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. Each and every Friday we deliver songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Pacer” by Systems Officer from their 2009 album Underslept on Temporary Residence Limited.

Systems Officer is the solo project of bassist and multi-instrumentalist Armistead Burwell (aka Zach) Smith IV. KEXP listeners may be more familiar with his bass work for a couple other well known projects like Pinback or Three Mile Pilot. Although Underslept is Smith’s debut album, it is not the first Systems Officer release. In fact, a self-titled EP surfaced back in 2004, but now, five years later, we have the proper full length album. The wait paid off, thanks to the songs’ experimental and deeply textured sounds, yet ultimately pop-driven structures. Underslept is sure to please fans of his other projects — collectively with pals Rob Crow and Pall Jenkins, the trio can maintain as many as ten simultaneous projects — but they shouldn’t come here looking for the next Pinback album because this isn’t it. What it is, however, is a great new place for Smith to showcase some of his own remarkable lyrical abilities (now pushed to the front) while still invoking the same inventive bass and instrumental work that helped make him renown.

Today’s Song of the Day, “Pacer”, is all about “disbelief” and seems to follow along much of the same hopeless theme that appears evident throughout the album. That’s not to say it’s all depressing, but let’s not go calling it a summer album either. In fact, in the winter month of February, this song may sound just about right.

You can read more about the band on their website or listen to additional tracks on their MySpace page.

Currently, there are no videos for Systems Officer, but Zach Burwell did perform last summer during the Three Mile Pilot reunion tour. Here’s “Way of the Ocean,” from a live recording shot at San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill:

photo by Laura Totten

Grant-Lee Phillips has had a long career in the college/alternative/independent radio scene, going back to his days in Grant Lee Buffalo (his second band, actually, but the first to capture national attention). Through multiple label, band configuration and even stylistic changes, Phillips has never lost his distinctive, otherworldly voice. Fans of the band’s early hits like “Fuzzy,” “Mocking Birds,” and “Truly, Truly” found as much to love in Phillips’ solo work, like “See America,” “Calamity Jane,” and now “Strangest Thing” and other songs on his latest release, Little Moon.

While many songs on the new album are lush compositions of orchestral pop, for his recent in-studio performance at KEXP, Grant-Lee Phillips brought only his acoustic guitar… but with a voice like his that’s all he really needs! From the session, here are four songs he performed from the new album:

Forty years ago, Gil Scott-Heron planted a seed of lyrical revolution. Today, he’s back to reap and sow his radical insights with I’m New Here (out tomorrow!), his first album in almost 16 years. One of the most significant American poets of the past century, the 60-year-old high priest of proto-rap is as outspoken and unrepentant as when he first began his poetic crusade in the late 60s. His legendary acid jazz-rap and spoken word works of the 70s perhaps spawned present-day political hip hop and modern soul rap, but I’m New Here may very well spark an uprising all on its own.

As Scott-Heron was serving time for cocaine possession (his second time in prison for the drug), Richard Russell, head of XL Recordings, approached him in 2005 with all intentions of signing and producing him upon his release. With no new material since his time behind bars, Scott-Heron and Russell explored old short proses and songs to cover before they began recording in 2007. The two shifted away from Scott-Heron’s signature blues backdrop and embraced an eerie, minimalist electronic soundscape, an uncharted terrain for a man already known for innovation and change. The result was an album of four covers, some short poems and a number of interludes adding up to a meager but profound 28 minutes.

Robert Johnson’s “Me And The Devil” is without a doubt the album’s masterwork, and possibly one of Scott-Heron’s most powerful pieces to date. Opening with a fog of ominous bass and buzzing synth, hip-hop clap-hit begins a struggle-filled journey to the center of one’s own underworld. Scott-Heron’s strained yet overcoming voice sings of his inner-demons and the tiring struggle to keep them from taking over. He begins by howling “Early this mornin’, ooh, when you knocked upon my door. And I said, ‘Hello, Satan. I believe it’s time to go,’” before confronting his deep-rooted darkness face-on.

