WNXP Podcasts

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Sydney Ward, known as Sunny War, says there are two sides of her. One of them is very self-destructive and the other is trying to work with the other half to keep things balanced. From a devastating break-up and the loss of her father, the conflict of pain and preserving, the balance between a break-up album and an uplifting project, this became the theme for her fourth album Anarchist Gospel.

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One of the first singles released from the long-time-coming 4th LP of Louisville, Kentucky band White Reaper, called Asking For A Ride, was the track “Pink Slip,” which laments: “Hard to believe us when we grow up so slow.” Sure, the eternal youth modeled and perpetuated by a thrashy, bratty, moshy rock band is alluring in even the best of times and we can all agree the times since their last record, 2019’s You Deserve Love, have been anything but “best.” It would be easy and forgivable to disappear into disassociation, as artists and as fans, refusing to grow up until the world out there seems a little safer to grow up in.

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On Honey, Samia’s second solo album, the indie singer-songwriter has actually refined and defined her voice by venturing away from that sort of certainty. By envisioning how differently someone else might have perceived an interaction and letting her questions for them hang in the air, she’s subtly enlarged the scope of her songs.

Senior music writer Jewly Hight spoke with her about choosing that approach, and a number of other decisions she made on her way to this point, beginning with going into the entertainment business like her folks, Kathy Najimy and Dan Finnerty, did before her.

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Being good at talking is what makes R.A.P. Ferreira, full name, Raury Allan Phillip Ferreira a great rapper. “5 to the Eye with Stars” is a line Ferreira lifted from vocalese master Kurt Elling. Five to the eye is a knockout punch. Like Elling, you might call Ferreira’s artform vocalese. Bending words into abstraction, using context clues to fill in the details, landing a syllable in an unpredictable way is the through line of Ferreira’s work.

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Adeem the Artist’s 2021 album Cast Iron Pansexual, rendered with shaggy charm and a mixture of DIY and old-time string band sensibilities, was celebrated within the coalescing community of queer roots music devotees. They brought their strengths and insights together more fully on White Trash Revelry, a collection of keenly knowledgeable and arresting songwriting delivered over spirited, full-band arrangements with a charisma that can feel needling, mischievous or vulnerable.

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