Song of the Day: Goat - Words

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is "Words" by Goat from the 2014 album Commune on Sub Pop.

Goat - Words (MP3)

Their identities, a mystery; their origin and even location, speculative; Goat is band of myth, and that suits their music just fine. Whether they truly hail from the north Arctic village of Korpilombolo – an unlikely crossroads for the native Sami people, Scandinavian settlers, outgoing adventurers and even a voodoo priest – or they're just highly creative Gothenburg urbanites, Goat live in legend. In one story, passed around last year, the band was to wrap up a smattering of shows and then disappear, waiting to reemerge with a completely different lineup six years hence. Thankfully, the rumor proved false and the Swedish group has already returned to follow up their otherworldly 2012 debut, World Music, with the universally inviting Commune, another head-spinning collage of multi-continental influences bound only by a web of swirling psychedelia. Like their identity-obscuring costumes, Goat's songs weave innumerable international patterns – from African rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, modern post-punk, and 60's psych rock – everything is fair game in the name of sonic ritual. Today's featured song, "Words", is maybe the least worldly composition on Commune, featuring a heavy tribal beat chased by a driving krautrock distortion and vaulted vocals ("At the end of my time / Sing me your words") leading up to a wicked guitar solo Jack White would be proud of, were he more into Eastern philosophy. And that's what Goat do best: blend the universal elements of the musics of the world into blissful, danceable archetypes.

Goat have only a few shows scheduled in Sweden in late November, but reliable rumors abound of the Nordic dervishes returning to the U.S. for a tour in 2015. Until then, keep checking their website and Facebook page for updates and more music. Right now, you can enjoy "Hide from the Sun", another great song from the new album, below: