NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best records out March 28

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Lucy Dacus. Perfume Genius. Destroyer. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson welcomes Colorado Public Radio's Alisha Sweeney of Indie 102.3 to guide you through a huge release day.Featured albums:• Lucy Dacus, 'Forever Is A Feeling' (Stream)• Perfume Genius, 'Glory' (Stream)• Great Grandpa, 'Patience, Moonbeam' (Stream)• Destroyer, 'Dan's Boogie' (Stream)• SPELLLING, 'Portrait Of My Heart' (Stream)Check out the long list of albums out March 28 and stream our New Music Friday playlist at npr.org/music.CreditsHost: Stephen ThompsonGuest: Alisha Sweeney, Indie 102.3Producer: 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 here with Alicia Sweeney from Colorado Public Radio Station, Indy 1023. Hey, Alicia. Hi, happy New Music Friday. It is a pleasure to have you here on this fantastic release day, March 28th. Alicia, I was struck by a question as I listened to this week's music. And maybe you can help me with this. How on earth? Do I put together a top 10 list at the end of this year? Because just this month on this show, we've gotten the Annie DeRuso record, the Jason Isbell record, the Tamino record, and several of the records we are about to talk about all feel like year-end top 10 records.

Absolutely. You know, I was just thinking about the season that it is right now, if this week was a music festival. Oh, man, I'd be there. BIP tickets, right? This time of year is so exciting for new music releases. We're ushering in spring, and there's so many strong albums, and there's a lot of contenders just for today. Yeah, we've got new records on this show from Perfume Genius,

great-grandpa, Dan Behar, and more. But first, Lucy Dakis has a new record called Forever is a Feeling. Flicking Embers and a Darfurills. You didn't plan to tell me how you feel. You laugh about it like it's still. no big deal crush the fire underneath your heel

I'm surprised that you're the one who said it first if you had waited a few years I would have burst everything comes up to the surface in the end even the things we'd rather leave unspoke

we both know that from her fourth album, her first since 2021, Lucy Dacus, from the new record Forever is a feeling. It's also her first album since her three Grammy wins with the band Boy Genius. And thinking and knowing about this album, first and foremost, Stephen, I got to ask you, are you listening to it differently knowing that Lucy confirmed her relationship with Boy Genius co-star Julian Baker? You know, I try not to get boss. down in the personal lives of the of the musicians I love, except for the simple fact that I root for their happiness. I've talked a little bit on the show before about like, I don't need my

favorite artist to be like having a miserable breakup so I can get a great breakup record. Like I want the artists I love to thrive. They're creative people. They can still write sad songs even when they're experiencing happiness. And that's what I root for. But having that little bit of context going into this record, I definitely was picking up on threads and details and hints. It is a falling in love record. This album closes with a song called Lost Time, which is about kind of finding what you've always wanted and wishing you could enjoy it retroactively. And it's very hard. It's very hard to hear that song and not think about like, oh, this is someone who, like, a bunch of things

have suddenly snapped into place. That lyric, wish I was there. I wish that we could have a place that we still touching elevators in bed, but I will I did. That lyric, it's so intense. And I just find that one so charming because it is about them finding. their love while on tour with Boy Genius. And there's also a few other songs like you mentioned on the record that remind me of that

that I've really fallen for, like that duet with Hosier, where you're like a stranger in the club to each other even though you know you deeply want to be together when you're watching each other perform. There's such warmth and intimacy to these songs and just these little details, little lines in these songs that jump out where you just kind of file it away as like, oh, that's just, that's such a sharp observation. There's a line in the song for Keeps where she sings, if the devil's in the details, then God is in the gap in your teeth. If the devil's in the details, then God is in the gap in your teeth.

These kind of soft, beautiful observations, while at the same time, my God, We have not really talked about the instrumentation on this record and just how assured these arrangements are. She's working with strings. Those strings might give way to vintage electronics or chunky guitars. These songs are constantly changing shape in really beautiful ways. It's such a lush, rich, beautiful record. Why is he so good at this game?

