NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out July 18

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Alex G. Paramore's Zac Farro. Lord Huron. It's a packed release week, and we've got Chelsea O from Buffalo/Toronto Public Media on the show to unpack all the greatness.Intro: • Sly & The Family Stone, 'The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967'The Starting 5:• Alex G, 'Headlights' (Stream)• Jim Legxacy, 'black british music (2025)' (Stream)• Zac Farro, 'Operator' (Stream)• Lord Huron, 'The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1' (Stream)• Disiniblud, s/t (Stream)The Lightning Round:• Cam, 'All Things Light'• Forth Wanderers, 'The Longer This Goes On'• Jess Ribeiro, 'Mixtape'• Billie Marten, 'Dog Eared'• Two Shell, 'Iicons'See our long list of albums out July 18 and sample more than 50 of them via our New Music Friday playlists on npr.org.Credits:Host: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Chelsea O (BTPM)Producer: Simon RentnerEditor: Otis HartExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSee 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

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Chelsea O from BTPM's The Bridge in Buffalo, New York. Hey, Chelsea. Hey, Stephen. Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure to have you join us for the very first time, if I'm not mistaken. You are correct. The sounds you are hearing behind us, the music you are hearing behind us, is Sly and the Family Searle. Stone from a new live album they have out today called The First Family, live at Winchester Cathedral, 1967. The track is, I Can't Turn You Loose. If you, like many of us, are still mourning the death

of Sly Stone back in June, this is a lovely way to revisit a band kind of coming into its prime. So, as I understood it, this is the earliest live recording of the group. What a remarkable artifact to have. And while the that it hasn't kind of existed in the world until now. It feels like there's still a ton of great sly in this family stone music out there in the archives waiting to be unearthed. For sure. And I think what struck me with listening to the song in particular was just how, like, tight

they are dynamically. It's insane. It's out today, so you probably haven't heard it already. We highly recommend that you dig in. We've got a ton of great records. going to talk about today, new albums from people like Alex G, Jim Legacy, Lord Huron, and so much more. I actually, I loved every single one of these albums. First up on the show, though, we've got the new album from Alex G. Alex G's new album is called Headlights.

Didn't notice it was hanging by the door. Leave a message on. Yeah, she doesn't want to wait for me no more. Walking in the city with someone tells you what? Alex G is the moniker of Alex Gianna Scoli, a singer-songwriter, producer from Philadelphia. He rose to indie popularity in the 2010s because of recordings he made in his bedroom. His label debut was DSU or Dream State University that came out in 2014, but it wasn't until his eighth studio album, which was called House of Sugar in 2019. That's a personal favor to mine, that he began working in studios outside of his home.

In the years since, he's experimented with movie scores, including We're All Gone to the World's Fair, and I saw the TV glow. And he also released his album, God Save the Animals, back in 2022. Yeah, and, you know, he's a standard bearer for a certain style of kind of indie pop music and, like, almost has this kind of slack quality. But there's also, there are these deep, deep hooks. And so, you know, when he broke through with that album, you mentioned, God Save the Animals, there was this song called Runner. Yeah, it's a bedroom pop song, but it's also just a pop song. And it gets stuck in your head the way that a pop song does. And now he's got this record.

This is his first album on a major label, which is not the kind of milestone that I usually even bothered to acknowledge. I don't think most people actually care about record labels. But it is interesting. Like, as he's moved through his career, this is his 10th album, he's kind of making this transition into doing these things primarily in studios for the first time. And to me, it's really impressive listening to this record, how much it still sounds like him,

while still sounding more assured and polished and taking advantage of some of the benefits of working in a studio. My introduction to him was actually his album. My introduction to him was actually his album. rocket. The variation of the songs, because you had tracks that were very electronic and synth, and then other ones that were very much kind of more singer-songwriter, like Bobby, it felt erratic to me at first, but the more I became familiar with his work, the more I was like, I actually very much appreciate this approach by combining a lot of those very familiar elements. He then

adds these subtle nuances of things that are unfamiliar, and that's what makes his sound so unique. it's like there's enough familiarity there where it draws even in a casual listener but just the very small details that he has in the songs I think are what make it specific to Alex G. He recorded his first bunch of records under the name Sandy Alex G, which was probably the first time

that I was at least familiar with his name and it wasn't until more recently that I started really seeking out his records. You listened to a song like Afterlife that has a song, the kind of laid-back, mumbly qualities, but that's combined with kind of this bright, chiming hookiness, and like he's got Max Weinberg on drums. With Afterlife, I actually watched the music video. Stephen, have you seen it yet?

I have not. It features a child who is being dragged by a microphone cable across a rural town. It starts in a square dance, then they go through fields, a barbecue. And why I'm bringing it up is because I saw a commenter on the video. video say, this song sounds like how a memory of summer feels. How does he do that? And I think that's something that Alex G is very good at. He's really great at evoking memories, not, it's like he knows the listener's memories somehow, and you're able to feel that in his music. That nasal quality to his voice, and it makes me think of the track far and wide. And I noticed that

on this record that from song to song, he doesn't necessarily. always sound the exact same. It's like he's less concerned with singing like Alex G and just more concerned with portraying whatever it is the song calls for. Yeah, that gives him kind of this ability to assume other identities that really allow for kind of a versatile sound and a versatile storytelling voice. I'm glad you mentioned the song Far and Wide,

which feels in many ways like a bedroom pop song, but also just feels immaculately orchestrated. I just really appreciate how many different approaches he's able to kind of incorporate as he goes along. I think it's a very well-paced record. That is Headlights. It is the new album from Alex G. Next up, Jim Legacy has a new record called Black British Music 2025. So I couldn't pretend.

Told me that I couldn't fit in your lifestyle. Okay. Damn niggas bite swagger. Then they wonder why you never sticks. So this when I was a chip. I go evicted a shit. I was around with the dogs out, giving drugs out for the veins. I had to toss in the rain.

Yeah. Yeah. So Jim Legacy is, as the title suggests, a black British musician. And he's, you know, been putting out records, singles, EPs, mixtapes, and stuff since about 2018. And in that time, he's grown slowly in popularity and kind of picked up more and more co-signs and collaborators from across the British music industry, even as he's experienced homelessness, some struggled kind of coming up and building a career around his music. It's interesting. He builds Black Brats said I'm never going back. I'm on a phone with a bad one. I don't need her, but I need her.

Rain came out to leave her. Yeah. It's interesting. He bills Black British Music 2025 as a mixtape, not an album. This feels like a mixtape. It sometimes even feels like flipping stations on a radio dial just because there's so many ideas and thoughts

and even little bits of spoken word kind of percolating throughout. There's 15 songs on this mixtape, which I find that number deceiving, Most of these reside between the minute and a half to two minutes in length. I think the whole thing times out at around like 35 minutes. And that to me reminds me of that stereotypical pop-punk ethos of short, fast, and loud. But I feel like even though there's brevity, it doesn't lose any of the emotional integrity.

From the very first track, we hear straight from the artist, kind of why he's even putting out this release. That's just what I was doing, man. There was the death of his sister, his mother maybe had a stroke, there was psychosis, and he was trying to avoid all these things and distract himself. And he acknowledges that as humans,

we want to distract. We don't want to face things head on, but ultimately he comes to recognize there's always going to be mud, I believe is what he says, to get through. I felt like I just turned my life around from being homeless to doing the mixtape and then doing sprint,

or like I actually felt like raw my life was. going in such a sick direction and I go out the mud but you know you get out of mud there's always going to be even though there's always going to be mud even though there's a lot of really catchy pop hooks

throughout this entire piece there's so much going on beneath the surface that is way deeper than just a song getting stuck in your head make no mistake these songs do get stuck in your head. But like stylistically and thematically, there is so much variation on this record. I may fall and my heart's filled with issues of trust when I died.

Tones of optimism and hope, themes of aggression and darkness, there's playfulness and tenderness, hip-hop, and drill, and indie pop, and dance hall, and Afrobeat. There's a track called Issues of Trust that has this kind of singer-songwriter-ly sensitivity to it. His toolkit incorporates so many different sounds. Since you left our lives and blaming myself for all the things I said, and I never said, though I tried, I felt pride, because my heart's... Yeah, one of my favorites was New David Bowie. I really liked the layered vocals, the driving kind of garage rock feet.

there's a twinkling synth going on and then there's this little guitar lick that comes in at the end he kept using the term D&D and I didn't know what that meant and now I know it means do not disturb so I felt officially old after listening to that but I just loved that track

and I listened to this record a couple of times while I was taking a walk and it put a bounce in my step put my phone on D&D she want me I can't put my heart on sleeve who them boys are just some backpacking niggas making noise see them talk

There's a track called SOS that has this slinky, almost kind of tropicalia vibes. But then you've got a song, O6 Wayne Rooney, where hip-hop is kind of swirled together with spiky pop rock. He's just very genre-fluent and kind of genre agnostic at the same time. O-6 Wayne Rooney kind of reminded me of young blood. Willow, Juice World, Machine Gun Kelly event. So he mentions Andre 3000 earlier in the mixtape. And then in this song, he was saying, hey, yeah, hey, I was not sure if I was crazy

and thinking that that was a reference to The Love Below. I don't know if you thought that or if that's just me. Wayne Rooney, who that song is named after, is a famous soccer player. You know, so he's just like weaving in references to musicians who've inspired him sports figures. I also feel like the track's son. Both of those songs in particular remind me as something I could have seen on MTV back in 2003.

But he's bringing this very nostalgic feel into the present, and it doesn't feel dated. That's Jim Legacy. His new mixtape is called Black British Music 2025. We've got some more records we want to. to talk to out today, July 18th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Chelsea O from BTPM's The Bridge in Buffalo, New York. Chelsea, tell me about the station. So my favorite thing about the station is that the bridge really tries to integrate into our regional community. We were recently both at the Buffalo and Toronto Pride Parades. We host monthly events at

local establishments, some of which are music meetings, where we invite listeners to come. and chat with us about what they like about the station, you know, what songs they're listening to that they're hoping that we'll play. And then we're also working more to showcase opportunities for regional artists. So you'll hear artists from Buffalo and Toronto on more than just one day. It's like you're showcasing local music from both cities. My show is called The Scene. There's Sunday mornings from 10 to 11 a.m. We play all artists currently based in Western New York and Southern Ontario.

I myself have been part of the Western New York music scene for over a decade with my project stressed off. I love our local arts scene. We have such an amazing arts community here in Buffalo, and then it's been really cool to be introduced to the arts community in southern Ontario. Next up, we've got a new album from Zach Farrow, probably best known for his work in Paramour. His new solo album is called Operator.

This is Zach Farrow's first album under his own name after years of working under the moniker Half Noise. He's also obviously the drummer of the band Paramore. He says that this record is his most person, and that it's an inner dialogue with myself within myself. And so it felt right to cut out the middleman and go with, this is Zach Farrow. It's really difficult for me to listen to Zach Farrow

and not related back to Paramore, especially listening to this album. It's so evident to me how much he's influenced their sound since he rejoined the band in 2018 for their album After Laughter. Yeah, it's so interesting when you hear a solo record from a member of a band who is not the front person, to get a sense of, like you said, what they contribute to the band, what is their vibe, what kind of music would they be making if given the choice? Or is this some kind of genre exploration where they're just musical polymaths and want to try a lot of different things?

If you want a sense of the vibe of this record, I mean, it's really evident right away. It's this kind of mellow, playful, soulful pop rock, a little bit of a psychedelic quality, too, which kind of taps into a lot of the stuff that he was doing with half noise. It's such an easy listen, but it has such a mellow, approachable quality, and there's no fat on it. It's nine songs in 25 minutes. It's very 1970s.

It's retro in every aspect, even down to the title of the record and the title track operator. I mean, I don't even know if people growing up today would know what it is to call somebody and get an operator. He actually also collaborated primarily with two good friends out of Nashville, Matt Chansey and Josh Gilligan. And I felt like reading the credits, they did contribute quite a bit to the overall sound.

It's a very layered, fleshed out, full-blooded sound. I mean, there's a song called Second Chance. I felt the influence of like Steely Dan. If you're going to kind of tap into a Steely Dan sound, you're making music that is extremely precise, lots of layers. harmonies where, you know, the studio is just giving you something that is really sonically rich. And he's able to tap into that in part because of these great collaborators.

There's a song called One where it's kind of this like cosmic spacey soul. It feels like a throwback without feeling like a museum piece, if that makes sense. Simple actions remind me a lot of the Bee Gees with that little let it go, let it go falsetto. To me, the entire record is built for a serene coastal drive. I imagine myself on the Pacific Coast Highway, windows down, hair flowing. It's a really pleasant listen. And in that vein, there's actually a song called Sunday Driving. Absolutely.

Very mellow song. There's a song called My My, that feels like the cosmic folk of the 70s. You know, it's so sweet. It's so agreeable. That one kind of reminded me of The Grateful Dead a little bit. Sure. Are you familiar with the show Freaks and Geeks? I felt like I was Lindsay Weir, like, twirling in my bedroom.

I'm listening to American Beauty for the first time. Having your mind blown. Having my mind. Exactly. Mind blown. But I really enjoyed this record a lot. That's Zach Farrow. His new album is called Operator.

Next up, Lord Huron is back with a new album. It's called The Cosmic Selecter, Volume 1. So Lord Huron has been floating around for about 15 years. They've been putting out albums and EPs that have kind of subtle vibes, but those subtle vibes don't preclude them playing huge theaters and even stadiums. I knew that they had experienced this huge blow-up because their song The Night We Met was placed really memorably on the TV show 13 Reasons Why. I didn't realize that it is one of Spotify's most streamed songs of all time.

That song has been streamed on Spotify more than three billion times. I don't think of them necessarily as like purveyors of big mainstream pop music. Their songs have a kind of unsettling, swirly, like really beautiful, rambling quality to it that doesn't necessarily lend itself to monoculture. And yet here we are. They're back with their new album. It's their fifth. And it's just lovely.

I was going to say one of the few bands making money off streaming. Stream three billion times. Anyone can do that, right? This band has always had a storytelling theatrical flair. They've released music videos in the past that have sort of a storytelling nature with a 70s Western style. This album is well, very much an American sound, that Western cowboy drama feel throughout.

Oh, absolutely. These tracks, in my opinion, they don't necessarily tell you a linear story, but they immerse you, and you are right away, even if the lyrics aren't describing a desolate desert or ghost towns, you see that through the music. I'm glad you mentioned their videos, because it's very hard to talk about Lord Huron's music without using the word cinematic.

So much of their music is kind of written for visuals, and it sort of makes sense that they experience this massive, massive breakthrough. this album The Cosmic Selector Volume 1 kicks off with a song called Looking Back. And my immediate thought hearing this song was like, you could play this song on a Halloween playlist. And it would really work. It's not Monster Mash, but it is evoking a lot of this darkness.

And it's just extremely evocative. And so right off the bat, you're immediately plunged into a very specific moment. mood, and I just love that. Yeah, very eerie. And I feel like the first four tracks on the record, they sort of wash over the listener, and they're very atmospheric,

but the one that takes the reins is who laughs last. With Kristen Stewart. I was about to say, and what better for a theatrical band than to enlist the help of an actor? So since you were doing a spoken word vocal on this. This track I just wanted to listen to again and again. The guitar line. a driving really dirty bass.

And then Kristen's vocal come in, which is unexpected when you don't know that that's what's going to happen. Right. Like, how bold is that to have as your single? The first voice you hear on the first single from their new record belongs to Kristen Stewart instead of your lead singer. It was a very bold choice.

I kind of assumed Stephen from this part of the album that Stewart is playing the part of the lost love that the narrator has been telling us, about for the first four songs. Did you feel that way? I hadn't even thought about it that way, but this is definitely a band that thinks about narrative. So it would make perfect sense for the songs on this record

to be in conversation with each other because of just how deliberate this band and its leader Ben Schneider have always been. Yeah, I felt like we were finally getting the counterpoint of view to the one that we've heard so far on the record. I know that earlier in the album, we have the narrator talking about some sort of heist that took place. Someone got away. He did not. He was left behind.

And so I kind of assumed that this track is the other person who got away with it. And she's driving like hell through ghost towns and deserts, you know, evading her captors, but we're not really sure to what end. There is this wandering, kind of searching quality that comes up again. It's a track called Is There Anybody Out There? It's a searching song befitting the title. There's a track called Baguiting. of bones, you know, that has this southwestern vibe. It feels very open and ethereal, like almost like the music is kind of shimmering off of hot concrete. I'd be remiss not to mention that both nothing I need and Watch Me Go in particular give me

major Tom Petty and traveling Wilberry vibes. It's in the way that he phrases and Watch Me Go. He says the words just go and slow sounds. so Petty-esque to me. Like very wildflowers era, Tom Petty. And Petty's great gift was a kind of plain spoken. Tom Petty didn't waste a lot of syllables. And that influence definitely feels like it's coming through here as well.

That is Lord Huron. Their terrific new record is called The Cosmic Selector Volume 1. We've got one more record we want to talk about in depth that's out today, July 18th, as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite new albums. But first, let's take one more quick break. From NPR Music, it's Stephen Thompson, here with Chelsea O from BTPM's The Bridge in Buffalo, New York. We got one more record we want to talk about in depth. It's by a band called Disney Blood, spelled D-I-S-I-N-I-B-L-U-D,

so as to not get in trouble with lawyers. Their new album is called Disney Blood. Is it Disney Blood? I thought it was... That's how they pronounce it. It looks like Dissing. I thought it was like Disson Blood. Okay, Disney Blood. Disney Blood is a duo comprised of composers Nina Keith and Roshika Nair.

Keith is a Los Angeles-based composer who is self-trained. Her 2019 debut features her playing piano, clarinet, cello, and flute, and explores a personal history marked by community tragedy and paranormal incidents. Nair hit the scene in 2022 with her breakout album, Heaven Came Crashing. That album received press from Pitchfork, The New York Times, Stereogum, Fader, GQ, Bandcamp, pretty much everyone under the sun.

It also got her an opening slot with M83. So Disney Blood, they say that they're a wordless conversation. I thought that that was really cool. There's so much going on in this record to you then. Like so many intricacies. When I first started listening to it, I was listening in my car. And almost immediately, I stopped it

because I felt like I was missing so many of the nuances happening within the instrumentals. Like, I had to go back and listen with headphones. I didn't listen to my car, but I had the exact same experience. I listened to two songs and then was like, I'm going to come back later and listen to this more closely. Like, started over from the beginning, as you said, is so much going on. One word that I used in my notes again and again, busy. And I mean it in a very, very positive way.

It's not overly cluttered. There's just a ton going on. Their sound combined almost takes on. the feel of like steamp, you know, where it feels like you're hearing the sound of like a mechanical organism as it's kind of whirring and clattering and shuffling together a ton of different sounds at once. I loved the overall theme of the album. Song titles like give uping and its change sort of hinted at it, but I feel like this entire record begs the question, why is it so hard for us to release and be present? and to just try to let go and exist.

For some reason, I think that's so difficult for us as people, especially in this modern era when there are so many distractions. Disney Blood is trying to get across. If you were to just let go of expectation, life takes the rains and can take you places that you wouldn't expect. There's a track on this album called Blue Rags Raging Wind, beautiful song, bringing in these gorgeous piano lines, and at times it's really bringing to mind for me the sounds of Sigurros and Yonzi's solo work.

It has this kind of toodling, like little playful, sweet little whistly effects to it. And I was reading about the song and kind of what they intended with it, and they were saying, it's designed to channel the inner life of a three-year-old. And I just think that's such an interesting way to come. kind of make music. Even those of us who are around small children, it can be difficult to kind of imagine what that should sound like. But damned if it doesn't have this childlike, playful,

kind of exploratory quality too. All of the guest vocalists on this record, of which there are several. But what I thought was really cool is that the vocalists act as more of a layer rather than a focal point. I'd say the one track where that's an exception is serpentine. featuring Cassandra Croft. Her voice in this is so gorgeous.

She really gives this ethereal, haunting delivery. The lyrics and the voice really bring the imagery to the track, whereas so many of the other songs, I felt like the instrumentals were the star, front and center. And that's what's really making your mind go. But in Serpentine, I felt like Cassandra's vocal was so beautiful. And fun fact, I found out her father happens to be Elwood Woody Norris, the inventor of hypersonic sound.

What? No idea. I know. The things you learn on the internet. Some of these voices are just so welcome. I have been a Juliana Barwick fan. For 10 or 15 years now, I still often put her records on

when I'm looking to kind of drift off or concentrate or if I'm on a long drive. She has this beautiful voice that she uses in really enveloping and just gorgeous ways. And she pops up a couple times on this record. She pops up in the opening track, give-upping. And she turns up again in the song, It's Change, which you kind of referenced. And there are three different people who kind of pop up in that song.

And that song is sort of intended to sort of celebrate the idea of impermanence. That our lives are constantly kind of turning over and we're never kind of experiencing the same moment twice. And that's something that can be caused for celebration more than, morning. That song also features Katie Day, and her vocal in particular reminded me kind of image and heap. That was sort of the voice near the end. She said, the following lyrics, if I could learn to add it up before it even starts, what could we become today not falling apart? And that to me kind of spoke of seeing a pattern before it takes place, maybe an anxious spiral, which I can relate to. I get myself an anxious spirals a lot. That's why this album really spoke to me. I feel like just the

message is so simple and lovely and yet for some reason so hard to obtain, but perhaps this record helps us to stay in the present. As somebody who is constantly in the grips of an anxious spiral, I appreciated this record a lot. That is Disney Blood, the self-titled album, Spell, D-I-S-I-N-I-B-L-U-D. You would never guess that it is pronounced Disney Blood. Chelsea, we could not possibly get to every single album today, July 18th. We had to kill a lot of darlings to get to this point. We didn't even get to Laura Jane Grace. But we did want to do a lightning round to kind of celebrate some of those albums. I'm going to kick us off with the country singer and occasional Beyonce collaborator Cam. She's back with her first album in five years,

thoughtful, poppy, folky, kind of genre-agnostic set of songs about, as she says, Embracing the Abyss. We are golden. Cam became a mother in the early days of the pandemic. Her songs are informed by big changes in her life and in the world. It's a charming cocktail of reflection and joy. Cam's new album is called All Things Light. I chose Fourth Wanderers, the longer this goes on,

which is out on sub-pop today. Fourth Wanderers originated in Montclair, New Jersey. and after years of DIY EPs and touring, the band signed a subpop in 2018 and released their self-titled debut. However, after the album's release, a vocalist Ava Trilling had to call off their touring plans due to a panic disorder, and that disruption caused the group to disband. It looked like they were never going to come back and release new music, but happily, that assumption was wrong. The band is saying this is not an official comeback. They're still trying to figure out who they are and what they're doing,

but I think that this is a really fun record from start to. to finish. They said that they tried experimenting in the spirit of country and blues. But when I listen to this album, I hear a lot of pop jangle and droney. And I realize this term gets overused, but 90s alternative. And lots of confessional lyrical themes in here about anxiety and romantic enwee. But at the end of the day, the instrumentals have a really kind of bright sunshine equality. And I think it makes it a really great summer record. Jess Ribeiro is a singer-songwriter whose songs have a quality that's not so much timeless as seeming to emanate from about five different decades at once.

She put out a gorgeous record last year called Summer of Love, and now she's back with a collection of Oddenends and B-Sides, including a reworking of Summer of Love's title track that sets the song squarely in the 80s in the best possible way. That's not always a good thing. It's a good thing here. Jess Ribeiro's new record is called Mix Tate. Billy Martin is a singer-songwriter who rose to fame at the tender age of 12 by posting covers on YouTube that garnered thousands of views. She released her her CP at 15, her second at 16, and since then she's put out four albums.

So I think it's understandable and expected that when an artist starts off their career that young, it's difficult to emerge fully formed with your own voice and sound. But in my opinion, her release that came out today, Dog-eared, kind of feels like her true debut. I feel like her voice is at its most mature and distinctive. And there's also a comfortability and growth in her writing and performance. I really enjoy this album.

I love her crooning vocals. I love the rich and textured musicianship. It makes it a really smooth listen from start to finish. And that's Billy Martin's album, Dog Eared, out today. The London duo Two Shell is a mysterious shape shifter. Its members are masked and anonymous, while they're still. Songs feel warped and strange, taking UK club music, smashing it into fragments, and then reassembling those shards into something dark and hypnotic.

You'll hear doomy atmospherics, hyperpop, and everything in between. It's danceable and deeply weird, which is always an excellent combination. Two Shell's new album is called Icons spelled with Two Eyes. Now, Chelsea, you and I have listened to a lot of music. What is one song that you are happiest to take away from this experience? I thought about this a lot, Stephen, and I felt like, oh, if I were really cool, I'd choose something very obscure. But I'm not that cool. So I'm going to say, I really just love afterlife by Alex G.

I realize it's just something about it is so beautiful. And like we were saying, just evokes my own memories. And I love listening to it. so I know I'm going to return to it again and again. So much nostalgia this week. Honestly, the song that is still just kind of ringing and radiating in my head in wonderful ways is Blue Rags Raging Wind from Disney Blood. Beautiful piano lines that I just couldn't shake.

I really, really love that song. But as you said, it is hard to narrow it down, including many songs that aren't cooler than we are. And that is our show for this week. Thank you so much, Chelsea O for taking time out of your week at the Bridge in Buffalo. Thank you, Stephen. It was a real pleasure. 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 Retner and edited by Otis Hart.

The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Mohamed. We'll be back next week to discuss the new album by Tyler Childers with Joe Kendrick of WNCW in Western North Carolina. Until then, take a moment to be well, flash around in the nearest kitty pool, and treat yourself. to lots of great music.