Kevin Cole

white label 12" Chris Cunningham directed the iconic video for Bjork; she was impressed by his original music videos for IDM musicians Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin, and by his clear lines, science fiction inclinations, and discordant imagery. This resulted in Björk contacting him to meet at his London office; she brought a Chinese Kama Sutra as a guide to what she wanted. Cunningham had also associated the track with sex upon hearing it, but could not figure out how to make the video explicit yet broadcastable. Björk said: "I think the only thing I said was that I thought it was very white... and I'm trying to describe some sort of a heaven. But I wanted also to have the other level there, there would be lust, it wouldn't be just clean." She complemented saying she mentioned that the video should be "white" and "frozen," and then it "melts because of love" and "making love." The robots were designed by Cunningham and were built in full-size by Paul Catling, who had also sculpted the masks for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" (1999), in clay in two hours. He also worked with Julian Caldow in set design, which was created by Chris Oddy. The treatment described the set as an "elegant" and "white environment" with "a Japanese feel to it." However, the music video's director was dissatisfied with the result and relied heavily on post-production. On the shoot there were two main robot arms, but during its post production, a third and fourth robot arm were created in computer-generated imagery. bit.ly You can see the video here: vimeo.com

This track is today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Kevin Cole. It was inspired by the loss of the Prodigy’s Keith Flint, who passed away last year at the age of 49. (The working title was “Spirit of Keith.”) "'Firestarter' was one of the first CD singles I ever bought," she told Pitchfork. "Growing up in the ’90s, that was one game-changer that was like, 'What the fuck is this? This is for me!' Me being me, I was like, 'Come on Keith, let’s channel, let’s do this together.' Some of the sounds ended up being slightly late-’90s. Then it turned into a super personal track. The music always informs what needs to be said lyrically. The energy’s already there somehow; I just have to listen and it reveals itself to me." Download this song for free here: bit.ly She has also revealed, "This is perhaps the most intimate and personal song I’ve written so far – the two halves of the track reflect upon sad acceptances of the truth, and then the joyous aftermath of liberation that can come from that." bit.ly

Producer Liam Howlett shared, "I was starting the new album [when I wrote 'Firestarter'], and that was the first thing people were gonna hear. Then all hell broke loose, with that track. I was messing around, sampling loads of guitars, so I’d spend a lot of time recording guitars then really smashing them up and trying to make new sounds out of it.” The track samples The Breeders’ "SOS," as Howlett was a fan of Kim Deal and the "drone" sound on the song that gave it an "evil" build. Singer Keith Flint then came round after Howlett had written a minute of the song, and ended up recording his first vocals for a Prodigy song. "The backing track was almost done, and I said, if you was gonna put me on anything, that’s what I’d be on," said Flint. Flint passed away at the age of 49 in 2019, and inspired Kelly Lee Owens' new release, "On," off Inner Song.

Born in 1981, Protoje is a contemporary reggae singer and songwriter from Jamaica. His mother is Jamaican singer Lorna Bennett, best known for her 1972 rendition of "Breakfast in Bed," and his father is a former calypso king from the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Mikayla Simpson, better known as Koffee, is a Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter, rapper, deejay and guitarist from Spanish Town, Jamaica. She released her debut single "Burning" in 2017, and in 2019 signed with Columbia Records. Her 2019 EP Rapture won the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, making Koffee the youngest person and only woman to be awarded in the Best Reggae Album category. Currently, she is said to be working with Nick Ballis and Rihanna. bit.ly You can enjoy the music video here: bit.ly

Charlie Wilder, aka Captain Planet, shared the context behind the album's name: "There are different layers to it. I wanted to address the idea that, while certain people are constantly trying to build walls and secure borders, separating and dividing humans, music itself cannot be contained. It always crosses those boundaries and carries culture and change with it. A visa gives you permission to travel. Music doesn’t need permission, it will travel whether you like it or not. I have always wanted to create an imagined world with my music, where different cultures and languages intermingle and mix, where diversity is celebrated and not feared. It’s idealistic, sure, but we have to envision the world we want in order to call it into existence. "On another level, there is something to be said about the fact that I am a white man from the United States and benefit from serious privilege around the world. For me, getting a visa to go almost anywhere is possible⁠—relatively easily. I’ve had my entire world view change from having the opportunity to travel globally. I believe it’s the greatest education a person can have if they are open to receiving it. But that was possible partly because of my privilege. I’m constantly aware that there is a thin line between celebrating and promoting cultures and people from around the world that I revere, and exploiting them for my own benefit, particularly as a white man. It’s not easy, but I believe that’s the way the world will change for the better." bit.ly

