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before the show, this podcast contains explicit

0:20

language. Hold on.

0:22

Check, check, check. Okay, that is

0:25

going. Alright. I am.

0:27

Also recording. Look at

0:29

us. Look at us just banging it out

0:31

like a bunch of engineers in a room.

0:36

It's the first 30 plus years that

0:38

are the hardest for me doing this.

0:40

Then you kind of start to figure

0:43

things out. Yeah, it really

0:45

starts to click in the in year

0:47

33. Yeah, I started really

0:49

young. My first job at a member

0:51

station was in 1988. Wow.

0:53

I was a

0:55

reporter. KANU in Lawrence, Kansas. It's a

0:57

little college town. And then I went

1:00

to WU. Is that where you went

1:02

to school? Was it your college radio

1:04

station? Was it a public radio station?

1:06

Yeah, yeah. It was the NPR station,

1:08

not the student station. I was the

1:10

general manager and the jazz director at

1:14

my college radio station. Okay, because I wanted to ask

1:16

you that. You know, we had Julia Holter on. Oh

1:18

yeah, I listened to it. Yeah, and she was

1:21

music, the music director too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

1:23

And Jason Mansukas, the

1:26

station you were working at was

1:28

WRMC at Middlebury College in

1:30

Vermont. Yeah. Well, welcome, Jason.

1:32

Robin, boy, I couldn't be happier to

1:34

be here. What a delight. Grilled.

1:37

Oh, and

1:39

Lars Gotchridge. Yes, you're here too.

1:41

I'm also here. What's up, Lars?

1:43

And you know, just to peek

1:45

behind the curtain a little bit,

1:47

did we try and record this

1:49

episode two days ago? Did it

1:52

fail due to absolute ridiculous technical

1:54

difficulties? Yes, we did. But here

1:56

we are ready to go. Let's

1:58

do it. own

2:00

up to all of that. That

2:02

had nothing to do with you, Jason,

2:04

on your end at all. And everything

2:06

that like, it was just- Shockingly, the

2:09

person locked in a closet in Los

2:11

Angeles had it fully dialed in and

2:14

the two people in a studio at

2:16

NPR couldn't figure it out. Couldn't

2:19

figure it out. Anyone can

2:21

do this in three, three times, right? We're going

2:23

to do it in two. Somehow,

2:25

I can't wait until later this afternoon

2:27

when I receive a panicked email that's

2:29

like we didn't record it. You

2:32

got to come back in. We got to do it again. Jason,

2:36

you are a big, big music

2:38

lover. I am. Yeah, I

2:41

am. Let's start with one

2:43

of your picks and then I got

2:45

to be honest. I don't really have a horse in this

2:47

race. You all brought so much amazing stuff. I'm just kind

2:49

of long for the ride Lars. You brought a bunch of

2:51

stuff. Jason, you've got a bunch of stuff. I want to

2:53

start with one of your picks, Jason, and I thought maybe

2:56

we could kind of ease into this a little bit

2:58

with this band Dancer that you brought? Yeah,

3:01

sure. Absolutely. Glasgow

3:04

Scotland band Dancer,

3:06

a kind of spiky, angular,

3:08

post-punky indie rock band. I don't

3:10

want to get too deep into it. Let's hear

3:12

it and we can chat afterwards. Cool. All right.

3:15

The song is called Bluetooth Hell. Bluetooth

3:17

Hell. It's fatal.

3:19

You said it was

3:21

broken. My miracle baby

3:23

spin me round and

3:26

round. Unspoken. What

3:40

a waste of sea of noxious with a

3:42

promise of their life. Fixing

3:46

the line then, huh?

3:49

Hitting the line at you?

3:52

Looking out towards the end, huh,

3:54

huh? Hitting the line, hitting the

3:56

line. Pulling the line, you said,

3:58

didn't mean to. Didn't

4:00

mean to, you said yourself, you said

4:02

yourself, you failed You prayed,

4:04

you cried, may seem too You

4:07

seem too, you said yourself, you said

4:09

yourself Do

4:20

you need some light then, huh? Consider

4:23

a lie, consider a lie If

4:25

you fall in line, you say

4:27

didn't mean to Didn't

4:29

mean to, you said yourself, you said yourself,

4:31

you failed You prayed, you

4:34

cried, day seemed too You

4:36

seem too, you said yourself, you said yourself

4:39

You fell in line, you said didn't mean

4:41

to Didn't mean to,

4:43

you said yourself, you said yourself, you

4:46

failed You prayed, you cried, day seemed

4:48

too You

4:50

said yourself, you said yourself You

4:54

said yourself, you said yourself You

4:57

said yourself, you said yourself You

5:00

said yourself, you said yourself You

5:03

said yourself, you said yourself Step

5:21

improve, drop Come up

5:23

across the ground I

5:26

need a train I

5:29

need a train I need a train I need a train I

5:31

need a train Myuketown Myuketown Myuketown

5:35

Get back it work Get back it go It's

5:42

ookwe ocr Lars,

5:55

you're talking entirely too much

6:00

I am a shy boy. This took me

6:02

straight back to the year 2001, and

6:07

another band also from the UK

6:09

called Life Without Buildings. Lars, I'm

6:11

with you a 100 percent, and

6:14

a band I absolutely adore. So

6:17

Life Without Buildings put out exactly

6:19

one album. It's called Any Other

6:21

City. It is perfect. I'm

6:25

like, marry me. Marry

6:28

me, Lars Godrich. This

6:31

is so much of why I want

6:33

to talk about dancer is because I want

6:35

to also talk about Life Without Buildings, a

6:37

band that I'm obsessed with. It's like

6:40

one of those one and done bands.

6:42

Robin, can you play Life Without Buildings,

6:44

Juno? You for sure

6:47

hear it in the guitars. Yeah.

7:22

The Life Without Buildings record, Any

7:25

Other City is staggeringly fantastic. It

7:28

has been with me since it came out

7:30

in whatever, 2000 or whatever. Yeah.

