NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 11: Jason Mantzoukas

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Actor, comedian and music superfan Jason Mantzoukas joins us to update our running list of the year's best songs, with lots of crate-digging curiosities. With host Robin Hilton and NPR Music's Lars Gotrich.Featured artists and songs:1. Dancer: "Bluetooth Hell," from '10 Songs I Hate About You'2. The Superwomen: "Lowlands," from 'Someone Like Me'3. Oluko Imo: "Glory of Om," from 'Glory of Om'4. Mekit Dolan Muqam Group: "Jula Muqam" from 'Bayawan'5. The Short Dark Strangers & The Shady M************: "We're Not Animals," from The Short Dark Strangers & The Shady M************6. Morgul Blade: "Heavy Metal Wraiths," from 'Heavy Metal Wraiths'Also Noted:- Mary Lattimore * Walt McClements: "Nest of Earrings," from 'Rain on the Road'- Somesurprises: "Be Reasonable," from 'Perseids'- Mohammad Syfkhan: "Do You Have a Lover or Not?" from 'I Am Kurdish' 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 note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Hold on. Check, check, check. Okay, that is going. All right. I am also recording. Look at us. Look at us. Just banging it out like a bunch of engineers in a room. It's the first 30-plus years that are the hardest for me doing this. And then you kind of start to figure things out. Yeah, it really starts to click in year 30.

Yeah, I started really young. My first job at a member station was in 1988. Wow. I was a reporter. K.A.N.U. And Lawrence, Kansas. That's a little college town. And then I went to W.U.

Is that where you went to school? Was it your college radio station? Was a public radio station? Yeah. Yeah. It was the NPR station, not the student station. I was the general manager and the jazz director at my college radio station. Okay.

Because I wanted to ask you that. You know, we had Julia Holter on. Oh, yeah, I listened to it. Yeah, and she was the music director, too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And Jason Manzuka's, the station you were working at was WRMC at Middlebury College in Vermont. Yeah. Well, welcome, Jason.

Robin, boy, I couldn't be happier to be here. What a delight. Thrilled. Oh, and Lars Gottridge, yes. You're here, too, Lars. I'm also here. What's up, Lars? And, you know, just to peek behind the curtain a little bit.

Did we try and record this episode two days ago? Did it fail due to absolute ridiculous technical difficulties? Yes, we did. But here we are ready to go. Let's do it. I will own up to all of that. That had nothing to do with you, Jason, on your end at all. And everything, like, it was just.

Shockingly, the person locked in a closet in Los Angeles had it fully dialed in. And the two people in a studio at NPR couldn't figure it out. Couldn't figure it out. Anyone can do this in three, three times, right? We're going to do it in two. Somehow, I can't wait until later this afternoon when I receive a panicked email that's like, we didn't record it. Oh, no.

You got to come back in. We got to do it again. Jason, you are a big, big music lover. I am. Yeah, I am. And let's start with one of your picks. And then I got to be honest, I don't really have a horse in this race. You all brought so much amazing stuff.

I'm just kind of long for the ride. Lars, you brought a bunch of stuff. Jason, you've got a bunch of stuff. I want to start with one of your picks, Jason. And I thought maybe we could kind of ease into this a little bit with this band dancer that you brought. Yeah, sure, absolutely. Glasgow Scotland band dancer, you know, a kind of spiky, angular, post-punky, indie rock band. I don't want to get too deep into it.

Let's hear it. And we can chat afterwards. Cool. All right. And the song is called Bluetooth hell. Bluetooth hell. That guitar. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I love when it ratchets up into that high gear at the end there, that driving, propulsive, relentless, straight to the end, like a really strong finish. Lars, you're talking entirely too much. I am a shy boy. This took me straight back to the year 2001. and another band also from the UK called Life Without Buildings. Lars, I'm with you 100% and a band I absolutely adore.

