Song of the Day: Cold Beat - Am I Dust

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 “Am I Dust” by Cold Beat from the 2015 album Into The Air on Crime On The Moon.

Cold Beat - Am I Dust (MP3)

Cold Beat's punk-ish energy and coolly ebullient girl-group melodies derive their energy both from the group's brisk pace and leader Hannah Lew's incisive, reflective lyrics. After her previous band, the harmony-heavy post-punk trio Grass Widow, went inactive, Lew created both her own label (Crime on the Moon) and began collecting songs she had been writing for the prior few years for the first Cold Beat release. Titled Over Me, the 2014 debut explored the death of Lew's father, Lew's insomnia, and her home base of San Francisco's changing economic landscape through icy, coiled CBGB-era punk burners whose lyrical depth belied their sonic force. After releasing the forwardly-titled comp San Francisco Is Doomed, Lew continued to explore the personal and social effects of the tech boom in her music for Cold Beat's sophomore effort, this year's Into The Air. As the title suggests, "Am I Dust" has a certain gravity to it, but the song is hardly a song of resignation, riding towards the answer to the question with jangly abandon. Lew's C86-style sense of melody is as sharp as ever, brilliantly intertwining with her bandmates' rolling pace, forming an earworm of a candy-sweet knockout. Lew knows that the personal is political, and "Am I Dust" poses a question with as much empathy and passion as she can install in her four-minutes.

Aside from a record release show in Oakland on October 15, Cold Beat don't have any upcoming shows announced. If they do announce plans for more touring or music, that news will be over at the band's Facebook and Tumblr. Below, watch the official video for "Cracks", the lead single from Into The Air: