Song of the Day KEXP

Ghetto Kumbé - "Vamo a Dale Duro" from the 2020 album Ghetto Kumbé on ZZK Records.

Ghetto Kumbé take inspiration from their hometown of Bogotá, capital city of Colombia and just a quick flight from the Caribbean coast, infusing Afro-Colombian rhythms with modernized interpretations of dancehall, rumba, and traditional chants and call-and-response vocals.

“I think what makes us different is that we’re going further back to the rhythmic roots, back to where the rhythm that exists in Colombia came from, mostly from the Atlantic coast," reflects co-founding band member Edgardo Garcés (aka E Guajiro) toSound and Colours. "In the process of trying to find the similarities between different rhythms, we really took stock of the fact that so much of it comes from Africa and decided that we’d move more towards the African elements, adding them to the Afro-Colombia part. All this means it [our music] has a different sound.”

Today's Song of the Day roughly translates to "Let's Go Hard," and it's a call to action to fight against the capitalist system and "dirty politicians." 

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Marilina Bertoldi - "Fumar de Dia" from the 2018 album Prender un Fuego on Pelo Music S.A.

Argentinan artist Marilina Bertoldi got her start as the frontwoman for the hard rockin' group Connor Questa, but since going solo in 2012, she's been exploring a range of sounds, landing the Best Rock Album of the Year award at the 2016 Latin Grammy Awards for her album Sexo Con Modelos. On her most recent release, 2018's Prender Un Fuego, she took inspiration from "Sheryl Crow, INXS, the soloist Cerati...," she toldPagina 12. "I make music for myself, one day I understood it and I don't feel bad saying it," she continued. "I don't make music for the public because in fact it is difficult for me to define 'my public'. I do what I enjoy and put it there, available."

On today's Song of the Day, which translates to "Smoking During the Day," Bertoldi channels the transformation of her home into a change of attitude, as captured in the accompanying music video where she's cleaning out her fridge, changing outfits, dancing across the room.

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Lo Tom - "Start Payin'," from the 2020 self-released album LP2.

Back in 2017, David Bazan and TW Walsh of Pedro the Lion teamed up with Trey Many and Jason Martin of Starflyer 59 to create Lo Tom, whose self-titled debut combined all the things we love about each of their respective bands: melodic, ‘90s-influenced rock, heavy with guitar riffs. 

As the band said themselves, "We had fun making the first album, so we decided to do it again." The sophomore release was funded by fans via Kickstarter, and while they say today's Song of the Day is "coincidentally named," the lyric "might be time to find out what I owe and start paying" seems pretty appropriate here.

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Kelly Lee Owens - "On" from the 2020 album Inner Song on Smalltown Supersound.

On her sophomore album, Inner Song, Welsh artist Kelly Lee Owens explores what she calls “the hardest three years of my life,” allowing her grief and sadness to express itself through her lush production work and her thoughtful lyrics. 

As reported in a recent episode of the Song Exploder podcast, today's Song of the Day was inspired by the loss of the Prodigy’s Keith Flint, who passed away last year at the age of 49. (The working title was “Spirit of Keith.”)

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Æ MAK - "i dance in the kitchen (feat. Seba Safe)," a 2020 self-released single.

Irish artist Æ Mak (real name: Aoife McCann) has always brought an infectious energy to her work. (Who can forget her dynamic performance at KEXP's 2019 Iceland Airwaves broadcast?) And now she brings that vivacity to the culinary with her new single "i dance in the kitchen," a sneak peek at her forthcoming EP titled how to: make a kitsch pop song to show the world, which will be out September 18th. 

Written, recorded and produced during the coronavirus lockdown, the new EP was inspired by HOW TO, a zine by McCann's friend Eleanor Jameson, who "reached out to various Irish artists from different backgrounds, asking them to create a tutorial on a topic of their choosing."  

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Loraine James - "Don't You See It (feat. Jonnine)" from the 2020 Nothing EP on Hyperdub.

Throughout the pandemic, London-based producer Loraine James has exercised her creativity, sharing demos and songs that didn't make the cut for her acclaimed 2019 album For You & I, releasing the remix EP Bangers and Mash, and, in July, releasing the five-track EP Hmm, with songs titled "Ahh," "Erm," and "Umm."

On her latest EP, titled Nothing, James reached out to a series of collaborators who she felt "empathetically extend the feeling in her instrumental music with their own unique energies." For today's featured track, she teams up with Jonnine Standish of Australian band HTRK for a moody track pairing skittish sampled percussion with Standish's haunting vocals. 

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