NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out April 4

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn. Momma. Newcomers Lily Seabird and duendita. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson teamed up with Zach McCormick of Minnesota Public Radio's The Current to highlight their favorite albums out April 4.Featured albums:• Craig Finn, 'Always Been' (Stream)• Momma, 'Welcome to My Blue Sky' (Stream)• Lily Seabird, 'Trash Mountain' (Stream)• duendita, 'a strong desire to survive' (Stream)• Dumb Things, 'Self Help' (Stream)Check out our long list of albums out April 4 and listen to our New Music Friday playlist at npr.org/music.Credits:Host: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Zach McCormick, MPR's The CurrentProducer: Simon RentnerEditor: Otis HartExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedVice President, Music and Visuals: Keith JenkinsSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson, and I'm here with Zach McCormick from Minnesota Public Radio's The Current. Welcome to the show, Zach. Thank you so much for having me, Stephen. We love what you folks do here, the national stage, NPR Music. So excited to be here with you. Well, we love what you do at The Current. When we were starting NPR Music in 2007, the current was one of the stations we looked to as somebody who was really, really getting it right. And you guys have just continued to do phenomenal. work for years and years now. We're gonna kick off the show with an artist very familiar to Minnesotans. Craig Finn of the Hold Steady and Lifterpuller, he has a new solo record called Always Ben. She met him after summer school. Ohio off the bus stop in a knock off Celtics jacket. Said his crew they call him Shamrock. His mother died when he was five and his dad's some sort of drug cup, but the apple

sometimes rolls the way down the hill. This is an artist that is near and dear to my heart, Craig Finn, probably best known as the front man of the Hold Steady, whose first album almost killed me, came out the year before I started high school. Like a lot of other folks, yeah, sorry,

and like a lot of other folks on the Twin Cities around, you know, either my age bracket or a little bit older, we fell in love with Craig Finn's incredible lyricism. He has this kind of bar band poet thing going on where, you know, His songs with the Hold Steady have these big riffs, but he's also writing these character-driven storylines, and he's weaving in elements of religion, elements of pop culture, references,

you know, heavily referenced oriented songs, and it all kind of came together on this incredible run for the Hold Steady. And then since that band has kind of gone down to, we'll call it, part-time activity, he's also started releasing music as a solo artist, and he's got a brand-new record for us. In the spring they found some shambles. The South suburban sprawl, Sabrina's taking classes, shamrock's hanging drywall, but his fingernails keep falling off, and he comes home mean and sore. Every day he hates it more and more. There's a softer, kind of more reflective, almost apologetic tone to this record.

It's a little bit more singer-songwriterly than you mentioned the kind of bar-band theatrics of the Holdsteady, these big pounding pianos and big riffs. And this record is more restrained, but the ingredients that make the Holdsteadies special are in Craig Finn's lyricism. He's such a novelistic songwriter. He writes with rich detail, vivid characters. He's dropping place names constantly. My partner is from Washington State, and she's. She would occasionally chime in from the other room like,

I thought he was from Minnesota. Like, why? There are so many references to Seattle and Spokane. Well, the places will never go. The Kipsi on the Panhandle coast takes her at the speedway and the bottles up at sips. And her eyes got kind of yellow. She didn't notice till I did.

This actor said it's up to her to change the way she lives. This album has this kind of like storyline that he sort of loosely worked out about a clergyman, I believe, who is sort of struggled with his faith. So the story kind of starts in, I think, like, Pennsylvania, and then eventually we're sort of working our way out to the West Coast for a little while. There weren't any curtains in the front room, and I couldn't sleep once the sun showed up with its heavy August heat. So I sat up on the couch and surveyed the wreckage, still wearing my wristband, which always makes it worse. The bars have been whatever, we shouldn't have even bothered. But after we went back to Fletcher's, the best part of a handle,

and a plan to lay out the remainder on the table, listen to some records and suck up whatever Saturday was left. Not every song is this travelogue full of vivid drama. Some of it is just clearly a guy reflecting. and a guy reflecting on mistakes he's made. And as a fellow Midwestern, you know, middle-aged guy who's made some mistakes, you know, I'm hearing songs like Bethany and the man of O's Ben that are about looking back with regret, looking back with newfound self-awareness,

trying to be a better person. Honestly, I've been a couple people, knowing that I'd want to be again. There's regrets about, you know, past behavior. of years, there's elements of trying to kind of search for a forgiveness from a loved one on this record that I could totally see being something that comes from a more personal place for him. He's always kind of done that thing where he's like used a character as sort of a, like you said, almost like a crutch or a placeholder to examine something that he's curious about. And on this record, these characters feel closer and closer to his lived experience than we might have seen on a hold steady record or even one of his previous solo records. She said it's just nothing.