Bob "Slim" Dunlap is a Minnesota-based guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as a member of The Replacements from 1987 to 1991, replacing original lead guitarist Bob Stinson. Dunlap also recorded two solo albums in the mid-1990s. He was influenced by Hank Williams and Keith Richards, and has been called "one of the last old-school cool guitar players." Ralph Heibutzki at AllMusic noted that he "epitomizes the journeyman musician who plays for the fun of it, when his day gig allows." bit.ly

Glide Magazine writes, "One of the highlights of the album is 'Untitled #4,' a song that features dual acoustic guitars before giving way to great bass work from Crawford and simple, but effective knee-slap percussion. Lyrically, the song is Scott’s exploration of the things important to him in life. It’s a journey of self-actualization, with Scott coming to the realization that 'I am happy being me the most/when I let what makes me happy go' before repeating the recurring statement of the song, 'I am happier with nothing.' It is classic Avett Brothers: contemplative almost in-the-moment exploration of complex philosophical and existential realizations that ooze with authenticity." bit.ly

“Can’t Run But” originally came out on The Rhythm of the Saints. That version was filled with bursts of polyrhythmic drumming from Brazilian percussionists Mingo Araújo and Naná Vasconcelos and languid guitar from J.J. Cale. Simon dispenses with the loose funk and rebuilds the song from the ground up for In the Blue Light. A string section shivers and darts, refusing to settle into a steady pattern; the slightly frantic energy serves Simon well as he promises, “I can’t run, but I can walk much faster than this.” The unpredictable arrangement comes from the National’s Bryce Dessner. In the Blue Light “consists of songs that I thought were almost right, or were odd enough to be overlooked the first time around,” according to Simon. “Re-doing arrangements, harmonic structures, and lyrics that didn’t make their meaning clear, gave me time to clarify in my own head what I wanted to say, or realize what I was thinking and make it more easily understood," adding, "It’s an unusual occurrence for an artist to have the opportunity to revisit earlier works and re-think them; to modify, even completely change parts of the originals.” bit.ly

TMG's John Darnielle noted wryly how social isolation hadn’t actually upend his life all that much. A planned tour has been canceled, as has his daily Magic the Gathering lunch match with a friend. He also can’t go into the office space that he rents to write prose. Other than those things, though, he thinks of himself as having been living a form of quarantine for decades. “When we first started touring, I considered myself a pretty social person, but then around 1997 or ’98, I started going, Wow, I don’t like being around people as much as I used to,” he said. “I stopped going to parties. Generally it has to do with the fact that when you’re touring, you’re in rooms full of people all the time. You start structuring your day around making sure you’re not constantly in front of people.” bit.ly

Along with lyrics about treating the White House like a "trap house" and that "These motherfuckers never take the trash out," Ice Cube refers to the accusations of Russian collusion in the 2016 election, calling Trump "Russian intelligence," with the song's refrain deemed a "plea" to Robert Mueller to arrest Trump. bit.ly

Songhoy Blues says of this song: 'Badala' translates to "I don’t give a sh*t / f*ck / damn," and is inspired by the youth in Mali, especially young women, who are pushing back against patriarchy & societal controls. "They are empowering themselves & taking ownership of their voices, their bodies & their futures. This song celebrates that courage, fearlessness & agency through the story of a woman ending her relationship, and choosing her own destiny." songhoyblues.com

"This song's our cry against man's inhumanity to man; and man's inhumanity to child," declared singer Dolores O'Riordan. "Zombie" was a visceral response to the death of two children in an IRA bombing in the Cheshire town of Warrington. Three-year-old Johnathan Ball was killed when two bombs hidden in litter bins detonated on a busy shopping street in March 1993. Tim Parry, aged 12, died five days later. O'Riordan, who was on tour at the time, found herself deeply affected by the tragedy. "I remember seeing one of the mothers on television, just devastated," she told Vox magazine in 1994. "I felt so sad for her, that she'd carried him for nine months, been through all the morning sickness, the whole thing and some… prick, some airhead who thought he was making a point, did that." The singer was particularly offended that terrorists claimed to have carried out these acts in the name of Ireland. "The IRA are not me. I'm not the IRA," she said. "The Cranberries are not the IRA. My family are not. When it says in the song, 'It's not me, it's not my family,' that's what I'm saying. It's not Ireland, it's some idiots living in the past." bbc.in

