NPR | By Bob Boilen / Published February 14, 2023 at 5:00 AM ET
I begin this edition of All Songs Considered with a heart-thumping exorcism from Miya Folick and a song called “Get Out of My House.” The music comes from Miya’s first full album since 2018, called Roach, which comes out May 26. I’ll follow it with an acoustic reimagining of Fantastic Negrito‘s 2022 album White Jesus Black Problems. This new album, Grandfather Courage, looks back on his seventh-generation grandparents’ interracial love affair in the 1750s and the hope and optimism of freedom.
Death Cab for Cutie reimagined its 2022 album, Asphalt Meadows. At the end of that album, the band added a tribute to Mimi Parker, the singer and drummer for the band Low, who passed away in November:a moving rendition of Low’s song “The Plan.”
The show’s second half begins with Cinder Well, the project of Amelia Baker. Her passion for Ireland can be heard on her new album Cadence which features Cormac MacDiarmada from the band Lankum on strings. The song I play, called “Two Heads, Grey Mare,” is based on the mythology of selkies, shape-shifting creatures that can be both seal or human.
We next hear from Indigo De Souza and a song of forgiveness for the dysfunctional situations she got herself into when she was young. The song “Younger & Dumber” is from her third album, out at the end of April, called All of This Will End.
I’ll end with music from the now Wales-based duo Samana. Its song “Two Wrongs” is about the strong concept of freedom seen through the subculture of freight train riders.