KEXP : Where the Music Matters

I've been absent from posting since my year-end mix, so this will mark my first for 2010.  And if there's any group that people should consider getting to know this year, I will suggest one name more than any other:  Phantogram.

Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel are a pair of upstate New York kids (Saratoga Springs, to be exact) who made good in 2009, releasing their debut album Eyelid Movies on BBE Music.  Equal parts shoegaze, electronic, hip-hop, rock, and pop, it was a bit of a departure for the label, but a risk that proved impossible to ignore.  It quickly became my favorite album of 2009 and judging from the customer reviews in iTunes and Amazon, they are amazing live.  In fact, people have said that Phantogram (as the opening act) was better than the band they actually paid to see.  TEN TIMES OUT OF TEN.  I fully agree with an iTunes customer suggesting that "this is what music will sound like in 2010."

When I fired up my computer yesterday and made my way over to the Free Music Archive, I almost fell off my chair upon seeing a tune by the one and only Raphael Saadiq amongst the new arrivals.  Singer, songwriter, and producer best known for his work with Tony! Toni! Toné! and Lucy Pearl, he has been a torchbearer for quality soul and R&B since the mid-1990s.  His 2008 album The Way I See It has garnered loads of critical acclaim for its immersion in classic soul production and composition.

"Big Easy" is a selection from that album, written for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Like New Orleans itself, it's a bittersweet mixture of instrumental joy and lyrical sadness, heightened several times over in this version captured live in Seattle.  Serious thanks and gratitude to the good people at KEXP for sharing this gem with us.  Allow Brother Saadiq and company a few minutes to take you to Bourbon Street...