“Your Soul And Mine” is a battle dirge cover of Scott-Heron’s own blues ballad “The Vulture” (from 1970’s Small Talk at 125th and Lenox). Rooted with sorrowful strings and marching drums, he recycles his once soulfully sung lyrics for dark spoken-word, stripping the song down to its basic thematic essence of death and destruction. “Where Did The Night Go” is another poetic piece which deliberates the bleak realities of life. Entrancing, digeridoo-like synth is the only instrumental element featured, showcasing Scott-Heron’s experienced words as he contemplates the day-in, day-out routine of being a cog in the system of work and society.

The album’s longest track (4:30) “New York Is Killing Me” reawakens Scott-Heron’s simplistic beginnings. A fusion of railroad soul and wasteland blues, he pours out his worn-out soul alongside continuous clapping, minimal electronic bass, and an occasional clashing symbol. With the sparse addition of rusty guitar and sublte Trent Reznor-style horn synth, Scott-Heron ends the soon-to-be blues ballad with a female choir.

Overall, I’m New Here stares apathy dead-on, resurrecting the 70’s era crusade mentality, while addressing the issues of today’s broken humankind; hopefully inciting some sort of change in music and the world during this next year. Unfortunately, there’s no signs of Scott-Heron making an appareance in Seattle anytime soon. The closest thing he’s playing is Coachella on April 18. In the meantime, check out his web site and Myspace page for songs and videos spanning back over 40 years.

(source)

• British jazz composer, band leader, and saxophonist Sir John Dankworth died this weekend at 82. Inspired by past jazz greats Benny Goodman (on clarinet) and then Charlie Parker (on sax), Dankworth went on to start a performing ensemble; record film and television scores including the theme to The Avengers; direct such heavy hitters as Oscar Peterson, Nat “King” Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald; and even start a theater of his own, The Stables, with his wife and collaborator Dame Cleo Laine. KEXP listeners will immediately recognize the sample to Dankworth’s theme to Modesty Blaise, which was sampled heavily on the Gorillaz track “Rock the House“:

• The Seattle Improvised Music Festival kicks off this week — February 11th to be exact. The 7 day events is spread over two weeks and will feature some of the best avant talent in town and beyond, including scene stalwarts C. Spencer Yeh, Chris Corsano, Wally Shoup, and Bill Horist taking over The Sunset Tavern on Feb. 18th for a set.

• NonStopErotik will be the latest album from the hearts and minds of Charles Thompson’s many identities — this time under the Black Francis nom de plume. The album hits the streets March 30th via Cooking Vinyl.

• Pitchfork has the exclusive video for Spoon’s first single, “Written in Reverse,” from their new album Transference:

• Warp has just announced the May 4th release date for Cosmogramma, the latest from versatile phenom Flying Lotus. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke is said to be among the lyrical guests.

• New Vice signees, Growing, are putting some video muscle behind their upcoming April release, Pumps. The trio has produced two grainy throwbacks to the days of avant music cinema for the tracks “Hormone” and “Drone Burger,” which you can watch below:

• Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer has always engaged in bizarre theatrical projects, and her latest is no exception: Evelyn Evelyn is the name of her new duo, formed with sometime Seattle resident Jason Webley, and features the fictional pair of conjoined twin performers Lyn and Eva Neville, who according to the story, pursue a musical career and are discovered via MySpace by… Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley, who happen to “produce” the project. All very meta, to be sure. Rounding out the cast of characters in this project are, among others, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Andrew W.K., Tegan and Sara, Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance), and Frances Bean Cobain! Read more here.

• If you like your rock and roll with a heavy dose of still photography, perhaps you should hit up “Taking Aim,” the latest exhibit to creep into EMP|SFM. The exhibit, which runs through May 23rd, centers on the photography work and personal selections of legendary singer/songwriter Graham Nash.

• The highlights of this week’s late night talk show appearances start slow but end the week with a punch: The Editors and Yeasayer on Wednesday on Kimmel and Fallon respectively, and then The Soft Pack on Letterman on Friday. There’s enough to keep you up for a few nights at least:

  Monday, February 8

  time to sleep off the Super Bowl haze

  Tuesday, February 9

  Jimmy Fallon: Regina Spektor

  Wednesday, February 10

  Jimmy Kimmel: The Editors
  Jimmy Fallon: Yeasayer

  Thursday, February 11

  Jimmy Fallon: Kings of Convenience

  Friday, February 12

  David Letterman: The Soft Pack

photo by SJCorbett

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 selection, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Answer to Yourself” by The Soft Pack from their 2010 self-titled album on Kemado Records.

