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"The Drop with Danno" on GFN 광주영어방송 98.7FM in Gwangju & 93.7FM in Yeosu, Korea. An eclectic radio curation of all things musical spanning the spectrum every week. Broadcasting 8-10pm KST nightly.
The Drop with Danno
CARRTOONS feat Nigel Hall – Groceries
Jazzanova feat Sean Haefeli – Creative Musicians
Busty & The Bass – All The Things I Couldn’t Say To You
Parekh & Singh – Je Suis la Pomme Rouge
El Michels Affair feat Piya Malik – Unathi
The Diasonics – Gurami
The Cactus Blossoms feat Jenny Lewis – Everybody
Kendra Morris – Got Me Down
Lady Wray – Joy & Pain
Lucky Daye – Ego
Lizz Kalo – Transition
Robert Glasper feat Q-Tip & Esperanza Spaulding – Why We Speak
I.
It is 20 hours past midnight and is it cold enough for ya? Our final regular programming of the year is in full effect and what better way to send off 2022 than with our world famous Sampled & AMPED Thursday evening speciality? Danno here, doing the usual unusual for tonight’s final feast, and we’ll be going through part 3 of our year-end wind-up in the funk & soul department for hour 1, and then Dan Lloyd will return to critique the critics and tell you about a few things he discovered from the critterati in the process as well for our AMPED rock showcase to wrap the year right. Now, one thing we must note is that due to budget cuts here at GFN, we won’t be having guests to start the new year in 2023 nor will we be rocking our weekend shows. Now, these are across the board, so we’re definitely not the only ones to be suffering the consequences from this but in order to keep it 100 with you, that’s what’s going down at GFN for the coming new year, and it must be duly noted we are still very grateful to be on the air here at the people’s frequency, however diminished. One other thing to note is that we’ll be posting all three of these year-end wrap shows together tonight, so if you missed parts 1 & 2 go check it out on our stream to get a full run-down of the funk punk soul rock for 2022 and maybe discover a couple gems that you don’t know about as well. For overall top tunes & albums along with our best of 2022 indie shows, we’ll be going over those for the first two weeks of 2023 as well. Anyway, let’s start things tonight home grown with CARRTOONS, and make sure to bring your cereal bowls and dancing shoes. THIS is The Drop.
CARRTOONS feat Nigel Hall – Groceries*
Back at it on The Drop after our opener funky favorite for vol 3 of our funk & soul faves on tonight’s first hour broadcast, the final line in the triangle for 2022. Dan Lloyd is doing the same for the rock world tonight in hour 2, and going over some of his criticisms of the critics but also giving them their due as they helped him discover a couple hidden gems in the rock world. Do note that all three of these episodes will be posted tonight on our podcast stream if you missed the first two or were wondering where they are, and our two part best ofs for Monday & Tuesday will be going down next week and the week after that.
Now, as to what just happened to your auditory senses, that was a song called Groceries by CARRTOONS (note sp.). This bopper appeared on a lovely album called Homegrown, which was dropped in full early on in the year, and it must be noted that Nigel Hall is the party responsible for those silky smooth vocals on the cut.
As to the background of CARRTOONS, this is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Ben Carr who’s out of New York. Carr has over the years become a sought-after producer and he aims to bring the electronic bass to the forefront of his music, which has garnered him appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk, amongst other notable programs and albums. CARRTOONS, Homegrown, go give that a front to back play. Very, very good stuff. Also notable is that Ben Carr appears on Kaelin Ellis’s new LP THE FUNK WILL PREVAIL, another jammer that we cannot recommend highly enough.
Duly noted, just a quick reminder…#9870 (50/100)…stream
So let’s continue with some more of our funky favorites for this year’s end, and our first triad tonight features Jazzanova at the top point to be joined by Busty & The Bass along with Parekh & Singh, all three of which we’ll talk about but not touch cuz they’re very sharp side opposite the audio sorcery, but for now a verbal rest if not sung. THIS is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul favorites vol 3.
