupt the reverie, and the voices grow darkly serious. Deeply steeped in the confusion, grief, and rage of being Black in America, ‘The King’ pushes back against the tired adage, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” hissing, “What don ’t kill you almost killed you// What don’t fill you//pains you// drains you.” // “If Giver Taker was an album of prayers, The King is an album of curses.” In his second album, Anjimile continues exploring what it means to be a Black trans person in America. The brutally honest reflection of 2020’s deadly summer is less reminiscent of the pink cloud of early sobriety and more rooted in the reality of seeing brutality with clear eyes. Drawing from influences ranging from religion, Phillip Glass, and lived experiences, the album is a grand step forward for Anjimile. Nearly every sound you hear on The King comes from two instruments: an acoustic guitar and Anjimile’s own voice. Other than a few beautiful contributions from Justine Bowe, Brad Allen Williams, Sam Gendel, and James Krivchenia (Big Thief), the album is the result of a year in LA working intimately with Grammy and Juno winner Shawn Everet. t// Anjimile release his debut alum On Giver Taker, on September 18, 2020. On the album Anjimile wrote about how death and life are always entwined, wrapping around each other in a dance of reverence, reciprocity, and, ultimately, rebirth. // Giver Taker is confident, intentional and introspective. Anjimile Chithambo (they/them, he/him) wrote much of the album while in treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, as well as while in the process of living more fully as a nonbinary trans person. Loss hovers over the album, whose songs grieve for lost friends (“Giver Taker”) and family members (“1978”) along with lost selves (“Maker,” “Baby No More,” “In Your Eyes.”) But here, grief yields an opening: a chance for new growth. “A lot of the album was written when I was literally in the process of improving my mental health, so there’s a lot of hopefulness and wonder at the fact that I was able to survive,” says Chithambo. “Not only survive but restart my life and work towards becoming the person I was meant to be.” // Each song on the album is its own micro-journey, adding up to a transformative epic cycle created in collaboration with bandmate Justine Bowe of Photocomfort and New-York based artist/producer Gabe Goodman. “1978” and “Maker” both begin as Sufjan Stevens-esque pastoral ballads with Chithambo’s mesmerizing voice. foregrounded against minimal instrumentation and swell into the realm of the majestic through the addition of warm, steady instrumentation (informed by the mix of 80’s pop and African music Chithambo’s Malawi-born parents played around the house) and harmonies by Bowe. “In Your Eyes” starts out hushed and builds to a crescendo via a mighty chorus inspired by none other than The Lion King. The allusion is fitting: each song encapsulates a heroic voyage, walked alone until accompanied by kindred souls. The choirs present throughout are equally deliberate. Chithambo grew up as a choir boy himself, and several songs (notably “Maker”) grasp not only towards reconciliation between his trans identity and his parents’ strong religious beliefs, but towards reclaiming his trans identity as an essential part of his own spirituality. (“[Less] Judeo-Christian, more ‘Colors of the Wind.’”) There is a boldness to this borrowing and shaping, a resoluteness that results from passing through hardship and emerging brighter, steadier. As a closing refrain on “To Meet You There” might sum it up: “Catalyst light of mine / now is your time.” // Giver Taker was recorded in Brooklyn, Boston, and New Hampshire by Goodman, thanks in part to the Live Arts Boston Grant by the Boston Foundation. All songs written by Anjimile Chithambo. Produced by Gabe Goodman & Justine BoweEngineered by Gabe Goodman. Additional engineering by Will G. Radin . Mixed by Will G. Radin. Mastered by Joe Lambert.]