7:35

I was actually hearing a lot of

7:37

some bands that are newer, like Gustav

7:39

we had on the show. I'm hearing

7:41

a little echo astral we just had

7:43

on. I think maybe dancers

7:45

are a little more jingly maybe. Yeah.

7:47

What I came up with

7:50

was their weekly. Oh, yeah.

7:52

I like that. I love that. But

7:54

they also have- That's not

7:56

a music critic word. It's

7:58

so much better. It's

8:00

wiggly, but also the way

8:03

that Dancer uses fuzz specifically

8:06

reminds me of Archers of

8:08

Loaf. Oh, great

8:10

call. Yes, Life Without Buildings

8:12

is obviously like an influence

8:14

on this band, but they're bringing their own thing

8:17

to it. I'm really into it. Absolutely, and I

8:19

don't want to in any way, shape, or form

8:21

be minimizing Dancer

8:24

by elevating Life Without Buildings. I

8:26

think this Dancer record is fantastic.

8:28

I've been listening to it. All

8:30

of my picks also are part of my

8:32

spring mix. You know what I

8:34

mean? These are songs that I'm playing

8:36

that I'm, when I find new stuff,

8:38

I start dumping it into a playlist

8:40

that is just that season's new stuff

8:42

that I then comb through and figure

8:45

out what's gonna be, what are

8:47

the songs that I really dialed into in

8:50

this period of time and was obsessed with

8:52

and really loved, and those mixes run three

8:54

to five hours. Are you a real intentional

8:56

listener? Do you make time for music or

8:59

is it just sort of- I do. Yeah.

9:02

I do. I mean, I'm not like, I don't, I'm

9:04

not organized. I'm not like an organized person, so

9:06

I don't have like a scheduled, but

9:08

I do like specifically, there are times

9:11

when I think other people are probably

9:13

watching or, you know, watching a movie

9:15

or TV shows at night, but I

9:18

am just combing through new

9:20

releases, going through band camp,

9:22

going through, you know, Lars'

9:24

mailing list, going through

9:26

all sorts of, all the different

9:29

websites or magazines or stuff that

9:31

I still kind of am trying

9:33

to aggregate all of my information through

9:35

these different places, all this different stuff,

9:38

and kind of, that's the thing is

9:40

finding it all has proven more and

9:42

more difficult. And I'm also not on

9:45

social media, and by not

9:47

being on social media, I'm not being

9:49

exposed to stuff that's coming through those

9:51

channels, so I'm still checking

9:53

like MP3 blogs. I'm still checking

9:56

like- It's

9:58

wild, I'm still reading Dusty. lists

10:00

like let's go. What's up? Yeah.

10:03

It's such a shift because it used to be,

10:06

how do I even find anything? Because

10:09

we had all the gatekeepers, the labels

10:11

and the stations and there were more

10:13

monoculture moments because of it or even

10:15

MTV. Music

10:18

discovery was really hard fought. You

10:21

really had to do some digging. Now,

10:23

there's just so much, where do I even

10:25

begin? How do I find anything in all

10:27

this noise? Yeah. And how do I parse

10:30

what I like inside of it? It's

10:32

not just how do I find it, but like

10:34

a deluge of stuff. How do I navigate my

10:36

way through and pick out the gems that work

10:38

for me? Well, we got more gems. This

10:41

next one, that's cheesy. I'm going to do

10:43

something different. Well,

10:47

keep it in. Eat, eat, own, home.

10:49

Home or since. Oh boy. I

10:53

love that Robin's the one doing dumb bits

10:55

in the show. It's

10:58

making me very happy. So

11:01

Dancer is the band Bluetooth Hell and

11:03

that is from an album called Ten

11:05

Songs I Hate About You. Great

11:08

album title. Great

11:10

album title. Love it. Lars,

11:13

what do you got? So we're

11:15

doing a show with a Krate

11:18

digger. So I wanted to honor

11:20

the legacy of Krate diggers with

11:22

a compilation of Krate Doug music.

11:25

There is this great record label

11:27

based out of Australia called Efficient

11:30

Space. They put out

11:32

a lot of new music, but they

11:34

also put out a lot of compilations

11:36

that are not beholden to geography

11:39

or time. They

11:41

tend to be more thematically

11:43

based on feeling or ideas.

11:46

And they put out one recently called Someone

11:48

Like Me. This particular one

11:51

comes from a group of high

11:53

school seniors from Las Serna

11:55

High School in 1966. It's

11:58

a group called the Superwomen. and this

12:01

is their version of an old

12:03

traditional song called Lowlans. She

12:30

told me to come home from sea. Lowlans,

12:42

Lowlans, oh where my

12:44

child? My

12:56

dollars a day is

12:59

what men's pay, My

13:02

dollar a half a day. My

13:10

dollar a day is what

13:12

men's pay. Lowlans,

13:22

Lowlans, oh where my child? I

13:33

had a dream the other night,

13:36

about a dollar and

13:39

a half a day.

13:46

I dreamed I was coming home from sea.

13:58

Lowlans, Lowlans, oh where my

14:00

child? So, how to wear

14:02

my charm My old mother

14:05

wrote to me How

14:14

to dine in a half a day It's

14:24

like something I'd discover in a Wes

14:26

Anderson movie. Oh yeah, stunning. Did you

14:29

say this was a recording from the

14:31

1960s? So it came

14:33

out in 1966. Wow. Did

14:36

a little digging. There are two versions of

14:38

this song. There's an old English folk song

14:40

that's basically about a drowned lover that comes

14:42

back to life. But there's

14:45

also a version of this

14:47

song that was remade by

14:49

cotton workers in Alabama. And

14:52

it's about racial injustice. And

14:55

that's the version that you hear here. Here

14:57

are these high school seniors from some

15:00

high school who have found this

15:02

song that speaks to them. And

15:04

it's in the midst of the

15:06

civil rights movement. And the

15:08

rest of the compilation kind of does the same.

