NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Nov. 22

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

NPR Music's Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Ann Powers are your guides to the last big Friday of 2024. Plus a deep dive into an epic new Red Hot compilation titled TRAИƧA.Featured albums: • Kim Deal, Nobody Loves You More• Father John Misty, Mahashmashana• Say Lou Lou, Dust• Michael Kiwanuka, Small Changes• Various Artists, TRAИƧA (Red Hot)See the long list of albums out Nov. 22 and stream our New Music Friday playlist at https://npr.org/music.See 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 heads up. This podcast contains explicit language. How are you feeling today, Diod? You know, here in Nashville, it's kind of gray, and it's getting into the winter blas, even though technically I guess it's still fall. I'm feeling the arrival of the holiday season in a way that I'm not fully prepared to accept. It is funny to think about Thanksgiving as this strange sort of subsidiary as Christmas. Like, are there Thanksgiving songs? I used to think the turkey trot had to be a Thanksgiving song, not just a race, you know? Maybe there's songs out there that just we could slide into that position. Like Alanis Morissette's thank you.

Maybe just gets it for getting that title first. Oh, I just Googled and Little Eva has one called Let's Turkey Trot from 1962. Maybe that one will get us going. Little Eva, of course, famous for the locomotion. So maybe that would be a good one. And I have to say, Adam Sandler followed up a Hanukkah song with Thanksgiving song. You're so right. That's the one. Here I was thinking about your welcome from Moana, which is more of a thanks-taking song.

But no. I like that, though. The Sandman, the Sandman takes it. That's right. Turkey with gravy and cranberry. Can't believe the meds traded that'll strawberry. Turkey for you. Can't believe Tyson gave that girl Vee D. Hey, everybody. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music, here to talk about the best and most discussion-worthy albums out today, November 22nd.

I'm NPR music editor, Dauut Tyler Amin, here with critic and correspondent Anne Powers, for whom I am always thankful. I'm so thankful for you. But especially so in this season of thanks, I mention this for two reasons. One is, we'll be off next Friday. Day after Thanksgiving is understandably a light day for new releases. But number two, after Thanksgiving, our best music of 2024 podcasts begin, which means that this is the last proper new music Friday episode of the year. Oh, I'm kind of sad. I'm kind of sad about that. Our desperate cramming to absorb all this music, we're actually not going to be doing that. What will I do? What will I do in the days before we record?

I don't know. I might actually have to like talk to my husband or something. That sounds so challenging. Coming up today, new music from Father John Misty, Michael Kiwanuka, and a supersized benefit compilation carves out space for a certain kind of underheard voice. But first, we have known the voice of Kim Deal since her arrival with the pixies in the late 80s. We heard her reinvented with the breeders in the early 90s, but in all that time,

she's somehow never actually made a proper solo album. That changes today with Deal's first release under her own name titled, Nobody Loves You More. So Sunday night, Daoud, I was like, you know, cooking dinner, and I put this on, and I played it four times in a row, and particularly the song, Coast. such a great little pop song and also invokes my favorite Blondie song from the Blondie Imperial Phase Sunday Girl.

I love all the connections Kim Dill makes on this record and it really is a rabbit hole kind of record at least for me because it does touch on so much from her own past but also from kind of the history of pop music. And you know, Diodin's in a way Kim herself fell down a rabbit hole making this record. It took quite a long time. She went through the death of both of her parents during this time, the pandemic. A lot of, you know, stops and starts, but this is maybe kind of a weird thing to say. But I almost feel like the stops and starts made this the cool record it is. Because I feel like the internal workings of her mind and her creativity are all exposed on this record in a really beautiful way. Yeah, I think that's right. I got blondie vibes from this too, but the tide is high, I think, was my reference point.

I'll go listen to Sunday Girl. Let's listen to a little bit of it right now. Let's hear a little Sunday Girl. Same melody, but also same kind of like looking back to girl groups and maybe even like, I don't know, French pop or something of the 60s. Don't you hear it? Yeah, I do. I mean, so here's the thing about Kim Deal. she has always kind of been a square peg.

Does that feel right to say? Hmm, interesting, maybe. You know, the metaphor, it's interesting, you reach for that metaphor, because I reach for the metaphor of a side road, which sounds a little weird, but what I mean is, like, her songs always feel like a bit of a, the road not taken. You know what I mean? Like, here's the thing the Pixies could have been if she was the most, you know, dominant force in that.

Here's the thing that 90s rock could have been if women were in charge. That would have been the breeders, et cetera. Like, I was feeling like she's like my alternate reality or something. I mean, I say it because you think about cannonball, and I aged into a world where it was just taken for granted that that was like a big radio hit that got used in movies and TV shows and stuff. Which it was, which it was. But that song is so weird when you think about it.

It starts with the dial-up noise. and it's got the, you know, the megaphone voice. And I don't know if she really plugged in an acoustic guitar like she does in the video, but the guitar sound on that record is crazy. And then her presence in the Pixies, it's this interesting contrast to Frank Black because especially if you watch live videos of them at their prime, when she sings, you know, gigantic or something like that,

she really has more traditional kind of frontman energy than he does, not to be too essentialist about it. But do you know what I'm saying? I guess so. I mean, I remember seeing the Pixies live when I was a Wii one and standing right in front of Kim because she was definitely the charismatic presence. She was what drew me to the band, for sure. It's a different kind of presence.

She's just, she's so magnetic. I'll tell you the song on this record that really got my attention, it hammers home the thing that you're saying about this being sort of an upturned tool chest of all. all of her various interests. There's a song called Crystal Breath. To me, sounds basically like electro-clash. We were just talking earlier this fall, I guess, about the dare, you know, sort of digging up the ghost of 2000s Electro-Clash.

And so here you've got this, you know, crusty, corroded drum loop and this rhythm guitar that feels like it's just sort of slashing across the stereo field. And then the contrast there is her voice. which I had never thought of as a particularly, like, sweet or gentle presence. Really? I think that's a key thing about Kim Deal, because she has that girlish voice, but then it's got some sandpaper in it or something, or some tang in it, maybe. There's a husk to it.

She's always had this interest in really abrasive sounds. Like, she really liked to beat the hell out of a guitar in creating, those sounds on the Breeders' Records, it sort of got past me that there is something just sort of innately sweet to her singing voice and that perhaps all of that intense tone and all of that harshness that she's looked to channel throughout her career is a way to sort of cut that innate sweetness and create a contrasting flavor to the thing that just comes out of her naturally. Well, this album definitely has a lot of that sweetness. There's a lot of callback. So even like the American songbook and stuff like that.

And just really beautiful ballads, love songs, you know, with titles like, are you mine and nobody loves you more? That's the title of the album. But in the end, I think the thing that really kept me coming back to this record was that that incredible pop sense of hers, you know, and how you'd be in the noise and then you'd have a song like Wish I Was, which turns out was, you know, first release as an instrumental, like 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago, but now she's written these incredibly poignant lyrics that are,

as far as I can tell about having a crush on a younger person and like I wish I was young. It's just, oh, thank you, Kim. I love these lovely damaged pop songs you're doing. That is the album Nobody Loves You More by Kim Deal. Up next, a guy who's never been afraid to call in an army of strings and horns when he needs it, Father John Misty, whose new album, I've been practicing this, is called Mahashmashana. Father John Misty seems to me like a little bit of a cilantro-type taste for a lot of folks.

If you're in on what he's doing, you're kind of all in. And if you're not, he is just so obnoxious, just so pretentious, just so weird. Twice a week She come She leaves And no one Hassled her so far I was skeptical about him

When he started all those years ago I was like, wow Do we really Do we really need a white guy out there Like spewing poetry Uh, over grandiose swells of music Because you know what?

The history of rock has been that. So do we really need that in the 21st century? But I, I have completely come around. I have to say I am now a big fan. I helped to see him live. And then this record is just reinforcing my positive feelings about him because I feel like he is just completely mastered what he does.

He's modulating it well on this record. And he's calling back to music that I love as someone who grew up with the classic rockers that he emulates and kind of, satirizes. Just listen to this song She Cleans Up. This is like Dylan and the Velvet Underground mashed up into that mashup that we always dreamed what happened

but never did happen. The phrasing is so Dylan and then there's also like a very stonesish kind of boogie rock happening in this song. It's all happening. I mean, I just have to ask you, like, who is doing that convincingly in 2024 aside from Josh Tillman? Nobody came to mind. I'm sure that.

You could say, that's like saying, well, I don't know, but maybe this is like, you know, who is brave enough to bring, you know, the strogan off to the potluck or something, even when nobody wants to eat that thing? You know, maybe this is just a dish nobody wants, but it satisfies me. I have a lot of thoughts that feel similar to the thoughts that I had around the early years of the 1975. Another dirtbag who I love. So what can you say? There's something like inherently ridiculous about both of them, right?

And you find yourself... But isn't that the point? But that's the thing. You find yourself asking like, like, are they serious? And I think the thing is they are in that the music is not a joke. it's not meant to be like some kind of parody, even when they're doing pastiche. But it is meant to be at least a little bit funny.

There is like a lot of humor tucked into these songs. So a perfect example, a song that really unsettled me, is this song Mental Health, where if you listen to these strings, I just imagine, you know, a lit marquee on a TV special behind some kind of mid-career, you know, comeback moment for like Elvis or Roy Orbison or Neil Diamond. But the lyrics are lunacy.

He says, no one knows you like yourself, you two should speak in the presence of a license. basically describing, you know, something akin to like a dissociative personality disorder. Right. And the seamless blending of those two things and the fact that he is playing the part so well sort of alchemize into this weird third thing that is neither the sort of source material that he's riffing on musically or just the kind of weirdo street poet thing that he's riffing on lyrically. One of these labels bound to fit identity,

Sometimes when we talk about Father John Misty, we only focus on the humor or on the kind of luscious behavior, the lusch persona that he has embodied in the songs and also as a performer, which I have to say also when I named, name-checked all those classic rock heroes, I forgot a really important one, Leonard Cohn, because I think Leonard Cohn is like a key to understanding what Josh Tillman is doing. Because Cohen also absolutely constantly walked right up to the edge of like just utter pretentiousness, you know. Also extremely funny. Also, you know, transgressive around sexuality.

And also one more thing. Like, you know, experimented with different arrangements and big giant, you know, sound at times. I was going to say, that's a big one. Cohen really liked to sort of pull apart and denature the idea of song structure to the point where you couldn't necessarily follow from moment to moment what was verse and what was chorus and what was bridge. I think that happens on this record, like the title track, which, you know, I compared to Dylan's visions of Johanna and our editor, Jacob Gans was like, well, this is like his eighth version of that song, right? Like, Tillman is not afraid to take those big swings, and I'm all for big swings. If you're going to be making rock music in 2024, blow it up, man. That's Mahash Mashana from Father John Misty.

Much more new music to share with you right after the break. Welcome back to New Music Friday. Up next, a sister act. And these gals are new to me, but I'm enjoying this record a lot. It is the Swedish Australian duo Say Lulu, whose new album is called Dust. This feels to me like a concept album about how dating a musician kind of sucks. Well, Dow, coming from you, I mean, I don't know, or maybe you know something about that

from both sides. I don't know, I don't know. I'm joking a little bit because I think there are a lot of different kinds of relationships and a lot of different kinds of personality types that you can swap into this. But the references are very clear. this is at the very least a breakup album, right? Every song is about the souring of a relationship in one way or another. But they do go out of their way to sort of highlight that the man in question, the scrub, the Busta in question,

seems to prioritize his work life, his creative life over the foundations of their bond. And I will point out, though, I have to interrupt you and say, I will point out that not only musicians have done this in relationships. I mean, a song that jumped out at me is waiting for a boy, which honestly could be about many different kinds of relationships with men I've had in my life, you know? And I love the punchline in that song because it's not just waiting for a boy like Joni Mitchell says, you know, in Carr on a Hill. I'm waiting for my sugar to show. It's not that. It's waiting for a boy to love me, you know, to love me more, to give me something more, to freaking do the dishes.

There is this very memorable image. I made you dinner. It's going cold. I'm bored by your music that echoes down the hall. The fascinating axis here is that I think by the end of this record, You do get the sense that the narrator of these songs is a little bit aware of their role in this mess that they've found themselves in. Because this is a relationship that has to have started at least a little bit because of a certain fascination with this, you know, creative, you know, sparkly person falling in love with the idea of a person and finding you don't actually have anything to build on there. Side note, the twin sisters who are this group, Say Lulu, are Anna Miranda and Elektra June Kilby Janssen.

And they are the daughters of Steve Kilby, who's a lead singer from the Australian band The Church, and Karen Janssen, who was in a Swedish new wave band called Pink Champagne. So I don't know, these girls grew up with musician parents. But the fact that they have Swedish parentage, like, once I heard that, I was like, yes, that makes an awful lot of sense. Because very often here, these are the kind of pop lyrics that I've grown accustomed to hearing Swedes come up with. They're just a little uncanny. They're just a couple of degrees off from the phrasing that would occur to a native speaker of American English. I spent some time in Sweden when Eric, my husband had a full write-thage thing last year. And he's writing a lot about Swedish pop right now.

But one thing he writes about is exactly what you're talking about. How Abba in particular, you know, they were very insistent on singing in English. But their English has this kind of slippage that makes it at once slightly off, slightly alien and also completely universal. It plays better because it is the. slightly off English of non-English speakers everywhere. The one story I can offer from my own experience is that when I did a summer abroad in Paris, an immersive French language program and one night found myself attempting to flirt in French, I discovered that I was much more direct and much more confident because I didn't

know how to be indirect, right? There's this thing that happens when you have to pass through the filter of a second language, that suddenly, you know, it weirdly winds up being super effective. What is more appropriate for an album about a complicated breakup than, like, miscommunication? It's perfect. By the end of this record, I really still get the sense of these sort of micro fibers that still attach people in the space of post-breakup clarity. People who know that they cannot and should not be together still have this sort of strange intimacy

that exists on a certain frequency that you can kind of wander in and out of you. That's the album Dust by the duo Say Lulu. Before we hit the lightning round, something just a little moodyer, Michael Kiwanuka, the Mercury Prize-winning British singer-songwriter, returns today with his new album, Small Changes. All right, Dioda, have we sunk into a mellower mood, maybe a slightly more expansive and yet

decentered mood, listening to a little Michael Kiwanuka there? I think it's Shaw Day season, officially. Well, it's salt season. That is, I'm talking about the band Salt, S-A-U-L-T. Among his many accomplishments, Michael Ki-W-N-U-Kanuka has worked with salt, and in fact, In-Flo is one of the producers on this, his fourth album, along with Danger Mouse. I think considering Michael Kiwanuka's relationship to salt, to inflow,

really kind of is the key to understanding where he's going on this album. In the song we just heard, the lowdown, it's such a, it's such a bubbly, simmering song with that strong baseline and the effects, you know, very Danger Mouse also. Yeah, a little bit of church organ. Yeah, yeah, that's Jimmy Jam playing the organ. Oh, really? Yeah, isn't that crazy?

That's awesome. This album is not necessarily like a collection of song songs that jump out at you and you want to like stand in a field singing along with them. It's much more of a sink-in kind of experience. The lyrics here do not stick to me. I think you'd have to focus really hard in order to, you know, come through a song and, you know, be able to call up the lyrical, hook, but there are musical moments that feel kind of indelible.

There's a song called Stay By My Side is notable, I think, for two instrumental choices. One is this drum part, which has the feeling of a loop, a loop that has passed through the guts of a sampler. It's probably not. It's probably just a live drummer. But just that feeling of, it's, you know, lots of rolls and ghost notes the way a kind of classic, you know, funk or soul drummer would do. but they're a little bit stressed out, they're a little bit degraded,

and then there is this guitar part. It's a three-note part that sort of moves around as the chords change. And I cannot tell if what I'm hearing is three notes being played and fed through like a digital delay so that they repeat, or just somebody playing those notes continuously. It is this, you know, it's basically played to mimic that effect in this weird way that, that, kind of feels like remembering something as you experience it for the first time.

Absolutely, and I think that's something about Michael Kiwanooka's songwriting. You know, his lyrics sometimes can feel kind of emblematic, like you're saying. And even though this record, you know, is partly a product of his life, he's moved outside of London and he's raising his family down on the south coast of England, so it's more personal, more direct, according to him. There is this floating quality in the music. I mean, I think it takes some time to sink into, but then I do find the songs running through my head. Not like he's telling me something, but more like he's just sort of, his vibe is sinking into my brain.

