New Mix: Steady Holiday, Ada Lea, Wet Leg, More
Top row: The Colorist Orchestra & Howe Gelb; Middle row: Steady Holiday; Bottom: Ada Lea; Lower right: Wet Leg Courtesy of the artists hide caption
On this edition of All Songs Considered, I begin with some amped-up sounds, first from Steady Holiday. Early in the year, she put out a thoughtful acoustic guitar version of her song "Love Me When I Go To Sleep," which is about mortality and asking yourself how you want to live. Now, she's taken that pensive tune and cranked up the volume for a version called "Love Me 2."
I've also been noticing several bands these days taking on the sounds of late-'70s post-punk in the spirit of Delta 5 and Gang of Four. I play two songs I find honoring that spirit, first from New York's Gustaf and a song called "Book." Then we hear Wet Leg, the duo from the Isle of Wight, and their song filled with sexual innuendo titled "Chaise Longue."
Ada Lea takes a poignant moment from a New Years Eve party and seeing a friend go through difficult times in a song called "damn." The soulful Toronto singer AHI woke from a dream where he was singing to a large crowd of people about a young man killed by gun violence. It turns out that the dream and the lyrics mirrored reality in shocking detail, revealed in his new song "Danger."
Pieta Brown has a collaboration with the Colorist Orchestra and Howe Gelb titled "Sweet Pretender." And the final tune is a calming moment from Lanterna, an artist I used to play while directing All Things Considered back in the '90s. The guitar sounds for this new song are soothing and reflective.