15:10

It's not all folk-y stuff. It's kind of like

15:13

a little mix of everything. Like

15:15

I mentioned before, it's kind of very

15:18

thematic. This one feels like the theme

15:20

is dreaming. Oh wow. And thinking about

15:22

what could be instead of what is.

15:25

There's something so beautiful

15:27

and haunting about,

15:29

I think that is part and parcel

15:31

of a lot of stuff that is

15:34

like a private press release. Stuff that

15:36

has like a homemade quality to it.

15:39

And this has that element that I feel like that

15:42

is also part of like it being high

15:44

school students and it being like an amateur

15:46

performance in some way, shape or form. And

15:49

that there's something like Langley School Music Projects.

15:51

You know, like there's something about it that

15:53

is instantly so

15:56

magnetic and so immersive.

16:00

in this. I think this is gorgeous. So

16:02

I have a story. Yeah. A few weeks

16:04

ago, I was walking through my neighborhood and

16:07

I saw a literal pile

16:09

of garbage in someone's backyard

16:11

and it was a shredded

16:13

box full of 45s.

16:16

Great. And I'm like, don't look in the

16:18

box. You don't need more records Lars. Don't

16:20

look in the box. Is it

16:22

progress that I left this box

16:24

alone? Oh, when I tell you

16:26

that I own like two trunks

16:29

full of 78s, I

16:32

don't even have a currently up turntable

16:34

that plays 78s. I have just because

16:36

I'm like, I can't just leave these

16:38

here at this estate

16:40

sale or whatever. It's just a trunk

16:42

full of like Dixieland. I'm like, great,

16:44

give it to me. You know, haven't

16:47

listened to it. It just sits there. But

16:49

that is the hoarder's mentality

16:51

of, of collecting records. I think.

16:53

Well, it's like, I don't know.

16:55

It's like family. It's like family.

16:57

It's like records are your family.

16:59

Robin, some

17:02

of my best friends are 45s.

17:04

Well, I can't just leave them

17:08

here. I agree. Even if they're records

17:10

I own already, even if they're, it's not,

17:12

and I want to be clear. I'm not

17:14

collecting because I think there's value in them

17:17

or I'm trying to be like, Oh, this

17:19

is a rare this, or this is worth

17:21

X amount of money. It's not, I don't

17:23

have that collector's mentality of like, this has

17:25

value. I have the collector's up mentality of,

17:28

I don't know what I'm going to discover

17:30

in this box. I don't know what new

17:32

thing in this box I haven't heard that

17:34

I'm going to get excited by. And I

17:36

love exactly like what we're

17:38

talking about here. This compilation Lars that you

17:41

brought is every once in a

17:43

while you'll buy a box of records and there

17:45

will be like a high school band

17:47

will have pressed a, you know, their orchestra

17:49

will have pressed albums for

17:52

parents to buy. And it's just a

17:54

terrible high school orchestra doing their yearly

17:56

performance. I've got those, you know, like,

17:58

and that's what you don't get a

18:00

lot anymore. That idea of now what

18:02

is this? What am I finding? And

18:04

those private press

18:06

records I love, and if you don't

18:09

mind, I'll just shout out one that's

18:11

come out recently that I think is

18:13

beautiful and fantastic, which is the Penny

18:15

Carson Nichols album Trinidad Sea. It

18:18

is a woman in Detroit

18:20

who recorded her own album,

18:23

shared it with friends and then,

18:25

like exactly what you described Lars,

18:27

it finds its way into thrift

18:29

stores or record stores, people discover it, it

18:32

starts to have a reputation and now it's

18:34

gotten a proper release. And I

18:36

think this record is beautiful and has a

18:38

lot of the similar elements that are kind

18:40

of shared with the album you just played.

18:43

In the shade of the

18:45

cottonwood trees I

18:48

was raised by the birds and

18:50

the bees Reaching

18:53

out like a long, lonely

18:55

weed I

18:59

am a Trinidad Sea Well

19:03

coming back to the super women and the lowlands cut

19:05

that you played Lars, as

19:07

soon as you said it was from 1966, was that

19:09

what you said? From like the mid 60s, I thought

19:11

okay I hear it now, but when I first listened,

19:14

it could just as easily have been something that came

19:16

out now. I mean it has a real, it's very

19:18

timeless and especially given

19:20

the kind of recording it is, I can't believe how

19:22

good it sounds, it sounds really good. The

19:25

other songs on this compilation, someone like

19:27

me, do much the same. Stylistically

19:30

it's a little bit all over the place,

19:32

but there's some artists on here I'm like

19:34

I could easily hear that on Polyvinyl right

19:36

now. And this is why

19:38

Lars, I wanted to do the show

19:40

with you. Because I feel like Lars

19:43

is really doing his best, oh what

19:45

an adore, look at him, look at

19:47

him, so cute. You literally saved his

19:49

job. Don't

19:53

joke about that. Please,

19:56

please give to your

19:58

local NPR stations, Lars needs to. to

20:00

keep his job. This is a pledge

20:02

drive episode. That's you

20:04

and one more caller. Yeah, exactly. And you

20:06

can get a tote bag. In the Venn

20:09

diagram of all of this, I was thinking,

20:11

I really, really love Jason's picks. And then

20:13

there's Lars picks here, and they love each

20:15

other. And if A equals B and B

20:18

equals C, I must also therefore love all

20:20

of Lars stuff. It just

20:22

wasn't happening. It just, it's just,

20:25

it's pretty much all Jason's. They're compromises

20:27

that have to be made when I

20:29

come onto the show. It's like, I

20:31

won't bring anything too screamy, but I'm

20:33

going to bring something a little screamy.