29. (#63.) L’Rain – “Pet Rock”
    from: I Killed Your Dog / Mexican Summer / October 13, 2023
    [Taja Cheek, known professionally as L’Rain, is an American experimentalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and curator known primarily as the lead vocalist and songwriter of her eponymous band. L’Rain has been recognized for experimental music that draws on a vast number of traditions and genres in a practice and aesthetic Cheek calls “approaching songness”. // Her self-titled debut, L’Rain, was included in best-of-year lists by publications including Pitchfork and Bandcamp Daily; her second album, Fatigue (2021), was named the best album of the year by The Wire. She has collaborated with artists including Vagabon, Helado Negro, and Naama Tsabar, 8 and performed with Kevin Beasley at the Whitney Museum of American Art. // Cheek was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,[9] where she lived with her mother, father, and grandparents. Her father, Wyatt Cheek, worked in music marketing and promotion for entities including Select Records and Kiss FM; her grandmother ran a liquor store; and in the 1950s her grandfather owned a neighborhood jazz club. Cheek’s mother, Lorraine C. Porter, taught physical education, health, math, and science in Brooklyn schools.The stage name L’Rain is an homage to Porter, who died before the release of the self-titled debut. // Cheek studied ballet and modern dance at The Ailey School and learned piano, cello, and Baroque recorder before picking up bass in high school, then forming and joining groups that included an Iron Maiden cover band. She attended Yale to study music but dropped the major, citing factors including a lack of diversity among the program’s course offerings. She transferred to the American Studies program, where her major included a concentration in visual, audio, literary, and performance cultures; in 2011, she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction. While at Yale she worked as music director of radio station WYBC and booked shows. // After graduation, Cheek returned to New York, where she resumed playing in Brooklyn bands including Throw Vision, who released their debut in 2013 and an EP in 2015. // In 2017, Cheek released the self-titled L’Rain on New York City-based label Astro Nautico. She composed and performs vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass, samples, and percussion on the album. L’Rain also features Alex Goldberg, Jeremy Powell, Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio), and Andrew Lappin, who co-produced the album with Cheek. Pitchfork included L’Rain among their 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2017, and Bandcamp Daily listed the release as #10 in their Best Albums of 2017. // In 2018, L’Rain (represented by Cheek and Ben Chapoteau-Katz) collaborated with producer Morgan Wiley and vocalist Patrick Gordon to remake the 1980s Chicago house track “Your Love” for a benefit compilation which paired electronic artists with formerly-incarcerated singers. The release, Bring Down The Walls, raised money for Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to ending the prison–industrial complex. // L’Rain’s second album, Fatigue, was released on Mexican Summer in 2021. Fatigue was named album of the year by The Wire, included among the year’s best by Pitchfork,and met with wide acclaim from outlets including NPR. Cheek provides vocals and plays guitar, bass, synth, keyboards, piano, percussion, tape effects, and airhorn on the album, which features an expanded roster of twenty performers; these include executive producer Andrew Lappin, on guitar and programming, and co-producer Ben Chapoteau-Katz, who contributes synths, saxophone, vocals, percussion, and airhorn. // In August 2023, L’Rain announced a third album, I Killed Your Dog, released in October 2023;the album was co-produced by Cheek with Lappin and Chapoteau-Katz, who perform alongside L’Rain bandmates Zachary Levine-Caleb, Justin Felton, and Timothy Angulo. // L’Rain has toured with bands including Black Midi (2021),Animal Collective (2022), Sharon Van Etten (2022), Big Thief (2023), and LCD Soundsystem (2023). // In 2011, Cheek began working with arts nonprofit Creative Time;in 2014, as site manager for an exhibit co-presented with the Weeksville Heritage Center, Cheek installed and ran a pop-up radio station from a pink Cadillac parked outside the Utica Avenue A/C subway station. (The project was conceived by Otabenga Jones and Associates in homage to Jitu Weusi, black nationalist community arts center The East, and the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium.) The same year, Cheek––along with Ariana Allensworth, Salome Asega, Sable Elyse Smith, and Nadia Williams––co-organized “The Kara Walker Experience: WE ARE HERE”, a public gathering of people of color at the Domino Sugar Refinery for Kara Walker’s installation A Subtlety. In 2015, Cheek’s work as Curatorial Assistant for High Line Art included helping to organize an installation and performance by Kevin Beasley. // In 2016, Cheek joined the curatorial team at contemporary art institution MoMA PS1; the same year, she also opened the basement of her Brooklyn apartment to experimental music events under the name 49 Shade (initially co-organized with Max Alper, Dann Lawrence, and Matteo Liberatore). At PS1, Cheek co-organized Sunday Sessions and the Warm Up series through 2021; Warm Up lineups receiving extensive media coverage included a 2017 event with Cardi B, A$AP Ferg, and YATTA (of artist collective PTP); a 2018 show pairing Lizzo with 2019’s season opener, with Queens local duendita and Freddie Gibbs; 2020’s livestream edition, with Eartheater and KeiyaA;[48] and a limited-capacity 2021 event with Baby Tate and Patia’s Fantasy World.[49] As of July 2022, Cheek was listed as “former Associate Curator” at PS1. Her DIY space 49 Shade has presented artists including Kyp Malone, Miho Hatori, and Otomo Yoshihide, and Bartees Strange credits the space as introducing him to many of his collaborators. // In 2023, Cheek was announced as the first artist curator for BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. // L’Rain often layers and loops her vocals, and her work frequently features samples from her collection of hundreds of field recordings, some pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated beyond recognition. She has spoken in interviews about her work’s tendency to evade or reject categorization, saying that she is “more interested in a Barthes, Death of the Author, approach to genre”, values illegibility, and seeks to complicate assumptions about the relationship between identity and aesthetics: “I’m hyper-aware of how marketing and packaging happens for Black people and women and Black women […] I like feeling a sense of agency in how those stories are told”. // AllMusic described L’Rain as making “dreamy, genre-blurring music […], reflecting on grief, change, joy, and resistance through a collage-like mixture of soul, psychedelia, gospel, musique concrète, and numerous other genres.” Pitchfork described her 2021 album Fatigue as “painterly and methodical, daubing vocal loops over clattering percussion, sweeping strings, and resonant synths to create a shapeshifting strain of experimental pop.” Reviewers have variously identified her style and influences as including free jazz, ambient, noise music, and disco; dance; “psychedelic orchestral pop” and “distorted shoegaze”; krautrock, outsider music, and hip hop; R&B and avant-garde rock; gospel, funk, and post-punk; and soul, drone, avant-pop, and musique concrète. // While Cheek is the sole fixed figure in L’Rain recordings and performances, she says the project follows a “more nuanced and collective [model]” than that of the “lone genius or creator”: “I’m trying to find a way to nurture my own voice and singular vision, especially as a Black woman musician, while also acknowledging that I work collaboratively with a team that is essential to the project.”[ Andrew Lappin and Ben Chapoteau-Katz are credited as Cheek’s closest collaborators and co-producers of L’Rain’s second and third albums; as of 2023, the band’s members are Cheek, Lappin, and Chapoteau-Katz with Zachary Levine-Caleb, Justin Felton, and Timothy Angulo.]

