NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 21: The songs we can't stop playing this week

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

In the final update to our running list of the year's best songs, we've got the cathartic rock of Kassie Krut, a nerve-settling collaboration between the singers SOAK and Gordi, Ethel Cain and more.Featured songs and artists:1. Kassie Krut: "Reckless," from Kassie Krut 2. Gordi: "Reverie," from Lunch At Dune3. Katy J Pearson: "Save Me," from Someday, Now4. Freak Slug: "Ya Ready," from I Blow Out Big Candles5. Hildegard: "Bach In Town," from Jour 15966. Ethel Cain: "Punish" (single)Enjoy the show? Tell your friends and leave us a review wherever you listen go podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind 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

How are you feeling? I got to be honest, I don't feel great. Oh, my God. Yeah. My daughter trafficked this into the house. And she got over it really quickly, and I feel like I'm going to get over it quickly, too. I know. I have a friend who's kind of goopy, kind of new agey, and every time I get sick, she's like, well, are you taking this?

Are you taking, like, oil of oregano? Are you taking, like, elderberry syrup? And I'm like, I'm like, Rachel, I love you so much, but it's a calm and cold. There's no cure for it. You just have to ride it out. Like, that's just the way that it is. Goopi? Do you know what Goop is?

The Gwyneth Paltrow said? Yes. Oh, okay. Like, like, new agey, like. Okay. You know, that was a shorthand for healing crystal. Yeah. Yeah, in my world.

I love that. I'm going to start using that goopy. What do you got? Why don't you just pick something to get us going here? Okay. Can I ask you a question to lead into this song that I want to bring? Yeah. Okay.

Do you know of those places that you can go to and you can, like, throw axes against the wall or, like, rooms where you can, like, break things and, like, get out your aggression? Oh, my God. No. Do you know what the— These exist? The ax ones definitely exist, and I feel like I've heard people who've gone to sites, at least, in New York City, where you can get out your aggression and break things. I just scream into my pillow at home. Also really good.

Yeah. Also really good to do. Okay. And I feel like the song that I'm going to play for you right now, it feels like I'm in a room breaking things, but in a fun way, like throwing plates against the floor, throwing axes against the wall. And it is this song that like the first time I heard it,

I was like, oh, man, I love this song. It's called Reckless, and it's by Cassie Crutt. And every time I listen to it, I feel, I don't know, Like I'm destroying things in a fun way. I'm going to spell it out so it's plain to see. If you want to be a freak like me, you'd like me, better see. You could not have conjured a more perfect image. going into that.

And you sent me down this. I was totally... Were you also Googling? Yes. Yes, I was Googling them. I was like, I know these places exist, and there's like one in Brooklyn called the rage cage. All right, so there's one in the D.C. area called Lose it. Rage room. Lose it, rage room.

Rage room. The other side of self-care is their tagline. I mean, I... Booking. Yeah, I know. It sounds really... If anyone wants to get us gift cards to these places... Well, I hope.

they play that song in the rage room when you're, you know, letting it all out. I mean, it is an absolute, just like a pure shot of adrenaline. Yeah, it's so good. This band Cassie Crutt is getting a lot of hype right now. It includes a bunch of members from this beloved band Palm that disbanded in like 2023. And I think it's like an example of a band that's getting a lot of hype and is so completely deserved. Like I just think this song reminds me a lot of what Kim Gordon was doing this year with her album The Collective. Also reminds me a lot of artists like Bar Italia and Dean Blunt and people who are making

rock music, but it's also like influenced by dance music and just feels very intense and energetic and like really making music that is connected to how it feels in your body. And what's, you mentioned Kim Gordon. What's the Kim Gordon track? I know you love so much. Yes. The Kim Gordon track I love so much is bye bye bye by. Her album, the collective. Yes. Also very much like bringing kind of like a punk noise rock sensibility to what is like kind of a hip-hop. And a little spoken word and really jagged. What works so well for me on this Cassie Crutt song is that sort of, well, it's the contrasts. It's that sort of nursery rhyme refrain that they've got set against the, the edgier sort of scents and beats, it works so well. I will say you and I are in two very

different places right now. I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of having a delayed reaction to, well, I was going to say the last couple weeks, but really it's been years, right? Years in the making, but, you know, it probably comes from being a lifelong bottler, but I tend to have delayed reactions. I tend to have a very long buffer. You know, just, Just even like with my wife and I, you know, like, she'll be mad about something and I'll just be like, okay, all right, sure, okay. And then like three days later, you know, I'm really mad about whatever that, you know, something that she's moved on about. But, you know, I kind of feel like the music we reach for, it's kind of like a lie detector test, right? Like the music doesn't lie.