So Life Without Buildings put out exactly one album. It's called Any Other City. It is perfect. It's like, Marry me. Marry me, Lars Gottrick. Like this is what this is part, so much of why I want to talk about dancer is because I want to also talk about life without. buildings, a band that I'm obsessed with. It's like, you know, one of those one and done bands. Robin, can you play Life Without Buildings, Juno? You for sure hear it in the guitars.

Yeah. The Life Without Buildings record, any other city, is staggeringly fantastic. And it has been a true, like, it has been with me since it came out in whatever, 2000 or whatever. Yeah. I was actually hearing a lot of, like, some bands that are newer, you know, like Gustav, we had the show. I heard a little, I'm hearing a little echo astral we just had on. I think maybe dancer's a little more jangly, maybe. Yeah, what I kind of like came up with was their weekly. Oh, yeah. I like that. I love that. You know, it's like, but they also have. That's not a music critic word. It's so much

better. It's wiggly, but it also, the way that dancer uses fuzz specifically reminds me of archers of loaf. Oh, great. call. Yes. Life without buildings is obviously like an influence on the spam, but they're bringing their own thing to it. I'm really into it. Absolutely. And I don't want to in any way, shape or form be minimizing

dancer by elevating life without buildings. I think this dancer record is fantastic. I've been listening to it. All of my picks also are part of like my spring mix. You know what I mean? Like these are songs that I'm playing that I'm, when I find new stuff, I start dumping it into a playlist that is just

that season's new stuff that I then comb through and, you know, figure out what's going to be, what are the songs that I really dialed into in this period of time and was obsessed with and really loved. And those mixes run like three to five hours. Are you a real like intentional listener? Like do you make time for music or is it just sort of, yeah, I do. I mean, I'm not like, I don't, I'm not organized. I'm not like an organized person. So I don't have like a scheduled. But, but I do like specifically. there are times when I think other people are probably watching or, you know, watching a movie or TV shows at night, but I am just combing through new releases, going through band camp, going through, you know, Lars's mailing list,

going through all sorts of, all the different websites or magazines or stuff that I still kind of am trying to aggregate all of my information through these different places, all this different stuff. And kind of, that's the thing is, finding it all has proven more and more difficult. And I'm also not on social media. And by not being on social media, I'm not being exposed to stuff that's coming through those channels. So I'm still checking like MP3 blogs. I'm still checking like, it's wild. I'm still reading dusted lists.

Like, let's go. What's up? Yeah. Yeah. It's such a shift because it used to be, how do I even find anything? like, you know, because we had all the gatekeepers, the labels and the stations, and there were more monoculture moments because of it or, you know, or even MTV. And, you know, and music discovery was really sort of hard fought. You know, you really had to do some digging.

And now it's, it's just, there's just so much, you know, where do I even begin? How do I find anything in all this noise? Yeah, and how do I parse what I like inside of it? You know, it's not just how do I find it, but like a deluge of stuff. How do I navigate my way through and pick out the gems that work for me? Well, we got more gems. This next one, that's cheesy. I'm going to do something different.

Well, keep it in. EG phone home. Homer Simpson. Oh, boy. I love that Robin's the one doing dumb bits in the show. It's making me very happy. So dancer is the band Bluetooth Hell, and that is from an album, called 10 Songs I Hate About You.

Great album title. Great album title. Love it. Lars, what do you got? So we're doing a show with a crate digger. So I wanted to honor the legacy of crate diggers with a compilation of crate dug music. There is this great record label based out of Australia called Efficient Space. They put out a lot of new music, but they also put out a lot of a compilation that are not beholden to geography or time.

There tend to be more thematically based on feeling or ideas. And they put out one recently called Someone Like Me. This particular one comes from a group of high school seniors from La Cerna High School in 1966. It's a group called The Superwomen, and this is their version of an old traditional song called Lowlands. It's like something I discover in a Wes Anderson movie. Oh, yeah. Stunning. Did you say this was a recording from the 1960s?

So it came out in 1966. Wow. Did a little digging. There are two versions of this song. There's an old English folk song that's basically about a drowned lover that comes back to life. But there is also a version of this song that was remade by cotton workers in Alabama. and it's about racial injustice. And that's the version that you hear here.