Something to work. That's Craig Finn. His new solo album is called Always Been. Next up, a new record from the band Mama. It's called Welcome to My Blue Sky. So Welcome to My Blue Sky by Mama is one of those records where I have to issue myself a challenge going into this conversation. How do I talk about this record without using the phrase leveling up?

Because to me, this is such a leveling up record. I have liked this band before. I've heard tracks here and there. I think I put them on the Austin 100 a few years back, you know, when we were kind of in the run-up to South by Southwest. But this record full of big, fuzzy, rock and roll, you know, with these like sugary but substantial vocals. You just get a sense that this is a band who's figured out exactly

what they want to be and what sounds they want to incorporate into what they're doing. You get 90s college radio, you get bits of shoegaze, you get kind of fresher rock sounds, you get lighter, popier, vibier songs like bottle blonde, interspersed through these heavier rock songs. To me, this was a no skips record. I love that this band is, that has sort of taken what they've learned on their last record. They had a breakout moment with this album called Household Name in 2022. And that, like a lot of bands, you know, success can be just as challenging as obscurity. And they were immediately thrown into a whirlwind of like touring, you know, their younger band.

So they're still learning to kind of navigate adulthood and their friendship. The main partnership between this band is guitarist, vocalist, songwriters, Edda Friedman and Allegra Wine Garden. And they really had to kind of pull together and figure some stuff out about their friendship in order to make this record. And you can really tell that, like, this was one of those situations where they would have either broken up or they were going to make the best album that they've ever made. We should also give some credit to the bassist and producer, Aaron Kobayashi Rich, who plays a big role on this record. He produced their last album, but the just night and day difference sound-wise, this record sounds huge, full. I think about on a lot on track, like, rodeo, that kind of early 2000s, you know, almost like emo-flavored radio rock.

He'd like, a Jimmy World or something like that. Like this sounds like it could have, you know, put that band right next to that band on the radio back in that, you know, early 2000s mode. And then, of course, all the 90s references that they're making, too. You know, breeders, letters to Cleo, Varuka Salt, I know is a big one for them too. And I love those bands. And so, of course, when a band comes through with those influences, I get really excited. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and we've, I just feel people listening to this being like, okay, I have to check this band out.

That is such an appealing assortment of influences. They're drawing from all the right things, but they're not copying any one thing. There's also a song called I Want You Fever, like I Want You Parentheses Fever, that is just, I didn't have to look up to see if it was the single. And then this record closes with a track called My Old Street. Man, I'm such a sucker for just big, chunky, swirly guitars. It just kind of ends on this encore. You know, you imagine them trotting it out at the end of a set and just letting those guitars go wild.

Totally satisfying record. Like I said, no skips start to finish. And I love that final song and the way they ended lyrically, too. My Old Street, kind of going a little more personal on this track. They're talking about their hometown and their families. I remember reading some of the album materials where the band were saying, like, we were frankly a little nervous that, you know, people in our hometown would hear this song and think we were being judgmental or something like that.

But they're kind of trying to give you a little bit of where they came from on the way to kind of show you where they're going on this new record. Welcome to My Blue Sky. And what a great name for it, too. I think they got that from like a gas station's sign or something. Sounds super profound when you're driving by it at, you know, early in the morning on the way from one show to another or whatever. It's, yeah, that's such a road dog thing to call your album.

That is Mama, that's M-O-M-M-A. Their new album is called Welcome to My Blue Sky. We've got some more great records that we're going to get to, but first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Zach McCormick from The Current in Minneapolis. Zach, you mentioned up top that you've been with the station for about a year. What all do you guys have going on right now? We are celebrating Minnesota Music Month here at the current.

We are featuring even more local music than we usually do. And the local show that we have on Sundays here on The Current has been kind of expanded. We're doing some shows around the Twin Cities area. And then we're also encouraging folks to check out our stream, which is dedicated to celebrating black music, which is called Carbon Sound, hip-hop, R&B, Afrobe. They do such a great job of music discovery over there, too. That's Carbonsound.fm. You can find it on the Current's website as well. Wonderful.

