NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 16: The songs we can't stop playing this week

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

We update our running list of the year's best songs with the shapeshifting rock of Caleb Landry Jones, Angélica Garcia's dystopian grooves, a searing look at infidelity from Damien Jurado and more.Featured songs and artists:1. Caleb Landry Jones: "Hey Dawn," from Hey Gary, Hey Dawn2. Angélica Garcia: "El Que," from Gemelo3. Damien Jurado & The Fremont Abbeye: "Sheets ('24)," from Sheets ('24)4. Laura Marling: "Patterns," from Patterns In Repeat5. Carlos Ares: "Cigarra," from Peregrino6. Melt-Banana: "Stopgap," from 3+5Feedback, questions, comments or suggestions always welcome: [e-mail] 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

I don't know if I've told you this. I can do a perfect Halsey. Perfect. Oh, okay. Well, we got to hear that. No, we, I, no. You got to get in the right mental state. It's, it's not talking.

It's singing. Oh. Doesn't Ariana Grande have a whole thing where she's got a whole bit? Yeah, she can imitate. Does she do a whole thing? Well, she can imitate any, well, not any, but. Like most pop singers. Most pop singers.

Yeah. Oh. And so she'll go on the Tonight Show and Falun will, you know, throw some name out for her to imitate. Well, that's weird because he hasn't invited me yet. Well, have you ever noticed that there are those actors out there who they're pretty much just being themselves? You know, every role, it's just like if you met them in real life, that is exactly what they're like a Mark Wahlberg type, you know? Not what I was thinking of.

You know, like Anthony Hopkins or Meryl Streep, who even are they, right? They can be anything. But you watch someone like, say, Forrest Whitaker. I bet Forrest Whitaker is pretty much Forrest Whitaker because he's Forrest Whitaker in every single role that he's in. Right. And I'm actually thinking of one actor in particular, Caleb Landry Jones. He's one of those guys.

Like if you don't know him, he's been in all of these sort of smaller quirky roles in bigger films like he was in the film Get Out. He was in that movie Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. He's a kind of actor who, who comes on for, you know, just minutes at a time maybe and then steals the show completely. But he can't help but just be who he seems like he is. And he's also musician. And if you listen to his music, it has that same sort of quirky, wild, strange,

and completely uniquely him sort of vibe that he brings to all of his roles. He's actually got this new album out right now that I'm really loving. It's called, hey Gary, hey Don. That's the name of the album. All right, thank you. I want to play something from this album. Hey, Gary, hey, Don. I guess you could call this.

The title track is called, Hey, Don. This whole album is just bonkers, and I could not, for the life of me, pick just one song to play from it. So I just decided, I'll go with the opening cut. Again, it's called Hey Dawn. Again, roll. Here we go.

Love it. Caleb Landry Jones. Man. That, you know, it's pretty grungy. Sounds kind of like maybe 1992 grunge with a little psych rock in there. And the cut right after this one on the album, it's called Useless. It's very grungy, too. So you'd be forgiven if you thought, oh, okay, I guess that's the direction.

And then he just blows up the whole album. And it's just veers wildly all over the place. First point of correction, he pronounces that hey, down. All right, fair enough. When I back announce it, I'll be sure to get that. I'll get that right. I like how, yeah, the early 90s grunge is in there. I also hear there was this period after Black Sabbath leached onto the world that a bunch of lesser-than-but-weider-than versions of Black Sabbath came to be.

This is sort of that. It's got like classic metal and glam rock. And just even like 60s bubble gum pop on this album. The closest he gets to maybe current times, I'd say the closest. us up he gets his maybe early 80s new wave. There's a little bit of that in there. He's basically like, we were talking before the show about

how, you know, there are so many young artists who mash up genres now. And he's doing the same thing, but instead of mashing up modern pop and rock, he's mashing up sounds from like 50 years ago. I was so excited when you brought this on, Robin, because I don't know if it's the change of the seasons. I don't

know if it's Virgo season, but I, like, the level of angst that I have been feeling lately, this whole album in different ways at different moments spoke to every single part of that. There is a level of angst for everyone here. And it's all of the different eras packaged together. I don't know if they'll use that in the poll quotes. But yeah, like, if you're anxious, have we got the record for you?