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The Drop returns as we begin the end of the opening stanza in our radiological orchestra. Danno here, and it’s volume 3 of our funk & soul favorites for this year on tonight’s first hour of programming, Dan Lloyd goes through through part 3 of his critics’ picks for the rock world tonight as well. All three of these shows are now online via our streaming page as well, so go & check it out. As to what just went up and returned in the space elevator, we had three VIP riders right there…
Jazzanova feat Sean Haefeli – Creative Musicians (…this one dropped early on in 2022 as a single in the lead-up to Jazzanova’s reimagined version of Strata Records, The Sound of Detroit. Do check that out along with the original compilation of the Strata releases from the 1960’s & 70’s, which was compiled by DJ Amir.)
Busty & The Bass – All The Things I Couldn’t Say To You (…this was released as a standalone late in the year on November 17, and the band themselves are a hip-hop and soul septet that are based in Montreal. Do go check the rest of their releases, it’s very diverse.)
Parekh & Singh – Je Suis la Pomme Rouge (…translation from French here being I Am The Red Apple, this was released as a single quite early in 2022 with the accompanying album unannounced from the Kolkata-based duo. With subsequent singles, the album was announced, and The Night is Clear LP dropped Sept 2 via Peacefrog Records. Do check if you dug that.)
Quick …#9870, social media.
Alright, so we still have a couple more tunes to rock from a couple of our 2022 ultra faves here. First up is the indomitable El Michels Affair off their latest LP Yeti Season. The song features our main homegirl Piya Malik doing the honors on the vox, and the tune is called Unathi. After that we have The Diasonics, who are a funk & soul quintet straight out of Russia, and this final cut is called Gurami. Give that album a spin in full, it’s called Origin of Forms, and we guarantee you won’t be disappointed. What a debut from these cats. THIS is The Drop on your Sampled funk & soul faves vol 2.
El Michels Affair feat Piya Malik – Unathi
The Diasonics – Gurami
II.
The Drop returns and we just cracked the 2nd can open ice cold for our final 2nd quarter of the calendar year. Danno here and to finish the year strong we are going through part 3 of our funk punk soul rock favorites and I’m doing the funk & soul bit here in the first hour, while Dan Lloyd will be doing the same with part 3 of his critics’ faves from the rock side of the spectrum after the jump. As to what just spilled all over your ears, let’s explain ourselves...
The Cactus Blossoms feat Jenny Lewis – Everybody (… a nice bit of country fried soul right here from The Cactus Blossoms, this one featuring the ever-dynamic Jenny Lewis on the vocals. This dropped very early in the year in the lead-up to the band’s One Day LP, which is the duo’s career third full-length.)
Kendra Morris – Got Me Down (…one of our favorites also was out with a new album earlier this year, as Kendra Morris dropped her debut record on Colemine Records called Nine Lives. Go check it out in full if you dug that, and some of her live performances on YouTube, just a superlatively talented singer and generally zany creative artist.)
Now, let’s get to another triangle of soul tunes and we’ll start the next bit of fun with Lady Wray then finish with Lucky Daye and Jacob Banks, all of which we’ll talk about after the roundabouts go about, but for now THIS is The Drop’s funky favorites finale.
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Heading towards the end of our Sampled funk & soul first hour tonight, and the conclusion of this year’s programming. Danno here, going through part 3 of our funky favorites for the year, and we just let a few more signals of beauty blurt into space right there, so let’s get to the info kiosk before Dan Lloyd kicks down the door for his final hour tonight. That was…
Lady Wray – Joy & Pain (…this was off another lovely album that came out early in the 2022 game called Piece of Me. Lady Nicole Wray hails from Virginia originally, now plying her initable trade with El Michels and Big Crown Records.)
Lucky Daye – Ego* (…this was off a rather slept on record from 2022 called Candydrip, which came out in March. Although more brooding and slower paced than previous works, I personally thought this record was a gem, so go check it if you dug it.)
