Song of the Day: Twin Peaks - I Found A New Way

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part 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 “I Found A New Way” by Twin Peaks from the 2014 album Wild Onion on Grand Jury Music.

Twin Peaks - I Found A New Way (MP3)

Borrowing the name of David Lynch's seminal television series on the sole basis of "it sounded cool", the garage rock quartet known as Twin Peaks broke out in the Chicago's increasingly-active DIY scene with the same nonchalant but enthusiastic attitude towards melding together forty years of garage rock tradition. Singer/guitarist Clay Frankel, bassist Jack Dolan, guitarist Cadien James, and drummer Connor Brodner formed Twin Peaks as they started high school, and along with bands like White Mystery and The Orwells, the foursome's presence in the Windy City soon grew too large for house shows. Selling out small Chicago clubs by the time they graduated, they began bringing their explosive, delightfully raucous debut Sunken on tour around the country. Where that album was unabashedly indebted to more modern takes on DIY garage rock (Jay Reatard, fellow Chicagoans Smith Westerns), their second album, this year's Wild Onion takes a cue from the late '60s-early '70s grime of Exile on Main Street and Marc Bolan. Filtered through a magnetically fuzzy style of production, "I Found A New Way" finds James nonchalantly rattling off a series of bold claims ("I can see the future... I know that everywhere's the same") over a melodic-yet-scuzzy arrangement. Not long after the second verse, James punctuates them all with a shout so unexpectedly striking it retroactively sells all of his announcements on life with ease as his bandmates guitar solo, drum fill, and generally live out the Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon fantasies that caused them to dream bigger than their parents' basement in the first place. "I Found A New Way" aims for something larger than life, and via a traditional garage band setup and a firm belief in rock and roll, these four kids from the 'burbs achieve it.

Twin Peaks are returning to Seattle this November for an all-ages show on November 19th at the Vera Project. Get tickets and more info on that show here, keep up with the band on their website and Facebook, and below, watch the band play the Wild Onion track "Telephone" live on KEXP.