It's awesome. You know, it's also we're coming up on spooky season. Spooky season. Oh, spooky season. Exactly. Well, Caleb Landry Jones, currently his next film, he plays Dracula. Okay. I'm not even kidding.

When I read that he's playing Dracula in this Luke Basin film that's coming up, I pretty much thought, finally. Finally, finally. Unfortunately, the thing I most know him for is playing Banshee and X-Men. He was in an X-Men movie, too. You got a supplement. Anyway, the song, Hey, Dawn. Thank you. Sorry, from Caleb Landry Jones.

Oh, it is so good. From the album, Hey, Gary. Hey, Dawn. Okay, so here's what I got for you all. This is Elke from Angelica Garcia's new album, Gemelo. Oh, okay. How about I give you one thing? Oh, that's it?

Okay. Yeah. No, I got it. Here's a transition. Are you ready for this? We're 20 minutes in, y'all. This is good. I can't.

Yeah. All right, never mind. Let's just go to the song. He's aheadress. The who conducts, percique, I use and grite, repite,

confounde! Yorrava, deliraba. And, I was... ...pacrae ...no me know that I've about more.

Every pass, I repas, do do, plen... ...elusion of a an door open, an intent

My verse is that me dirres Why? What I'm What I'm That's Heuxed Is the He transformed

In free Roba Energy Control In Bruch Repite Confonde I

I Dolva I Before I was I'm The I'm

I'm No, it's like where to begin. I think really there is no beginning or end to the brilliance that is Angelica Garcia. I have tried to puzzle it and every single time I listen to every single one of these songs, there's five more things that pop out to me. Truly, it's just layers and layers of what is intricately explored, emotion and cultural commentary and authenticity all kind of just spun together in this really neat little controlled chaos, which takes so much skill. There's all these complex ideas that she's

exploring here, expressing here. Literally, I mean, I just noticed again on that listen through, like the way that she talks in the end, she's literally saying, don't follow me with your shade because I have my own light. You know, the literal title of this album is called Hemelow, which means twin. And I think she's literally seeing herself as both this darkness and this lightness. Like she talks so much about contrast and the necessity for contrast to kind of explore pain and joy at the same time. She really says it's this spiritual journey for her, describes it as literally getting dropped into ice water is what the experience was like for her. And so you can hear all of that, right?

Like all of that tension, it's very spiritual, the chanting you hear throughout of it. It feels religious almost. And I think this really was like a rebirth for her, a spiritual rebirth, which requires death as well, which I feel is here very close with the light, with the life that she's bringing. So it's really just beautiful. I remember when she did a tiny desk early 2020, just before the pandemic hit. And I remember just being bowled away by this howl that she has that she summons from the pit of her chest. And I think here on this song in particular and on this whole album, honestly, she has figured out how to use that, how to conjure something. To what?

To conjure. Conjure. Like conjure? Conjure? I was like, whoa, Lars says that word. To conjigate? You mean conjure? To conjure.

Yes. Yes. I'm having a hard time. But that is how much I trust Lars because I literally just immediately gaslit myself into blue. I've been saying it wrong my entire life. I was like, oh, well, Lars must know. Oh, that is so NPR, Lars. It's so pretentious.

Conjure. I say conjure. Conjure. Conjure something. I don't know what it is, but she conjures something. I don't even remember what I was talking about. You know, I read that the producer Chicano Batman, I guess he produced this album. And he said that according to him, she wanted it to sound like Radiohead, but with booty.

And I think they kind of nail it Because it's got that dystopian Nightmare Scape sort of vibe to it that I love. It really exists sort of in the shadows But there's this pulse to it that just you can move to, yeah. This one's been out for a minute, yeah? This album? Yeah, it came out in June, but it's like

To go with our French theme here, it's like a fine wine. I feel like every time I listen to it, it just keeps aging better. And a contender would you say, a contender for one of the best of the year, yeah? I mean. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. You know what I miss from laptops, Robin? I can't imagine. I miss CD drives. I was so upset when I got, you know, a new laptop from work and it didn't have a CD drive. And in order to get this next song to Robin, I had to, I'm currently borrowing a CDR drive from Mitra, our colleague. And so I literally had to plug that in, put in this CD, rip it. So medieval.

