AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Close the work week on a good note. Our colleagues at NPR Music brought us a roundup of their favorite music out today. Here are NPR's Stephen Thompson and Sheldon Pearce.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: The country singer Lainey Wilson has a new album called "Whirlwind." Let's hear a little bit of the song "Hang Tight Honey."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANG TIGHT HONEY")
LAINEY WILSON: (Singing) Hang tight honey. I'm a white line running down a dream on a long-lost highway. Me and this band playing one-night stands for some fans getting straight-up sideways.
THOMPSON: Lainey Wilson has been around a lot longer than I think people think she has. She started out kind of coming up from absolutely the ground floor. Like, early in her career, she worked as a Hannah Montana impersonator. She's gone on to release now five full-length albums. She won Best Country Album at this year's Grammy's. She's on the "Twisters" soundtrack. She's really becoming like a major, major kind of headlining country star. And this record really feels like it is cementing that position.
SHELDON PEARCE, BYLINE: Yeah. I mean, thinking specifically about "Hang Tight Honey" as, like, the opener into this record, the entry point, it's so easy to get swept up in, like, the rip-roaring excitement of that song. It carries, like, all this, like, pent-up elation of knowing you'll see someone you miss dearly soon and the eagerness of wanting to knock down the door on the way. I think so much of the music on this record is full of, like, very, like, sharp feeling. They almost prickle out of these songs. She is such a bright and beaming personality.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANG TIGHT HONEY")
WILSON: (Singing) Hang tight honey got a pocket full of money, and I'm headed straight home to you.
THOMPSON: Well, that's Lainey Wilson. Her new album is called "Whirlwind." Give us your next pick.
PEARCE: So my pick is by Illuminati Hotties. It's an album called "Power."
THOMPSON: Yeah.
PEARCE: The band, created and fronted by the producer Sarah Tudzin, who has worked on records for Boygenius, Weyes Blood, Cloud Nothings, and Speedy Ortiz. I think the band's third album is the best yet, the first made since Tudzin was able to write songs after losing her mother to cancer. Let's hear a little bit of the song "Rot."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROT")
ILLUMINATI HOTTIES: (Singing) Sunk in a morning pure. Learning that there's no cure. I knew when I first heard.
PEARCE: There is, like, this perfect, like, sway happening across this record. It moves from one to the other so seamlessly. I think you can even hear that in "Rot" because the vocal performance on that is so light, it's so airy. But then you, like, you sort of lean in and listen to the lyrics, and it's, like, covered in fog, carrying on. It's impossible to carry it all. When I'm dropping the ball, living is optional. Like, that is a very tough sentiment, but also, like, the flow of it lyrically is very, very beautiful. So this sort of ability to capture the tough, the difficult, the raw, the emotional, but also the light, the airy, the free, the liberated aspects of her personality and her sound really come to the fore on this record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROT")
ILLUMINATI HOTTIES: (Singing) Covered in fog. I'm carrying on. It's impossible...
THOMPSON: Yeah. It's fantastic. That's Illuminati Hotties. Their new album is called "Power." Next up, we've got a new record by the Irish band Fontaines D.C. Their new album is called "Romance." Let's hear a little bit of the song. "Here's The Thing."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE'S THE THING")
FONTAINES DC: (Singing) So here's the thing. I know you're watching. I feel your pain. It's mine as well. I know you're right. I know you're right, girl.
THOMPSON: They came out a few years ago with records that just really had that kind of - these, like, blurts of aggression, songs with this thundering, chanting quality to them. And I got a sense when I heard their first album, like, OK, I know what this band is. This band is very good at this kind of chugging, urgent, just a certain kind of very specific sound. And when you listen to this album "Romance," you're hearing them swirl in so many other influences. You hear a song like the title track, and it sounds a little bit like Alt-J. It's, like, strange and atmospheric. You hear, you know, "Here's The Thing" has this, like, almost swooning quality to it, little bits of pop woven into that sound. There are other songs that tap into a little - the feel of like shoegaze music. But at the same time, it all still sounds like Fontaines D.C. They're just more confident and more versatile.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE'S THE THING")
FONTAINES DC: (Singing) And if you change your mind, I will be waiting to keep your pain...
THOMPSON: So that is "Romance" from Fontaines D.C. Sheldon, hit us with your next pick.
PEARCE: Yeah. The next one for me is from the Queens rapper Heems. It's called "VEENA LP" (ph). Heems, perhaps best known for breaking through in the early 2010s as a member of the alt rap group Das Racist. In 2015, he released the album "Eat Pray Thug," which sort of considered the Indian American experience post-9/11. And its follow-up didn't come until earlier this year. I guess the hiatus truly is over because only six months later, he's back with this new record, which is named for his mother and sort of features voicemails from Riz and No Doubt's Tony Kanal and Hassan Minhaj. Let's listen to a little bit of "MANTO."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MANTO")
HEEMS: (Rapping) They pulled them out of Rawalpindi. Nani speak Punjabi, but my mama speaking Hindi. My only inheritance is broken tongues within me. Generational drama for Punjabis in the Sindhis. What's in a line? I can draw one every time. I stand in line in court when they bag me for a crime, a sword or a nine.
PEARCE: I feel like this song finds Heems in his most effective mode, sort of considering generational trauma and Indian identity with this pointedness and poignancy, thinking specifically about those in his family who survived the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. I'm most moved by his delivery, like when it seems like he's almost struggling to get the words out because they're weighing on him so heavily, something he talks about as having PTSD for something he didn't witness.
THOMPSON: Yeah.
PEARCE: And it's like...
THOMPSON: That's a very...
PEARCE: Like, he is not just using that wit towards, like, joking ends. There is also a real sense of purpose in his music. And I think this record finds the perfect sort of middle ground between, like, providing the humor that he is known for, but also, like, digging beneath the surface and thinking about his community and how he is representative of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MANTO")
HEEMS: (Rapping) PTSD for something I didn't witness. The doctor said...
THOMPSON: That is Heems. His new album is "VEENA LP."
CHANG: That was Stephen Thompson and Sheldon Pearce from NPR Music. You can hear more in their full episode of New Music Friday from the podcast All Songs Considered. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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