20:35

And Robin's like, I don't know. He's

20:37

getting away with it this week because

20:39

you're on Jason's show. I'm glad. I'm

20:41

glad. And I almost picked, I almost

20:43

picked screamy stuff as well. But I

20:45

thought, I was like, Lars is going

20:47

to have that covered. All right, we

20:49

got to take a quick break here, but we'll

20:52

have more music right after this. This

20:55

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22:01

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22:26

Let's go to Oluku Imo. This

22:29

is Trinidadian singer-musician

22:31

who comes up in

22:33

the 70s and 80s

22:35

playing in Calypso bands and becoming

22:38

more and more influenced by what's

22:40

going on in West Africa. A

22:43

connection to a lot of what's happening

22:45

with Fela Kuti and those

22:47

artists. A lot of political

22:49

stuff starts to come into his music,

22:52

but maintaining a lot of

22:54

the kind of Caribbean,

22:56

Calypso influenced melodic elements while

22:58

incorporating the jazzier, kind of

23:01

propulsive elements of Afrobeat. He's

23:03

got a record called Glory

23:05

of Om. This is a

23:08

90s record. He eventually joins

23:10

Fela's band, Egypt 80,

23:13

in the 80s and then starts

23:15

releasing records on his own in the 90s. This

23:17

is from 95. This is the title track, Glory

23:20

of Om. This

23:27

is the title track, Glory of Om. This

23:29

is the title track, Glory of Om. This

23:31

is the That's

24:30

one down to the corner

24:32

of the hands of the great hand

24:37

To reveal that long gone glossity

24:40

has come But the other

24:42

down to the old mind The

24:44

absolute power The

24:47

absolute power The

24:50

absolute power The absolute

24:52

power The absolute power

25:00

The ultimate power

25:11

Nobody can stop this wonder Many

25:13

people see this wonder Everybody hears

25:15

this wonder Oh

25:19

Nobody can stop this wonder Many people

25:21

see this wonder Everybody

25:24

hears this wonder Oh Nobody

25:26

can stop this wonder Oh

25:32

na se yo shoved us to pivoting Gomengkul

25:36

pandat with higher eyes in the eyes

25:39

All the guests for peace We

25:54

are the We

25:57

are the We

25:59

are the This

27:02

song is all about, like, for me,

27:04

you know, I live in

27:06

Los Angeles. This is a driving around,

27:08

windows down. It is spring. This is

27:10

a great song. I love this song.

27:12

I love Calypso music. It was kind

27:14

of like a pandemic hobby of mine.

27:17

I love it. I love

27:19

it. Because I loved the dichotomy

27:21

of the brightness of

27:24

the music, but there was all this

27:27

political critique happening within it. And that spoke

27:29

to me as someone who grew up on

27:31

punk. I was like, oh, hell

27:33

yeah. Oh, yeah. This, this

27:35

whole record has, like I said, such

27:38

joy and alightness and like these, you

27:40

know, like you're hearing in this song,

27:42

especially those that like spiky, like

27:44

guitar, that like light guitar line that's

27:46

just like cutting through the whole song.

27:48

But then these kind of beautiful, sing

27:50

songy back and forth, you know, call

27:52

and response vocals that are going on

27:55

throughout that I just love that is

27:57

so you can find yourself

27:59

falling into that rhythm of it and

28:01

that driving beat, I think is just

28:03

so wonderful. And then there's something just

28:06

truly like light. This

28:08

is to me like an uplifting song.

28:10

My day is better listening to this.

28:12

Jason, you said this came out in

28:14

95, but it looks like it's

28:16

been reissued, is that it? Oh

28:18

yeah, Soundways just put it out. Soundways, a

28:20

great label that puts out a

28:23

lot of stuff that reissues a lot of stuff. There's

28:25

a lot of the labels, Analog

28:27

Africa, awesome tapes from Africa that are

28:30

taking artists and putting

28:32

out their catalogs again. And so they have

28:34

just released Oloko Imo's records as

28:36

well as the record he did with a band

28:38

called Black Truth Rhythm Band and

28:41

a bunch of other of his solo releases.

28:43

So there's a ton of

28:45

stuff right now that you can get

28:47

that is all fantastic. This kind of

28:50

Calypso Trinidadian with heavy Afro

28:52

beat. In fact, there's a track that

28:54

is, that both Fela and Femi Kuti

28:56

are on, that if you can find

28:58

it, Robin, is called Where

29:00

Ujulee. ["Where Ujulee Is"]

29:28

["Where Ujulee Is"] There's

29:51

that synthesizer for you, Lars. I

29:53

could not help but smile at

29:55

that synthesizer. The smile

29:57

that broke out on Lars's face when- synthesizer

30:00

kicked in makes me so happy.

30:03

Especially when I think about

30:05

music from Western and Northern

30:07

Africa in the 60s and

30:09

70s and 80s, they

30:12

had fusion on block. Yes. And

30:14

it wasn't even fusion, kind of

30:16

like maybe the cheesy way that

30:18

people may be thinking. They understood

30:21

that music is

30:23

not a monologue. It is

30:25

a dialogue between cultures. And

30:28

I mean, but like this is like

30:30

this track is like a perfect example

30:32

of that because you got the afrobeat

30:34

funk in there. You got

30:36

the nice polyrhythms happening. But then those keyboards

30:39

come in and it's like, that's the

30:41

calypso part, but it doesn't sound out

30:43

of place. It's just, it's part

30:45

of the thing. It is

30:47

perfectly woven together, these different

30:49

textures and these different elements

30:52

into a new

30:54

quilt that is absolutely fascinating

30:56

and so beautiful and feels

30:58

so organic. And I love

31:00

that. I love everything you're

31:02

saying, but Nasula Gehwan Moroccan

31:04

band that incorporates so many

31:06

different types of music from

31:08

North Africa into a, you

31:10

know, a fusion band that

31:12

is deeply political, super compelling,

31:14

incredible albums. I didn't pick any

31:17

of them, but that just made me think of them as

31:19

well as Jill Jalela. So

31:21

that was Oluko Imo. I listened to that music. I'm

31:23

kind of like Lars. It's like, to me, it's life.

