In Our Headphones

Catholic Action - "There Will Always Be a Light" from the 2020 album Celebrated by Strangers on Palo Santo Records. Glasgow garage-rockers Catholic Action returned with their second album Celebrated by Strangers last month, their first new LP since 2017 debut In Memory Of. And while the full-length was written and recorded way before the coronavirus sent everyone into quarantine, many messages on...

Iceage - "Lockdown Blues," a 2020 single on Escho. Gibbard's not the only one releasing quarantine-inspired songs to benefit charity. Danish post-punk band Iceage have shared a new single inspired by feelings that have been brought up during lockdown.  “The only way out is through,” sings frontman Elias Rønnenfelt. He paints a picture of the world as we know it now: "Empty...

Benjamin Gibbard - "Life in Quarantine," a 2020 single on Barsuk Records. Since the start of the statewide stay-at-home mandates, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard has been there for us, streaming live performances from his home studio almost daily. (He's since pared down to just performing on Thursday evenings , which is still an incredibly generous act to do week after week.) During...

Ellis - "Fall Apart" from the 2020 album Born Again on Fat Possum Records. Hamilton, Ontario dream pop artist Ellis (real name: Linnea Siggelkow) had hearts aflutter with her 2018 EP The Fuzz . Earlier this month, she re-emerged with her debut full-length, titled Born Again , which, as the title alludes to, finds Siggelkow exploring her feelings on faith. As for today's Song of the Day, she explai...

Sólveig Matthildur - "Dystopian Boy" from the 2019 album Constantly In Love on Artoffact Records. As a member of Icelandic trio Kælan Mikla, vocalist/keyboardist Sólveig Matthildur knows her way around atmospheric synth-pop. When she relocated from her hometown of Reykjavík to Berlin, she began to produce music on her own, resulting in the 2016 debut LP Unexplained Miser...

Sinead O’Brien - "Taking On Time" from the 2019 album Speedy Wunderground - Year 4 on Speedy Wunderground. Esteemed London-based label Speedy Wunderground celebrated their 30th release with a new track by Irish poet Sinead O’Brien . O’Brien's work has been published for years, including a short story of hers printed in the London Review Of Books. Punk poet John Cooper Clarke invi...

L’éclair - "Suite No. 2" from the 2019 album Sauropoda on Beyond Beyond Is Beyond Records. It's not surprising to learn that L’Eclair recorded their latest LP Sauropoda from an undisclosed location in the Alps: their music displays an array of influences as vast as the famous European mountain range itself. From krautrock to disco with Afro-Cuban percussion, the Swiss septet man...

Balkan Taksim - "Zalina," a 2019 self-released single. True to their name, Balkan Taksim take the traditional folk music of their homeland and combine it with psychedelic electronic beats that their Romanian ancestors never could've imagined. Formed by multi-instrumentalist Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici, producer Alin Zăbrăuțeanu, and percussionist Cosmo, the band thrive on stage, hypnotizing the hips of...

Jesse Markin - “Run” from the 2019 album FOLK on VILD Music.  Finnish rapper Jesse Markin got his start with the group The Megaphone State, building up a cult following with their soulful samples and smooth, versatile rhymes. While you can still these elements in Markin’s solo music, there’s a newfound intensity that’s risen to the surface on his first LP FOLK ....

Tomo Nakayama - "Get To Know You" from the 2020 self-released album Melonday. This week, Tomo Nakayama, master of cinematic indie-folk and former leader of local band Grand Hallway, flipped the script by releasing his very first dancefloor-ready record, Melonday . A massive departure from his tender, tranquil songs of past, the record is chock-full of groovy pop anthems. Our Song of the Day is the...

Sharon Van Etten - "Beaten Down," a 2020 single on Jagjaguwar. Sharon Van Etten is on a roll. Following last year’s masterful studio album Remind Me Tomorrow , the singer-songwriter and actress returned in February with the smoldering single “Beaten Down.” The minimal song is dark and spacious, evoking the dubby trip-hop of the ‘90s.  Produced by John Congleton, the so...

RINSE - "Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me," a 2020 self-released single. Last month, Brisbane artist Joe Agius, member and co-writer of Hatchie, debuted his first material under the name RINSE. Titled “Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me,” the song is an infectious throwback mashup of post-punk, shoegaze, and new wave and was mixed by Jorge Elbrecht (Ariel Pink, Japanese Breakfast, Wild Nothing, Sky Ferrei...