Here are these high school seniors from some high school who have found this song that speaks to them and it's in the midst of the civil rights movement. And the rest of the compilation kind of does the same. It's not all folkie stuff. It's kind of like a little mix of everything. Like I mentioned before, it's kind of very thematic. This one feels like the theme is dreaming.

Oh, wow. and thinking about what could be instead of what is. There's something so, like, beautiful and haunting about, I think that is part and parcel of a lot of stuff that is, like, a private press release, stuff that has, like, a homemade quality to it. And this has that element that I feel like, that is also part of, like, it being high school students and it being, like, an amateur performance in some way, shape, or form.

And that, there's something like Langley School, music projects. You know, like there's something about it that is instantly so magnetic and so immersive in this. I think this is gorgeous. So I have a story. Yeah. A few weeks ago, I was walking through my neighborhood and I saw a literal pile of garbage in someone's backyard and it was a shredded box full of 45s. Great. And I'm like, don't look in the box. You don't need more records, Lars. Don't look in that box. is it progress that I left this box alone? Oh, when I tell you that I own like two trunks full of 78s,

I don't even have currently a turntable that plays 78s. I have just because I'm like, I can't just leave these here at this estate sale or whatever. It's just a trunk full of like Dixieland. I'm like, great, give it to me, you know, haven't listened to it. It just sits there. But that is the hoarder's mentality of collecting records, I think. Well, it's like, I don't know, it's like family. It's like family.

It's like family. Records are your family? Robin. Some of my best friends are 45s. Well, I can't just leave them here. I agree. Even if they're records I own already, even if they're, it's not, and I want to be clear, I'm not collecting because I think there's value in them.

Or I'm trying to be like, oh, this is a. rare this or this is worth X amount of money. It's not, I don't have that collector's mentality of like, this has value. I have the collectors up mentality of, I don't know what I'm going to discover in this box. I don't know what new thing in this box I haven't heard that I'm going to get excited by. And I love exactly like what we're talking about here, this compilation Lars that you brought, is every once in a while you'll buy a box of records and there will be like a high school band will have pressed

their orchestra will have pressed albums for parents to buy and it's just a terrible high school orchestra doing their yearly performance. I've got those and that's what you don't get a lot anymore. That idea of now what is this? What am I

finding and those private press records I love and if you don't mind I'll just shout out one that's come out recently that I think is beautiful and fantastic which is the Penny Carson Nichols album, Trinity Dad C. It is a woman in Detroit who recorded her own album, shared it with friends, and then like exactly what you described, Lars, it finds its way into thrift stores or record stores.

People discover it. It starts to have a reputation and now it's gotten a proper release. And I think this record is beautiful and has a lot of the similar elements that are kind of shared with the album you just played. I was raised by the birds and the bees. Reaching out like a long, lonely weed. I am a Trinidad seed. Well, coming back to the superwomen and the lowlands cut that you played Lars, as soon as you said it was from 1966, was that what you said?

From like the mid-60s, I thought, okay, I hear it now. But when I first listened, it could just as easily have been something that came out now. I mean, it has a real, it's very timeless. And especially, given the kind of recording it is, I can't believe how good it sounds. It sounds really good. The other songs on this compilation, someone like me, do much the same.

Stylistically, it's a little bit all over the place. But there's some artists on here. I'm like, I could easily hear that on polyvinyl right now. And this is why Lars, I wanted to do the show with you. Oh, because I feel like Lars is really doing his best. Oh, what an adore. Look at him. Look at him so cute.

You literally saved his job. Don't joke about that. Please, please give to your local NPR stations. Lars needs to keep his job. This is a Pledge Drive episode. That's you and one more caller. Yeah, exactly. And you can get a tote bag.

In the Venn diagram of all of this, I was thinking, I really, really love Jason's picks. And then there's Lars' picks here. And they love each other. and if A equals B and B equals C, I must also therefore love all of Lars stuff, but it just wasn't happening. It's just, it's pretty much.