Jessica Dobson shares with KEXP: "'Lights Out' was born out of a season where it felt like I couldn’t see farther than a foot in front of me for quite some time. There was a pestilent cloud of darkness around me, but I was fighting to keep my spirit intact and not fall into a deeper depression. Ultimately, it's a song about the desire of wanting to be in a more life giving place but knowing that you might need to be carried by the ones you love to get there. Vulnerability is always more powerful than trying to keep it together on your own." The forthcoming full-length finds Dobson confronting the heaviness of her emotions. Before the quarantine, she started volunteering at Aurora Commons, a drop-in center for "unhoused neighbors to rest, prepare a meal, connect to resources, and collectively create a healthy and vibrant community." In a press release, she shares, "I spent a lot of time with the women who frequent the Commons, and it taught me a new depth of empathy. They’re people who don’t have the luxury of going back to a home at the end of the day and hiding behind those four walls, so they’re sort of forced to be vulnerable with what their needs are. Talking with them and listening to them really freed me up to start writing about things I’d never written about before in my songs." bit.ly

For our awesome listener Lisa. Hope this makes you dance! Recorded by engineer Coke Johnson at Sunset Sound, Studio 3 on October 6, 1986, a press release for 'Witness 4 The Prosecution (Version 2)' explains: "When country music artist Deborah Allen asked Prince if he could write a song for her, he decided to rework 'Witness 4 The Prosecution' instead. "The original song contained contributions from the Revolution, but this re-recorded version is almost exclusively Prince (with the exception of Eric Leeds and Atlanta Bliss on sax and trumpet respectively), and it includes at least five different Fairlight keyboard tracks and seven layers of Prince’s own background vocals. Prince decided to keep the song, and would instead offer her ‘Telepathy’, which had been recorded and mixed on the same date." bit.ly

This track by the Madras-born, Calgary-raised, Toronto-based rappers Contra and Eboshi Ramesh showcases production from THOTNATION collective member Jide. Cartel Madras explains that "WORKING" is "a queer party track, which pulls from our experiences as bad bitches in the music scene from the LGBTQ+ community." They added: "Once Jide, also a member of our collective, made us this beat we knew exactly what we wanted to do with it." The video is a love letter to the campy, colour-coded Eurodance videos of the '90s: bit.ly

To call Blimes Brixton and Gifted Gab a dynamic duo would be a severe understatement. Brixton is a San Francisco battle rapper who Method Man personally recruited to help judge his "Drop The Mic" celebrity rap battle show he co-hosted with Hailey Bieber. Gab, meanwhile, hails from Seattle ahd has opened up for DJ Quik, Rakim, Cam’ron and other hip-hop heavyweights. Blimes reveals that, after meeting through a mutual contact on Facebook, "It took us a year to actually be in the same city, to meet up and hang out. The first night we ever hung out I was in Seattle working on a documentary. I worked in production while I tried to get my music career off the ground. I was in town and I was like, 'Gab, we got to link. I'm here. Let's kick it.' We were able to meet up. That night just went down in the history books. We made zero music but we made the best of friends. Gabby showed me all over Seattle. She was like the mayor of the city. Everywhere we went, people knew who she was and what her name was. People were calling, 'Hey, Gab. Hey, Gabby' from this shop and that shop and offering food from their shops and coffees and weed and everything they had to offer. I was like, 'Okay. I'm hanging out with the right girl. I'm hanging out with the right person in Seattle, for sure.'" bit.ly

Actress Christina Ricci provides vocals on this track. Directed by Garth Jennings, the music video features four QRIOs, developed by Sony Japan. The QRIO is designed to carry on conversations, adapt to its environment, and mimic human movements, including dance routines. Shots of Beck performing this song are imposed on the wall behind the QRIOs. At the time of the video shoot, there were only four working QRIOs in the world—all of which appear in this video. bit.ly Check out the video here: bit.ly

"I was stuck in a rut thinking about some really dark things that had happened in the past and wrote this song almost as an acceptance of it,” shares Winter - who is also one half of London duo Pregoblin. “The chorus ‘press play’ is about distracting yourself from a reality that you might not want to be in. “The lyrics came as a loop, repeating over and over like the action of pressing play to escape reality,” she continues of how her new single came to life. “It felt like it explained everything to me. I think I was trying to channel some kind of persona that would have been helpful to me back then.” bit.ly

Jonny Greenwood recalls during the album's recording process, "I remember Thom playing a really fantastic few seconds of 'Subterranean Homesick Alien,' just a few bars. And either through a mistake or something, those two seconds were wiped. And a part of me will always regret that I can’t hear that again, because the way the reverb played, it sounded great. We got something nearly as good. But I find it really interesting that it can’t be rescued from a hard drive. You know, control-Z, return to life." bit.ly

