We’re always looking for new music from all corners of the world and we have some of that this week from the US (Bartees Strange), the UK (Spiritualized) and Sweden (Viagra Boys) but most of the show features views of Nashville’s widening musical landscape.
We start with a trio of new Nashville favorites including girlhouse, Yot Club and a band we’re playing for the first time, Veaux. Shout out to both Justin B. over at Musicians Corner for booking them this season and WNXP Editorial Director Jewly Hight for tracking down this song. The band were originally from Colorado but changed their homebase and their name in recent years. They released “Dark Planet” this week, a song the band says was influenced by the deaths of George Floyd, Elijah McClain and Breonna Taylor and the protests both around the world and in Nashville.
Nashville-based girlhouse continue their run of consistently catchy tracks with “cool guy.” This week it caught the attention of Billboard who called it a “laid-back slice of slacker rock that brings to mind early Liz Phair with its lo-fi sound and sly turns of phrase.” It’s from a new EP coming in May. And for Record Store Day, girlhouse combined the first two EP’s along with an exclusive demo on vinyl.
Nashville indie pop project Yot Club’s new song “cant celebrate” gets the win for double irony. It was released this week celebrating the announcement of the debut album coming in June. And Ryan Kaiser, the man behind the band name, says he wrote that song right before he moved to Nashville and right when his music started to get noticed after going viral. He says while he felt like “there was a lot to celebrate” he was also scared because he “didn’t want to jinx (himself) and ruin everything.” Not happening.
We finish the show with WNXP’s first ever Nashville Artist of the Month, Namir Blade and his new self-produced track “Ride.” Blade tells Fader the song draws inspiration from the 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film Metropolis, as well as its 2002 anime remake. He says through the film he “discovered themes of classism, civil unrest, and an overall uncertainty in a bright future. And these are all themes he identifies with “as a Black man living in the United States.”
NME Playlist 042222
- Veaux “Dark Planet”
- Yot Club “cant celebrate”
- girlhouse “cool guy”
- $avvy “Call”
- $avvy “Fingerprints”
- Soccer Mommy “Unholy Affliction”
- Jo Schornikow “Plaster”
- Bartees Strange “Co-signs”
- Mitski “Glide”
- Viagra Boys “Ain’t No Thief”
- Phosphorescent “Homecoming”
- Spiritualized “Best Thing You Never Had”
- Namir Blade “Ride”
- Helado Negro “Ya No Estoy Aqui”