31:25

Can I bring you more life and more joy? Bring

31:32

me more life. Lars, what are

31:34

you going to, are you going

31:36

to screamo now or are you

31:38

going to just, are we going

31:40

to keep sort of ramping up

31:42

slowly? Technically, I think the thing

31:44

that the musicians doing this next

31:46

track is technically screaming, but it's

31:48

just in a different context. There

31:50

is this group from Xinjiang, China

31:52

called Nakidonan Wukam Group. And

31:55

this group performs an ancient

31:57

Chinese folk music. Here's a

31:59

track called Tuvah Mukam. Tuvah

33:00

Mukam This

34:33

was great. Lars, I found this on one

34:35

of your recommendations, maybe just that you had

34:37

gotten it. Because Bandcamp will tell me what

34:39

you've gotten, you know? And so I

34:41

got this as well. And thank

34:44

you, this album is beautiful. That's super creepy.

34:46

So you're tracking what he buys on Bandcamp.

34:49

You know what? It's so crazy. He's the

34:51

only person... I follow artists, I follow bands

34:53

that I like, or some labels or whatever.

34:56

But then I found out that you can

34:58

follow a person. Lars is the only person

35:00

I would think to follow. Oh. You know?

35:02

Because I don't know anybody else personally whose

35:05

taste... you know what I mean? I don't know any

35:07

individuals whose taste I'm interested in pursuing. So

35:09

I just... I followed Lars. And then every once in

35:12

a while in the Bandcamp thing, it'll be like, Lars

35:14

bought this record. And I'll be like, oh, what's Lars

35:16

up to? This is frequently how

35:19

I find music myself. It's like,

35:21

oh, my friend blah, blah, blah bought this record.

35:23

I'm going to listen to it. I need more

35:25

friends like that. I need more friends like that.

35:27

Either it's you or my friend and... So

35:30

I was... Like I was saying, I was

35:32

the general manager and the jazz director at

35:34

my radio station. The music director was John

35:36

Colpitts, who is the drummer Kid Millions, who

35:40

is one of the best drummers working

35:43

right now, just one of the greats. And so it's

35:46

either... I'm getting recommendations that are just

35:48

John and I texting back and forth

35:50

or from Lars on Bandcamp. I

35:53

definitely want to talk more about this specific recording, but

35:55

you know one thing that strikes me as I listen

35:57

to this and a lot of your old picks is...

36:00

All kidding aside is you both,

36:03

I think, you have so many different

36:05

ways of getting into music. There

36:07

are just so many entry points it seems for

36:09

you to get into something. You know, it's not

36:11

just like, oh, I really like the guitars. Oh,

36:14

this has a good beat or that's a great

36:16

lyric because, you know, some of this stuff I

36:18

think as lovely as this is and as transporting

36:20

as it is, I think it's hard for some,

36:22

you know, like maybe the typical listener to think

36:25

when they would put this on. Part of it

36:27

is, and I wonder for you Lars what it

36:29

is, I think for me it is about at

36:31

a young age I was encouraged to

36:34

be musically curious.

36:37

I took drum lessons from when I

36:39

was nine, ten years old. I started

36:41

taking drum lessons from a guy named

36:44

Steve Barrett in suburban Boston and one

36:46

of the requisites for the lessons was

36:48

I had to bring a blank cassette

36:50

to every drum lesson and during the

36:53

drum lesson he would record an album

36:55

or two albums depending on

36:57

the cassette from his record collection. And

36:59

so I was, you know, being given

37:02

in at 10, 11, 12

37:04

years old the record collection of a

37:06

man in his 20s and 30s, you know

37:09

what I mean? So I was being given

37:11

all of progressive rock from the 1970s. My

37:13

exposure to jazz started with Bitches Brew at

37:15

like age 12, you know, I was

37:18

being given and he got super

37:20

into Salif Kita and a lot

37:22

of other West African

37:24

stuff and a lot of stuff that I

37:26

started to be exposed to and

37:28

then all the way to like Fishbone

37:30

and reggae stuff that I wouldn't have

37:32

been exposed to at that young an

37:34

age. And that just started developing a

37:36

curiosity for me that is kind of

37:38

like a thirst that I cannot satiate,

37:44

you know what I mean? Like it is that

37:46

desire to keep, like I said earlier, like I

37:48

don't want to just keep putting on the records

37:50

that I love, even though I do, I

37:53

still want to feel that sense of

37:55

discovery and that sense of surprise. And

37:57

that's what like attracts me. like this

37:59

track from Lars, that's what that gives

38:01

me. I'm like, what is this? Let

38:03

me get into this. Let me... It

38:05

is active listening. I'm not just putting

38:07

on something in the background. It's active.

38:09

It's something I'm engaged with. I definitely

38:11

have... I realized this very early on

38:13

that I have a collector mentality. And

38:15

that's the thing I was talking about

38:17

earlier. I have to fight the order

38:19

to becoming a hoarder. Although I should

38:21

say the story earlier about me passing

38:23

on this 45. I just guess you

38:25

went back the next day. I was

38:27

just saying, did you get up the

38:29

middle of the night? I saw you

38:31

throwing the covers back at two o'clock

38:33

in the morning and going out there.

38:36

Were they there? They were there. I

38:39

gave myself a roll. You can fit only

38:41

as many as can go into a tote

38:43

bag. So that's what I did. Oh,

38:46

so there was a lot of them. It was an end

38:48

of your tote bag. So it was huge. Yeah, it was

38:50

huge. Robin, boo. But

38:53

the thing that I personally look for in

38:55

music and the thing that I hear in

38:58

the music that I was just playing

39:00

is that I am looking for an

39:03

ecstatic or spiritual high within music.

39:05

I am looking for transcendence. I'm

39:07

looking for something that speaks to

39:09

me on a deep level.

39:11

It doesn't mean I don't like the

39:13

bubblegummy stuff too. I also think that

39:16

bubblegummy stuff can be transcendent as well.