Thank you so much. Well, next up, we've got a new record by the artist Lily Seabird. Lily Seabird has a new record called Trash Mountain. It's a smile. You've changed a riff. You've known me just the side. What makes a high? What my...

So I've been trying out a little genre name for this style of music. I'm calling it Basement Show Americana or Punk House Americana. And it sort of fits especially well for... Lily Seabird's record because the titular Trash Mountain where she lives and kind of like wrote this record is this ramshackle pink sort of punk house in an artist's community situated on a decommissioned landfill site

in Burlington, Vermont. It reminds me a lot of what I've heard about Wednesday in MJ Lenderman's former compound, this place called Haw Creek. These artists living in these kind of semi-rural homesteads outside of more expensive of cities where they can afford to live and work and kind of just follow their muse without having to, you know, shell out a million dollars for rent every month. I really hear some of that Wednesday style on some of this Lily Seabird record, too. There's obviously big thief comparisons to be made, but there's a little gnarlier of guitar

stuff going on here as well that really puts me in mind of that fantastic Wednesday record, Ratsaw God. I definitely got the big thief connection. I got the Wednesday connection. Wednesday's a little more gnarled than this. The names that jumped out to me were Lucinda Williams and Jolie Holland. Oh, wow, yeah. Both Jolie Holland and Lucinda Williams have play that kind of warped Americana with a twang that bends a little farther than a twang usually bends.

And it creates this kind of warped quality to the music that's kind of constantly threatening to teeter off the rails in really interesting ways. It was interesting kind of reading about. her background. She has a background in environmental politics, became disillusioned, decided to become a musician full-time, which is a great way to become disillusioned in a completely different way. She has said that this record was kind of the product of a process where she decided to start writing music not just out of emotional necessity, not just in the midst of a crisis, but writing music out of habit and writing music that is inspired by so many other things at the same time.

That track that really jumped out at me from this record is, there are two kind of title cuts on this record. There's Trash Mountain 1 PM and Trash Mountain 1am. And Trash Mountain 1am opens with this, I think I've used the word warped or gnarled. It was so many times already talking about this record. But it just opens with this guitar line like right out of Neil Young's Cortez, The Killer.

There's this muscularity to her style, either via the guitar or in the way that she sings, I thought Lucinda was such a great comp. I hear a lot of that kind of drunken angel, you know, twang on a song like, you know, the 1am Trash Mountain. The version kind of staggers, almost seems on the verge of slumping over at the end of like a long night. And the 1 p.m. version, this sort of the earlier in the day version,

is this really cool kind of observational slice of life storytelling about, I think, where she lives in that area. She's kind of observing, you know, an old man, working through stuff. She's kind of writing, like you said, almost diaristically about the things that are happening around her. And compared to her previous record, which came out of a place of processing grief, this one feels, like you said, a lot more observational and it really comes out in the 1 p.m. Trash Mountain. Trash Mountain by the artist Lily Seabird. Next up, an artist named Duendita. Duendita's new album is called A Strong Desire to

survive. So Duandita is an artist from Queens named Candace Lee Camacho. She plays this, I would describe it as like weird atmospheric layered R&B, but it's never keeping its footing in one place for long. These 10 songs go by in like 27 minutes flowing together in this kind of glitchy but seamless array of sounds. There's a track on this record called Fry that has this really cool atmospheric vibe and I was like, whoa, that song really took me on a journey, and then I went and looked and it was 62 seconds long. And I'm just like, if you can take me on a cool atmospheric journey in 62 seconds, you have exceptional town. I think Duandita has a little bit of background in performance art and poetry, and you do get a little bit of that flavor on this record where

the songs typically feature like atypical structures, like you were just saying, the hooks and instrumental sections kind of come and go unpredictably. And she seems to enjoy presenting a hooky sequence and then kind of quickly warping it or taking it away from you. Like, this was really catchy. I know you liked that and now it's gone. You know, and I think like that's almost like a, there's sort of a magical, like a magic trick aspect of, you know, presenting these beautiful layered, sometimes choral harmonies and melodies and then kind of immediately taking a, you know, side chain compression and twisting that into a never-ending oblivion of, you know, noise or whatever. It really kind of takes a sweet moment and then warps it, which is a cool thing for a record to try to do to your ear.