"Subterranean Homesick Blues" is an amalgam of Jack Kerouac, the Woody Guthrie–Pete Seeger song "Taking It Easy" ("Mom was in the kitchen preparing to eat / Sis was in the pantry looking for some yeast"), and the rock and roll poetry of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business." Dylan has also stated that when he attended the University of Minnesota in 1959, he fell under the influence of the Beat scene: "It was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and Ferlinghetti." Kerouac's The Subterraneans, a novel published in 1958 about the Beats, has been suggested as a possible inspiration for the song's title. bit.ly

"'Amber’s Knees' came together lyrically from bits and pieces that we’d all written over a long period of time," shares Girl Friday. "It’s the first song we wrote for the album. It has to do with the borders of culturally sanctioned dissociation and the willful ignorance we often employ to keep things functioning, which manifests differently for everyone. We wanted the video to be an extreme example of this, so naturally we turned to reality TV for inspiration. However, that initial idea festered into a visual fever dream fueled by our increasingly dystopian waking reality. As life seems to spiral ever further out of our control, we keep ourselves grounded dancing above a green screen sea." bit.ly

“I feel like people will either get us or they won’t, but [sticking us with] the whole slacker thing just seemed like totally lazy writing," notes guitarist Austin Brown. " I guess they’d hear Light Up Gold, and obviously it was recorded in a pretty rudimentary style. There’s mistakes on there, and it’s rough around the edges; it’s certainly not pristine, and a lot of the songs are short and snappy. They hear that, and for some reason - I can only assume because their vocabulary is limited - they call it slacker music.” “To me, though, I just hear that it’s raw, and full of pure energy. We had three days to do it - we actually wrote a handful of songs in those three days - and it was all recorded live, in our practice space. To me, that’s just stripped-down punk music, done in minimal takes for no other reason than to get the song down in a way that conveyed the energy we had at the time. I’m glad it’s unpolished, and these writers seemed to take it to mean that we didn’t care about what we were doing. I really don’t know how you can hear that record and think that there’s no conviction on it.” bit.ly

"You can definitely feel the growing Anglophobia [in Ireland],” says FDC's Grian Chatten. This idea is probed on "Boys in the Better Land," where a taxi driver from a multicultural background asserts his own sense of Irishness by smoking Carrolls cigarettes and yelling,"Brits out!" Chatten continues, "He has suddenly found a bit of meaning in considering himself to be Irish and Anglophobic or anti-British. It’s just to show how flippant these things are and how much they are based on ego and wanting to feel part of something, as opposed to a genuine hatred of something else." bit.ly

Of this new single, Mould has shared, "The genesis of 'Siberian Butterfly' spoke to the notion of 'collectors' — people with excessive means who gather the works of creative folk for their ego-driven portfolios. "As I kept writing, the narrative shifted toward themes of change, growth, and freedom. These motifs are central to how we become our true selves. This is how we begin our journey toward our true identities. It’s autobiographical as well. I put myself through some self-hating years as a young gay man — never feeling 'good enough,' not recognizing the positive qualities I had to offer, while inhibiting the development of my gay identity. "I hope for a world where all people can be what they want to be. Life seems shorter every day; maybe this simple song can be of use to people who are struggling to find their true selves." bit.ly

This song is for Molly; safe travels back home! Born in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, Joni Mitchell wrote "California" while living in France but longing for the creative climate she had experienced in California. In the song she expresses the depth of her longing for California by singing that if she was back in California she would even be willing to kiss a policeman, despite considering herself a member of the counterculture. Like "Carey", "California" takes the form of a travelogue and uses a stream of consciousness narrative technique. Pitchfork critic Jessica Hopper describes both songs as "how-Joni-got-her-groove-back ditties." The lyrics tell of her time in France, a trip she took to Spain and an excursion to a Greek island. At the end of each story in each location she expresses her desire to be back in California. The character that "Carey" was based on also appears in the second verse of "California." According to author Larry David Smith, Mitchell uses the descriptions in "California" as a strategy to demonstrate "principles associated with the Earth Mother manifesto." bit.ly

When asked by buddy/filmmaker Noah Baumbach if "California" was the closest Luna had to a hit, Dean Wareham replied, "Probably. The opening riff in that song was used in a Calvin Klein commercial. We maybe had more luck getting in TV commercials than on commercial radio." As for the riff, "It was my attempt to play a James Burton riff from a Ricky Nelson record. It’s a good way to write songs—start with someone else’s song." bit.ly

Live on KEXP. Watch video for that fantastic performance at Seattle's Columbia City Theaterhere: https://bit.ly/3iJ86Kr This was an exclusive performance for Amplifiers who donated to KEXP's New Home. To find out how you can receive invitations to these special, intimate performances once we can all go to shows again, go to www.kexp.org/donate. Thanks!

