We were just minding our own business combing through the hairy musical machine when we came upon LA-based singer and pianist Niia performing with full band on KCRW from this morning. Check out below her seductively-sad song Sideline on which Niia slays on vocals and rides the emotion-laden song hard (replete with eye-dab at the end?). Afterwards, watch her two other compelling KCRW performances of Last Night in Los Feliz and Body (you can listen/watch the whole KRCW set HERE). Niia’s jazz-pop debut album I was released earlier this year and continues to garner critical acclaim. You can buy/stream it HERE. We love what we saw and heard on KCRW today.

Tomorrow is apparently Niia’s birthday (unless it was today?) and she is performing for free at the Hammer Museum in Westwood as a part of the KCRW Summer Nights Series (see more info HERE). Happy Birthday to Niia! Go ‘dere people!

We’ve been fans of Waxahatchee and its leader Katie Crutchfield for years. This Friday Waxahatchee will release its new album Out In The Storm on Merge. In addition to being produced by gifted producer John Agnello (Okkervil River, Kurt Vile, Hop Along, Alyeska, Buffalo Tom, The Hold Steady, etc.), Crutchfield is joined on the album by her twin sister Allison Crutchfield and a full band. Evidently, at Agnello’s suggestion the band recorded most of the music live to enhance their sound and verve compared to past releases. We hear it.

Up until now Waxahatchee has only shared the simmering new songs Never Been Wrong and Silver (listen below). There’s no revolutionary music here; just great songwriting and powerful delivery by the ensemble, all as enhanced by the Crutchfields’ harmonies and Agnello’s clean production.

Now you can stream the whole album at NPR. Enjoy!

The band will venture out on a big tour in July, so catch them if you can (dates below the videos).

Jul 14 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
Jul 15 Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw
Jul 18 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
Jul 19 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
Jul 20 Madison, WI – High Noon
Jul 21 Minneapolis, MN – Triple Rock
Jul 24 Seattle, WA – Neptune
Jul 25 Vancouver, BC – Imperial
Jul 26 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
Jul 28 San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
Jul 29 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent
Aug 01 Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
Aug 02 Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
Aug 04 Dallas, TX – Club Dada
Aug 05 Austin, TX – The Mohawk
Aug 06 Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
Aug 07 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jack’s
Aug 09 Birmingham, AL – Saturn
Aug 10 Athens, GA – Athens Pop Fest
Aug 11 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
Aug 12 Raleigh, NC – North Carolina Museum of Art w/ Superchunk & Ex Hex
Aug 13 Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle
Aug 14 Nashville, TN – Third Man Records
Aug 15 Columbus, OH – Park Street Saloon
Aug 16 Detroit, MI – El Club
Aug 17 Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace
Aug 18 Montreal, QC – Fairmount Theater
Aug 19 Boston, MA – Royale
Sep 01 Gdansk, PL – Soundrive Festival
Sep 03 North Dorset, UK – End of the Road Festival
Sep 04 London, UK – The Garage
Sep 05 Manchester, UK – The Deaf Institute
Sep 06 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Sep 07 Brighton, UK – Komedia
Sep 08 Heer, BE – Deep in the Woods
Sep 11 Paris, FR – Le Batofar
Sep 12 Lyon, FR – Le Periscope
Sep 13 Düdingen, CH – Bad Bonn
Sep 14 Zürich, CH – Rote Fabrik
Sep 15 Capri, IT – Mattatoio
Sep 16 Milano, IT – Biko
Sep 17 Munich, DE – Milla
Sep 18 Ljubljana, SI – Gala Hala
Sep 19 Vienna, AT – Arena
Sep 20 Prague, CZ – Klub 007
Sep 22 Schorndorf, DE – Manufaktur
Sep 23 Hamburg, DE – Reeperbahn Festival
Sep 24 Lund, SE – Mejerit
Sep 25 Göteborg, SE – Pustervik
Sep 26 Stockholm, SE – Obaren
Sep 27 Copenhagen, DK – Vega
Sep 28 Berlin, DE – Musik & Frieden
Sep 29 Groningen, NL – Vera
Oct 01 Amsterdam, NL – Bitterzoet

It’s no secret. Radiohead is the best live band on the planet (apologies The National, Elbow, Broken Social Scene and other deservers). We experienced their synchronous onslaught first hand in April at the Santa Barbara Bowl (about that setlist…) and caught captivating interweb vignettes from Coachella and Glastonbury.