Andy Shauf - "Try Again" from the 2020 album The Neon Skyline on ANTI- Records. With his latest album, The Neon Skyline , Andy Shauf has crafted his most realized and engrossing work yet. You needn’t look much further than single “Try Again.” Shauf’s songwriting style is all finesse and detail. “Try Again” finds a narrator, presumably Shauf,  trying to salv...

Other Lives - “Lost Day” from the 2020 album For Their Love on ATO Records. In January, Oklahoma-bred indie folk outfit Other Lives announced their first album in nearly five years, following 2015’s Rituals . Titled For Their Love , the new record sees them continue their streak of transcendent indie folk that started in 2006 when they released Flight of the Flynns under the name...

Tres Leches - “Nieve,” a 2020 self-released single. The latest track from Seattle's Tres Leches is a beautiful example of community, featuring guest appearances from fellow Northwest artists Terror/Cactus, Rachael's Children, and Medejín.  The band describe the song as an attempt to "stay alive once more through music." They point to a quote from poet Audre Lorde: “Im...

Lucinda Williams - “Man Without a Soul” from the 2020 album Good Souls Better Angels on Highway 20/Thirty Tigers. "All the money in the world / Will never fill that hole / You're a man bought and sold / You're a man without a soul" Over the past 40 years, Lucinda Williams has built a name for herself with her vivid storytelling, which has earned her four Grammy Awards throughout her ca...

Archers of Loaf - “Raleigh Days,” a 2020 single on Merge Records. It's been over 20 years, but indie rock kings Archers of Loaf have returned with the single "Raleigh Days," their first new music since 1998's LP White Trash Heroes . Originally formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1991, the band exploded on to the scene with their debut album Icky Mettle and the hit single "Web in...

Steve Earle & The Dukes - “Devil Put the Coal in the Ground” from the 2020 album Ghosts of West Virginia on New West Records. In 2010, the Upper Big Branch coal mine in Raleigh County, West Virginia exploded, killing twenty-nine of the thirty-one miners present at the time. It's been called one of the worst mining disasters in American history. And it inspired the latest album from...

Throwing Muses - “Dark Blue” from the 2020 album Sun Racket on Fire Records. Alt-rock icons Throwing Muses return with their first new album in seven years, the fiery tenth full-length Sun Racket , out September 4 via Fire Records. The group originally formed in the early '80s, with it's current line-up of Kristin Hersh, drummer David Narcizo, and bassist Bernard Georges holding steady...

B-Band - "Kavire Del” from the 2013 self-released album Napichideh (Uncomplicated) B-band formed in Tehran, Iran in 2009, combining alt-rock with Persian folklore. Dr. Nasim Niknafs, Assistant Professor of Music Education at the University of Toronto, points out in an interview with Ethnotes that "when you transliterate this name into Farsi, it has another meaning, which translates roughly t...

Liraz - “Zan Bezan” from the 2020 album Zan on Dead Sea Recordings Liraz Charhi's family emigrated to Israel during the '70s at the brink of the Iranian Revolution. Nearly 50 years later, it's still a major influence in the music she writes under the name Liraz. "Music in Iran in the ’70s was characterized by resistance to traditional music and a desire to find a universal sound,...

Bahram - “گوشت (Goosht)," a 2019 single on Peeleh Records The Huffington Post declared him one of the "50 people shaping the culture of the Middle East." Bahram Nouraei — who records simply as Bahram — uses hip-hop to call out the current political climate of Iran. His breakout single was titled "Nameyee Be Rayees Jomhour" (translating to "A Letter to the President"), which openl...

Salome MC - “Odium” from the 2017 self-released album Excerpts from Unhappy Consciousness Salome MC is Iran's first female rapper, and her LP Excerpts from Unhappy Consciousness is the first full-length Persian hip-hop album produced by a woman. This is all the more impressive when you learn that in 2007, the Iranian government denounced rap, with the Ministry of Culture shutting down...

SarrSew - "Farewell, Warden.” from the 2018 album Girih: Iranian Sound Artists on Zabte Sote When Tehran-born, Paris-based artist Sara Bigdeli Shamloo isn’t recording as half of the duo 9T Antiope, she records solo under the name SarrSew. While previous SarrSew tracks were composed for theatre and film (Shamloo was studying Theatre Directing at Tehran University before she dropped out)...

Eyelids - "The Accidental Falls" from the 2020 album The Accidental Falls on Jealous Butcher Records When Larry Beckett offers up his lyrics to you, it's hard to say "no." Beckett was a long-time collaborator with legendary singer/songwriter Tim Buckley, and even wrote the lyrics to the now-iconic and heavily-covered 1969 single "Song to the Siren." He's also the father of the kid who's best frien...