The Contenders, Vol. 5: The songs we can't stop playing this week
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Well, Tom Huizenga, welcome to All Songs Considered, the world's greatest podcast. I've decided I'm going to manifest. I'm going to say it enough that it's just going to become true. It is the world's greatest podcast. Well, Robin, thank you for having me as a guest on the world's greatest podcast. I'm so honored to be on the greatest podcast ever.

It's been a minute since you've been on the show. Let's just do, we should just do a wellness check here. Sure, go ahead. How are you doing? How are you holding up?

Poorly, I would say. Poorly? Not enough wine in the world to soothe the nerves at this point. I know that you love your wine, and you did a dry January, too, so you've got a lot of catching up. Moist January. Oh, it was a moist. It was a damp January. It wasn't entirely dry. And February is now a deluge. The floodgates are open. Right. Wine is just sloshing down. Me and my good friends Chardonnay and Cabernet.

No, but Robin, how about you? I'm doing all right. You know, I've been spending a lot of time with family and friends, which I'm not always very good at. I find I can go an extraordinarily long time without speaking to another soul and be just fine with that. But it's been very recentering for me. Yep. Highly recommend it. Just get away with family, friends. Well, this whole idea of family and friends is actually the visualization

the very thing that drew me to the first song that I want to play today. But real quick, as always, if you like the show, share it with a friend. Leave us a review in Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. And speaking of finding your happy place and recharging, be sure to stay tuned after the last song on this episode plays for your weekly reset, the special closing segment we started doing this year, just to help take you away, your weekly reset.

All right. The song I want to start us off with is from the French artist known as OK Lou. And she just put out her debut album. It's called Choke Enough. And we can talk more about it after we hear the cut that I want to play from it. The song is called, appropriately, Family and Friends. He said things I couldn't remember. 40s into December. For the girls to enjoy, he said.

That I'd never be able To put my heart on the table for Somebody to eat He said to me, you can't escape I chased the board and away The chorus started dancing it around He said, I ain't nothing to say Ask me, are you frozen? Are you even human? Are you even real? I've been seeing pleasure and pain Try everything again

Run inside of a name Say what you meant Let me forever lie in Blessed by family and friends Starting life at the end Is it even real? If I have a crate on my belly Stepping into the fantasy Will I wanna go back In time to the infinite center

Here's the chorus of this. Listen to me, you can put life into your name. Chase it like you want it. Dancing in the rain. I'll be singing pleasure and try everything I can. Don't you see? I'm in forever. Blessed by family and friends. Starting life with me.

Oh, man, there are so many songs across this whole album from OK Lou that I love and could play. But I actually went with this one because I thought Tom, you know, as our resident classical music curator,

I thought you might kind of like the more contemporary orchestral sounds in it, but curious what you think. There is a lot going on there for sure. I mean, starting with this oscillating marimba riff that just kind of like reminds you of Steve Reich or something. And then these feathery synths that are stand-ins for strings. And there's even a little synth flute that makes a cameo appearance before the second verse. And just...

a lot of interesting sounds in there all kind of interleaved together and how she processes her voice it kind of sounds like a vocoder which I've never been really a fan of but she just kind of dusts it doesn't lean on it

too heavily. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like autotune for me. I don't like it when an artist goes all in on autotune and completely turns their voice into this robotic sort of synthetic sound, but just flourishes here and there. I think it's really nice. But the one thing about the song that may be having a hard time with, actually, she sings Is It Even Real at the end of the chorus. And that's that one line that sticks with me because everything...

is so meticulously crafted via electronics and electronics that often imitate acoustic instruments. You know, it makes you kind of question reality. Is this music... I'm asking myself this too. It's like, is this music too perfect for me to really fall in love with? I mean, I get it. There is almost...

an iciness to it. But I think I'm having the exact opposite reaction that you are. I hear that iciness and it makes me like it even more. I like those lines kind of being blurred between the organic and the synthetic worlds. And it plays into the theme of the song, which is, I think, she has found herself, okay, Lou, in some sort of existential...

I don't know if it's a crisis, but she's definitely questioning reality. So when she asks, are you even real? I think she's asking that of herself as much as anyone or anything else.

Okay. Okay, Lou, I mentioned this is her debut album. Again, it's called Choke Enough, and that song was Family and Friends. It's a song, I should say, that actually came out last fall, and I completely missed it, but the album that it is on just came out in February. And, you know, we were speaking of flutes earlier, that little synth flute in that song. Well, I've got some music for you now that has some...

real heavy-duty flutage in it. Heavy-duty is not the way I would ever think to describe flutes. Well, you know, there are some very big flutes, and in this next track by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvald's daughter,

There is the bass flute played by Claire Chase. There are several flutes even larger than that. But let me set up the song a minute. It's actually from a 50-minute piece called Ubique for two pianos, a flutist that plays three different flutes, and two cellists and some very subtle electronics. Okay.