Here's a way to think about it. If he had a different timbre to his voice, if he just had a different range, if he was using falsetto, I think you would hear a strong connection between what Kiwanuka is doing and Marvin Gay, especially the classic Marvin Gay albums. But because Kewanuka has a more lower, more earthy, like, chest voice, it's not really obvious. But I think he's going for that kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he's going for that atmospheric feel that Marvin Gay was going for on his greatest works.

Stay by my side. There's nothing. It feels to me like the kind of record that you put on on a chilly fall day when you've maybe realized that it's a little too cold to go outside. And you just need to do some thinking. That is Small Changes by Michael Kiwanuka. As always, there is more new music than we can possibly cover in depth. Also out today, a pair of albums from legacy rap artists, Ice Cube, and Body Count, the metal band fronted by Ice Tew. And for the musical and fantasy lovers in your life, today brings the original soundtracks for Moana 2 and the new film adaptation of Wicked, starring Cynthia Arrivo and Ariana Grande.

And what do you got? Well, I found some fun stuff this week, I think, Daude. The jazz bassist, Daryl Johns, who's a total prodigy. He's played with Emmanuel Wilkins and Vijay Iyer, but also bands like the Lemon Twigs, has released his self-titled solo album. and it's such a goofy, fun bubblegum psych record. It's on MacDemarko's label. Also, the Japanese singer-songwriter composer Ichiko Ioba follows up her 2020 breakthrough,

which was called Windswept Adon, with another album that imagines a fantastic natural world. It's called Lumincent Creatures. And the Australian electronic pop artist, Alice Ivy, is releasing her dance floor-ready things. third album, Do What Makes You Happy, with guest vocals from people like Meyer Hawthorne and the Australian Blue-Eyed Soul King, Josh Teske. The Japanese singer-songwriter composer Ichiko Ioba has a new album out that's continuing

her project of building beautiful, fantastical worlds, very much informed by the natural world. This new record is called Luminousen Creatures. And as you mentioned at the beginning of our chat today, Dowd, we're entering in the holiday season, we're getting past the turkey and moving toward the eggnog or the lockies, and we're here just in time for the holiday deluge. And there are, I just want to say, there are a lot of gems out there among the pablum of holiday music. And one example is a new album by the, a wonderful couple Dean and Britta, known for their work in the band Luna,

and Space Man 3 Mastermind Sonic Boom. This is just a really lovely album to put on at your holiday party. And one of the tracks on this album is a cover of John and Yoko's classic, a song that sounds more relevant than ever, so I thought we could just have a moment and say, Happy Christmas, War is Over. After the Happy New Year, let's hope it's a good one without any fear.

So this is correction for poor. After the break, if you are among those who were stunned by the arrival of a new Chaudet song this fall, we are following that surprise straight to its source, a massive new compilation with a timely mission. That's after this. Welcome back to New Music Friday And a couple of weeks ago We were surprised by the sudden return Of one of our favorite reclusive legends

These folks who sort of make a handful of game-changing releases And then decide to mostly recede from the spotlight For extremely long periods of time at a stretch This time it was Chadei Who came out of the woodwork with a song called Young Lion, which was a dedication to her song Isaac. Isaac is transgender, and the song is, in a sense, a little bit of an apology, but really a sort of public

working through of the difficulties and the ultimate sort of resolution of that revelation and its effect on their relationship. So close your Akasan, Young I see how far you've come. This song was part of a giant. gigantic compilation called Transa, that is a collection of works made to sort of center trans and non-binary voices and stories. Gigantic is the word. What is it? 45 tracks? 46. And not only that is such a, Transa is such an event. I mean, the collaborations on this record, the names, the artists on this record, all of them working across all kinds of boundaries, you know, genre boundaries, generational boundaries.

really surprising collaborations in certain cases like Jeff Tweedy with Clara Rousey. That was unexpected doing a William Blake poem set to music. But one that really jumped out at me immediately when I got my hands on this beautiful, beautiful collection, is the duet between truly two of my favorite voices. Absolutely. Two of the greatest vocalists of our time, Moses Sumney and Anony singing on Sophie's masterpiece, Is it Cold in the Water? Sofi's passing in 2021 was one of the inspirations for this set, Daoud. And I can hear Sophie's influence throughout. So Tranza is not some anomaly. It is the latest release by, the organization Red Hot.