Lizz Kalo – Transition (…our main girl right here in Gwangju, although that’s about to literally transition it seems in the near future. This is a standalone single from the artist, whose Creative Social events have lit the country on fire this year, and there’s a rumored album to drop in 2023 but we’ll have to hold up on that one.)
So, we got a good bit of room to breathe with our finale, and we must tune it in to part 3 of Black Radio from Robert Glasper to finish the set for this year. This tune’s called Why We Speak and features Q-Tip and Esperanza Spaulding, another album we can’t say enough about here at the close of the year. THIS is The Drop and THAT is 2022.
Robert Glasper feat Q-Tip & Esperanza Spaulding – Why We Speak
III & IV AMPED
The Specials – Concrete Jungle
Soul Glo – Coming Correct Is Cheaper
Alvvays – Easy On Your Own?
The Smile – The Smoke
Jack White – What’s The Trick?
Black Country, New Road – Chaos Space Marine
Nova Twins – Choose Your Fighter
Ithaca – They Fear Us
Spoon – On The Radio
Ghost – Watcher In The Sky
Suede – 15 Again
Arctic Monkeys – Hello You
The Specials – Concrete Jungle
Terry Hall, the frontman of socially conscious ska band The Specials, has died at the age of 63.
Known for his dour image and sharp wit, the singer found fame in the 1970s and 80s with hits like Ghost Town, Gangsters and Too Much Too Young.
He left The Specials in 1981 to form Fun Boy Three with fellow-bandmates Neville Staple and Lynval Golding, scoring another run of hits.
The singer died after a brief illness, The Specials said in a statement.
"Terry was a wonderful husband and father and one of the kindest, funniest, and most genuine of souls," they wrote.
"His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life… the joy, the pain, the humour, the fight for justice, but mostly the love.
"He will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him and leaves behind the gift of his remarkable music and profound humanity."
In a separate message, Staple told the BBC he had learned of his friend's passing as he landed in Egypt for a holiday with his wife.
"It's really hit me hard," he said. "We fronted The Specials and Fun Boy Three together, making history.
"Terry, he surely will be missed."
Jane Wiedlin, co-founder of band The Go Gos who co-wrote the band's hit Our Lips Are Sealed with Hall, said he was a "lovely, sensitive, talented and unique person".
"Our extremely brief romance resulted in the song Our Lips Are Sealed, which will forever tie us together in music history."
Singer Elvis Costello described Hall's voice as "the perfect instrument for the true and necessary songs on The Specials".
"That honesty is heard in so many of his songs in joy and sorrow," he said.
The band asked for respect for Hall's family's privacy. No cause of death was shared.
Soul Glo – Coming Correct is Cheaper
Best album of 2022 according to Brooklyn Vegan.
Having grinded in the underground hardcore and screamo scenes for nearly a decade, Soul Glo are ready for the world. They've leveled up in just about every way with Diaspora Problems, from their songwriting to their production to the record's truly awesome music videos; this is what it looks like when an already-great band manages to defy every high expectation that was set for them. Across the boundary-pushing, genre-defying Diaspora Problems, Soul Glo offer up the most life-affirming hardcore punk songs you'll hear all year, the controlled chaos of '90s screamo, industrial-rap that's loud and booming enough to fill a stadium, and chilled-out, permastoned boom bap. Often, they combine elements of three or more of these things in the same song. More than any prior Soul Glo release, the songs on Diaspora Problems are full of space and air, blaring through your speakers with the energy of Soul Glo's live show while maintaining the rounded edges of a well-produced rock record. (The album was produced in-house by Soul Glo bassist GG Guerra in the band's practice space, and later mixed and mastered by Turnstile/Code Orange/Title Fight collaborator Will Yip.) Pierce Jordan's lyrics are full of intent, dealing with internal issues like mental health and suicidal thoughts and external issues like the corrupt voting system and the left's reluctance to militarize with the same intense, personal passion. Guests like underground rappers Mother Maryrose, lojii, McKinley Dixon, and Zula Wildheart, and Kathryn Edwards of Nashville hardcore band Thirdface, add their own fire to the album, and help keep things even more unpredictable than it would've already been without them. It's a great punk record, a great rap record, and a great rock record. It's innovative, honest, purposeful, and as catchy as it is abrasive. And it's a record that really makes you feel something, from the moment that first snare hit strikes you like a bolt of lightning to the album's horn-fueled fade-out.
The Smile – The Smoke
A Light For Attracting Attention made more than a few top 10 lists.
How does Thom Yorke get your attention? How does he get you to feel the beating of your own heart? Does he really need to plead? On the debut album from the Smile — a trio comprising Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and drummer Tom Skinner of the London jazz quartet Sons of Kemet — Yorke presents a simple call to humanity over anxious, digressive, scurrying grooves. “People in the street, PLEASE!” he resolutely moans, not so much grabbing you by the shoulders but gently shaking you awake. From there, the trio devilishly shifts between the familiar and the flustering; Yorke’s smooth, pellucid vocals make you feel the ease of sleep while Greenwood’s darting riffs and Skinner’s peculiar time signatures force you to feel the terror of falling into nightmarish dreams. As disquieting as it is straight up beautiful, A Light For Atttacting Attention makes you feel moth-like; unable to do anything but move closer to the music, to be lit up by Yorke’s generative plea.
Alvvays – Easy on Your Own
One of the year’s most critically acclaimed albums, Blue Rev topped Stereogum’s list.
Blue Rev is a feat of alchemy, an album whose pleasures are simple but whose execution is complex. Every time I listen to it, I wonder how Alvvays managed to pull it off. It seemed like fate might have been conspiring against them — a flood, a thief, and a pandemic threatened to derail the band — but they forged ahead and created a marvel.
The songs on Blue Rev are hooky and heartfelt, a series of powder-keg explosions that burst with emotion. Molly Rankin sings about stumbling, succumbing to pressure, feeling unfulfilled and uninspired. But she also channels the moments when everything seems okay, where you have no choice but to embrace what’s alright and good in the world. The band blends effervescence and melancholy in a way that is as satisfying as it is true to life. I’ve cried more tears to Blue Rev than I have anything else this year, always at the most unexpected of times, when a lyric or a guitar hits just right.
Alvvays songs have a way of sneaking up on you like that. Blue Rev is purposefully overwhelming — with sounds, with the constant churn of a mind left to wander — but it always comes back around to something so elemental that it’s undeniable.
Jack White – What’s the Trick?
Fear of the Dawn was the better received of Jack White’s two albums, though both can be seen sporadically in the critics’ lists. Popmatters put both albums at 3 and 2 respectively.
At the height of pandemic preventive measures, the option of touring became non-existent for working and aspiring musicians. Blues-rock savant Jack White utilized the disruption to take a ten-month pause from both playing and writing music and chose to pour himself into other creative pursuits. When he emerged from the self-selected musical hiatus, a writing burst produced April’s Fear of the Dawn followed by Entering Heaven Alive in July. On the surface, the two albums could not seem more different.
The former is an aural onslaught of unvarnished rock channeling hurricane-like intensity in a skittish meditation on clinical eosophobia, literally the fear of the dawn. The latter album reveals the musical multitudes White contains within himself. Jack White as garage-rock guitar god? Sure, but don’t fence him in. Entering Heaven Alive finds White an astute student of the great musical catalog; the contents give nods to Americana, bluegrass, ragtime, smooth jazz, and Beatle-esque psychedelia with a gunfighter ballad thrown in for good measure. The two albums, at first blush, couldn’t seem more disparate. And yet.
Both Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive contain a version of “Taking Me Back”. It serves as the opening track of the first album and the closing track (with the qualifier “gently”) on the second album. The surface dissymmetry of the two albums reveals a paradoxical symmetry with a difference as what was a declaration of sound and fury on the first album transforms into a playfully loose saloon band consideration of love. Perhaps the two albums are a musical yin and yang and a philosophical nod to the circularity of time. Maybe White’s just cleaning out the musical closet. Either way, he’s graced us with a striking case for his continued musical relevance.