And I realized when I picked all these songs for this week that I was in a much more sort of, sort of inward looking phase, I think. There's this new song that came out from two singers that I really love, the artist known as Gordy and then the singer known as Soak. They've got this new EP out that they collaborated on called Lunch at Dune, and there's just this hazy daydream of a song on it that I'm loving called Reverie. Because it's sadness that made me grow All the cracks in the ceiling I came to know

Do they always bring casserole Even if they don't know What I'm greedy is this dark enough Took a fraction but not the whole Except reverse charges on this call We sat alone Yes we had each other No, I don't want the radio.

Give me oceans of silence to swim in. I'm not entirely sure what this song is about, but it just strikes the perfect chord with, I guess, where I am right now. It feels very much like the moment where you kind of need to catch your breath, you know, after you've been through something. You're not at rock bottom, but you haven't started the climb out yet. You know, you're sort of taking stock of where you are. Yeah, and there's also an ambiguity to the song that feels also very right.

And it's funny that you say that you're a bottler because I'm also a bottler. I also experience traumatic events and then I'm like, okay. And then I know days later something small will set me off. Do you have a moment like maybe once or twice a year where you just absolutely uncork the bottle and completely lose it? Yes. I think like often when there's like a very specific. like a news event or something bad that's happened. I'm like, I know that I'm going to be processing this at a later date. And so I feel like this song really brings me to this place of feeling a little fragile but not totally knowing what is happening.

And there's, I don't know, there's like a line in the song about people bringing her casseroles, even if they don't know what she's grieving. And that really hit me, this cloak of where do I go from here? Like where, what is the next step? Well, like all great bottlers, I think she also says that she doesn't know why she's grieving, right? Yeah, because you're so out of touch with whatever it is. You've pushed it so far. Yeah. Well, this is also just a really, really gorgeous song to get lost in.

Really, really love it. And other great lines in it, too. The one that she keeps saying over and over again, where do I go from here so I don't collapse in the dreaming, which is that idea of not being so lost in your ideals that you forget to actually, I don't know, move forward with your life, you know, and I thought that was a really beautiful refrain. Yeah, gorgeous. It's called Reverie, again, from G-O-R-D-I, from an EP that she did with Soak.

It's called Lunch at Dune. Well, I have another beautiful song. I don't think it's necessarily connected to the times right now or sort of my inner emotions. Maybe it kind of is. But a really cool duo that I feel like was a new discovery for me this year is this group called Hildegard. And it is a duo of these two kind of Canadian pop musicians whose work I wasn't super familiar with, Helena Deland and Uri. That's O-U-R-I. They came together and they put out this album this year called Jor 1596

And there's a song on it called Bach in Town. It's kind of a play on Back in Town, but it's the composer's name Bach. And yeah, I've just really fallen in love with it. You're back. Someone else would turn and I saw your face, only mother of grace. I quit this play. I can drive, consider. He advice as to read.

This is the word. Ask, I'll never ask, I'll never ask, I'll never ask you. You'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never have to. I'll never ask, I'll never ask, I'll never ask, I'll never ask, I'll never ask you. You'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never say, you'll never have to. I just find you You'll never say You'll never say

You'll never say You'll never have to I just find this song So charming It's like a person That I've met at a party And I'm like charmed by them Absolutely

I was like This is on a beautiful day You're walking with a close friend And they're just sort of unspooling All this for you And you're just enjoying listening to them You know obviously the song is about This unrequited meeting

or just like imagining what it would be like to reach out to someone who's back in town. And there's this beautiful little moment in the song where she sings about drafting something. And then not sending the draft, but taking the draft out on walks and like showing it around and like trying it out. And it's like it feels like like an internal monologue that we're just getting a little window into. And it's very witty and sweet. Yeah, and honestly, so much of what I love about this song is just how it sounds. It's exquisitely mixed for audio nerds out there. Listen on a really great pair of headphones.