Sault seem to use the time they save by not promoting their albums or engaging with the public profitably. Untitled (Rise) is not only their fourth album in 18 months, it’s their second double album in just over 12 weeks. It’s a work rate that would seem remarkable at any point in pop history, but feels positively astonishing today, compounded by the fact that its predecessor gave the impression of having been largely written and recorded in response to the murder of George Floyd, less than a month before it was released. Pop history is littered with swiftly released singles reacting to events in the news – two of them made No 1 during the Covid-19 lockdown. bit.ly

The first voice on “Level Up” isn’t Burna Boy’s, but a tinny sample of 1950s hitmaker Pat Boone singing a song from the 1959 film Journey to the Center of the Earth. “Oh, I’d have to be twice as tall, at least, to view better than I do,” he sings. It gives way to Burna Boy’s own anxieties. “Start feeling like I had enough, then I contemplate giving up,” says the performer who’s always projected a rapper’s swagger. Where the one white voice on “Level Up” projected some of Burna Boy’s self-doubt, the two Black icons who join him only offer encouragement. Senegalese legend Youssou N’Dour is far and away the most exciting part of the track, stopping the show with a simple, inspiring chorus in Woluf and English. After the first chorus, the Boone sample returns, but you can barely make out the words as it’s pummeled by drum and bass — Burna Boy now demands to be listened to on his own. bit.ly

Toronto's Active Surplus is the collaborative project from Evan Vincent (AKA Emissive) and Ian Syrett. Their new self-titled EP is their love letter to the house music sound that first sprouted from the West Coast. The EP was heavily inspired by the stuttering drum patterns of Baltimore club, which undergird each track in subtle but noticeable ways, making the grooves that much skippier and slippier. "Yeye" calls to mind the feeling of early Walt J material and delivers a devastating earworm that will stick with you long after the lights have come on at the end of a late night Dance Opportunity. There's a confident, naturalistic quality to these rippling grooves and silky sounds, which the duo credit to an obsession with water. After all, in their words, "we might not live by the ocean, but we're all H20 on the inside." bit.ly

The origins of the group go back to 2001 when Bogotá native Simón Mejía (previously a member of 1990s Colombian alternative rock band Charconautas) was part of a loose collective of musicians and visual artists under the name A.M. 770. A.M. 770 was influenced by Colombian groups such as Sidestepper and Bloque de Busqueda who in the late 1990s had started combining traditional Colombian musical rhythms such as salsa and cumbia with modern electronic beats and dance music. A.M. 770's first musical production was the track "Ritmika" (based on a sample of a song by Venezuelan salsa band Los Blanco) on the album Colombeat, a 2002 compilation showcasing this new musical style which was put together by Colombia's foremost alternative rock band Aterciopelados for their new label Entrecasa. By 2005 A.M. 770 had effectively become Mejía's solo project and he began to focus more on the musical side of his work, changing the name of the group to Bomba Estéreo. bit.ly Bomba Estéreo performed live in the KEXP studio in 2013. Catch that captivating performance here: bit.ly

Take a step back in time and enjoy a rare video of Cline performing this classic: bit.ly Alan Block and Donn Hecht wrote the song in 1954, a few years before Cline recorded it. According to Hecht, after securing a songwriting contract with Four Star Records, his assignment was to pick an artist from the label whom he could compose a song for. Hecht was impressed by Cline's vocals and realized her voice was best suited to pop music. Among his catalog of pop-styled songs was "Walkin' After Midnight," originally intended for traditional pop artist Kay Starr, and written in the key of B-flat. Starr's record label had rejected the original version, and it was left unused for years. Hecht pawned his furniture, had a demo made with singer Lynn Howard, and played the demo for Cline's producer, who then played it to Cline over the telephone. Her first reaction to "Walkin' After Midnight" was negative; however, Hecht and Four Star owner Bill McCall came to an agreement with her. The compromise was that Cline would record it as long as she could also record "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)," a song she favored. "Walkin' After Midnight" was then recorded at the Bradley Film and Recording Studios on November 8, 1956 and was produced by Paul Cohen, along with "A Poor Man's Roses", "The Heart You Break May Be Your Own", and "Pick Me Up on Your Way Down." bit.ly