They've actually been doing their thing for quite some time. Oh, yeah. I mean, Red Hot has been around for many decades, and back at the turn of the 90s released a couple of compilations kind of redefined

the space and the impact of, I guess you call them charity compilations, right? They were the force behind this record Red Hot and Blue that was our famous artists reinterpreting Cole Porter

songs in very contemporary settings. That record rate made a million dollars for AIDS charities. And it featured these indelible interpretations of Cold Porter songs like Nena Cherries, I've Got You Under My Skin, or U2's version of Night and Day. And then the 1990 compilation, No Alternative, it was just like kind of this calling card for all the bands that defined that moment in rock, including smashing pumpkins, for example, urge overkill, Nirvana on a hidden track. So these releases made a case that a compilation album could do more than just be a collection

of fancy names to raise money, that it could really be a whole album experience that it could both kind of capture the vibe of a moment and tell a powerful story. And just a sonic story, a human story through the way the narrative arc, of the album unfolds. And I do really think this album, it's very, very long. So we have to say it's an epic story, but it does tell not only the story

that its makers have said it's meant to tell, which is the story of trans experience from, and these are the words of the producers behind the record, from grief and survival through acceptance to reinvention, but also I really think that it tells the story, of music in a post-genre age, or at least maybe we could say of art music. Some of the thrill here, right,

is just listening with your eyes closed, not looking at the titles and just sort of playing name that voice, right? When Jeff Tweety popped up, I was like, oh, man, that's fun. Definitely. But also, a lot of folks make repeat appearances. A lot of folks sort of, you know, reshut. They might, you know, show up on disc one

and then get reshuffled into a different role singing backup somewhere on disc three. Right, or like you said, you love that Moses Sumney track where he re-does Sylvester's classic, You Make Me Feel Mighty Real. You make me feel welcome. Sam Smith is on that too. Moses Sumney, Sam Smith, and Lyra Pramook, and as far as I can tell, that cover is entirely human voice.

Maybe there's other things that they're working in in subtle ways, but I think it's all just sequenced, you know, beatboxing and acapella sounds and stuff. And it's really cool. And I think the fact that people are sort of circling around and, you know, having their star solo moments and then having backing moments and sort of recombining into new shapes, it makes it feel like kind of a little bit more like a real coalition. There's this thing about all-star events and all-star compilations that can feel a little bit. isolated and transactional and like it's this thing that was sort of it occurred entirely over email. Yeah, or like we are all Bob Dylan in the recording of the We Are the World video. Like standing there, paralyzed, unable to, you know, figure out the lyrics or whatever. You get the sense that there was

a real sense of communication and a real sense of collective mission. Yes, for sure. And also when I say that it tells the story of music at this time or of a particular wide field of music. What I mean is that there's so much interesting music being made now that feels kind of decentered or feels like it's challenging our old narratives of what popular music is. And I got a shout out my husband, Eric Weisper, because I don't like to not credit his thought. So I'm just going to say something he said to me that I can't stop thinking about it. He said, you know, the difference between music now and music in like the classic rock and soul era or whatever, or even like classic hip hop era,

is that there used to be this kind of root to music, right? Like the guitar bass and drums or the turntabes, two tune tables and a microphone, right? And now the structure of music could come from anything because, you know, electronic pastiche is so common. We don't really know what is at the root of these songs. And I think that's a beautiful thing. It's opened up the field so much.

And I want to make a leap and say that's also a very profound thing to say about how people are thinking about gender now. In that go back to Sophie, one thing that Sophie said about being trans was that when you are trans, it's like you are freed from essentialism. You know, you're freed from these preconceived ideas of what your gender should be. and you are building a new self. And I feel like there's a parallel. There's a correlation between what this music sounds like and that approach to gender expression. I mean, to ask somebody to consider you as something outside of the binary understanding of gender that, you know, most people grow up with is to ask to be considered as an individual.

Yes. Which, you know, it seems like it should be a small thing. But it's, I mean, it's huge in this context. It's actually to be asked to be considered as a site of possibility, you know, as someone who is continuing to become. And that's the vibe I get from the music on this. Now, I want to say, it's a very down-tempo album. I guess that the musical becoming is a kind of a vibey down-tempo affair, at least as it's defined by this compilation. Of its nearly four hours, 26 minutes is a single under a 3,000 track.

Many of the tracks are quite gorgeous slow versions of either previously composed gorgeous slow songs like perfume, genius, and Alan Sparhawk from Lowe collaborate on an absolutely ravishing version of Lowe's song, Point of Discuss. Or there are new songs that also are ravishing and slow. There is a rocker late in the game. we can always count on Laura Jane Grace to come in and like, you know, really rock us. And on at Track 43, Laura Jane comes in and collaborates with the great Jane County along with Kathy Wilcox and Lee Ronaldo and J.D. Dardy on drums. It's just like a punk rock fest. And it is on the classic Jane Wayne Jane County song, Surrender Your Gender. It's kind of wild to think that it was 10 years ago now that Laura Jane Grasie.

race was her coming out was one thing, but the album Transgender Dysphoria Blues, just feels like a big dividing line in between, you know, and Aeroen trans identities were a sort of a thing that was considered a little bit fringe. You kind of had to know the right people and be invested in the right communities to even understand what it was, to it being just sort of an unknown and understood and the thing that you can like begin to take for granted. Right. And that's one thing that I'm trying to get out with what I'm saying about this record. I think in the spirit of Red Hot where these compilations that they have tried to say something

about the moment and about the state of music, I feel like the sound we get on this record, it's very different than what Laura Jane Grace has done with her own career, for the most part. It is somehow in the spirit of a better, or maybe better is the wrong word. I don't want to say better. just a more expansive understanding of how ourselves inform our artistic expression.

I want to shout out one track that really took me by surprise. It's a cover of Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying by Bell and Sebastian. The cover is by Julian Baker, Calvin Lauber, Soak, and Tiny Desk Contest winner, Quinn Christofferson. And it does two things really well. One, it sort of reconsiders the melody of that song in certain ways that I think gets it out of a little bit of the cover trap where, I mean, that's a song that I have heard one million times. And I know the precise contours of how Stuart Murdoch sings that song. They find ways to follow the original melody, and then they find ways to sort of deviate from it. And it feels like it is channeling and honoring the spirit of the original without just, you know, dancing in its shadow.

But the other thing is I had never really thought of this song as at all about identity. But of course it can be. I mean, it's this song about, you know, feeling out of place and feeling, you know, frustrated and under-motivated. And, you know, it's a real, just sort of like lie on the floor and think about what you're doing with your life kind of song, and just see it transplanted into this context and begin to think about it as a place from which that spark of thinking in new ways about your own identity could come from is really, I mean, I think it's changed my relationship with this song.

That's exactly what is so great about this compilation, you know, is that it will make you rethink some of your favorite songs and think about just like what is the relationship between artistic expression and individual expression or personal expression. And that's a really powerful intervention, I think, right now. It's a complicated moment to be releasing this record. More complicated, maybe, I think I can say, than if it had come out a month ago. So, you know, the fact that the Red Hot organization and all the artists who participated in this record felt,

free, you know, to create this work, I think is, it just is, it does feel a bit like an oasis to enter into this very, very absorbing collection of songs. And, you know, I just want to say one more thing, which is that another point of this record is to make those connections between elder artists like Jane County, for example, and younger ones who have emerged. and are exploring both these avenues of personal being and these new ways to make music. Maybe just we could listen to a little bit of track number 46, the track that ends the record,

which is such a lovely rendition of Beverly Glam Copeland's classic song Ever New with Sam Smith joining on the vocals. I saw a clip of them recording this song in the song, studio and Beverly is sitting there with just a big wad of tissues in his lap. You know, listening to Sam Smith do their vocal and it's just that sweetness, that beautiful heart moment. That's what I take away from Tranza. Folks, that is it for this year for this year, and as we say again. Welcome the bud, the summer blooming flowers.

Folks, that is it for this week's New Music Friday. And as we said, it is the last regular show of this year. But we still have more to share with you. We're off next week for Thanksgiving, but the first week of December will have our best of 2024 shows running across the entire All Songs podcast feed. you won't want to miss it. In the meantime, you can send your feedback on today's episode to all songs at npr.org. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash music newsletter. And remember, you can get this show sponsor-free and support our work by joining NPR Music Plus. Go to plus.npr.org slash NPR Music or search for NPR Music in Apple Podcasts to sign up. Today's episode was produced by Simon Rentner. Our editor is Jacob Gans. I'm Daoud Tyler Amin.

And I'm Ann Powers. Happy listening, everyone.