Black Country, New Road – Chaos Space Marine
2nd album Ants From Up There was just as well received as last year’s debut.
When Black Country, New Road released their debut album For the first time last February, they’d been sitting on the material for at least a year; songs like “Athens, France” and “Sunglasses,” though ultimately reworked on the album, had already been out since 2019. The group described For the first time as the summation of their first 18 months as a band, a helpful framing for such intricate, yet manic work. Last September, the band confirmed they had already finished a follow-up, and began playing “Bread Song” and “Basketball Shoes’’ during their live sets. These would become parts of Ants From Up There, the group’s sophomore effort. Released just 364 days later, it was an incredibly quick turnaround for the London septet, a result of their remarkable productivity. Ants From Up There feels like the work of a band figuring itself out. While they may not use the term themselves, it’s hard to argue that Black Country, New Road can’t be called a jam band. Try as they might to create short, digestible tracks, they still go long; they’re never married to their songs being presented in just one way, and embrace improvisation. Sure, they come across more self-serious than the stereotypical jam band, but all the markers are there. This is a record that sees Black Country, New Road reestablishing themselves. Having been lauded by nearly every outlet following their debut, you get the sense the band are trying to reset expectations: Buried beneath their own laurels, they’re not afraid to shake them off. – Paste Magazine
Nova Twins – Choose Your Fighter
Kerrang!’s no. 1 album of the year. A bold choice, since it’s almost nowhere to be found elsewhere on other lists.
Nova Twins’ second record unfolds as an exercise in manifesting superstardom. The thrilling sounds come thick and fast, from the grimy, rapid-fire rap-rock of Antagonist to the synth-streaked high drama of A Dark Place For Somewhere Beautiful. It’s the outrageous swagger of songs like Fire & Ice, and the queenly confidence flowing through Cleopatra, however, that make the London duo utterly undeniable.
Brilliantly, it’s an ascendancy is fuelled by social consciousness. ‘Blacker than the leather, that’s holding our boots together,’ they wield their identity as young black women at the vanguard of a musical revolution. ‘If you rock a different shade, we come under the same umbrella.’ Diversity and unity, they understand, will be needed to precipitate meaningful change. And that change is coming. Garnering nominations at the MOBOs and for the prestigious Mercury Prize, they’ve put British heavy music in front of new audiences and helped place it on pedestals that were nigh-on unthinkable just a few years back.
Perhaps it’s most exciting to think of that album title as a misnomer, where, in celestial terms, the state of supernova is one of the last in the life-cycle of a star. Because, for Nova Twins, it feels like this is just the beginning.
Ithaca – They Fear Us
No.2 on the Kerrang list (and also top 10 in some other metal lists).
Having lurked as a very fine name in the British underground for years – thanks in no small part to 2019’s chaotic The Language Of Injury – 2022 was the year that London’s Ithaca blossomed into one of our finest bands. More focused than the untethered rage of its predecessor, They Fear Us also articulates the emotion at the heart of its furious songs with a clarity that shines through even its heaviest moments, offering a stronger take, barrelling through the worst life has to offer in order to grow from it. On Camera Eats First and the hateful In The Way (‘Wash your blood down the sink cos we don’t keep souvenirs’) it’s almost intimidating, but it also takes in the pain of grief, healing, self-love, and finding an answer, rather than simply razing things to the ground (“Nihilism is such cheap currency,” guitarist Sam Chetan-Welsh told K! in the band’s cover feature). That it’s expressed through music that’s as creatively brilliant as it is powerfully energised turns They Fear Us to something genuinely wonderful and special. “I just think we’re better than everyone else,” half-joked singer Djamila Boden Azzouz to us. You’d be very brave and very stupid to say she’s wrong.
Spoon – On the Radio
Lucifer on the Sofa graced a large number of top 10 lists this year.