Radiohead is now back in the video business and this morning provided another opportunity to witness their 2017 greatness. Watch below their full set from the second weekend of Coachella (not that sound-down first weekend set). Check it out in all its glory below (now there’s a setlist! see at bottom). And anybody doubting the worth of Ed O’Brien should check out his performance on the encore-closing Idiotique. Dang.

Setlist:

Daydreaming
Desert Island Disk
Ful Stop
15 Step
Myxomatosis
Lucky
All I Need
Pyramid Song
Everything in Its Right Place
Bloom
Identikit
My Iron Lung
The Gloaming
I Might Be Wrong
Bodysnatchers
Exit Music (for a Film)
Reckoner

Encore:
No Surprises
Paranoid Android
Fake Plastic Trees
Lotus Flower
Idioteque

Lambchop’s album FLOTUS, was easily one of the Best Albums of 2016, and their tour through LA at The Bootleg Theater in May provided one of the most memorable shows of the year. Now Lambchop has released a revamped take on the 18-minute track The Hustle off of FLOTUS, redubbing the re-done song The Hustle Unlimited. In addition to taking it’s moniker from the famous Van McCoy disco instrumental, Lambchop redacts The Hustle Unlimited to 5:38 and frames it in Tony Crow’s string arrangements, Andy Stack’s deft percussion and Kurt Wagner’s Barry White-isms. Hence the 1974 hustle and feel of White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra.

Wagner had this to say about the redone song: “Sometimes things can get out of control, an impromptu idea is presented and you take that idea to a logical conclusion to see where it goes. In this case Tony Crow [piano] came up with a rather ‘Love Unlimited Orchestra’ take on the hustle during a rehearsal with Andy Stack [drums, Wye Oak]. It seemed nuts at the time but being rather nuts ourselves I thought we should try recording it and taking it all the way to full realization. Plus it was a great way to capture Andy’s tenure with us in the studio.”

Check it out below and go pre-order The Hustle Unlimited 12″ with Lambchop’s cover of Prince’s When You Were Mine on the flip-side. The 12-inch single will be released August 8 and is available for pre-order HERE.

Bucking budgetary constraints and these fractious times, all 15 members of Broken Social Scene have reunited and re-animated and will tomorrow release their epic new album Hug of Thunder (on Arts & Crafts). Having listened to the album dozens and dozens of times, Hug of Thunder is now in a neck-and-neck (and then neck some more) race with Feist’s Pleasure for our Best Album of 2017 (a loss-less proposition for BSS member Feist).

If you’re quick, you can stream the entire album over HERE at NPR. Go there and hear comparatively-demure instrumental opener Sol Luna whet your appetite for the magnificent anthems to follow. The inspired and inspirational Halfway Home will lift you out of whatever funk you’ve been in and take you at least halfway home from your depression daze. Every song is a gem on Hug of Thunder, but especially the uplifting and incantatory Skyline, the wondrously assuring Stay Happy (featuring newcomer Ariel Engle), Feist’s sapient reminiscences in Hug of Thunder, possibly our favorite track Victim Lover (featuring Kevin Drew’s and Engle’s seductive, counterpoint vocals), the sensuously pleading Please Take Me With You, and the mammoth album-closer Mouth Guards of the Apocalypse (which takes flight at 2:33 when Drew grabs the world by the lapels and tries to sing some sense into us). Throughout the album, the complex guitars and horns sonorously frame and form the songs while the vocals float and ravage at just the right moments. And the arrangements and production are simply immaculate. It all adds up to a thunderous musical smack and hug from one of the best bands extant.

Our highest recommendation.

You can pre-order/pick-up Hug of Thunder HERE.

One of the living greats, Chance the Rapper, recently rendered a Tiny Desk Concert on NPR. Funny, given his standard shows these days in front of 20,000+ people. Watch below as Chance performs his own Juke Jam, recites his poignant new poem The Other Side and delivers a stunning cover of Stevie Wonder’s They Won’t Go When I Go (“for somebody close to me who just lost somebody close to them”).  Chance is backed by Social Experiment members Nico Segal (trumpet), Peter Wilkins (keys), Rachele Robinson (background vocals), Ben Lusher (background vocals), Elliot Skinner (background vocals), Richard Saunders (background vocals) and Greg Landfair Jr., aka “Stix” (drums). They Won’t Go When I Go, is worth the price of admission alone, with Chance looking skyward, the ensemble rolling inspirationally, and Wonder’s worthy words: “And I’ll go where I’ve longed, to go so long, away from tears, and they won’t go where I go.” Amen.