AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Now it is time for a breather. It is New Music Friday. And this week, we have early aughts nostalgia, lizards and wizards and, fittingly for a Friday, some recommendation about having fun with a sunny day and leaving your work behind.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEABADOOBEE SONG, “TAKE A BITE”)
CHANG: We’ll flip it over now to Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Ann Powers from NPR Music, bringing us a couple of choices of recent music out immediately, beginning with the third album from Beabadoobee, referred to as “This Is How Tomorrow Strikes.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TAKE A BITE”)
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) Positive, it is easy to speak, however I take it and I eat it with a cherry on high. Indulging in conditions which can be fabricated imaginations…
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: So Beabadoobee is an artist born within the Philippines, raised in London. She blew up on TikTok initially, however she’s constructed a powerful catalog since then. And the factor I’ve locked into about Beabadoobee, who’s 24 years outdated, born in 2000…
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: Wow.
TYLER-AMEEN: …Is that she feels actually linked to the acoustic pop from, principally, the time at which she was born
POWERS: Ah.
TYLER-AMEEN: Not the time of her precise youth, however that type of flip of the millennium – like, I take heed to this track, “Take A Chew.” I hear Michelle Department.
POWERS: Ooh.
TYLER-AMEEN: I hear track of the yr winner Shawn Colvin, when you bear in mind “Sunny Got here Residence.”
POWERS: How about Natalie Imbruglia? You bought somewhat Natalie Imbruglia…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: …In there.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Natalie Imbruglia’s there.
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: Perhaps even somewhat little bit of Incubus guitar.
POWERS: Ooh.
TYLER-AMEEN: Oh, no.
POWERS: OK, that may be a leap.
TYLER-AMEEN: Perhaps that is a stretch.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TAKE A BITE”)
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) I wished to see the world in shade by your eyes and thru your thoughts.
POWERS: Her singing and the preparations additionally remind me a little bit of, like, traditional ’60s pop. There is a lightness and only a flute-like high quality to her voice that actually invokes the pop ingenues of the swinging ’60s for me.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah, no. I imply, it is simply – it is cool to listen to her, , stretching out this fashion. For any individual who, like began off as, like, a TikTok well-known teenager and made their option to the Eras Tour, she’s positively obtained some juice.
POWERS: I am glad you probably did invoke Taylor as a result of for all of the reference factors we will make, I have been considering loads about how, like, we consider Taylor Swift as a cultural phenomenon, however she is so influential on these younger singer-songwriters.
TYLER-AMEEN: Positive. Yeah.
POWERS: It is simply inconceivable to not hear that imprint.
TYLER-AMEEN: It is – how may you not be? It is like “The Matrix.” It is like, as soon as “The Matrix”…
POWERS: Oh, yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: …Exists, you are both making…
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: …A film that is like “The Matrix” otherwise you’re defining your self in opposition to “The Matrix,” and it is form of the identical factor.
POWERS: We’re all plugged in to Taylor Swift, simply, like, sitting in a vat of one thing, plugged into her consciousness.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TAKE A BITE”)
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) Need to do it yet again.
TYLER-AMEEN: That is “This Is How Tomorrow Strikes” by Beabadoobee. And I am able to get trippy.
POWERS: Onward.
TYLER-AMEEN: So take me there.
POWERS: Properly, this is a band I do not assume is influenced by Taylor Swift.
TYLER-AMEEN: OK.
POWERS: However who is aware of? Who is aware of with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard as a result of this Australian psych rock band has made – I believe that is their twenty sixth album.
TYLER-AMEEN: I imply…
(SOUNDBITE OF KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD SONG, “FIELD OF VISION”)
POWERS: This album, which is known as “Flight B741,” is simply them having enjoyable, sharing vocals, jamming out. On the identical time, there are some themes on the album that actually stand out, form of, like, internal journeys, skepticism about spirituality and faith however curiosity in it, life on the highway as a rock band. However let’s take heed to somewhat little bit of “Area Of Imaginative and prescient,” which is a kind of songs about, like, faith and spirituality.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FIELD OF VISION”)
KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD: (Singing) Butterflies – they start to flutter now, melting contained in the popcorn butter forehead. His pictures are lined up – obtained to like that clinking sound. Jess is cracking the whip to go down. Am I an providing to the gods within the ring, entertaining feasts match for a king? All of the blood, sweat and the tears that we put into every thing – yr after yr, we’re nonetheless right here.
POWERS: Daoud, I’ve to confess, I jam out to this. I believe King Gizzard is a really enjoyable band. And this report jogs my memory – it is supposedly impressed by the band. However I actually hear form of the glam pop sound of traditional bands like Slade or The Candy.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Perhaps somewhat bit Stones. Not a lot within the vocal supply, however the – I believe I am listening to it most within the drums, that – simply banging out these quarter notes.
POWERS: Oh, yeah, I really feel that. And, I imply, it is positively an English rock, , shaggy mullet sound. And Ambrose Kenny Smith’s harmonica actually stands out. And it simply made me really feel like, the place is the harmonica immediately? Why will we not have as a lot harmonica as we want in 2024? We’d like extra.
TYLER-AMEEN: That is honest. We – yeah, we have had – , we had a saxophone renaissance, , about 10 years in the past.
POWERS: We had the flute period for some time with Lizzo and all of the…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: …Flute gamers. So now I believe it is the second for the harmonica to come back again.
TYLER-AMEEN: OK. Make it occur.
POWERS: So thanks, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for “Flight b741” and the fantastic harmonica sounds you are bringing to us.
(SOUNDBITE OF KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD SONG, “FIELD OF VISION”)
TYLER-AMEEN: All proper, Ann. What’s subsequent?
POWERS: Daoud, I am actually enthusiastic about this album I discovered by a band referred to as Thee Marloes. It is referred to as “Perak.”
(SOUNDBITE OF THEE MARLOES SONG, “LOGIKA”)
POWERS: I simply fully discovered this band. They’re really from Surabaya, Indonesia. They have been based by the guitarist, Sinatrya Dharaka. And it is simply him and the drummer, Tommy Satwick, and this wonderful singer, Natassya Sianturi.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOGIKA”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing in Indonesian).
POWERS: I really like her voice. It is simply, like, buttery honey-ish (ph) daylight within the afternoon. It is simply beautiful, and…
TYLER-AMEEN: A type of voices that form of feels prefer it has existed for for much longer than the singer has been alive. Have you learnt what I imply?
POWERS: Completely. Apparently, she was a – like, a pop singer, and Dharaka found her or, , enlisted her for this undertaking, which actually is far more about type of combining the sweetness and luminosity of Indonesian pop – which I do not know when you’ve ever listened to, however it’s very emotional and candy – and mixing that with form of traditional Philly soul sound or that Northern soul sound that’s a lot about these Dulcet girls’s voices, , and that form of wah-wah guitar that runs all through these songs.
So the songs are each in English and in Indonesian. And I believe it is actually fascinating how the Indonesian language works with this model of music, too, like on this track, “Logika.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOGIKA”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing in Indonesian).
POWERS: I additionally love the track “Not Immediately,” which is a track about, like, hey, it is Sunday. I am not messing with work stuff immediately, and I believe all of us may use to take heed to that generally.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “NOT TODAY”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing) Sunday within the solar rays, flowing at sea, carry a melody.
CHANG: That was Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music. And you’ll hear extra of their full episode of New Music Friday from the podcast All Songs Thought-about.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “NOT TODAY”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing) I do not want nothing else. Are you free from…
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