And I mentioned this song, Frye, 62 seconds long. It's followed immediately by a song called Hammock, which has this torchy slow burn to it where it feels like the song is being beamed to you from some far away satellite. And it taps into what you're saying where like it's almost like it's flipping stations, but there's still a real sense of purpose to it. My favorite sequence on the record is this two-song sequence, Baby Teeth, starts with this beautiful vocal and piano ballot. Years I try to clear it from my mind. And then there's this lovely sort of sung coda that leads right into a one-minute track called Break the Silence.

And the album's notes that says that she recorded this kind of choir of nine people singing together in her bedroom, I would imagine, in Queens. in order to kind of hit this. And it's so cool. It's unexpected. Your ears are just sort of getting used to what they're hearing on baby teeth. And then she pivots to this other sound. And then once again to another version of that sound. And it all happens in maybe three and a half, four minutes.

It's like you're listening to an R&B version of a Minuteman record or something like that. It's changing so quickly. So thematically, there's something I really appreciate about what's going on here. This record is called A Strong Desire to Survive. It's following on the heels of an EP she put out last fall called the Mind Desire. a miracle. And you get a sense just from those titles that these are songs about kind of picking up in the face of hardship and and kind of soldiering on and finding beauty and taking stock of the things that give us life. And so as much like cool instrumental stuff as is going on behind her,

there's still these ideas tethering it to modern realities. And you really get a sense that this is somebody who is using art as medicine. It's called A Strong Desire to Survive by the Artist Duendita. We've got one more album that we're going to discuss in depth as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums out this week. But first, let's take a quick break. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Zach McCormick from The Current, talking about the best new albums out today, April 4th.

Before we get to our lightning round of some of our other favorite albums, we have one other record we want to talk about in-depth. It's by a band from Australia called Dumb Things. The album is called Self-Help. If you were a fan of Australian guitar music, you're going to find something to like on this record. I think of a band like Rolling Blackouts, Coastal Fever, a group that came out of Australia a few years back

that had this kind of jangly thing going on. The Beths might be another group to compare dumb things to. They're from New Zealand. We don't want letters from angry New Zealanders. Excuse me. Apologies. Oceania. And the go-betweens from Australia

would be another sort of reference point for this band that I think of. It's jangly, it's catchy, it's not particularly heavy, but it's just got this like sunny day, let's hang out in the yard, kick back to some guitar music type of vibe. It is a really chill, really fun record. And it's also got multiple vocalists and multiple songwriters contributing ideas to the record, which really gives

it kind of a fun sonic vid of variety. The song that really perked my ears up when I first heard it is out of time. It's this lovely kind of jangle pop jam, twinkling guitars, perfect harmonies on the chorus. It's everything that you need from a sort of a springtime, summertime guitar album. You know, this last trip around the sun, dressed like Fred Astaire, a electric chair, feeling so at ease, burning up on re-entry. You know, this record could have come out any time in the last 40 years. You know, you reference a band like The Go-Betweens, which had this really long and glorious career of playing kind of chiming, charming, understated jangle pop. This is picking up in that vein in just really, really lovely ways.

I'm glad you mentioned Out of Time, which is a terrific, terrific song. There's another one that I wanted to mention called Insult to Injury, which has this kind of cool, low, ominous sound, and it recalled for me the band Morphine. Do you remember Morphine? Oh, yeah, love Morphine. It's very stripped down. It's kind of taken down to its most elemental component parts. but there's this low, seething, cool rumble to it at the same time. Even as it's working in some of these darker textures, there is still this brightness and there's a cleverness. You know, the title track from this record, Self Help,

has the line, I've been reading Self-Help, but I just can't help myself. That first track, Self-Help, really gave me a strong Wilco vibe, like sort of being there era, more guitar-oriented Wilco. And I definitely caught just a little whiff of, you know, sort of Midwestern rock influences breaking in here and there. Another one that I really liked, Cherry Blossoms, has this kind of acerbic, talk-sung observations about, I believe, a beloved music venue, closing in Australian being replaced by something kind of slick and unfamiliar.

And the way that they capture this is via these kind of cool, oblique references to like pieces of decor that were located around the music venue. And they marry all that to this super catchy, you know, Jesus and Mary chain style psych pop hook. There's this really funny Beach Boys, you know, deep low background vocals at the end of the song. He goes, oh wow. You know, like, it's an animal collective song or something like that. It's just a lot of fun that tune, Cherry Blossoms. It's gone.