39:18

But so like

39:20

this group, Maked Dolan Mukam

39:22

Group, they're singing these songs

39:24

that have literally been around

39:26

for centuries. And when

39:28

you discover that, how does that not

39:30

excite your soul? It's interesting. And I

39:33

wonder for you, Lars, too, because you

39:35

earlier were saying that you're shy. And

39:37

while I am like a loudmouth comedian,

39:40

blah, blah, blah, in reality, I'm a

39:42

very quiet and introverted person. And

39:45

I find that a lot of the

39:47

times I'm seeking

39:49

out or connecting to music

39:51

that allows me to engage

39:54

with emotions that I might not

39:56

otherwise be engaging with. Like

39:59

the music is... is

40:01

giving me a pathway towards feeling a

40:03

way that I wouldn't otherwise be given

40:06

that track. You know, like the

40:08

music is eliciting an emotional response

40:10

that I must, in some way,

40:13

shape, or form, be connecting with.

40:15

Which, you know,

40:17

in a way, it allows me to

40:19

exercise or exorcise those emotions, which is

40:22

interesting. I mean, you're talking to now

40:24

lifelong emo kids, so yeah. Oh,

40:27

yeah. They are

40:29

modeling it for you. They are

40:32

the extension of you. And

40:34

for me, it's a lot about

40:36

the feeling and the sound of

40:38

the music. I'm almost never paying

40:40

attention to lyrics. I'm almost never

40:43

listening to the words of the

40:45

song as a component of how

40:47

I'm receiving it. I'm receiving it

40:49

based on how it's making me

40:51

feel emotionally. And if I can,

40:53

you know, if I dial into

40:56

the song lyrically, that's fine. But

40:58

more often than not, I find

41:00

I'm not. I find that I've

41:02

misunderstood a song's meaning lyrically because

41:05

it's making me feel like, oh, I feel so sad

41:07

about this song. And then I'll play it for someone,

41:09

and they'll be like, you know this isn't a sad

41:11

song, right? Yeah. You know that this song is about

41:14

something very different if you listen to it. And I'm

41:16

like, this song makes me so sad. Or the opposite.

41:18

I have it all the time. Like, wow, this song

41:20

feels so good. And then someone will

41:22

say, have you listened to this song? Do you

41:25

hear what they're saying? And then I will. I'm

41:27

the same way. I come to lyrics last. It's.

41:30

Yeah, same. Yeah. Jason. That

41:33

being said, I will segue. That segues me

41:35

perfectly, Robin. Watch this. Watch this, Robin. That

41:37

segues me perfectly into my next pick because

41:40

this is the song that I mentioned earlier that I have

41:42

been listening to. I'm literally saying

41:44

nonstop. Hundreds and hundreds of times

41:47

I've listened to this song since I read

41:49

about it on Bandcamp. The band

41:51

is called The Short Dark Strangers

41:53

and the Shady Motherfuckers. This gets

41:55

back to a little bit of

41:57

what we were talking about, a

41:59

local Pittsburgh band. a Pennsylvania group

42:01

of musicians that have this incredibly

42:03

charismatic lead singer named Bobby Porter.

42:06

This band is all over the place.

42:09

There are punk tracks, there are like

42:11

straight up soul-funking R&B

42:13

songs, hardcore songs. It's

42:16

a great group of musicians, but

42:18

all anchored by this wildly charismatic,

42:20

incredibly compelling vocalist Bobby Porter. The

42:22

song I can't stop listening to

42:25

is called We're Not Animals. Like

42:27

I said, I'm in its thrall. This song must be

42:31

touching something I need to hear right

42:33

now for the last eight months because

42:36

I still put it on every day.

42:38

I still need to hear this song

42:40

and I don't know if that happens

42:42

for you guys, but you know

42:44

that feeling of like I can't now I

42:46

can't stop listening to it. It's so

42:49

important to me somehow. You

42:56

will be the same, you will be

42:58

the same. We're not animals, we're only

43:02

depicted for our tendencies.

43:04

They lack raw materials,

43:07

our lives are worthy

43:09

for your son and

43:12

your mother. You will

43:15

be the same. You

43:19

will be

43:22

the same.

43:25

You will

43:28

be the same.

43:30

You will be

43:34

the same. You

43:42

will be the same. No,

43:44

no, no, no. Help,

43:47

we're not animals. For they're

43:50

stupid, who looks better any day.

43:52

Get holy cross talk. With the

43:54

shaping of your soul. For

43:57

the last Saturday. Rock

43:59

the rages. Blinching in

44:01

the night with the second

44:03

sight Sure I

44:05

came with answers, baby The

44:07

river's on the street and but they still do survive That

44:12

went from tomorrow where everything will

44:14

be the same But

44:17

you know it's not tomorrow Here

44:19

we'll be saving Yeah,

44:22

yeah, yeah You're

44:25

gonna be the same Last

44:28

sight, baby The sun, the

44:31

same River When

44:57

I'm animals, I walk with those boots just to

44:59

pull your pride Like

45:01

an old black pig And every

45:03

representation of your name Rake

45:06

the rebel days Stand on sets

45:08

above Blinching in the

45:10

night with the silent sound Sure

45:13

I came with answers, baby The

45:16

river's on the street and but they still do survive That

45:21

went from tomorrow where everything will be

45:23

the same But

45:25

you know it's not tomorrow You

45:28

will be the same

45:37

When I'm animals, when I'm

45:40

animals You will be

45:42

the same Jason,

45:49

I freaking love this song

45:52

I had never heard it before And

45:55

I bought, like as soon as I listened to it

45:57

I bought a piece of paper

46:00

apparently the last copy of the

46:02

record. That's huge. And I know you

46:04

bought the record Lars because it told

46:06

me on band. And I honestly like

46:08

exclaimed out loud. I

46:13

was like, I did it. I did it. I

46:16

got Lars to buy a record. You've gotten me

46:19

to buy so many records. I love it. I

46:21

can't, it makes me smile. I don't

46:23

know the lyrics, but I think I'm singing along

46:25

to it the whole time, screaming in my car.

46:27

I love it. It's always pushing. That's

46:30

one thing I noticed. It's relentlessly.

46:32

Yeah, but pushing in this, I

46:34

don't know, in a way that's lifting

46:37

you. It's like, it's constantly lifting you

46:39

up. But it's very herky jerky too.