And if you don't know Anna Thorvald's daughter's music, you're in for a real treat. I mean, if you had to create a soundtrack for, like, geologic plate tectonics or the lifespan of dwarf stars and galaxies and black holes, you might go to Anna Thorvald's daughter. She's concerned with big blocks of sound and textures. And here this small group of instruments resonates.

really sounds much bigger than it is. She has described it as living on the border between enigmatic lyricism and atmospheric distortion. And so here we go with part five of Ubique by Anna Thorvald's daughter, and the flutist here is the amazing Claire Chase. ♪

You know, I cannot tell you how badly I needed to hear this piece of music. Tom, the first time I heard it when you shared it with me ahead of us getting together here,

I just felt everything disappear. Yeah, this movement to me is almost like a prayer. But it also is that fabulously strange sound world that can only be Anna Thorvald's daughter. She has such a singular style. And economical, too. It's like even as it feels...

Like it's really blooming and expanding. It's actually very minimal. Yeah. So Claire Chase playing the bass flute there with Seth Parker Woods and Katinka Klein on cellos and Corey Smythe.

Tell me more about these massive flutes you're talking about, because I've certainly heard of a bass flute, but what gets bigger and deeper than that? Well, let's listen to some, because there are two flutes that go deeper than that, and one of them is here on the record on part eight of Ubique, where Claire Chase plays the contrabass flute, which has about nine feet of tubing, and it stands about six feet tall.

The special effects include the tongue ram, and Claire described it to me as where you basically, you jam your tongue into the hole of the embouchure of the flute so that it stops the air going through there. And then her furiously fingering the valves or the keys of the flute, which makes it sound like we're in some underground cistern where birds are flapping their wings. It's very, very atmospheric.

Sounds almost like a didgeridoo or something. Yeah, it does have that very airy and percussive quality to it. Yeah. So Anna Thorvald's daughter, Ubique is the name of the piece, and that is spelled U-B-I-Q-U-E, like Ubique, but Ubique, and that's not out yet, right? That is coming out the 28th of this month, so soon. Okay.

So, Tom, at the risk of harshing whatever mellow people are in after hearing Anna Thorvald's Daughter, I want to play a cut from the new Clipping album. Oh, yes, please. Yeah, I mean, and if you don't know Clipping, it's kind of an experimental hip-hop group. They're from L.A. Some of their stuff can get pretty harsh, a little abrasive, a bit chaotic. But overall...

I think the grooves and the ideas, you know, sort of the sonic world and the poetry and the observations at the heart of these songs from clipping, they run so deep.

They've got a new album coming called Dead Channel Sky, and the song I want to play from it is called Keep Pushing. And even if you don't know clipping, careful listeners will recognize the voice of Daveed Diggs, better known to some for playing Thomas Jefferson in Lafayette and Hamilton. And he is the MC, the rapper in this piece. Hey. Yeah.

When it all fell down, God bless the weight. Inflation went ounce. Must have just ate, cause them became pounds. Didn't hesitate, them break themselves down. Like them was late, couldn't wait to get out. Them spread all around the world. The fiends found them, hopped in the pot.

♪ And beg to get drowned then ♪ ♪ Wanna be sick then bitches munchausen ♪ ♪ So let it whip ♪ ♪ Living at the top of the syndrome ♪ ♪ Placebo get you repoed ♪ ♪ And the thin gold ain't worth shit ♪ ♪ When the skin gone and it been cold ♪ ♪ And making money off of the impulse ♪ ♪ Ain't nothing but sinful ♪ ♪ But that need faith in ♪ ♪ Where they do that at ♪ ♪ The world is a wasteland ♪ ♪ The state is a rat trap ♪ ♪ Cheesing though the pack under the hood of the hatchback ♪ ♪ Before you get snatched back ♪ ♪ And everywhere you go ♪ ♪ Just keep on pushing though ♪

However hard it's been, get up and push again When it all went numb, they all followed suit, the juice was too dumb It's all up to you young blood, they knew none 'Bout what you do, the truth is you finna be one of them ones History is so funny, it's only ripped with ink that's on money So take a drink and hit the track running Don't need to think, the shit's in your bloodstream

Try to keep the pulse and the tempo Just 'cause it's automatic don't mean that it is simple A pimp don't ever panic when a hoe is a nympho You push so many keys that it's resembling Gitmo Remember that place? Nobody else does They like the past erased so they can get buzzed Making a dash today onto the next plug With enough cash to buy 'em out of the business And everywhere you go Just keep on pushing dope However hard it's been

Get up and push again

When it all got killed Saw all the faces gracelessly tilt Saw all the places laced with green wilt What a disgrace for all that they built Well, what that got to do with your millions? If it ain't gold, get out of your feelings Street got beef, that's why you put grills in Show 'em them teeth, then shoot up they buildings That's what it do Livin' at the end of the sentence You run on with the commas and they won't even mention The Polican for Quotas, hemi and intervention It split the colon, keep the cola rollin' perfection

Break the law, well the work gotta stretch then Ain't gotta sell the soft, give the work an erection Then gotta get it off or end up in correction Get it to every jerk in the section And everywhere you go Just keep on pushing dope However hard it's been Get up and push again And if you feeling hurt

Just keep on pushing on. Wherever you may roam, just keep on pushing on.