It should be cause for concern. I'm just shoveling popcorn into my mouth so I don't say the things that I'm... I find it very confident and intimate. And like thinking about it, she really put together a community of musicians to work on this album if you're looking at the lineup of people that join her on this one.

You have Blake Mills working with her yet again. And she also works with her members of Boy Genius on this. There's Barty's Strange on the record. And I just feel like it's all about community. And dreaming big, like the Renaissance painting on the cover of the album, performing in churches and museums leading up to this album release. You know, a music video where she hops out of a painting, it is this high art.

But it's not a fussy record at the same time. You know, there's a song on this record called, talk and it's got this big, chunky, even kind of heavy, roughed up guitar sound. I keep coming back to the word assured. This is her fourth solo album. She made those great records with Boy Genius. She is in top form and that comes through from start to finish. I gotta say the song, Ancles, one of my favorite songs of the year so far. Straight up one of the best songs of the year so far. So much good music to talk about. But thrilled to kick off this conversation with Lucy Dacus.

Her new album is called Forever Is a Feeling. Next up, another great record, Perfume Genius has a new album called Glory. Perfume Genius's seventh album, which was born out of a bout of depression that he experienced during COVID, which we're getting a lot of those albums right now. We were hearing the Seattle native Mike Hadrius. There's always been such an interesting juxtaposition. in his sound. Between these kind of tremulous vocals, his words come out kind of strange and gnarled and tentative, but then they're set against these arrangements that are so sparkling and bold.

It creates this beautiful juxtaposition on all of his records, and this one very, very much so, where the music manages to feel both extremely interior and extremely expansive at the same time. He said this is the first time that he's opened up his songwriting like that because he's collaborating with his bandmates, including his keyboardist and real-life partner, Adam Wifles. He said opening himself up to this kind of way to write these compositions was both scary and vulnerable for him. And I want to point out a song that is really interesting to me that stood out on the record. It's called In a Row. this is the one where he talks about getting kidnapped

and then like coming out on the other side with a wink wink nudge of I know this is kind of crazy of me to feel that way The song that jumped out for me on this record is called Left for Tomorrow which has this kind of slow haunting mysterious quality to me and I realized as I was listening to it like a second and third time I'm like you know what's going to happen

long about six o'clock in the morning I'm going to wake up in that kind of liminal space, you know, between a sleep and awake, this song is going to be stuck in my head and I'm not going to remember what it is. But there's this haunting quality to it and you just realize like, this is a song that might have kind of drifted by without my really locking into it. But when I was revisiting it a second and third time, I was like, this song will truly haunt my dreams in the best way. There is such a gentleness to his voice and that that one is such a quieter song.

And a lot of times when I was listening to the record and you just saying that now, it's very lynchian to me like a long-lost David Lynch soundtrack in a way, you know? He has such an otherworldly voice to me. And so does Aldous Harding, who joins him on the song, No Front Teeth. On No Front Teeth, you really get that sense. It's that mix of his voice, which, as we've established, has this kind of trembling quality. And then Aldous Harding, there's depth to her voice,

but there's also a certain sugaryness to it. And paired together, it really, really works. And another one of the songs on the album that just feels like a fever dream of a track, you know? That is Glory, the new album by Perfume Genius. We've got some more terrific records we're going to get to this week, But first, let's take a quick break. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music.