30. (#62.) Flooding – “Monolith Girl”                         from: Silhouette Machine / Ghost is Clear Records & Manor Records / Sept. 29, 2023
    [Flooding also released a 3-Way Split with Nightosphere and Abandoncy on February 24, 2023. Flooding’s self-titled album Flooding was released on physical cassette on February 19, 2022, on Manor Records. Flooding is a three-piece band based in Lawrence, Kansas. Fronted by guitarist and vocalist Rose Brown, who began releasing music in 2019 under the name Window Seat. Joining Rose Brown are Cole Billings on bass, and Zach Cunningham on drums. For their debut album Brown wrote the music for the album in the spring of 2020. In early 2021 the group started playing the music to record in Cunningham’s converted shed studio in Gardner, Kansas. Rose Brown of Flooding was our guest on WMM on February 16, 2022. More information at: http://www.manorrecords.com]

31. (#61.) Semper Viridis – “Snakes and Ladders”
    from: SNAKES AND LADDERS EP / Mixtape Meditation Records / July 14, 2023
    [Born in the spinnel the life changing power of creativity. We are celestial twins who are driven to share our love of music with the world.’ Kirsten Paludan (Olympic Size, KP & the Key Party) and Nate Holt aka Asterales (DJNOTADJ) met in the mid 90’s on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, but didn’t start collaborating until nearly 20 years later. After being reintroduced to each other by playing together in the local scene, they discovered that they were musical kindred spirits and quickly formed a bond. During the second year of the pandemic, KP recorded guest vocals for several Asterales tracks, and their creative connection was cemented. Not long after, they actively began making original music together as Semper Viridis. // Out everywhere on July 14th, Semper Viridis’ first EP Snakes and Ladders is released with the support of Mixtape Meditation Records (Dallas, TX). Mastered by Brutus DeClaibornio (BAC Studios, Lincoln, NE), Snakes and Ladders features six tracks of eclectic electro, including the title song and first single, an uptempo electro pop anthem that clocks in at just over three minutes. Two music videos are being released in conjunction with the EP, (Projecting Shadows and Snakes and Ladders), both created by David Jerret Fulton. // On January 6, 2023 Semper Viridis released the singke, “Dreams in Color” written and recorded by Kirsten Paluden & Asterales (Nate Holt). Mixed by Asterales. Mastered by Brent Clabaugh. Semper Viridis is the Kirsten Paluden and Nate Holt recently collaborated for Nate’s musical project Astereles and the album, FUTURESPECTIVE on Datura Records released on March 25, 2022 that was Produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales. They performed for the track “Let Go.” KC based leftfield, experimental, electronica music maker, also known as Nate Holt. Asterales eleased the 5-track EP, WORK HOURS on Sept. 6, 2016 in collaboration with Aikido Bray, Leo Minor, Katlyn Conroy, and Tanner Walle, with synthesizers, production, recording, engineering & mastering by Etan Tioh for Datura Records. This was followed by the 3-track EP, FRAGMENTS, released Feb. 3, 2017. Asterales released the single A.M. on Feb. 4, 2017. Asterales released the 10-track album, OUTSIDE THE BOX on Oct. 31, 2017. Asterales released the singles: “Brkfst 4 Btlvrs” on Oct. 31, 2017; and “Soft Spheres” on April 21, 2018. Asterales released the 10-track album ORBITAL DEBRIS: VOL. 1 on Aug. 14, 2020 on Mr. Furious Records. Asterales released the single “ASTR_40” on Aug. 26, 2020. Asterales released the 4-song EP EXTRA JUNK on Dec. 4, 2020 through Mr. Furious Records. Asterales released