AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Now it is time for a breather. It is New Music Friday. And this week, we have got 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 latest music out as we speak, beginning with the third album from Beabadoobee, referred to as “This Is How Tomorrow Strikes.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TAKE A BITE”)
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) Certain, it is easy to speak, however I take it and I eat it with a cherry on prime. Indulging in conditions which are 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 formidable 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 And the factor I’ve locked into about Beabadoobee, who’s 24 years outdated, born in 2000…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 related 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 kind of flip of the millennium – like, I take heed to this track, “Take A Chunk.” I hear Michelle Department.
POWERS: Ooh.
TYLER-AMEEN: I hear track of the yr winner Shawn Colvin, for those who keep in mind “Sunny Got here Dwelling.”
POWERS: How about Natalie Imbruglia? You bought a bit Natalie Imbruglia…
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: …In there.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Natalie Imbruglia’s there.
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: Perhaps even a bit 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 needed 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, basic ’60s pop. There is a lightness and only a flute-like high quality to her voice that basically 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, you realize, stretching out this fashion. For someone who, like began off as, like, a TikTok well-known teenager and made their technique to the Eras Tour, she’s positively bought some juice.
POWERS: I am glad you probably did invoke Taylor as a result of for all of the reference factors we are able to make, I have been pondering quite a bit about how, like, we consider Taylor Swift as a cultural phenomenon, however she is so influential on these younger singer-songwriters.
TYLER-AMEEN: Certain. Yeah.
POWERS: It is simply unimaginable to not hear that imprint.
TYLER-AMEEN: It is – how might 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 type 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 another time.
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: Nicely, here 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 basically stand out, type of, like, inside journeys, skepticism about spirituality and faith however curiosity in it, life on the highway as a rock band. However let’s take heed to a bit little bit of “Discipline Of Imaginative and prescient,” which is a type 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 – bought to like that clinking sound. Jess is cracking the whip to move 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 all the pieces – 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 document jogs my memory – it is supposedly impressed by the band. However I actually hear type of the glam pop sound of basic bands like Slade or The Candy.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Perhaps a bit 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, you realize, 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 as we speak? Why can we not have as a lot harmonica as we want in 2024? We’d like extra.
TYLER-AMEEN: That is truthful. We – yeah, we have had – you realize, we had a saxophone renaissance, you realize, 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 great 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 like her voice. It is simply, like, buttery honey-ish (ph) daylight within the afternoon. It is simply attractive, and…
TYLER-AMEEN: A kind of voices that type of feels prefer it has existed for for much longer than the singer has been alive. Are you aware what I imply?
POWERS: Completely. Apparently, she was a – like, a pop singer, and Dharaka found her or, you realize, enlisted her for this challenge, which actually is rather more about kind of combining the sweetness and luminosity of Indonesian pop – which I do not know for those who’ve ever listened to, nevertheless it’s very emotional and candy – and mixing that with type of basic Philly soul sound or that Northern soul sound that’s a lot about these Dulcet ladies’s voices, you realize, and that type 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 type of music, too, like on this track, “Logika.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LOGIKA”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing in Indonesian).
POWERS: I additionally love the track “Not As we speak,” which is a track about, like, hey, it is Sunday. I am not messing with work stuff as we speak, and I believe all of us might 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 of.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “NOT TODAY”)
THEE MARLOES: (Singing) I do not want nothing else. Are you free from…
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