The great thing about changing your band name is that you get another chance to make a splash among the endless waves of new bands by which everyone is assaulted with every day. In the case of The Soft Pack, née The Muslims, that second chance comes by way of the band’s first full length release since changing their name over a year ago.

The eponymous album, freshly minted on Kemado Records, is the band’s hotly tipped offering of the new decade and features the single “Answer To Yourself.” The track draws heavily from post-hardcore D.C. and feels like something Rob Gordon would put on after yet another hapless breakup; at the very least as a pick-me-up of self-starting encouragement. Vocalist Matt Lamkin sings the words “Don’t get stuck in a rut or stuck in the same / Yeah, you got exactly what you need” and you get the idea that maybe he wrote the words in the moment of solidarity you experience after that breakup. Wrap up the package with a resounding chorus of “I think I’m going to die / Before I see my time” and a screeching and unrelenting guitar solo, and The Soft Pack, while not necessarily reinventing the wheel, have nailed that garage sound.

The Soft Pack are taking the wave of talk about them and riding it straight into a full UK tour starting this month, followed by a few European dates, and then washing across the U.S. with dates in Atlanta, D.C., NYC, Detroit, Seattle, and a handful of others. Check their MySpace page for the specifics. For Seattleites looking to catch the group, they perform on April 13th at Chop Suey with tour support from Male Bonding. Also, they’ll be performing live on The Late Show with David Letterman this Friday!

Just recently, they were in town in support of Phoenix and stopped by KEXP that day for a quick, hard punching in-studio. Here are a few song from the session, including today’s Song of the Day:

It’s going to be an awesome night of music this Saturday at The Sunset Tavern in Ballard, with Audioasis’s resident DJ Hannah Levin hosting special musical guests People Eating People, Blood Red Dancers and D. Black! Plus, each month Audioasis chooses one local charity for proceeds to go to: This month, the Central District’s Forum for Arts & Ideas is spotlighted. For 10 years, the CD Forum has been challenging the definition of Black through their unique Performing Arts and Humanities series. Whether presenting and producing contemporary Black art or encouraging thought and debate around issues that affect our community in Seattle, CD Forum will challenge your assumptions about Black culture.

photo by Caitlin Enwright

People Eating People are first on the bill (9:30pm), showcasing Nouela Johnston’s voice and a piano-rock presence you don’t often see. Check out the video below and you’ll know what I mean.

Then, Blood Red Dancers come at you (10:30) with some “dark-folk, junk-jazz, classic country, drinking, pretty girls, pretty girls drinking” kind of music. That’s their description not mine, but still, no way I’m missing that.

photo by Studio Ogalthorpe

And of course, it’s gonna get heavy when D. Black takes the stage (11:30). One of Seattle youngest “conscious” rappers, Black’s 2009 release, Ali’hay, went to the top of a lot of people’s music recommends and it’ll be interesting to see what he drops for The Sunset on a Saturday night.

As always, doors open at 8:30pm and the show begins at 9pm. No kids allowed as The Sunset is 21+ and tickets can be found at Brown Paper Tickets.

Net proceeds benefit CD Forum and major funding for Audioasis comes from New Belgium Brewing Company. Additional support for Audioasis comes from the City of Seattle: Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, Washington State Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.

KEXP DJs Kevin Cole & Cheryl Waters with Built to Spill

KEXP has been pleased to welcome the thousands of musicians who have performed in our studio over the years. The depth and quality of each performance by such a wide variety of artists never ceases to amaze us.

Each year, we select the very best cuts to create the next edition of our Live at KEXP compilation series. This series is essential not only for KEXP, but for the artists who deserve to be heard and the music lovers like you who want to experience live music at its best. With your help, Volume Six will be the best yet!

When you make a gift of $250 or more, we’ll thank you by including your name in the liner notes of Live at KEXP Volume Six. Plus, we want you to hear it first, so we’ll send you the CD before it hits the stores.

This special campaign ends today. I hope you’ll support the music you value most by making a gift! And, thanks for powering KEXP!

As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosphere hopes to pull back the curtain on a wealth of sights and sound such as those of Jailbreak.