I'm Stephen Thompson here with Alicia Sweeney from Colorado Public Radio Station, Indy, 1023. Alicia, tell people who aren't familiar with it about Indy 1023. You know, Denver's always been a really strong radio market, but there was never a solid non-commercial indie rock radio station. So that's kind of where Colorado Public Radio comes in in 2011. I helped launch this station, and the directive was to be, bring the best new and independent and local music to the Colorado music community, and we've been doing it ever since. That's wonderful. I know Otis Hart, our colleague, was saying that he's

been listening to 102.3 on the new and improved NPR app, you know, which allows people to kind of really soak up a bunch of these great public radio stations across the country. One of the things that I'm proud of is that we incorporate Colorado music into every hour on the radio through an initiative that I curate called Local 303, where we highlight a different Colorado band every hour. And our local music scene is so good across genres. And our local artists just fit seamlessly against heavy indie music titans like the ones we're featuring in this episode. I feel really lucky. It's a great station. Next up, speaking of greatness, a fantastic, fantastic band that I've loved for a while now. Great Grandpa has a new album.

called Patience Moonbeam. So great grandpa's been around for a little while now. They put out a really terrific record five years ago and have only really put out one song since. You know, there were kind of solo projects and side projects. And last year they put out my song of the year called Kid, which is near the end of this record and continues to just be one of my favorite songs. It absolutely wrecks me. And so now they've got a full record where it feels like they're picking up a lot of the vibes that they explored on Kid, kind of going really deep lyrically, letting these songs build and unfurl in really intriguing ways. I love that song too

I think it's a perfect album closer and I really appreciate where the band is coming from on this new album, Patience Moonbeam which I guess is like a wink and a nudge to an inside joke from one of the members' families but this Seattle group they've been together for 10 years

pandemic hits right after they put out four of arrows which was this critically acclaimed album a lot of their personalities got in the way they kind of stopped talking to each other. But they reconvened because, you know, as a band and you know you truly love each other, you become this family. So they threw out all the songs they had kind of written in the past that they wanted to put forward on a new album. And they started afresh. Ladybug, that great single that they have out right now, a perfect song for Springtime as well, just writing all these new track.

What a beautiful collaged album of these five members coming together at a eight. a new point in time in their life. One thing that comes across both in kid and in Ladybug is this sense that they are really pulling together ideas from a bunch of different people within this band. There are multiple songwriters in the band. You have multiple extremely talented and versatile musicians and it comes through in these songs that shift and move through different phases.

I'm glad you mentioned Ladybug, which taps into a certain bit of nostalgia for like late aught's early tens, booming, chorus of voices shouting in unison in a way that still feels modern and current and so, so catchy. I'm so glad you brought that up because that's exactly where I was taken to. I was like thinking about like South by Southwest 2013 in the church and a giant ensemble is on stage singing at me. I love that you pointed that out. And I like that they approach to this record again just as friendship first and like respect. Like, hey, if that I

doesn't work. Cool. We're going to throw it out. At this point, we're just trying to make a great record and put a good song together. It's a theme kind of that's coming together of some of the records that we're talking about this week is that sense of community and that sense of pulling ideas from a lot of different sources. Another track that jumped out at me from this record is called Doom, which feels like a natural companion piece to Kid, at least sonically, where you've got a mix of that like Imogen Heap style vocoder, these big grand symphonic arrangements and then this kind of stormy rock and roll cataclyism that really gives you a sense of big emotions, big feelings, a big glorious sound.

Really veers off into that Prague or math rock kind of spectrum. Also, can you hear a little radio head on Doom? It's those odd time signatures and it's really hypnotic. Yeah, and then there's a song on the record called Never Rest, which fully just rips. It's a slow, subtle build from a band that is clearly really thinking about its pacing very carefully, but it never feels labored. So it's taking you kind of through the paces to something that is just fully, just massive sounding. Like you want to hear it in a stadium. I just love their quirky lyrics and the orchestration on Never Rest really does stand out to me.

And it's also why I think that the art of listening to a full album, is important because you listen to the song. You don't know if it's ending and a new one is starting or if it's the same one. And I had those moments throughout this one where I was like, oh, is it over? Is that the next one? And then it's like, oh, no, this is continuing on. I am here for the journey of this track. Great Grandpa, a new album called Patience Moonbeam. Next up, I know this is a big favorite of Alicia's. Destroyer is back with a new record. That's Dan Behar. His new album is called Dan's Boogie. aka Dan Behar. He just has this idiosyncratic voice that has lured me in since the year 2000 when I first heard the Feefe record.