The compromises that have to be made when I come on to the show. It's like, I won't bring anything too screaming, but I'm going to bring something a little screaming. And Robin's like, I don't know. He's getting away with it this week because you're on, Jason. I'm glad. I'm glad. I almost picked, I almost picked screaming stuff as well.

But I thought, I was like, Lars is going to have that covered. All right, we've got to take a quick break here, but we'll have more music right after this. Let's go to Olikoimo. This is Trinidadian singer-musician who comes up in like the 70s and 80s, playing in calypso bands and becoming more and more influenced by what's going on in West Africa, a connection to like a lot of what's happening with Falakuti and, and, and, And those artists, a lot of political stuff starts to come into his music, but maintaining a lot of the kind of Caribbean calypso-influenced melodic elements while incorporating the jazier kind of propulsive elements of Afrobeat. He's got a record called Glory of Ome.

This is a 90s record. He eventually joins Phala's band, Egypt 80 in the 80, and then starts releasing records on his own in the 90s. This is from 95. This is the title track, Glory of Ome. Oh, the answer A Yeah A A wonder

And all the hands of the great hand To reveal that No God's crazy But they all bow down to the almighty The absolute power Ooh Yeah Yeah

Everybody here is wonder Oh This song This is all about, like, for me This song is all about, like, for me I live in Los Angeles, this is a driving around, windows down. It is spring. This is a great.

So I love this song. I love Calypso music. It was kind of like a pandemic hobby. of my. I love it. Because I loved the dichotomy of the brightness of the music, but there was all this political critique happening within it. And that spoke to me as someone who grew up on punk. I was like, oh, hell yeah. Oh, yeah. This whole record has, like I said, such joy and a lightness and like these, you know, like you're hearing in this song, especially those, that like spiky, like guitar that like light guitar line that's just like cutting through the whole song but then these kind of

beautiful sing-songy back and forth you know call in response vocals that are going on throughout that I just love that is so you can find yourself falling into that rhythm of it and that that driving beat I think is just so wonderful and then there's something just truly like like this is to me like a an uplifting song like my day is better listening to this Jason you usually said this came out in 95, but it looks like it's been reissued. Is that it? Oh, yeah, Soundways just put it out. Soundways, a great label that

puts out a lot of stuff that reissues a lot of stuff. Like, there's a lot of the labels, you know, analog Africa, awesome tapes from Africa, that are taking artists and putting out their catalogs again. And so they have just released Olico Emo's records as well as the record he did

with a band called Black Truth Rhythm Band and a bunch of other of his solo releases. So there's a ton of stuff right now that you can get that is all fantastic. This kind of Calypso Trinidadian with, you know, heavy Afrobeat. In fact, there's a track that is that both Fela and Femikuti are on that if you can find it, Robin, is called Where Ujule? There's that synthesizer for you, Lars. I could not help but smile at that synthesizer.

The smile that broke out on Lars's face when that synthesizer kicked in makes me so happy. Especially when I think about music from Western and Northern Africa in the 60s and 70s and 80s, they had fusion on block. Yes. And it wasn't even fusion in kind of like maybe the cheesy way that people may be thinking. They understood that music is not a monologue. It is a dialogue between cultures. And, I mean, but like this is like, this track is like a perfect example of that because you got the Afrobeat funk in there. You got the nice polyrhythms happening.

But then those keyboards come in and it's like, that's the calypso part, but it doesn't sound out of place. It's just, it's part of the thing. It is perfectly woven together these different textures and these different elements into a new quilt that is absolutely fascinating. and so beautiful and feels so organic. And I love that. I love everything you're saying, but Nassilagayuan Moroccan band that incorporates so many different types of music

from North Africa into a, you know, a fusion band that is deeply political, super compelling, incredible albums. I didn't pick any of them, but that just made me think of them, as well as Jill Julele. So that was Oluco Emo. I listened to that music.