Agitated Atmosphere has made no bones about the abundant talents of Chris Corsano (and if you don’t believe us, check him out when he is joined by C. Spencer Yeh and local avant superstars Wally Shoup and Bill Horist February 18th at The Sunset Tavern for the 25th Annual Seattle Improvised Music Festival). He is master and commander behind his kit, treating the heads of snares and toms like the pots and pans of exuberant childhood. Why we have yet to touch on the talents of Heather Leigh is inconclusive.

The duo of Leigh and Corsano has joined like Voltron to form Jailbreak. The tangled mess of pedal steel guitar and drums that aptly rock the two sides of The Rocker, their debut LP released via Family Vineyard is the sort of din that only noise enthusiasts could love. This is not the sly pedal work of Mississippi Delta kings, co-opted for the tame indie audiences of modern consumerism; THIS is the stuff that punctures eardrums, rattles brains, and shatters spines. The Rocker could not be more appropriately named as the album’s two lengthy jams ground and pound from the drop of the needle.

“Brought Down” and “Sugar Blues” share the same motif of destruction; taking the simple concepts of melody and ripping them into little pieces of erratic slides and hilting cymbal crashes. Paired with the vibrant wails of Leigh, the tracks take on a primal quality as if these songs have spent years clawing their way out of Leigh’s vocal chords. The songs have a life all their own, as Corsano and Leigh fight to keep up with the frequent spurts of creation that spew forth from their frail bodies. That music so heavy comes from two stick figures is further testament to the dedication to their craft. The Rocker balances the desires of chaos with the artistic flourishes of meddled musicians. Every once in awhile we need an in-your-face moment to get the blood flowing and the body moving — meet that aggressive animal head on when vinyl meets turntable.

Justin Spicer is a freelance journalist who also runs the webzine, Electronic Voice Phenomenon. He writes the Monday News Mash-Up for the KEXP Blog. You may follow him on Twitter.

Not only does this monthly event (almost every Sunday) at Chop Suey feature a bazillion NW indie designers and crafters and their goods, of which you can peruse and drool over, but they ALSO have a live DJ and admission is free. This glorious event runs from noon to 4pm this Sunday, February 7th at Chop Suey in Capitol Hill. Unusual gifts, elaborate crafts and handmade wares can be found here.. and you can be sure you’ll meet a handful of pretty amazing folks as well.

SHOWS and more shows

Wilco is playing at the Paramount on the 10th, y’all(!). It’s gonna be good. Jeff Tweedy will charm your heart. You’ll leave wanting to dig out every single Wilco album ever made, and you’ll think that each one is THE best one of their catalog. Their music has changed over the years, from alt-country awesomeness Being There to the quirky jangly pop of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and beyond. You won’t get your fill of their expert song craftsmanship, but you should go anyway because it will RULE.

Experimental beat-makin’ artist Neumos on Wednesday the 10th, and indie fuzz darlings the Vivian Girls will pack the High Dive on Saturday the 13th.

Nakey ladies, art walks and pity parties

The Can Can is always a fun time, especially when the Castaways Cabaret show is on the bill. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy buxom, amazing women dressed in period cabaret-wear? Be prepared for a steamy, explosive time.

Tons of shops and restaurants (over 50!) participate in one of the city’s best art walks on Capitol Hill, Blitz. The next one is this Thursday, February the 11th. Don’t miss goods and treats from Babeland, Retrofit Home, Atlas Clothing, ZAPP and more.

If you’re left loveless this Valentine’s Day and want to lament your bad fortune (or bad breath, or whatever fault in your imperfect arsenal of quirks that repels a mate in record time) then you’re in luck! The Copper Gate in Ballard is hosting a Pity Party from February 10th-15th. Drown your tears in cocktails and wipe that chin on your neighbor’s shoulder. Who knows? You may meet the man/woman/tranny of your dreams!

Shrie L. Spangler
*Three Imaginary Girls*

In high i-pod rotation:
Beach House
AA Bondy & Fences
The Cute Lepers

(Three Imaginary Girls is a Seattle-based website that showcases the great music of the Northwest and beyond to music lovers worldwide. We post a Seattle live show calendar to help you fill your day-planner with loads of great shows, as well as record reviews, live show reviews, and an imagi-blog to entertain you throughout the day.)