Dan's boogie is out now and that song right there is a perfect example of his expertise and his songwriting. The song comes in hot, it never cools off, and that's kind of the Dan Behar experience.

He is effortlessly cool, and that one right there, hydroplaining off the edge of the world, a standout song off of Dan's boogie. You know, anyone who's a fan of the new pornographers kind of understands the way that Dan Behar isn't necessarily an easy fit in that band. You know, new pornographers songs that kind of have like hooks nested inside hooks, nested inside of hooks, and you get these big kind of swoony choruses that come in, but you can always tell a Dan Behar song on a new pornographer's record because his sound is wordier, it's talkier, there's a proggy kind of symphonic quality to it,

and you don't always get the kind of poppy anthemics that mark a lot of new pornographers' records. But then when you hear hydroplaining off the edge of the world, it shows that he's learned a trick or two over the years. It kind of is incorporating some of the elements of like the A.C. Newman side of the new pornographers. And so to me, this is one of my favorite destroyer records, because you really, you have that idiosyncratic voice of Dan Behar, but he's weaving in a bunch of the tricks that he's learned along the way.

Yeah, there's like some peppy handclaps in this one. And all those little other bits of instrumentation that show off his signature stream of consciousness style. And I like that you mentioned that about the new pornographers. I just think about seeing them live and everybody's on stage except for Dan.

And then when a Dan song comes on, he's like, you know, has a little ascot on or something like that, just comes out, does his lines, and then he'll leave the stage, a couple songs later will come out. I'm just like, this guy is just on a different level. There's a song on this record called Sunmeet Snow that was a real standout for me. Compared to a lot of the kind of slinkier songs on this record,

this one just feels like thunderous and psychedelic and goes really big on sonic clutter that is still very carefully, arrayed in a way that fully overwhelms in the best way. I thought it was bright also and had a little bit of holiday cheer to it. I don't know why. There's another track on the record where he talks about this holiday cheer, and there is a little bit of that for me on this one.

Also, I'm curious if you feel this way, he's a bit Nick Kavish. He's 14 albums into his solo career, not even counting the many records that he's made with new pornographers. When you're in your early 50s, I can say from experience, it's time to kind of cast yourself as a mysterious rogue. And that's something he does pretty well here. The sun mostly rises, a great golden spikes through the heart of the world, bluebirds in flight, twirl torched, the words, the words, I think of you in a little out of the way.

Cafe. Coming on dawn, you get what you get. and you don't get inside your leather jacket and walk away in the direction of the horizon Dan Behar has some of the most strange and cool lyrics that I've ever heard also There's that song, The Ignoramus of Love,

and again, it has those peppy handclaps in it, but also there's just this random lyric that's like, I remix horses. And I'm like, I don't even know what that means, but I could get that tattooed on my arm right now. And I wouldn't be mad about it. He definitely, he's a wordsmith. He loves the sound of the way words collide. And the fact that they sometimes feel like non sequiturs, they don't necessarily always make

linear sense, is part of the appeal in his songwriting. And part of what keeps people coming back because he's never writing the same song over and over again. He's 14 albums into his career. and he's still finding new ways to maneuver and manipulate words in ways that are just fascinating to behold. What's in the name of nothing? Didn't want to look up, but I did. This guy hid.

Who knows what's out there really. X marks the spot to hold things are next. That is Destroyer. His new album is called Dan's Boogie. We've got one more record we want to talk about in depth, plus a lightning round of some of our other favorite album. out today, March 28th, but first, we're going to take a quick break. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music.

