Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Gabriel Teodros, host of Early on KEXP, is "Here, Alive (Spirits High)" by Mystic, from the 2022 album Dreaming In Cursive: The Girl Who Loved Sparklers on Beautifull Soundworks.
As KEXP's Gabriel Teodros says, "Every Mystic album is an event, and something to come back to for years and years."
The long-running Bay Area-based artist/activist (real name: Mandolyn Wind Ludlum) returns with her third full-length Dreaming In Cursive: The Girl Who Loved Sparklers, another release of "healed Black woman music," as she puts it.
Her debut full-length — 2001's Cuts for Luck and Scars for Freedom — had a huge impact on Teodros. As he writes on Instagram, "Mystic’s debut album was a record that changed me, an album that made me feel loved in a way I hadn’t felt from other hip-hop albums before: that real kind of love that will hold you accountable, see your flaws and your beauty and just love you to your best self… all in the music though!"