I'm kind of like Lars. It's like, to me, it's life. Can I bring you more life and more joy? Yeah. Yeah. Bring me more life. More joy. Lange, what do you go?

Are you going screamo now, or are you going to just, are we going to keep sort of ramping? Technically, I think the thing that the musicians doing this next track is technically screaming, but it's just in a different context. There is this group from Xinjiang China called Naki Dolan Mukam Group. And this group performs an ancient Chinese folk music. Here's a track called Chula Mukam. This was great. Lars, I found this on one of your recommendations, maybe just that you had gotten it,

because Band Camp will tell me what you've gotten, you know? And so I got this as well and think this whole, thank you. This album is beautiful. That's super creepy. So you're tracking what he buys on Band Camp. You know what? It's so crazy. He's the only person, I follow like artists.

I follow bands, you know, that I'm. I like or some labels or whatever. But then I found out that you can follow a person, but Lars is the only person I would think to follow. Oh. You know, because I don't know anybody else personally whose taste, you know what I mean?

Like I don't know any individuals whose taste I'm interested in pursuing. So I just, I followed Lars. And then every once in a while in the band camp thing, it'll be like, Lars bought this record and I'll be like, oh, what's Lars up to? This is frequently how I find music myself.

It's like, oh, my friend, blah, blah, blah. I bought this record. I'm going to listen to it. I need more friends like that. I need more friends like that. Either it's you or my friend. So I was, like I was saying, I was the general manager and the jazz director at my radio station.

The music director was John Colpitz, who is the drummer Kid Millions, who is, you know, one of the best drummers, you know, working right now, just one of the greats. And so it's either I'm getting recommendations that are just John and I texting back and forth or from Lars on bandcast. I definitely want to talk more.

about this specific recording, but you know, one thing that strikes me as I listen to this, and a lot of your old picks is, all kidding aside, is you both, I think, you have so many different ways of getting into music. There are just so many entry points, it seems, for you to get into something, you know, it's not just like, oh, I really like the guitars, oh, this has a good beat, or that's a great lyric, because, you know, some of this stuff, I think, as lovely as this is and as transporting as it is, I think it's hard for some, you know, like maybe the typical listener to think when they would put this on? Part of it is, and I wonder for you, Lars, what it is.

I think for me it is about, at a young age, I was encouraged to be musically curious. I took drum lessons from when I was 9, 10 years old. I started taking drum lessons from a guy named Steve Barrett in suburban Boston. And one of the requisites for the lessons was I had to bring a blank cassette to every drum lesson. and during the drum lesson, he would record an album or two albums depending on the cassette from his record collection. And so I was, you know, being given at 10, 11, 12 years old, the record collection of a man in his 20s and 30s. You know what I mean? So I was being given all of progressive rock from the 1970s. My exposure to jazz started with bitches brew at like age 12. You know, I was being given

And he got super into Salifkita and a lot of other West African stuff and a lot of stuff that I started to be exposed to. And then all the way to like fishbone and reggae stuff that I wouldn't have been exposed to at that young and age. And that just started developing a curiosity for me that was, that is kind of like a thirst that I cannot satiate. You know what I mean? Like it is that desire to keep, like I said, earlier, like, I don't want to just keep putting on the records that I love, even though I do, I still want to feel that sense of discovery and that sense of surprise. And that's what, like, a track like this track from Lars, that's what that gives me.

I'm like, what is this? Let me get into this. Let me, it is active listening. I'm not just putting on something in the background. It's active. It's something I'm engaged with. I definitely have, I realize this very early on that I have, like, a collector mentality. And that's the thing I was talking about earlier.

I have to fight the border to becoming a hoarder. Although I should say the story earlier about me passing on those 45s, guess who went back the next day? I just say, did you get up the middle of the night? I saw you throwing the covers back at 2 o'clock in the morning and going out there. Were they there? They were there. I gave myself a rule.