46:41

It's really like stumbling forward in a

46:43

way. It's propulsive, but not to, it's

46:45

not to a click track. It's not,

46:48

you know, it's really, it's a little

46:50

bit ramshackle. It reminds me of hearing,

46:52

it reminds me of, I would believe

46:54

you if you told me this was recorded on

46:56

a boom box. Yeah. It feels

46:59

so effortless and so, so

47:03

like I said, kind of ramshackle in a way

47:05

that is, then Bobby Porter's voice,

47:08

like just cutting through it like

47:10

a knife is incredible. I

47:12

take it as a real victory, Lars, that I made you buy

47:14

a record. You know

47:16

how easy it is to get Lars to spend money on vinyl

47:19

though? That's true,

47:21

I guess. That's true. Come

47:23

on, Robert, don't call me out like that. All

47:25

right, we do have to take one more quick break, but

47:27

we'll have more music after this. And you are listening

47:30

to all songs considered from

47:32

NPR Music. This message comes from

47:34

NPR sponsor, the

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to mintmobile.com/switch. It's

48:15

all songs considered from NPR Music. I'm Robin

48:17

Hilton. I am here with actor, comedian, writer

48:19

Jason Mansoukas and NPR Music's Lars Gotchridge. And

48:21

we're sharing some of the music that we're

48:23

loving this week. I

48:26

think we've reached the portion in this program

48:28

where I know, Jason, we're

48:30

going to do a little quick lightning round here at the end with some

48:32

of the stuff. Lars still has a song. But I know Lars has one

48:34

more. So what do

48:36

you got? Marko Blade.

49:30

To the

49:33

dark one. Stuts

50:02

and spikes

50:05

speed and

50:09

steel Dread

50:12

deeds now

50:16

awake Force

50:19

your hand and pray to yield

50:23

Heave metal race Night

50:30

of the chasm and

50:32

infernity abyss Corrupted

50:35

by the master, dissuaded

50:38

by his mears To

50:41

enthrone they from the

50:44

land Heaving

50:46

evil in their wake Now

50:48

they come

50:52

to

50:55

take

50:58

command

51:01

Heave

51:04

metal race Stuts and spikes

51:07

speed and steel Dread deeds

51:09

now awake Force

51:12

your hand

51:15

and pray

51:17

to yield

51:20

Heave metal

51:22

fucking race

51:35

Stuts and spikes speed and infernity

51:37

abyss Corrupted by the master, dissuaded

51:39

by his mears To enthrone they

51:41

from the land Heaving evil in

51:43

their wake I

52:03

loved it. All right, Moracle

52:05

Blade, Heavy Metal Brates. This is the

52:08

song, Heavy Metal Brates. Man,

52:11

there's something really great going on in Philly.

52:14

It's their metal scene right now. This

52:16

band, Moracle Blade, Sonya is also a

52:18

great band where they understand that

52:22

riffs can be filthy but melodic at

52:24

the same time. Yeah. In the last

52:27

10 years, my taste in metal have

52:29

changed. I used to be into the

52:31

really claustrophobic death metal stuff, but over

52:33

time, I just

52:36

either want the classics, like

52:38

Iron Maiden or stuff like

52:40

Immortal. The mechanics of the songwriting

52:43

are all scorpions. It's all

52:45

docket. Yeah. It's like- Oh, that's so interesting.

52:47

Yes. It's like they understand that the melodic

52:49

riff is the thing that you're going to

52:52

come back to. It's very simple, but it's

52:54

catchy. But then there's not

52:56

really a solo to speak of. I

52:58

liked our solos, but the song doesn't

53:00

need one. Those breakdowns though are fantastic.

53:03

When it goes to halftime and

53:06

those melodic breakdowns, I think I

53:08

love. I did not

53:10

know this artist. I'm

53:12

not a big Heavy Metal person. My

53:15

exposure and my fandom to metal

53:18

comes as a result of, like

53:20

I mentioned earlier, reading the Aquarius

53:22

Records new music list. San Francisco

53:25

Records Store now defunct. There's a great

53:27

documentary about them called I Found It

53:29

at Aquarius. So many

53:31

of the people that were writing for them

53:33

at the time, were so pushing metal artists

53:36

from that era, from the early 2000s, that

53:38

that's my exposure to it. A lot of

53:40

the stuff, I don't come to metal until

53:42

I'm in my 30s and 40s. This

53:46

I love because that stuff that

53:48

is more sludgier and darker

53:50

and feels like it's under a layer

53:53

of grime, I can't quite get

53:55

into. But like this I loved or

53:57

like that band Tomb Mold. Oh yeah.

53:59

also really loved their record last

54:02

year. And this reminded me of

54:04

that in a way. So I got this immediately.

54:06

I thought this was fantastic. Yeah, this isn't as

54:08

screamy as, you've given me some really screamy stuff.

54:11

I thought this had a real classic feel to

54:13

it. Like I got into this. All

54:16

the bands you mentioned. I love the

54:18

Scorpions show. That's great. Home Run. And

54:20

you were saying, Robin, that you wanna get

54:22

the cover of this album as a tattoo? I

54:26

don't, did I say that? Well,

54:29

yeah, I think probably the same.

54:31

Yeah, it's very classic. Heavy

54:34

metal cover art, these hooded figures

54:37

holding these giant sabers and

54:39

it's a storm brewing behind

54:41

them. And I will

54:45

say metal albums usually have, in addition

54:47

to some of the best band names

54:50

and best song names, by far, they

54:52

also tend to have the best cover art. It's

54:54

true. Yeah. Without

54:57

a doubt. Can I do my,

54:59

are we on a time, will this have to

55:01

be a specific time? Can I do the lightning

55:03

round ones I have? Yeah, it's fine. We'll just

55:05

do them. And I'll just play quick little snippets

55:07

here and we can just run through these and

55:10

you tell me what. Great. I

55:12

don't need to do a full talk up or

55:14

a full thing. I just wanna shout out a

55:17

couple of these. So never before did I think

55:19

that I would hear people say like the kids

55:21

have found shoegaze. But right, it's boy.