I'm Stephen Thompson here with Alicia Sweeney from Colorado Public Radio Station, Indy, 102, 3. We've got a lightning round coming up of some of our other favorite albums out today. But first, we wanted to talk about a new record by spelling. That's spelling with three L's. It's called Portrait of My Heart. This spelling record is best served from beginning to end, giving it the attention, as if you were sitting in an audience at like a musical

or a late-night screening of, I don't know, Hedwig in the Angry Inch or something. This record truly contains multitudes. I mean, spelling is Christia Cabral. This is her fourth album as spelling, and it really feels like a fully formed portrait of an artist who is inspired by so many different sounds. You have tracks kind of early in this record,

like keep it alive and alibi, which have this kind of propulsive, anthemic quality to them. Alibi comes complete with like just a ripping guitar solo. But then you have these pivots. There's a track on the record called Destiny Arrives.

And it is like TLC-style throwback, R&B, and pop. You know, where it feels nostalgic, but also really different from a lot of the other music on the record while still hanging together cohesively. There's another song called

Amiore. which I was getting like shades of Anita Baker, you know, kind of classic swoony, crony R&B where I'm like, man, she has a lot of weapons in her arsenal. And then right after that on the record is her first true duet that she's ever done. Chaz Bear, aka Toro Imois, joins her on the song Mount Analog. Well, we're just name and tracks, which again, like this record manages to be all over the place while still always sounding like her. But late on the record, you have this song called Satisfaction.

And the song goes full new metal. And you just realize, like, this is an artist, you know, who's been around for a while. This is her fourth record. But she's not content to just pull from primary influences. She's clearly willing to absorb secondary influences. And if they fit, they fit. That is Portrait of My Heart by Spelling. I'm trying to pronounce all three.

else, obviously we could not possibly get to every new record that's out today. This is a particularly busy release day and there's tons of great stuff. So we wanted to do a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums. I'm going to kick us off. Allison Krause, one of the most decorated musicians in the world. She has won a staggering 27 Grammys in a career dating back more than 35 years. Now she and her band Union Station are back with a terrific new album. It's their first album as Allison Krauss and Union Station since 2011. In the interim, long-time member Dan Timminsky was replaced with Russell Moore. This new record is called Arcadia.

How about Yukimi and the new album for you? So thinking back to the mid to late aughts, I went all in on infectious Swedish pop bands, and there was one in particular that gave me some bops that I always have loved playing on the radio. That is Little Dragon. I was lured in because of the vocalist, Eukimi. And now, fast forward all these years later, she's embarking on a journey all her own, releasing her debut solo album on Ninja Tune called For You. The band Palmyra was one of the standouts from 2024's Tiny Desk Contest.

And though Palmyra didn't end up winning last year, it did grab enough word-of-mouth momentum that it got a record deal with John Prine's O'Boy Records label. And Palmyra's gorgeous new record is full of sparkly and propulsive, rustle. folkie pop, it's called Restless. My pick comes to us from the cat skills. Stephen, you like Sam Evian, don't you? Oh, absolutely. Well, his partner and collaborator, Hannah Cohen, has an album out today.

It's called Earth Star Mountain. And this album is dedicated to the cat skills, the past, the present, the future of the existence of that area. and they recorded this one at their home studio Flying Cloud. It's Hannah Cohen's fourth record, guests on it, Clero, Sufion Stevens, and she calls this album a concept record, which is an ode to curiosity. And I think the album opener, Dusty, really draws you into the world of this 10-song trip outside their studio window on the record known as Earth Star Mountain.

And finally, the producer Brian Pinheiro, better known as DJ Python, Has a new EP, it's his first for the legendary Excel label. It demonstrates a lot of the wild genre-spanning versatility for which he's known. This set is really beautiful, sometimes meditative, consistently surprising. It's called I Was Put on This Earth. And that is our show for this week. Thank you, Alicia Sweeney, for taking time out of your week at Indy 102.3 to join us. It was a true pleasure.

It has been 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 our favorite April 4th albums, including the latest from the holdsteadies, Craig Finn, with Zach McCormick of Minnesota Public Radio Station, The Current. Until then, take a moment to be well, hurl your smartphone into the sea as a gesture of your newfound commitment to your family, and treat yourself to lots of great music.