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KUTX at Home: Tim Heidecker, Great Job!
Posted by Deidre Gott on Nov 23, 2020
When my husband told me the new Tim Heidecker (Tim and Eric, Office Hours) album had been released and that it heavily featured the artist Weyes Blood ("ways-blood" he called her), my immediate thought was, "that's interesting. What's that story?" Had it been Phoebe Bridgers, I wouldn't have batted an eye. Heidecker and Natalie Mering (who uses the Weyes Blood moniker) are deeply talented musicians, but I still couldn't stop wondering, "who put these two in the same room?"
FUN FACT: the album art was designed by Robert Beatty, who's done cover art for Tame Impala, Bedouine, The Flaming Lips, Oh Sees, The New Yorker and more.
The answer is Drew Erickson, an LA-based producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist who played keys on Weyes Blood's 2019 album Titanic Rising. Heidecker tells us the full story in the interview, so I won't spoil it here, but it essentially comes down to connected session musicians in LA know how to hustle and wrangle. In this case, that included the D'Addario brothers of the Lemon Twigs and Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa. After just a few days in the studio, Fear of Death was born. True to Heidecker's sound blending 70's rock, singer-songwriter and jam band elements, Mering's harmonies add a transcendent texture that fills-out a space you might have never known existed.
The lyrics of Fear of Death, in broad strokes, wrestle with the consequences of middle age, but like any broad-scoped introspection, some things deviate slightly to better understand the whole.The song "Little Lamb," for instance, is a metaphor for being an artist trying to move onto new endeavors completely separate from what they originally got famous for doing, but being told by their fans to basically stay in their lane. This is certainly an album that necessitates a careful ear. –Taylor Wallace, KUTX Morning Host
Tim Heidecker
WEBSITE || BANDCAMP || SPACEBOMB RECORDS
KUTX at Home: Emily Kempf of Dehd 10.30.20
Posted by Deidre Gott on Oct 30, 2020
photo by Alexa Viscius
In the wake of a global pandemic, many creatives have had their livelihoods put on pause. For many, this has meant broken hearts, major career disruptions, and varying degrees of disintegrating mental health. Others have found peace and grounding. Chicago trio Dehd fits squarely in the second camp. After a year and some change of constant touring, hustling, and "doing the damned thing," the forced pause has afforded them the time and ability to breathe, recharge, and thrive in their new normal. Singer and bassist Emily Kempf has been active and on the move in one band or another creative outlet for over a decade, unused to sitting still. COVID has granted her the opportunity to reconnect with herself without the distractions that come with constantly being on the move.
After pushing back the release of their latest album Flower of Devotion several months, the album is out in the world and a true gift for all of us. Kempf shares her refreshing view of making that choice and what the last seven or so months have been like for her and her bandmates. Also refreshing is her discussing the egoless approach the trio takes with songwriting and recording. This was such a fun, captivating interview, and I'm excited to finally share it. Enjoy!
-Taylor Wallace, KUTX Morning Host
Dehd
WEBSITE || BANDCAMP || NPR LIVE SESSIONS
Get more from Emily Kempf and Taylor Wallace by watching the full interview.
KUTX at Home: This Is The Kit 10.19.20
Photo by Phillipe Lebruman
Laurie Gallardo and Kate Stables of This Is The Kit talk about touring with The National, celebrating our differences, and her latest album Off Off On.
Being enamored with the style of This Is The Kit, I often consider two things that attracted me to the music, though admittedly my main reference points tend to be Moonshine Freeze (2017) and Bashed Out (2015), the latter of which was recommended to me as a fan favorite.
First, there's the poetry of the song arrangement, never stifled by any sort of typical song structure and moving with this lucid flow that falls in quite naturally, from each delicate tread to every voluminous swell, curiously shaped into a most refined tumult. Secondly, and what initially drew me in, is the actual poetry itself – the ballet of gorgeous language telling every story. Kit commandeer Kate Stables is a remarkable songwriter of immeasurable talent, with an extraordinary sensitivity to unspoken moods or emotions, those buried so deeply that eventually they have no choice but to rise back up and haunt, like so many ghosts.
And now, make way for the magic of This Is The Kit's newest release, Off Off On (Rough Trade). Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with Kate about working with producer Josh Kaufman (Bob Weir, The National, Hiss Golden Messenger, Craig Finn), working on her own music while on tour as an ensemble performer with The National, and some convo about yours truly's personal picks from the LP, "Started Again," "Shinbone Soap" ("…knowing better but still sinking"), "This Is What You Did" and most apropos for reasons you'll hear us get into, "No Such Thing" ("We all move at different speeds").