How did you manage? I don't know how you did it. I think you're getting to a song, though. So I'm going to just let you keep going here. Damien D'Rado is an artist that I know, Robin, that you love. And in the last four years, Damien Drodotto's put out six albums. It's incredible. And there's a song I wanted to bring to the show that,

literally harkens back to a younger Damien. And I've been so taken by it and by this re-envisioning that I had to share it. This is a song called Sheets and then in parentheses 24. Is he still coming around like an injured bird, need in a nest, a place to rest, his head in a song you regret, still you'd, still you tell. take them Lord knows I don't want to

compete still I sleep in the very she's he's been in swallow a hole makes you choke

that stills your soul you have the nerve to look me in the eyes and send them back don't show the trap that you have me Looking for you

It flew Within search of you To do Lord knows I never want to be free And so I will be And the very song Caust me to sing Back up hill

That makes you choke It steals your soul You have the nerve I won't share the sky We cover Damien Gerardo's album What's New Tom Boy on New Music Friday back in May of 2020 when you put that album out. You know who else was on that show, that same episode? Who? Caleb Landry Jones.

With his debut album, The Mother Stone. Okay. You know who else was on that exact same episode? Who? Chikano Batman. Wow. I am not kidding. And it all comes together right now in this moment.

You know, I went back and. looked at some of the notes that I had from that 2020 album that Damien Gerardo put out. And I made a note that he had sold all of his worldly possessions and moved to a remote island. So I was kind of wondering like, well, I wonder what's going on with him right now. But I guess you reached out to him, and that's just simply not true. I don't know where I... He thought that was very funny. So was he never on a remote island?

He said, that's very funny. He's like, I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. He was like, I moved to California a few years, but now I'm back in the Pacific Northwest, yeah. So where is he, though, now in his life and his music? In the last year in particular, he decided to take his music back into his own hands. For about a year, he took everything off of streaming. He self-released everything on his own.

For a while, the only way you could hear his music was buying CDs or digital files straight from him. So this brings us back to you having to listen to a CD. Right. And rip it. Apparently, now these songs are back on, not all the streaming services, but most of them. But he's been experimenting a lot. He put out a couple of songs earlier this year that didn't feature his voice at all. He's kind of like in his big, lush avant-garde orchestration phase right now in a way that's

really exciting. But Sheets was a song that he originally wrote like in 2007, I think. and then appeared on an album, but Damien always said that the song wasn't finished. And so he woke up one day this year and decided, I'm going to finish this song. And I remember the song back in the day, because he's very much of a story songwriter. He doesn't really do a lot of biographical songwriting. And so I was like, oh, this is, I guess this is a song about a toxic relationship, and the bird is kind of like a metaphor for these things.

but the way that he orchestrates this song, it does actually feel a little bit more autobiographical. It feels like a commentary on a self. It's interesting to hear sort of the process and how this came together because I took it as a very personal song about infidelity. It seems to be about cheating or someone who's cheated and there's pain and he talks about how now he's sleeping

in the same bed where the infidelity had happened and what that's doing. to him. But it's honestly, that's kind of chilling because if you think about it, like infidelity, it's kind of forever unfinished business, you know? Like, there's not really real closure on cheating. And to me, strings are often misinterpreted because they're such a sweet sound and they're such like a high, nice, light sound that people, I think you add them to a song and sometimes it's like, oh, it adds this sweetness. But to me, they're some of the most eerie instruments. Like the way that they can make a song feel that way. And that's kind of exactly what he's describing. I mean,

