In Our Headphones

Waxahatchee - "Right Back To It (feat. MJ Lenderman)" from the 2024 album Tigers Blood on ANTI-

On today's Song of the Day, singer/songwriter Katie Crutchfield — best known as Waxahatchee — enlists the talents of MJ Lenderman (of the band Wednesday, as well as a solo artist) for an unconventional love song.

“I wrote it backstage at Wolf Trap when I was on tour opening for Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow,” Crutchfield says in a press statement. “I’m really interested in writing love songs that are gritty and unromantic. I wanted to make a song about the ebb and flow of a longtime love story. I thought it might feel untraditional, but a little more in alignment with my experience to write about feeling insecure or foiled in some way internally, but always finding your way back to a newness or an intimacy with the same person.”

The track will appear on her forthcoming full-length, Tigers Blood, out March 22nd via Anti-. The LP was recorded with Brad Cook at Sonic Ranch in Texas, and features guest appearances from Spencer Tweedy and Phil Cook, in addition to Lenderman.

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SPRINTS - "Adore Adore Adore" from the 2024 album Letter To Self on City Slang

Dublin, Ireland-based garage rockers Sprints rage against the patriarchy on today's Song of the Day, as vocalist Karla Chubb explains on Bandcamp:

“'Adore Adore Adore' is a guttural reaction to my experience of criticism, gender, and misogyny. People can't seem to stop pressing their idea of what being a woman or acting like a woman is or should be upon us. You can't act like this, you can't say that, you have to be born with this or that and it's exhausting.

There is still a different standard of behaviour expected from me vs even the other members in Sprints. There is a different set of invisible rules I am supposed to abide by — I am supposed to fit their mould and give them what they want — and not deliver what it is I am here to do.

So at a time when trans rights are under attack, people are trying to force upon us what they think a woman is or should be, this is the outward expression of my own frustration, struggle and rage.”

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Arcwelder - "Lafayette" from the 2024 self-released album Continue

Minneapolis trio Arcwelder return with their first new album in 24 years. During their '90s heyday, they released six albums on Touch & Go and Big Money Records before their double-decade hiatus. Their latest LP wasmixed by J. Robbins of Jawbox, Burning Airlines, and Government Issue.

And it's all too appropriate that "Lafayette" is today's Song of the Day, as the band say the track is drummer/vocalistScott Macdonald's tribute to "music, radio stations, and the childhood radio that delivered it all to him." Check out Morning Show Producer Owen Murphy's 2017 chat with Scott here.

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Spoon Benders - "Dichotomatic" from the 2023 self-released album How Things Repeat

With their sophomore full-length,How Things Repeat,psych-rock groupSpoon Benderscontinue to elevate the glam-garage sound we first fell in love with on their 2020 debut LPDura Mater.

As they explained toBe in a Band or Die,"Since April of 2019, the band has been writing, rehearsing, and performing live together multiple times a week. I think How Things Repeat has captured that growth and is an excellent representation of our evolution together as a band and individually as players and songwriters. For How Things Repeat we are building on our sound and looking to express similar energy through the recording as we do on stage in the live setting."

The accompanying music video — directed by Karlee Boon — aims to capture the opposite: the monotony they experience in their day jobs. "People often forget that musicians work grueling 9-5 jobs to survive while balancing their band and personal lives," they added.

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Skating Polly - "Hickey King" from the 2023 album Chaos County Line on El Camino Media

Tacoma-based punk-pop trioSkating Polly describes today's Song of the Day as "the most Skating Polly song" on their latest LP, a double-album titled Chaos County Line, out now viaEl Camino Media. Songwriters (and step-sisters!)Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse trade off vocals on the stripped-down single, inspired by a bad date Kelli went on.

“In Peyton’s verse she’s talking about never knowing how far to go or how much of yourself to give to someone, and when my part comes crashing in it’s about guys being possessive and always trying to leave their mark on you,” Kelli says in a press release. “To me, it’s the most Skating Polly song on the record because it’s all these different energies happening at once.”