It's big boulders. And now there's just a... Cherry Glossop Cherry Glosson The elements of this record that feel familiar feel familiar in the best way and sometimes like that's what I'm looking for, right? Like rearrange the familiar in ways that feel fresh.

I found this record enormously charming. The guitarist and vocalist Madeline Keenanonan is kind of the glue for this band. Her background vocals are these crucial harmonies that kind of tie the whole album together, together, and she does a couple of great lead vocals on songs like Windows and Doors. In her singing, I hear a little bit of that Bell and Sebastian camera obscure a twee flavor in there as well, and she does the band's album covers as well, which have this cool kind

of Keith Herring vibe that adds to the warm pastel sunny flavor of this record. That's self-help by the band Dumb Things. Now, Zach, this is one of those weeks where we really could not get to every record that we want to talk about. We're not even going to get to Florist or Simmel or Jan Tearsen, all of whom have good records out today. So take heed of this lightning round. There's some really, really good stuff in here. I'm going to kick us off with the band Slay Bells. It is hard to believe that the noise pop duo Slay Bells has been around for 17 years now,

but they are back with a new album of mile-wide, hook-rich, bombastic songs that hum and swoon even as they're thrashing around. This new record leans a little more on the poppy side of things, but there's still a fair bit of heaviness here. It's called Bunky Becky Birthday. Joe's album The Crush. This is Joe Kiri, the actor you might know from Stranger Things, and this record kind of marks a welcome shift towards maybe more organic sounds for his solo project. It kind of plays like a soundtrack for an imaginary movie. There's this broad range of styles, but my favorite stuff is the new-wavy material that begins the album.

I hear a lot of the cars, a lot of Tom Petty, plenty of Otts-era New Wave revivalism, too, Julian Casablancus and the Voids, Broncho, White Reaper, groups like that. Joe Kiri clearly has great taste and can turn a clever phrase. I just wish there was even more of this great uptemple material that starts off the record. I want to recommend

a new band from Berlin, Germany called Rumor. Rumor plays sweet, winsome, sometimes even ethereal pop melodies with crushing guitar noise. You listen to a song, like nothing makes me feel, and it's like getting the crap beaten out of you with a bouquet of flowers. I absolutely mean that as a compliment. Rumors debut album, and that's R-O-O-M-E-R, is called Leaving It All to Chance. Mike Scott's latest album under the illustrious Waterboy's name is this 25-track, concept album about the life and career of Dennis Hopper. In fact, it's called Life, Death, and Dennis Hopper. The album's storyline is told chronologically, sometimes via song lyrics, sometimes via narration, and the musical arrangements also followed that same kind of chronological track. They shift

from mid-century lounge to disco to 90s industrial over the course of the record. It is such a wildly ambitious passion project that I really can't help but respect it. Even if it only sort of works as an album of songs. I understand that people who buy the album do get an annotated song list to help guide you through the Dennis Hopper story, which would definitely be helpful for those of us who haven't gotten a chance to read a Hopper biography yet. Finally, if you're looking to spend a fruitful half hour in the chill out tent this weekend, set aside a bit of time to check out the electronic artist known as HXH. HXH plays drifty, thoughtful, expansive, ambient music that'll go well with your Sunday crossword and your middle of the night

doom scrolling. Their new album is just three tracks, but those tracks take you on a journey. That album is called Stark Phenomena. And that is our show for this week. Thank you, Zach McCormick, for taking time out of your week at The Current. Thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure to be here with you. It is a pleasure to have you. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Simon Rentner and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR music is Soraya Mohamed, and her boss is Keith Jenkins, NPR's vice president of music and visuals. We'll be back next week to talk about the pride of Wisconsin, Bonnie Vare, with Radio Milwaukee's Aaron Wolf.

Until then, take a moment to be well, throw your windows open, and treat yourself to lots of great music. Throughout our lives, we will try to reorient ourselves. back to our own respondents because it's essential. It's essential to remember that. In that moment, looking at the sky reminded me of a moment I had in real life where I was on the beach and I was staring at the ocean, like I was on the foot of the shore. And I was looking at the ocean and trying to take it in

and also was thinking about how impossible to take in it is. And I was thinking if that's my birthplace, if that's my mother, what does that make me?