AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Now it's time for a breather. It's New Music Friday. And this week, we've got early aughts nostalgia, lizards and wizards and, fittingly for a Friday, some advice about enjoying a sunny day and leaving your work behind.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEABADOOBEE SONG, "TAKE A BITE")
CHANG: We'll turn it over now to Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Ann Powers from NPR Music, bringing us a few selections of new music out today, starting with the third album from Beabadoobee, called "This Is How Tomorrow Moves."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE A BITE")
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) Sure, it's easy to talk, but I take it and I eat it with a cherry on top. Indulging in situations that are fabricated imaginations...
DAOUD TYLER-AMEEN, BYLINE: So Beabadoobee is an artist born in the Philippines, raised in London. She blew up on TikTok originally, but she's built an impressive catalog since then. And the thing I've locked into about Beabadoobee, who is 24 years old, born in 2000...
ANN POWERS, BYLINE: Wow.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Is that she feels really connected to the acoustic pop from, basically, the time at which she was born
POWERS: Ah.
TYLER-AMEEN: Not the time of her actual youth, but that sort of turn of the millennium - like, I listen to this song, "Take A Bite." I hear Michelle Branch.
POWERS: Ooh.
TYLER-AMEEN: I hear song of the year winner Shawn Colvin, if you remember "Sunny Came Home."
POWERS: How about Natalie Imbruglia? You got a little Natalie Imbruglia...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...In there.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Natalie Imbruglia's there.
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: Maybe even a little bit of Incubus guitar.
POWERS: Ooh.
TYLER-AMEEN: Oh, no.
POWERS: OK, that is a leap.
TYLER-AMEEN: Maybe that's a stretch.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE A BITE")
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) I wanted to see the world in color through your eyes and through your mind.
POWERS: Her singing and the arrangements also remind me a bit of, like, classic '60s pop. There's a lightness and just a flute-like quality to her voice that really invokes the pop ingenues of the swinging '60s for me.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah, no. I mean, it's just - it's cool to hear her, you know, stretching out this way. For somebody who, like started off as, like, a TikTok famous teenager and made their way to the Eras Tour, she's definitely got some juice.
POWERS: I'm glad you did invoke Taylor because for all the reference points we can make, I've been thinking a lot about how, like, we think of Taylor Swift as a cultural phenomenon, but she is so influential on these young singer-songwriters.
TYLER-AMEEN: Sure. Yeah.
POWERS: It's just impossible to not hear that imprint.
TYLER-AMEEN: It's - how could you not be? It's like "The Matrix." It's like, once "The Matrix"...
POWERS: Oh, yeah.
TYLER-AMEEN: ...Exists, you're either making...
POWERS: (Laughter).
TYLER-AMEEN: ...A movie that's like "The Matrix" or you're defining yourself in opposition to "The Matrix," and it's kind of the same thing.
POWERS: We're all plugged in to Taylor Swift, just, like, sitting in a vat of something, plugged into her consciousness.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE A BITE")
BEABADOOBEE: (Singing) Want to do it all over again.
TYLER-AMEEN: That's "This Is How Tomorrow Moves" by Beabadoobee. And I'm ready to get trippy.
POWERS: Onward.
TYLER-AMEEN: So take me there.
POWERS: Well, here's a band I don't think is influenced by Taylor Swift.
TYLER-AMEEN: OK.
POWERS: But who knows? Who knows with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard because this Australian psych rock band has made - I think this is their 26th album.
TYLER-AMEEN: I mean...
(SOUNDBITE OF KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD SONG, "FIELD OF VISION")
POWERS: This album, which is called "Flight B741," is just them having fun, sharing vocals, jamming out. At the same time, there are some themes on the album that really stand out, kind of, like, inner journeys, skepticism about spirituality and religion but interest in it, life on the road as a rock band. But let's listen to a little bit of "Field Of Vision," which is one of those songs about, like, religion and spirituality.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FIELD OF VISION")
KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD: (Singing) Butterflies - they begin to flutter now, melting inside the popcorn butter brow. His shots are lined up - got to love that clinking sound. Jess is cracking the whip to head down. Am I an offering to the gods in the ring, entertaining feasts fit for a king? All the blood, sweat and the tears that we put into everything - year after year, we're still here.
POWERS: Daoud, I have to admit, I jam out to this. I think King Gizzard is a very fun band. And this record reminds me - it's supposedly inspired by the band. But I really hear kind of the glam pop sound of classic bands like Slade or The Sweet.
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah. Maybe a little bit Stones. Not so much in the vocal delivery, but the - I think I'm hearing it most in the drums, that - just banging out those quarter notes.
POWERS: Oh, yeah, I feel that. And, I mean, it's definitely an English rock, you know, shaggy mullet sound. And Ambrose Kenny Smith's harmonica really stands out. And it just made me feel like, where is the harmonica today? Why do we not have as much harmonica as we need in 2024? We need more.
TYLER-AMEEN: That's fair. We - yeah, we've had - you know, we had a saxophone renaissance, you know, about 10 years ago.
POWERS: We had the flute era for a while with Lizzo and all the...
TYLER-AMEEN: Yeah.
POWERS: ...Flute players. So now I think it's the moment for the harmonica to come back.
TYLER-AMEEN: OK. Make it happen.
POWERS: So thank you, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for "Flight b741" and the wonderful harmonica sounds you're bringing to us.
(SOUNDBITE OF KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD SONG, "FIELD OF VISION")
TYLER-AMEEN: All right, Ann. What's next?
POWERS: Daoud, I'm really excited about this album I found by a band called Thee Marloes. It's called "Perak."
(SOUNDBITE OF THEE MARLOES SONG, "LOGIKA")
POWERS: I just completely stumbled on this band. They're actually from Surabaya, Indonesia. They were founded by the guitarist, Sinatrya Dharaka. And it's just him and the drummer, Tommy Satwick, and this amazing singer, Natassya Sianturi.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOGIKA")
THEE MARLOES: (Singing in Indonesian).
POWERS: I love her voice. It's just, like, buttery honey-ish (ph) sunlight in the afternoon. It's just gorgeous, and...
TYLER-AMEEN: One of those voices that kind of feels like it has existed for much longer than the singer has been alive. Do you know what I mean?
POWERS: Totally. Apparently, she was a - like, a pop singer, and Dharaka discovered her or, you know, enlisted her for this project, which really is much more about sort of combining the sweetness and luminosity of Indonesian pop - which I don't know if you've ever listened to, but it's very emotional and sweet - and combining that with kind of classic Philly soul sound or that Northern soul sound that is so much about these Dulcet women's voices, you know, and that kind of wah-wah guitar that runs throughout these songs.
So the songs are both in English and in Indonesian. And I think it's really interesting how the Indonesian language works with this style of music, too, like in this song, "Logika."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOGIKA")
THEE MARLOES: (Singing in Indonesian).
POWERS: I also love the song "Not Today," which is a song about, like, hey, it's Sunday. I'm not messing with work stuff today, and I think we all could use to listen to that sometimes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT TODAY")
THEE MARLOES: (Singing) Sunday in the sun rays, flowing at sea, carry a melody.
CHANG: That was Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen from NPR Music. And you can hear more in their full episode of New Music Friday from the podcast All Songs Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT TODAY")
THEE MARLOES: (Singing) I don't need nothing else. Are you free from...
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