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Hurry - "Beggin' For You" from the 2023 album Don't Look Back on Lame-O Records

Philadelphia-based groupHurry released theirsixth album last year, titledDon’t Look Back, a nod to a1995 Teenage Fanclub song, if that gives you a hint to their influences. And today's Song of the Day brings that same jangly, power-pop goodness.

The new album was produced byIan Farmer (of Slaughter Beach, Dog, and Modern Baseball), and is out now viaLame-O Records.

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Matt Pond PA - "Imagining Everything" from the 2024 album Call and Response on 131 Records

Today's Song of the Day marks a homecoming for singer/songwriter Matt Pond who launched his career in 1998 as matt pond PA, but tried to ditch the name the past few years, releasing an album under the moniker The Natural Lines in 2022. But now, he's re-embraced his original band name with the release of this new single.

"Our album as The Natural Lines was one of my favorite experiences in making music,” Matt told Brooklyn Vegan last year. “We thoughtfully built songs and a band that represented the inner world of the post-pandemic return to reality. But as it stands now, I’ve said everything I can in that incarnation. I gave myself a strange band name back in Philly and it’s been impossible to shake. As much as I love to run, there’s no running from who I am.”

“In the song and video for ‘Imagining Everything,'” he adds, “I can hear the worst thoughts about myself — about all of us. Nevertheless, I want to find a way back to loving this world.”

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Bayonne - "Right Thing" from the 2023 album Temporary Time on Nettwerk

Today's Song of the Day from Bayonne (a solo project from Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Roger Sellers) is extra potent, not just for being a total new wave nostalgic groove, but because it was the last song Roger was able to play for his father before he passed away from cancer.

“Approaching my mid 30s, I was having a lot of anxiety about life, music and the future – contemplating where I wanted to go creatively, which among other things, caused me to fall into a state of depression. It’s a deeply meaningful song to me, conveying feelings of stagnancy and self-doubt while maintaining a poppy format,” he says in a press statement. “One of the reasons it’s so meaningful to me is because it was the last song I remember showing my Dad before he passed. In the middle percussive section, I added samples from old home VHS tapes, wherein you can faintly hear him and other family members chattering lightly in the background. I’ll never forget showing him how I implemented these old recordings into the song. He was highly amused by this.”

The track appears on Bayonne's third full-length Temporary Time. He adds, "To me the overall narrative of Temporary Time is the events following my Dad’s cancer diagnosis in early 2019. The record explores the emotional journey we went through as a family coming to terms with his declining health. Not every song covers this, but that presentiment is lingering in the back of my mind through it all.”

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Ghoul Talk - I Just Like To Watch from the 2024 album I Want to Consume on Death Certificate Records

Seattle'sGhoul Talk — a solo project of local artist Rachel King — brings an exhilarating ferociousness to today's Song of the Day, a track she declares her "favorite and most polarizing song so far." She describes the single as "a two-and-a-half minute relationship horror story about ignoring your intuition, written in a 100+ degree room."

She tells KEXP, “I re-recorded the vocals many times, and nothing stuck until I was able to get out of my head and lock into the true emotion of the song. I wanted the recording to capture the messiness and desperation of the feeling beneath it all. Towards the end of recording, I found mice in my studio and finished some of the takes standing on a chair. There was something very punk about having them as an audience.”

"I Just Like To Watch" will appear onGhoul Talk's forthcomingvisual horror album I Want to Consume, to be released later this year on Death Certificate Records.

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IDLES - "Dancer (feat. James Murphy & Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem)" from the 2024 album TANGK on Partisan Records

Today's Song of the Day teams up two powerhouse KEXP faves: UK band IDLES and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang. It's the first single from IDLES' forthcoming fifth full-length,Tangk, due for release on February 16th viaPartisan Records.IDLES frontmanJoe Talbot says the new album will be full of enchantment. "I needed love. So I made it," he says in a press release. "I gave love out to the world and it feels like magic. This is our album of gratitude and power. All love songs. All is love."

This cross-Atlantic collaboration came to be following some shows the two bands played together. AsTalbot told NME, "If you don’t ask, you don’t get. By that point we’d been touring with them for a few weeks and knew they were lovely human beings. They took time out of their day off and took us to their studio. They were really accommodating and lovely, so hard-working, patient and awesome. They’re sick.”

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