It is so beautifully mixed. These lilting melodies and all the little sounds going on. It's really, really gorgeous. I actually thought a little bit of Billy Eilish when I was listening to this. In that the way that I don't know the lead singer, which one's taking lead on the... I think Helena. Yeah. The ways she can sort of curl her voice around certain words and phrases

and kind of ease in and out of that almost whispered ASMR kind of delivery really just sounds so good. Do you have a favorite decade for music? I can't believe I've never asked you this. This is such a typical music nerd question, like what was the best decade for music? Do you have a favorite? If I had to guess, I bet you'd say like 1970s or something. Well, I think we haven't talked about this because I think my answer might upset you. Oh my God. Is it the 80s? Is it really?

Well, okay. The question of what was the best decade for music is a different question to me than what is your favorite decade for music. And I think when I think of a lot of my favorite bands and the genres that I like, post-punk and like new wave, it falls in line with the 80s. Well, that's interesting because I think most people. people would say whatever decade they were experiencing when they were coming of age, right? And you did not live through the 80s. And I actually did come of age in the 80s and don't like the 80s. So I, you know, I don't know how much truth there is to that theory. But I think the best decade was the 90s. And the 90s feel like they've been back for a long time now. And it was certainly what I thought when I heard this band that I want to play that I know you already know about. And I

didn't. It's a band called Freakslug. Freak Slug. Great, great name. You probably know more about her than I do. Well, I don't think I know that much. I mean, I was trying to remember where I first heard Freak Slug. Yeah, she put out a song a few years ago in like 2020 called Radio. That was in heavy, heavy rotation for me. Wow, I have to check that out. Because this new record she's got called I Blow Out Big Candles.

I was totally blindsided by it. Really, really love it. And the song I want to play is the opening cut called You're Ready. and it just really channels all the great sounds of the 90s that I love so much. You know, I said 90s, and then the first thing you hear is that saxophone, and then it closes with the saxophone, which is not very 90s, but it's like someone said, let's do grunge, but what if we added some sacks to it, which is such an interesting element to add to that sound.

I love it. Yeah, everything that I feel like I've heard from her up until this album and this song has been a little bit poppier. And this is like, as you say, so grungy and messy. And there's something about the song that sounds kind of like drunk or like, I don't know. I just feel like I'm like at a party with her and like it's time to go home. And she's like, I got to go home. I want to see a doctor.

Somebody taking you a hospital. I'm fine. It's fine. I'm totally fine. But yeah, I just, I love the way that she sing. She has like a line in that song where she's like, when the moon is ripe, I'm too sincere. And she like sings sincere almost like she's like cackling it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I mean, this cut, again, it's called You Ready. It's definitely sort of the sluggiest song on the album, you know. There are some moments on it that are kind of almost like jangly pop, these sort of girl group harmonies, but really soaked through with tons of reverb. But overall, there's just this, and I know this is something you like in music too,

but just this really nice, dark undercurrent to everything. Like, just listen to this little bit of a song called Piece of Cake. I mean, it's this sort of like poppy little piece of cake song, and then someone's sobbing in the background, and then that warped, dark voice. It's really kind of creepy. Yeah, she definitely feels of the story. same school as like Blonde Shell, who I know I've played on the show before. Or even like Nilliferyanya, who I think does a really good job of mashing up sweetness and

toughness in her music in a way that's really interesting. But yeah, all of them are indebted to the 90s. Yeah, very much like PJ Harvey, Courtney Love of Hull or Liz Fair, stuff like that. Crying, crying, being hysterical in a beautiful dress, crying. And raging, and raging too. Raging out. We love it. So the album again from Freak Slug.