The Austin outfit has spent their decades-long career developing into an exhilaratingly tight band, whether gelling live on stage or quarantined in the studio. None of this was lost in the midst of a global pandemic. In fact, the time spent in lockdown seemed to help them emerge even even further dialed into a sound that has continually evolved and never flagged. Lucifer On The Sofa, Spoon's tenth studio LP, reflects this perfectly. From the intro studio sounds that kick off the band's rough-hewn cover of Smog’s "Held,” it’s a journey free from any sonic baggage, carrying only the essentials as it takes us on a winding road of ups and downs. Along the way, we encounter everything from no-chaser shots of rock 'n' roll ("The Hardest Cut") to gorgeous melodies ("Wild") and smoky introspection. It all culminates with the title track, which fittingly concludes with the literal sound of a door closing its final second, as if to say, "Done!" After such a vulnerable and heartfelt peek into a time and place in their lives, they’ve earned it. For some hair of the devil, be sure to fire up the companion album, Lucifer On The Moon, for which legendary UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood of On-U Sound reconstructs the whole endeavor to spaced-out effect. -KRCW
Ghost – Watcher in the Sky
Impera was probably the most critically acclaimed hard rock/metal album of the year. Metal Hammer and Revolver both gave it no. 1.
It's been a massive year for Ghost, complete with AMA wins, MLB first pitches, viral TikToks and other mind-blowing career milestones. But it all started with March's Impera, the Swedish occult-rock juggernaut's majestic fifth full-length. Amid all the hoopla and hijinks of 2022, Papa Emeritus IV and the Nameless Ghouls also became bona fide U.S. arena headliners this year, and fittingly, Impera is their arena-rock album, full of huge, sing-along, Andrew-Lloyd-Webber-gone-Eighties-metal anthems, from the ABBA-on-steroids thrill ride "Spillways" to the gothic power ballad "Darkness at the Heart of My Love." It's ambitious, delirious, biting at times ("Griftwood" skewers Trump VP Mike Pence), fun all the time. Impera might be a concept album about the fall of empires, but Ghost's own empire is rapidly expanding — and rightfully so.
Suede – 15 Again
Nice to see some recognition for Autofiction, the best music Suede have made since the 90s.
Louder than War put it at no. 1, just ahead of Skinty Fia.
Ever since their resurrection in 2013, with the first of the trilogy, Bloodsports, Suede have been consistently the best ‘cult band’ in the UK. Although Britpop stars, they retain an outsider quality, yet can sell out tours in minutes and overshadow bands with bigger ‘profiles’ at festivals. A loyal, passionate fanbase and a wider appeal, Suede are in a unique position: veterans and survivors who genuinely seem to be at a second creative peak that has lasted nine years now. Autofiction is every bit as good as you imagined it would be. Better even. The album of the year and an album to treasure for life. It really does contain all the bombast, swells and drama of the orchestral classical music so beloved by Brett’s father, but also an intimacy wrapped up in the intensity.
Arctic Monkeys – Hello You
NME’s no. 1 album of the year was, like Tranquility Base, very well received, even if it’s not my cup of tea at all and I really don’t know what all the fuss is about.
An honest, breathtaking masterpiece that bears the stamp of its creators’ limitless curiosity.
A marvel of understated confidence, the band began this album’s creation by jamming out in an old priory together, and their experiments with Moog synthesisers and looped piano refrains soon flickered above taut arrangements – a reminder that even the grandest songs can’t hide the power of synergy.
‘The Car’ was full of heart and wild touches, and broad in its emotional scope, too: swirling orchestral pieces paralleled frontman Alex Turner’s subconscious drift as he sang of isolation and the fragility of youth. The album’s framework replicated four brothers working through these heavy emotions together, twisting their instruments in different formations until they approached a breakthrough: “Keep reminding me that it ain’t a race,” Turner sang on closer ‘Perfect Sense’. His perspective has never sounded so clear; after years of taking and exploring new forms, this is the band’s true genesis.