What a great pivot to those strings at the end. It's almost like it's become some sort of, I think they're being a little ironic, but I mean, some sort of 40s or 50s musical, you know? I'm glad you mentioned that because that frilly little string coda just kills me. It's a very smart move. It's very pretty and provocative at the same time. And I'm glad you brought the irony up because it does seem to me to be some kind of commentary on what we've just heard.

Yeah, yeah. Now, it's very dystopian overall, and I think the song...

More or less, it's broken down into three parts. The first is the very top when he references a kind of societal collapse when he says, when it all fell down. When it all fell down, God bless the way inflation went down. You know, and he talks about inflation and making money off the exploitation of others and dealing drugs and that sort of thing. And then it's when it all went numb. Right, that's part two. When it all went numb, they all followed suit, the juice was too dumb. It's all

Like, we're not even feeling any of this. He makes a particular dig at how bad people are, sort of remembering history, the idea that we're doomed to repeat it. And then the third and final part is when it all got killed.

When it all got killed Saw all the faces gracelessly tilt Saw all the places laced with green wilt What a disgrace for all that they built And there's this picture that he paints of rampant crime and a police state and, you know, the prisons are packed with everyone who was sort of desperate enough to break the law. But then they come to the strings at the end and the ultimate sort of parting message when he says, don't give up. And if you're feeling hurt

Just keep on pushing on. Wherever you may roam, just keep on pushing on.

Well, yeah, keep selling dope. Well, it could be pushing dope or it could be keep pushing, just forging ahead. Right. But I mean, there are multiple layers and multiple ways to read this whole song. There's so many moments like that. I know. I love how the refrain works against the words. You know, the refrain is so light and breezy with airy little keys and you wouldn't expect the lyrics to be what they are, which is, and everywhere you go, just keep on pushing dope, however hard it's been, get up and push again. You

You kind of answered my question because I was kind of thinking, you know, after all of this, at the end of the song, where does this get us? Like, the world is a tough, ugly place, so let me wrap it up in a little bow for you, like tongue-in-cheek wise. But yeah, when it all comes down to it, you have nothing else left to do but keep on pushing or give up. I think this is some of the best stuff that Clipping's ever done. The record, again, is called Dead Channel Sky, and that song was Keep Pushing.

Another thing I love about that track is all the intricate kind of little percussive things that go on. And I don't know if they're sampled, I'm sure, probably, but you never know. So now I've got some music that has, you know, real straight ahead percussion music. You know, I think we're living in kind of a golden age of percussion ensembles, just even here in...

the U.S. There are all of these great groups out there now, including stalwarts like So Percussion and Mantra, and then there's Third Coast Percussion. And now this group Sandbox Percussion, that is really making a name for themselves. They have a brand new record out called Don't Look Down, and I thought we'd hear the opening track from it, which is called Hammer Space, which is part of a suite of percussion music.

And the music is by Christopher Cerrone, who was a Pulitzer finalist in 2014. He wrote this during COVID and the title, Don't Look Down, I think we should just explain for a minute for you cartoon fans. It actually comes from an article by Paul Krugman, the economist, who was referencing the Wile E. Coyote cartoons where they

You know, the coyote looks down and all of a sudden realizes, oh, you know, he's fallen off a cliff or whatever. And that's the moment he falls. Yeah. As soon as he realizes. So we'll hear the opening movement of this suite and then we'll let it slide into how the second movement starts because there you get this poof and you can hear where he's fallen off the cliff.

It's when the TNT goes off or the anvil falls on him. The Acme Anvil. And there it is. We've fallen off the cliff. You have got to tell me.