You can fit only as many as can go into a tote bag. So that's what I did. Oh, so there was a lot of them. It was an NPR tote bag, so it was shoot. Rob it, boo! But the thing that I personally look for in music and the thing that I hear in the music that I was just playing is that I am looking for an ecstatic or spiritual high within music.

I am looking for transcendence. I'm looking for something that speaks to me on a deeper level. It doesn't mean I don't like the bubble gummy stuff too. I also think that bubble gummy stuff can be transcending. send it as well. So like this group, Makit, Dolan, Kum, group, they're singing these songs that have literally been around for centuries. And when you discover that, like, how does that not, like, excite your soul? Well, it's interesting. And I wonder for you, Lars, too, because you earlier were saying that you're shy. And while I am like a loudmouth, you know, comedian, blah, blah, blah,

in reality, I'm a very quiet and introverted person. I, and I find that a lot of the time, I'm seeking out or connecting to music that allows me to engage with emotions that I might not otherwise be engaging with. Like the music is giving me a pathway towards feeling away that I wouldn't otherwise be given that track. You know, like the music is eliciting an emotional response that I must in some way, shape, or form be connecting with, which, you know, in a way, it allows me to exercise or exorcise those emotions, which is interesting. I mean, you're talking to now lifelong emo kids, so yeah. Oh, yeah. They are modeling it for you.

They are the extension of you. And for me, it's a lot about the feeling and the sound of the music. I'm almost never paying attention to lyrics. I'm almost never listening to the words of the song as, as a component of how I'm receiving it. I'm receiving it based on how it's making me feel emotionally. And if I can, you know, if I dial into this song, lyrically, that's fine. But more often than not, I find I'm not, I find that I've misunderstood a song's meaning

lyrically because it's making me feel like, oh, I feel like so sad about this song. And then I'll play it for someone and they'll be like, you know this isn't a sad song, right? Yeah. You know that this song is about something very different if you listen to it. And I'm like, this song makes me so sad. Or the opposite. I have it all the time. I'm like, wow, this song feels so good.

And then someone will say, have you listened to this song? Do you hear what they're saying? And then I will. I'm the same way. I come to lyrics last. Yeah, it's same. Yeah, mood number. Jason.

That being said, I will segue. That segues me perfectly, Robin. Watch this. Watch this, Robin. That segues me perfectly into my next pick. Because this is the song that I mentioned earlier that I have been listening to. I'm literally saying nonstop, hundreds and hundreds of times I've listened to this song since I read about it on band camp.

The band is called The Short Dark Strangers and the Shady Motherfuckers. This gets back to a little bit of what we were talking about. A local Pittsburgh band, a Pennsylvania group of musicians that have this incredibly charismatic lead singer named Bobby Porter. This band is all over the place. There are punk tracks. There are like straight up soul funk and R&B songs, Hardcore songs, it's a great group of musicians, but all anchored by this wildly charismatic,

incredibly compelling vocalist Bobby Porter. The song I can't stop listening to is called We're Not Animals. Like I said, I'm in its thrall. It must, this song must be touching something I need to hear right now for the last eight months because I still put it on every day. I still need to hear this song. And I don't know if that happens for you guys, but it. You know, that feeling of like, I can't, now I can't stop listening to it.

It's, it's so important to me somehow. Jason, I freaking love this song. I had never heard before. Oh, great. And I bought, like, as soon as I listened to it, I bought apparently the last copy of the record. That's huge. And I know you bought the record, Lars, because it told me on band. And I, I honestly,

exclaimed out loud, I was like, I did it! I did it! I got Lars to buy a record. You've gotten me to buy so many records. I love it. I can't. It makes me smile. I don't know the lyrics, but I think I'm singing along to it the whole time. Screaming in my car. I love it. It's always pushing. That's one thing I know. It's like it's, it's relently. Yeah, but pushing in this, I don't know, in a way that's lifting you. It's like it's constantly lifting you up. But it's very herky jerky, too. It's really like stumbling forward in a way. It's propulsive, but not to, it's not to a click track. It's not, you know, it's really, it's a little bit ramshackle. It reminds me of hearing it reminds me of, I would believe you if you told me this was recorded on a boom box. You know what I mean?