the singles: “Solstice Song” on Dec. 21, 2020, and “Desire (Tanner Walle) – Asterales Remix” on Jan. 29, 2021. Asterales released the single “Offline” on Feb. 26, 2021. Asterales released the single, “Beauty In The Distance feat. Heidi Gluck)” on March 31, 2021. Produced & mixed by Asterales, vocals by Heidi Gluck. lyrics by Approach, mastered by Royce Diamond. Asterales released the single, “So Easy (feat. Royce Diamond)” on April 30, 2021. Asterales released the single, “Let Go” on May 31, 2021. Produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales, lyrics by Royce Diamond, vocals by Asterales. Asterales released the single, “Paraglider” on June 30, 2021. Produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales. Asterales released the single, “Kinugemi” on July 31, 2021. Produced, mixed and mastered by Asterales. Asterales released the single, “Variable Stars Pt. 1″ on August 30, 2021. Produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales. Asterales released the remix single, “She Left (Asterales Remix)” on Sept. 2, 2021, produced by Asterales. Remix artwork by Gordon Leadfoot & Asterales. Asterales released the single, “P​@​!​omAr​-​1” on September 28, 2021. Produced, mixed and mastered by Asterales. More info at: http://www.asterales.bandcamp.com Asterales released the remix single, “Cory Phillips & the Band of Light – Give & the Take (Asterales Remix)” on October 1, 2021. “Give & the Take” was written by Cory Phillips coryphillipsmusic.com “Give & the Take – Asterales Remix” Produced by Asterales. Asterales released the single, “Calling Me (feat. Ghostmind)” on October 31, 2021. Produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales. Vocals and guitar performed and recorded by Ghostmind. Lyrics by Ghostmind. Artwork by Asterales. Asterales released the single “Your World or Mine (Feat. Approach)” on November 30, 2021. Produced, mixed and mastered by Asterales. Lyrics and vocals by Approach. Asterales released “Right Here, This Moment (feat. Royce Diamond & Maria Cuevas)” on December 31, 2021, produced, mixed & mastered by Asterales. Lyrics & vocals by Royce Diamond. Background vocals by Maria Cuevas (of Maria The Mexican). One of 14 singles Asterales released in 2021. More information at http://www.asterales.bandcamp.com] [Nate Holt and Kirsten Paludan joined us Live on WMM on July 12, 2023.]

32. Noel Coward – “The Party’s Over Now”
    from: Noel Coward in New York / drg / 2003 [orig. 1957]

Please tune into Wednesday MidDay Medley throughout December as we present our 4-week special: The 120 Best Recordings of 2022 on December 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th.

NEXT WEEK, On December 20, we will bring you part 2 of our 4-week special: The 120 Best Recordings of 2022. We’ll count down #60 through #31.

THANK YOU to our incredible KKFI Staff; Director of Development & Communications – J Kelly Dougherty, Volunteer Coordinator – Darryl Oliver, Chief Operator – Chad Brothers.

This radio station is more than the individual hosts of each individual radio show. Instead it is about a collective spirit of hundreds of hardworking people, unselfishly setting aside ego, to work for the greater good of community building and the gigantic goal of keeping our airwaves free, non-commercial, and open to all! Congratulations and thank you to all programmers & volunteers who went the extra effort to keep our station alive.

Our Script/Playlist is a “cut and paste” of information.
Sources for notes: artist’s websites, bios, wikipedia.org

Wednesday MidDay Medley in on the web:
http://www.kkfi.org,
http://www.WednesdayMidDayMedley.org,
http://www.facebook.com/WednesdayMidDayMedleyon90.1FM

Show #1024