What all we're hearing. As someone who writes a lot of music and does a lot of music notation and everything, I kept picturing all the little dots all over the paper that had to be written and all the parts that had to be assigned to all of those different instruments or whatever you want to call them, different sounds, and it made my head spin. Well, I don't know exactly how they're doing, but what we just heard, the beginning of the second movement called the Great Empty, where you fall off the cliff, then

Then they're actually taking monofilament line and threading that through the strings of the inside of the piano, and that's called a bowed piano technique, where you have one hand on one end of the string, one hand on the other, and you're actually bowing the

the piano strings. Right. But before that, in the main part of the piece we heard, which is called Hammer Space, the opening movement from a larger piece called Don't Look Down, there's a piano hammering away, and the high strings of that are muted with putty. There's a traditional drum kit in there. Also, the swoosh of a bicycle pump, and there's a block, and there's sandpaper. But, I mean, that's the beauty of the percussion world because...

You know, you can beat on almost anything to make a sound. And actually, just a little interesting footnote, those of you who are Tiny Desk fans, we invited Sandbox Percussion in, and their Tiny Desk will be publishing late in March. So you can see kind of all the weird stuff that they bring to the table with this. But this is a lovely album, and the piece we just heard, Hammer Space, really is cooking.

Tom, when you were talking about the Anna Thorvaldsdottir, you said something like the geological... Plate tectonics. Plate tectonics, yes, yes. Geological elements. Well, I want to play something from the artist Lucretia Dalt. And one of the many things that's very interesting about her and her work is that she, in fact, studied civil engineering and worked at a geotechnical company before turning to music. That's right.

That's right. I did read that. Yeah. In fact, she has managed to work references to geology in some of her music over the years. And she is also an extraordinary storyteller. She has this incredible new piece called Coserata.

This new one, she says, is about two lovers who are so into each other, you know, and their passion is so off the charts that they create this powerful magnetic field that disrupts reality itself. You know, this is a wild little cinematic gem of a song, really. And if you listen at the end of the song, you're going to hear the English musician David Sylvian in this great spoken word part that closes out the song. ♪

The heat is tearing the ground apart At 150, they are going over the desire On its side goes a promise Fine pact in Mexico, oh And what you find in pieces, all the conspiracy I don't know, eyes rolling

um

We're out of favor

A danger to ourselves It's not amphetamine It's something else My body's smeared in bloody red She said she loved me But I don't trust her yet I'm not quite lucid I'm far from clean I'm plummeting slowly Doused in dopamine

The walls are thin, my nerves are shot. I'm vulnerable and I know it. Is that door locked? What a killer last line. Oh my God, the walls are thin, my nerves are shot. I'm vulnerable and I know it. Is that door locked? And did you notice that David Silvian's whole, that whole part comes after a car crash? Right.

To me, it just has this very, you know, distinct, breathy, leathery voice, Leonard Cohen style delivery, you know, very sensual. I mean, the whole song is kind of sexy and creepy all at once. And the first thing that came to mind when I

heard this song, especially the car crash that happens three quarters of the way through. Are you familiar with the David Cronenberg movie called Crash? That's so funny you say that. As soon as you started to say the thing it made me think of, and I thought, I wonder if he's going to say David Cronenberg. If you don't know, it's a film from the late 90s, a David Cronenberg movie where James Spader and some other people are in it. Holly Hunter. Yeah, it's this group of people who

Right. Yeah.

First, even before Cronenberg, I thought, wow, she could have made a great collaborator with David Lynch. Oh, totally. That was the other possible reference I had in mind when you were about to ask me that. I thought, oh, maybe Lynch. It's very Lynchian. You know, I talked about how much I love the sonic universe that OK Lou creates in her music. That is definitely one of the things that draws me to Lucretia Dalt's music as well. She is from Colombia. She's a composer, a sound designer, a singer.

Really, really incredible piece, Cosa Rara. Just a one-off single for now, but it's been a few years since she put out an album, so hopefully maybe we'll get one later this year. Okay, Tom, I know you've got one more absolutely incredible, beautiful piece of music that you want to play.

Yes, and this is music by the Tunisian Oud player Anwar Braham, who's made like, I don't know, 10 albums for ECM. He's got a new one coming out in March called After the Last Sky. And this song that...

I'd like to play is called The Eternal Olive Tree, and it is an improvised duet with just Braham Anoud, which is a Middle Eastern member of the Lute family, if you don't know, and then Dave Holland, the super versatile jazz bassist. And it's just so beautiful how

Brahim makes the oud really sing and how the two players kind of finish each other's phrases and thoughts as it were. And the album is really inspired by the terror and destruction of the Hamas-Israeli war. Brahim was hit very hard by that. And the album kind of unfolds as a

suite of meditations on it, although it's not all dark and depressing music. There are moments of celebration, of joy, and probably the brightest ray of hope is the eternal olive tree. So we'll go out on this from Anwar Brahim, and be sure to stay tuned after this beautiful piece for your weekly reset.

All right. Thanks so much as always, Tom, for hanging out on this very frigid afternoon in our nation's capital and sharing some great tunes. Thank you, Robin. And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered. ♪

Hmm

*cow meowing*