Freak Slug is called I Blow Out Big Candles. So do you ever like listen to an album and then you kind of get locked into one song on that album? And you're like, this album's great, but like this song is the one from this record. Yeah, I mean definitely. Yeah, all the time. So I did that with this album from Katie J. Pearson called Someday Now that came out this year. I was not super familiar with her work. It was her third album.

She's an English singer-songwriter. But there is this song on the album called Save Me that I just like latched on to. Like I just have this image of myself like hugging the song. Like putting my arms around this song like. You want to be buried with it someday. I love this song. And yeah, it's called Save Me. And I don't quite 100% know what this song is about.

But that's kind of the appeal to me too. Curious what you think. But yeah. When you drop that, I'm saving the space. When you drop that. Hazel. Yeah. You know what this is about?

What? Bottling. Oh, wait. Yeah, it's a theme. That's the theme of this week's show. It's all about bottling because she's, she's singing, she seems to be in, like, in denial, right? Yeah. She says, this isn't a bad way to live, you know?

It's sort of like, is it better to just not know things or to, you know, ignorance is blitz. sort of thing, you know, it's kind of about how we hide from ourselves and get through life by, yeah, sort of denial and bottling. I don't know. And there seems to be somebody who maybe's figured out how to get her to open up a little bit and see that she's not as tough as she might come off when she's keeping everything in. Yeah. No, for sure. I wasn't sure if it was like, her singing about herself or singing about someone else that she's trying to break through to, you know, like wanting them to open up. But I think either way, there is this real

desperation in this song. And there's something about the way this song sounds to me. It feels kind of like this kind of like musical number where she's like, she's like putting it all on display. She's like, this is what should be happening. And I don't know, just like the way the keys are and that sort of like bridge where she's like talking sort of in the side of the song. You got my hard in there, like, I couldn't fit into your ideal. And yeah, there's just something very, like she's being a bit of a showman that, uh, mixed with the messaging of the song. It just, it feels not unsettling, but just like, you can just really kind of sense that,

like, we, we need to break through. Yeah. It also, to your earlier point of loving the 80s, very 80s sound to this, obviously, with the, with the sax and those sort of plinky sense and, yeah. You know, the only other album. of Katie J. Pearson's that I know is her 2020s return, which was a lot more, if I remember it, was a lot more sort of acoustic focused than this. This one's a little weirder, a little more synthetic. It's very, very surprising to hear this. The song Save Me from Katie J. Pearson. Got one more that I want to play for you, and I kind of feel bad because I think I heard you say that this song freaked you out when you were this. Is that right? Okay, there are very few artists, I think. who can spook me or make me feel scared. I'm not often feeling scared when I listen to music.

And I think the artist that you're going to play is one of the few artists I can think of in recent memory who, when I put their music on, I get a little spooked. Yeah, Ethel Kang. Yes, Ethel Kang, yeah. The song is Punish. It's a single that she has out. She does have an album coming out in January called Perverts,

but we just got this one song right now. Yeah, I mean, it is a little unsettling the song, Punish, from Ethel Cain. It is so dark and so, I don't know, Gothic. It's very moody. It's almost more like something Chelsea Wolf would do. Yeah, I mean, Ethel Cain is kind of fascinating to me because I think, you know, since she began her career, she's really kind of straddled the pop world.

And then there's this whole other side to her that I feel like could be making music that sounds like grouper. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. Like she is this kind of like southern gothic pop star, but not a pop star. And I do think that this song Punish is her almost kind of throwing any pop obligations that she might have in her career. I don't know. Or trying to make capital P pop music. You know, she's just kind of throwing that aside and like really kind of digging her heels into that darker, ambient, grungier side of her work.

Yeah. So here's what I think people should do. They should turn the lights off, unless you're driving your car, close your eyes, and just sit with this one from Ethel King, the song, Punish, be patient, take slow, deep, deliberate breaths, and let it just sort of wash over you. All right, thanks so much, Hazel, as always, for hanging out on this very special edition of the contenders, the last one of 2024. We have a whole bunch of best of lists coming up. starting the first week of December. Thank you for having me, and I cannot wait for those lists to be out into the world. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs Considered.