It feels so effortless and so, so, like I said, kind of ramshackle in a way that is then Bobby Porter's voice like just cutting through it like a knife is. incredible. I take it as a real victory, Lars, that I made you by a rome. You know how easy it is to get Lars to spend money on vinyl, though? That's true, I guess. That's true. Come on, Robert. Don't call me out like that. All right, we do have to take one more quick break, but we'll have more music after this, and you are listening to All Songs Considered from NPR Music.

It's All Songs Considered from NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton. I am here with actor-comedian, writer Jason Manzoukis and NPR Music's Lars Gottridge and we're sharing some of the music that we're loving this week. I think we've reached the portion in this program where I know, Jason, you've got some, we're going to do a little quick lightning run here at the end of some minutes. Lars still has a song. But I know Lars has one more. So what do you got?

Marco Blade. Loved it. All right, Markle Blade, heavy metal braids. This is the song, Heavy Metal Brates. And man, there's something really great going on in Philly with their metal scene right now. This band, Markle Blades, Sonia, is also a great band where they kind of like understand that rips can be filthy but melodic at the same time. And the last 10 years, my taste in metal have changed.

I used to be into the like the really claustrophobic death metal stuff. But over time, I kind of just either want the classics like Iron Maiden or, stuff like Immortal. The mechanics of the songwriting are all scorpions. It's all docket. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's so interesting. Yes. It's like they understand that the melodic riff is the thing that you're going to come back to. It's very simple, but it's catchy. But then there's not really a solo to speak of. I like guitar solos, but this song doesn't eat one. Those breakdowns, though, are fantastic. You know, like when it, when it goes to halftime and those like melodic breakdowns, I think I love. These are, I, I,

I did not know this artist, and I'm not a big heavy metal person. My exposure and my fandom to metal comes as a result of, like I mentioned, earlier, reading the Aquarius Records, new music list. San Francisco Records Store now defunct. There's a great documentary about them called I Founded at Aquarius. And so many of the people that were writing for them at the time were so pushing metal artists from that era from the early 2000s that, that, That's my exposure to it.

And so a lot of the stuff, I don't come to metal until I'm in my 30s and 40s. And so this I love because that stuff that is more sludgier and darker and feels like it's under a layer of grime, I can't quite get into. But like this, I loved. Or like that band Tomb Mold. Oh, yeah. I also really loved their record last year. And this reminded me of that in a way.

So I got this immediately. I thought this was fantastic. Yeah, this isn't as screamiest. You've given me some really screaming stuff. I thought this had a real classic feel to it. Like, I got into this. All the bands you mentioned. I love the Scorpions show.

That's great. Home run. And you were saying, Robin, that you want to get the cover of this album as a tattoo? Did I say that? Well, yeah. I think Robin did say that. Yeah, it's very classic. Heavy metal cover art, these hooded figures,

holding these giant sabers. and, you know, it's a storm brewing behind them. And, you know, I will say metal albums usually have, in addition to some of the best band names and best song names, by far, they also tend to have the best cover art. It's true. Yeah. Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. Can I do my, are we on a time?

Will this have to be a specific time? Can I do the lightning round ones I have just because I want to? It's fine. We can, we'll just do it. And I'll just play quick little snippets here and you can just run through these and you tell me what. Great. I don't need to, I don't either. I don't need to do a full talk up or a full thing.

I just want to shout out a couple of these. So never before did I think that I would hear people say like the kids have found shoegaze. Right. But boy, have they. Yes, they have. That's huge. And the kids have found shoegaze. So thank God.

And I will say a lot of, Lars, what you were saying earlier, a lot of the metal that I respond to leans more in that. shimmery shoegasy, kind of Alcest, the French band that has a new record out now. This band is called Some Surprises. The track is Be Reasonable. This is, you know, shoegasy. It's got that hazy kind of. It reminds me of slow dive or lush or cocto twins, dreamy kind of hazy vocals. This is great.

