Every week, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries live on 88Nine at 10 p.m. every Monday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
On his latest single, “Badlands,” Missouri-raised singer-songwriter Kevin Morby sings: "Kansas City is not the badlands, but it's my badlands.”
It’s the third preview of his upcoming release, Little Wide Open, and Morby gives a lot of love to his homeland as he sings: “Welcome to the Midwest // Where the sky knows best // And you’ll finally get some rest // ’Til the tornado sirens start harmonizing // And I can’t tell if I’m in heaven or if I’m in the badlands.”
To emphasize the seasonal/topical tornadic appeal, Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver harmonize with Morby to create a vocalization of tornado sirens. Hopefully, those are the only ones we’ll hear for a while, and they’ll be part of Little Wide Open when it comes out May 15 (with Morby dropping by the Argo a few weeks later, June 1).
You can use the player at the top of the page to hear “Badlands” as part of this episode, and make sure you tune into 88Nine at 10 p.m. every Monday for another installment of What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Best new indie music this week
- Sean Solomon, “Finish Line”
- Accessory, “Safeword”
- Broken Social Scene, “The Call”
- Not for Radio, “Ache”
- Purity Ring, “lemonlime”
- Parts & Labor, “Endless Cycle Pt. 3: Better Run”
- Spacemoth, “Do We Exist?”
- Yaya Bey, “Blue”
- Tori Amos, “Gasoline Girls”
- Bellows, “To the God Nemesis”
- Kevin Morby, “Badlands”
- Rosali, “Other Side”