55:24

But boy have they. Ever since

55:26

the kids have found shoegaze. So thank

55:28

God. And I will say a lot of

55:30

Lars, what you were saying

55:33

earlier, a lot of the metal

55:35

that I respond to leans more

55:37

in that shimmery shoegazy kind of

55:39

Alcest, the French band that

55:41

has a new record out now. This band is

55:43

called Some Surprises. The track is called Be Reasonable.

55:46

This is, you know, shoegazy. It's

55:48

got that hazy kind of, it

55:50

reminds me of Slow Dive or

55:52

Lush or Cockto Twins, dreamy

55:55

kind of hazy vocals. This

55:57

is great. Let's play it. The

56:01

reason I'm alone The

56:07

reason I'm alone It's

56:12

not a better home The

56:18

reason I'm alone The

56:28

reason I'm alone The

56:56

reason I'm alone It's

57:02

not a better home It's

57:08

not a better home It's

57:13

not a better home It's

57:18

not a better home It's

57:26

not a better

57:28

home It's

57:31

not a better home It's

57:35

not a better

57:37

home the

58:00

instrument out of, I think

58:02

one of our reviewers called it, like out of hotel

58:04

lobbies. Yeah. Or wherever it is, your

58:06

weddings, wherever you normally hear it, and

58:09

puts it in this transcendent space. Well, we're

58:11

also like, we're living through some sort of

58:13

harp renaissance right now. Thank you, Joanna Newsom.

58:15

We've got Mary Lattimore. Thank you, Joanna Newsom.

58:18

We've got new music from Joanna Newsom. We've

58:20

got a new record from Alina

58:23

Zjenska, a beautiful

58:25

record that she just

58:27

put out, Randy Younger's putting out beautiful

58:29

stuff. There's so much beautiful harp going

58:31

on. It makes me very happy. This

58:34

record, I think, is stunning. It is, like I said,

58:37

instrumental, improvisational, experimental,

58:39

mixing in like field recording elements

58:41

of Mary and Walt talking and,

58:43

you know, going about their day

58:45

or whatever. There's beautiful stuff in

58:47

there. I can't recommend it enough,

58:50

as well as everything else Mary Lattimore has

58:52

done from her own records to

58:54

collaborations with Juliana Barwick or Mack from

58:56

Superchunk. I mean, she's done it all.

58:59

She's absolutely fantastic. And last

59:01

but not least, and this gets at Larswood

59:03

a little bit you were talking about before,

59:05

I'd love to play the Syrian artist, Mohammad

59:07

Zf Khan. The record is called

59:09

I Am Kurdish. He

59:44

is a bazooki player who mixes

59:46

a lot of Middle Eastern

59:48

North African influences into his stuff.

59:50

A heartbreaking story of a musician

59:52

and a nurse in Syria who

59:54

lost his son in the war

59:57

and then left Syria and moved to

59:59

Syria. to Ireland, lives in Ireland

1:00:01

now, made this album in Ireland

1:00:03

with some Irish musicians and it's

1:00:05

also just him. He's

1:00:07

collaborated with the incredible Irish

1:00:09

band Langham. He's a

1:00:12

really interesting, fascinating

1:00:14

person. He's just part of

1:00:16

this diaspora of Syrian musicians now who live

1:00:18

all over the place. He's

1:00:21

another person who is

1:00:23

processing incredible trauma and putting

1:00:25

it into music that is

1:00:28

unquestionably joyful and beautiful. This

1:00:30

song is called, Do You Have a Lover

1:00:33

or Not? So we'll go out on this.

1:00:35

Jason Minsukas, thanks so much for hanging

1:00:38

out and sharing these amazing tunes. It

1:00:40

was such a pleasure and I have to

1:00:42

say, honestly inspiring to listen

1:00:44

to you talk about your love of music,

1:00:47

how you come to it. Lars, to some

1:00:49

degree, you too. You

1:00:54

have witnessed the beginning of a real

1:00:56

love affair here, Robin, between Lars and

1:00:58

Michael. We're going to

1:01:00

stay in the Zoom room while you go

1:01:02

somewhere else. We're just going to hang out.

1:01:04

We're just going to keep playing songs because

1:01:06

not for nothing. If you think I didn't

1:01:08

make a full list of other stuff to

1:01:10

talk about after even the lightning

1:01:13

round, you know I did. Because

1:01:15

baby, it's the spring of

1:01:17

Jim White. Drummer Jim White.

1:01:19

He's on like four or

1:01:21

five records, a solo record,

1:01:23

the Beings record, the new

1:01:25

duo record with Marissa Anderson.

1:01:27

This new dirty three. Come on. There's a

1:01:29

new dirty three coming? Yes, Robin.

1:01:32

There's a new dirty three coming. Get in the

1:01:34

business. I told you every day, every

1:01:36

day someone is surprising me. Read

1:01:39

my column. All

1:01:42

right. Thank you so much for

1:01:44

this. This is really wonderful. Thank you so

1:01:46

much for having me. Again, I can't tell

1:01:48

you what a big fan I am of

1:01:50

the show and it's truly an honor to

1:01:52

be here talking to both of you. Just

1:01:54

an absolute blast. Thanks for listening to me

1:01:56

and entertaining all of the stuff that I

1:01:58

wanted to talk about. Thank you. Take care, alright, be

1:02:01

well. Have a great afternoon. You too. Bye-bye.

1:02:06

And for NPR Music,

1:02:08

I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs

1:02:10

Considered. I'm

1:04:00

sorry, it's all a lie. I'm

1:04:02

happy, but that is a lie. No, I'm sorry,

1:04:04

it's all a lie. I

1:04:38

am sorry, it's all

1:04:41

a lie Two hours late,

1:04:43

make my Time First

1:04:52

link and video No

1:04:58

I said it's all a lie I'm

1:05:00

coming back there to live No I said

1:05:02

it's all a lie No

1:05:07

I said it's all a lie No

1:05:11

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