Let's play it. This is the kind of shoegaze. I feel like it's got a little more of a pop linging in it. It's not my bloody Valentine. You know, it doesn't have. have that heavy, metallicy guitary. It's a lot, it's a lot prettier. Yeah. Do you, have you listened to Wisp? We had Wisp on the show recently. Oh my God, so good. Yeah, I listened to Wisp. Yeah, really great. Really good. What else? Um, Mary Lattimore, incredible collaborative experimental artist,

harp player. Um, I recently saw her play in London at the Scala, uh, in an incredible solo performance that was absolutely beautiful and transcendent and one of my all-time favorite shows I've seen in a long time. She's put out a record with the accordion player Walt McClements called Rain on the Road. This record is stunning and beautiful. I've spent all of the last weekend listening to it. It's absolutely gorgeous. Here is Nest of Earrings. We talked about this on a show recently about songs. Oh, you did. Calm Your Ness. No, not this album, but Mary Lattimore. Mary. Mary. Yeah, I'm sorry. And the thing that is so wonderful about her as a harpist is she takes the instrument out of, I think one of our reviewers called it, like out of hotel

lobbies or wherever it is, or weddings, wherever you normally hear it, and puts it in this transcendent space. Well, we're also, like, we're living through some sort of harp renaissance right now. Thank you, Joanna Newsom. Thank you, Joanna Newsom. We've got new music from Joanna Newsom. We've got a new record from Alina Jijenska, a beautiful record that she just put out. Brandy Younger's putting out beautiful stuff. There's so much beautiful harp going on. It makes me very happy. This record, I think, is stunning.

It is, like I said, instrumental, instrumental, mixing in, like, field recording elements of Mary and Walt talking and, you know, going about their day or whatever. There's beautiful stuff in there. I can't recommend it enough, as well as everything else Mary Latimer has done from her own records to collaborations with

Juliana Barwick or Mac from SuperChic. I mean, she's done it all. She's absolutely fantastic. And last but not least, and this gets at Lars Wood a little bit you were talking about before. I'd love to play the Syrian artist Mohamed Sv Khan. The record is called I Am Kurdish. He is a bazuki player who mixes a lot of Middle Eastern North African influences into his stuff. A heartbreaking story, a musician and a nurse in Syria who lost his son in the war and then left Syria and moved to Ireland. Lives in Ireland now, made this album in Ireland with some Irish musicians, and it's also just him.

He's collaborated with the incredible Irish band Lankham. He's a really interesting, fascinating person. He's just part of this diaspora of Syrian musicians now who live all over the place. He's another person who is processing incredible trauma and putting it into music that is unquestionably joyful and beautiful. song is called, Do You Have a Lover or Not? So we'll go out on this. Jason Manzoukas, thanks so much for hanging out and sharing these amazing tunes. And it was such a pleasure.

And I have to say, honestly, inspiring to listen to you talk about your love of music, how you come to it. Lars, to some degree, you too. You have witnessed the beginning of a real love affair here, Robin, between Lars and that. That's true. We're going to stay in the Zoom room while you go somewhere else. We're just going to hang out. And just we're just going to keep playing songs.

Because not for nothing, if you think I didn't make a full list of other stuff to talk about after even the Lightning Round, you know I did. Because maybe it's the spring of Jim White. Drummer Jim White, he's on like four or five records, a solo record, the Beings record, the new duo record with Marissa Anderson. this new dirty three. Come on. There's a new dirty three coming?

Yes, Robin. There's a new dirty three coming. Get in the business. I told you every day. Every day. Someone is surprising me. Read my column. Read my call him.

All right. Thank you so much for this. This is really wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. Again, I can't tell you what a big fan I am of the show. And it's truly an honor to be here talking to both of you. Just an absolute blast. Thanks for listening to me and entertaining.

all of the stuff that I wanted to talk about. Thank you. Take care. All right, be well. Have a great afternoon. You too. Okay, bye-bye. For NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.