to have a love, a loving relationship, the sweetness of that, to be then tinged with infidelity. I mean, there's nothing more fitting in a way. You know what I think about singer-songwriters, just someone with an acoustic guitar in their voice, there was a time maybe like 10 or 15 years ago for me where I kind of just quit listening to them, all the stuff that I had loved up until that point. And I don't know what it was. It was. sort of like the singer-songwriters. It was a form that started to feel a little limiting to me, maybe, because there was just so much crazy stuff coming out,

sonically adventurous stuff, experimental music that I started to listen to more. But lately, I have found myself drawn to it again. And case in point, I love the Damien Gerardo, but there's also this Laura Marlene record that's coming out this fall that I'm totally in love with. It's called Patterns and Repeat. There's just a couple singles from it, but I want to play one that I guess you could call maybe a title cut.

It's called Patterns from this album from Laura Marling. It is so beautiful. Z, your toes, but your friend, Lino's, hangs around, you still a bad. To fade, the ground complies, reliefs and repeat, can begin to have flock, you'll try to tell. You know, I think to really just sort of kill it as a singer and songwriter, you've got to deliver lyrically. Like, so much hangs on the words.

I think that's something Damien Gerardo does really well. You know, he tends to come at topics as big as complicated as like infidelity. He kind of comes at him sideways, right? Right. You know, focusing on these little details that you might otherwise not notice. And, you know, as a result, the music actually ends up feeling more direct and more acute. And I think Laura Marling does the same thing. I'm also a sucker for the Nick Drake tuning on guitar.

Oh, yeah, that drop, when you drop that D down like that, oh, and a nylon string guitar, classical string guitar. Yeah. Yeah, same. That tuning, not to get too deep into it, but that tuning is so lyrical because it is both monotonic but also melodic at the same time. And so it really allows Laura Marling the space to explore this idea because this album is about motherhood, correct?

Yeah, yes, in part, yeah. In part, yeah. And so I've read this interview with her where she talks about how she thought in the first few months that she wouldn't be able to do anything, you know, artistic because she would be too busy with the baby. Yeah, she was where your career was sort of over for a while. And this was the same with me.

The first few months, the baby doesn't really do anything. You thought your career was also over when you became a dad? Well, it was like, because I thought there wouldn't be a space for creativity. But I found that not to be the case, And it sounds like Lorne Marling kind of went through the same thing where there's both downtime because the kid sleeps a lot, but there's also a lot of space where the kid is just curious. And for me personally, I also play the guitar. I asked for a cheap nylon string guitar for Christmas the year previous so my future child could beat on it. And I would just play tunes and then I would watch movies.

A pro tip, if you've been slagging off on watching all your artie films, watch them in that three months. period, subscribe to the Criterion channel for like three months. Are you talking about if you, so wait a minute, are you saying if you have a child in the first three months, subscribe to the criterion collection, did a nylon because we're talking about Laura Marling

here. This is the first time I've ever heard described, early parenthood described like this. Yeah, it's an extremely you watch a lot of TV. You watch a lot of stuff. You really do because, yeah, it's, yeah, I watch so much television those first few months because you're just

sitting there feeding the baby bumping the baby I have to imagine listening to this like there must be something so grounding about the experience of like you are literally watching the beginning of the circle of life you just watched it begin

and now you're going to see it through all of these changes and so to be so close to that moment I do want to go back to what you said about the tuning as well because I also noted that and the way that she describes this process right of like oh I'm creating next to my baby, staring into her eyes. Like the thing about the tuning that you described,

it's almost lullaby-esque in a way. It's very soft. As you said, it's very lyrical. And I have to imagine that it's probably created in this very responsive way to what her baby was reacting to. I mean, she describes the experience of creating while staring into another living being's eyes

in a way she had never done that before. So there must be this incredible, really close link to her, to the baby, to their relationship. to them forming that initial bond. And so to have all of that represented in the softness and the very gentle cyclical nature of the song. I mean, it's like she very, very slowly adds with each loop with the little like elements of the production. You know, it's like it's very easing into it, gentle. So you can feel all of that energy, I think, very, very directly in the music.