-Laurie Gallardo, KUTX Host
WEBSITE || BANDCAMP ||ROUGH TRADE
YOUTUBE/KUTX – Kate Stables and Laurie Gallardo full interview
HOST: LAURIE GALLARDO
PRODUCER: DEIDRE GOTT
AUDIO MASTER: JAKE PERLMAN
KUTX at Home: Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes 10.16.20
'Shore' Album Art
Robin Pecknold and Jody Denberg talk about how Richard Swift, a near death experience, and Brian Wilson influenced Shore, the new album from Fleet Foxes.
YOUTUBE/KUTX – Robin Pecknold and Jody Denberg
Since their debut EP in 2006 (!), Fleet Foxes has created songs with unique sonic landscapes that build upon and eclipse the work of other harmony-driven folk-rock groups. The group's visionary, songwriter Robin Pecknold, has taken a great leap forward with Fleet Foxes fourth full-length Shore by building upon their formidable catalogue and making a leap forward in sound and emotion.
Inspired by his musical heroes and joined by guests including Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear, Hamilton Leithauser, Kevin Morby and a sampled Brian Wilson, Pecknold has come up with something "bright and hopeful" in the midst of uncertainty and personal anxiety.
Recorded in New York, Los Angeles and France before and during the pandemic, "Shore" takes its title from a harrowing incident:
"The title came kind of came to me," Pecknold remembered. "I had a surfing accident where I snapped my leash and I was kind of caught in this big set of waves and then I was pretty far out to sea and you know if you snap your you know you've lost your life preserver and you're just swimming to safety, and I think I started hyperventilating, and I that was kind of the closest I've come to feeling like maybe I was going to die, and the feeling of relief I had when I did make it back to shore…I think that that kind of that feeling really stuck with me because you know, that sense of – and this is something we've experienced all year – just, you know, appreciating life."
Appreciation and gratitude also play into Pecknold's writing on Shore – the death of his musical comrade Richard Swift and Fleet Foxes ability to regroup after Pecknold's five-year musical absence as he worked on a degree at Columbia University in his newfound home of New York.
And yes, Fleet Foxes reconvened after 2017's Crack Up album, but circumstance led to him being the only member of the group present on this latest album. In 2021 he plans to co-write with the other band members for the first time, and hopefully play live again when the time is right. In the meanwhile there's a 16-mm road movie that accompanies each song on Shore. Watch below or attend a drive-in screening October 19
-Jody Denberg, KUTX host
WEBSITE||LISTEN||NPR LIVE SESSIONS
ABOUT THE FILM: Shore is a road-movie depicting Northwest American landscapes and the people and animals that inhabit them. Kersti Jan Werdal is an artist working in film, photography, installation, and collage.
Fontaines D.C. 10.2.20
Posted by Taylor Wallace on Oct 1, 2020
A Hero's Death album cover
Guitarist Carlos O'Connell joins Taylor Wallace for our latest At Home session. 'A Hero's Death', the sophomore album from Dublin's Fontaines D.C., is out now on Partisan Records.
The last three "At Home" sessions have been with musicians all across the world (London's Arlo Parks and Australia's Tkay Maidza), and this one landed me with Dublin's Fontaines D.C.. Guitarist Carlos O'Connell came to us from Paris (where bassist Conor Deegan currently lives) awaiting the arrival of his other bandmates later this week. The quintet haven't been together for months; the longest they've gone since they met at the Dublin's British and Irish Modern Music Institute in 2013. Pre-Fontaines they wrote two collections of poetry, one evoking the Beat poets and the other Irish poets like W.B. Yeats and James Joyce.
Fontaines D.C. released their debut album Dogrel in 2019 to international acclaim. It was named Album of the Year by Rough Trade and BBC Music 6 and was nominated the Mercury Prize and the Choice Music Prize. Support from the Irish Arts Council allowed them to tour behind the album internationally, selling-out shows all over. Showing no sophomore slump, A Hero's Death (Partisan Records) was released this July, but were unable to tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic (including playing the 50th anniversary of the Glastonbury Festival). O'Connell laments the reality of all of this and the oddity of writing a new album without the catharsis of touring the last. After being reunited in Paris, they'll all be quarantining together for two weeks bringing together the music they've been individually writing in the last months.
The lyrical content of Fontaines D.C. has been largely consistent through the band's short discography (and by that I mean rich, complex, and incredible), but, sonically, the tone has changed and evolved. Their first singles are more straight ahead rock 'n' roll, Dogrel is inarguably a punk album, and A Hero's Death takes on a much darker, post-punk sound. In the new album, the musicality is more sparse, allowing each part to breathe and fill the room and give space to each instrument. O'Connell attributes this to not only writing better together as a group, but he and fellow guitarist Conor Curley becoming better and more confident guitarists in their own right. "Silence requires confidence," says O'Connell.
Talking to Carlos was a thrill. Thorough and fascinating, he talked about everything from the album, to the logistics of touring in Europe, what it's like to have a government who supports the careers of its creatives, and more. -Taylor Wallace, KUTX Morning Host
YOUTUBE || NPR MUSIC LIVE SESSIONS || WEBSITE
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