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01/23/2018

Jasmine Albertson

Sufjan Stevenes // photo by Dave Lichterman (view set)

This year's Oscar nominations rolled out this morning and some very familiar names to KEXP are on the list. Indie-folk genius Sufjan Stevens is nominated in the Best Original Song category for one of the two songs he contributed to Luca Guadagnino's Call Me Be Your Name, "Mystery Of Love." Stevens is up against R&B singer Mary J. Blige's contribution to the Netflix film Mudbound (of which she is also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film), "Mighty River." The song was co-written by Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinton. Rapper Common receives his second nomination, after taking home the prize 2015, with Andra Day for "Stand Up For Something" from Marshall.
Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is nominated in the Best Original Score category for his fourth score for Paul Thomas Anderson's film Phantom Thread. He goes up against movie score legends Alexandre Desplat for The Shape Of Water, John Williams for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Carter Burwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Hans Zimmer for Dunkirk. The Oscars ceremony airs on March 4th at 7 p.m. EST on ABC. [ Rolling Stone ]

St. Vincent uploaded a rather fuzzy video to Instagram of her covering Sleater-Kinney song "Modern Girl" off of 2005's The Woods. Annie Clark was using the song as a warm-up before a St. Vincent show and tagged Carrie Brownstein in the post, saying in the caption: "Such a great song!" Clark released MASSEDUCTION this past fall and has been on tour since. Brownstein recently hinted that Sleater-Kinney was slowly recording a new record which will follow up 2015's No Cities To Love. [ SPIN ]

Pre-show Sleater-Kinney warm up. Such a great song! @carrie_rachel

A post shared by St. Vincent (@st_vincent) on Jan 23, 2018 at 6:40am PST

Noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells released a new mini-album last year called Kid Kruschev which was a bit of a departure, sonically, from their previous output. Today, they've shared a video for one of the songs off the album, "Favorite Transgressions." Directed by Derek Miller of the band, the low-budget video stars himself and fellow band member Alexis Krauss on a bloody adventure and eulogizes the two of them at the end by stating: "On December 1st, 1999 Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss were involved in a vehicular collision in Jupiter, FL. They were transported to Jupiter Medical Center where they were both pronounced D.O.A." Kid Kruschev is out now via the band's own label Torn Clean. [ Noisey ]

Experimental pop duo (formerly the solo project of Merrill Garbus) Tune-Yards returned last Friday with a new album, I can feel you creep into my private life. Last night the band stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live to perform two songs off the album, "Heart Attack" and "Look At Your Hands." The former was a rousing, high-energy performance complete with choreographed dancers. "Look At Your Hands" replaced the dancers with some projected psychedelic visuals. Catch Tune-Yards in the flesh when they stop by the Showbox on Monday, February 26. [ Stereogum ]

Will Toledo is releasing a "re-imagined" version of his 2011 Car Seat Headrest album Twin Fantasy. The album is particularly loved by fans and was previously released straight to Bandcamp when Toledo was prolifically releasing CSH material at a quick clip. Today he's shared the updated version of the song "Cute Thing" which has much cleaner, higher-quality production and also a few different lyrics. On the new version, Toledo swaps former references to Dan Bejar and John Entwistle to Frank Ocean and James Brown, respectively. CSH has previously shared updated versions of "Beach Life-In-Death" and "Nervous Young Inhumans." Twin Fantasy is out February 16 via Matador. [ Pitchfork ]

Ruban Nielson-led psych-rock project Unknown Mortal Orchestra have shared the first song off their forthcoming album Sex & Food, "American Guilt." According to Uncut magazine, UMO's new album will "channel Prince and Scritti Politti." The band has also announced a worldwide tour, which includes a stop in Seattle on Monday, May 7 at the Moore Theatre with Makeness. Unknown Mortal Orchestra's last release was 2015's fantastic Multi-Love. [ Under the Radar ]

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