So again, the album from Laura Marling is called Patterns and Repeat. It is out October 25th. So we're switching gears, but in a good way, hopefully. So this is Carlos Ares. He is a Spanish singer-songwriter, also producer, and this is a song called Sigara, and it's off of an album he released earlier this year called Peregrino. my latitudes.

I'm trying to define me and I don't I've got to find the adjective. I want to get to know me like if me had paried. I'm feel like

I'm I'm in that that I knew knew I was that was there oh well, yeah,

I always I always knew that was there. When a voice, I, I'm a O'id,

no an imagination is more than a sixth sense A voice my voice a

o'id, no is an imagination, is more a second, no can't

of the power, one one, and without, and you get a B'A,

and that's that not is I'm sure, I'm sure that the insureus diran that you've up'is'a a parra, they're you're

like a cabra, only for cantal a 40, a cigar, what they're in a barra, me enter for an o'recha,

and me a p'n'clock my my life, nobody more than I no more than I no more than I no more than I narra.

One voice a susurra at o'i-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- I literally, no is an imagination, it's more a bit, a sexto sentida. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la I literally the first time I heard this yelled no when this song ended. I was like, no! More. What are you doing? Don't stop now. Oh, my God, this song is so good.

There's so much about him that I love. And if you listen to the rest of the album, you realize that it's representative of it only in how free flowing and creative and kind of out there he is with his production choices, his vocal choices. I mean, he really does span styles to me across this record. There's him using harmonicas and strings and it's very cinematic and visual. and it feels like almost like every track is temporal a little bit where it's unfixed in time, but you get to visit something different in every single moment with the production, with the vocals. And he has this just kind of amazing energy to everything that he does. I mean, I picked this song in particular because it kind of shows a little bit of the grittier side of his production and his vocals. But he still just has this magnitude of like, oh, it moves. Like you said, it gives you exactly that feeling.

feeling of, wait, but it's over? And that's how he kind of does it across every single track. This feels very much in Anna's lane of Spanish songwriter slash producers who like to straddle electronic and folk elements in their music and play with those sonic worlds. I was really into this. Play is exactly what it is because Spain is unbridled, uninhibited by whatever it is that's happening over here. They're not that proximity. in terms of a border or language or anything like that. And then they're close to, you know, all of these innovative qualities of so many different scenes in Europe,

but still have this tie to the Latin space and a lot of the, I don't know, beats and sounds and traditions that come out of all that is Latin America. And so there ends up just being this level of experimentation that always results in kind of like a wait, what is happening here kind of moment with a lot of these artists. And Carlos Aris, to me, is, at the forefront of that, for sure, especially with this record. Well, Lars, are you going to conjure one more piece of music here for us before you wrap up this week's show?

Yes, so a number of years ago, I went, I go to Maryland Death Fest pretty much every year. It's a big metal festival in Baltimore. And so I go into this club. I knew about this band before, and I couldn't stop smiling for the next, like, 40, 45 minutes. This group is called Melt Banana from Tokyo, Japan. And they have a new record called 3 plus 5, and it's their first in nine years. Oh, wow. It's been a while.

They toured a lot in those nine years, but they haven't put out new music. And it's kind of like for someone who's now obsessed with Mel Banana, which is such a great name for a band, and encapsulates everything that is great about them. Their experimentation, the way that they think about song structures, the intensity, but also the ecstatic case. chaotic joy that comes out of these riffs. Because it's just two people. It's a singer and a guitarist and a drum machine, and the singer usually has a MIDI controller with her on stage to trigger all the different sounds and the noises and stuff.

Well, the only thing I could think of when I was listening is how there was this pop song that came out of Japan back in the mid-90s called Melty Love by Shazna. And so that sent me down this rabbit hole of looking for Japanese songs and bands that have the word melt in them like Melt Banana. It was not a very deep hole. I don't think you said the name of the song. Oh, this is a stopgap by Melt Banana and it's on a brilliant new record called 3 Plus 5.

So we'll go out on this. Anna Maria Sayer, Lars Gottridge, thanks as always for just hanging out and getting nerdy with some great tunes. Can't wait to conjure another episode. I was waiting to... I knew. See, by now I get the jokes. I got it, guys. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.