Whole-Hearted

Episode 86 – May 29 4:00 PM EDT

MJ Lenderman – Joker Lips

Le Pain – Running of the Bulls

Tchotchke – Did You Hear?

Kazdoura – Khayal

Lemonheads – Sad Cinderella

Savina Yannatou, Primavera en Salonico and Lamia Bedioui – The Song of Klidonas

Stereolab – Aerial Troubles

Lights – Alive Again

Kurt Vile – Sins of My Youth

and some notes

Le Pain – Running of the Bulls

a debut album to get things started

If you listen to HighClouds’ playlists, you already know Le Pain. The Los Angeles indie pop band, led by sisters Madeline and Olivia Black, blends hazy ’60s psychedelia with jangly ’80s sparkle and bilingual charm. Wrapped in romantic melancholy and glittering grooves, their debut album Dirge Technique, out May 2 via Slouch Records, features shimmering singles like “Troisième Groupe” (2021) and “Rachel Veut Danser” (2023). Alongside the album announcement, Le Pain also unveiled a dreamy, self-made video for their latest track, “Running of the Bulls.”

I like this song, but not sure where I found it

Le Pain – “Running of the Bulls” (Official Video)

on a website called post-trash, this single off a new album – their first – makes it to their list of best releases of April 21 – 27

all the rest of the songs are great, so I may need to do a post-trash themed show soon!

here is a link to remind me

Kazdoura – Khayal

Kazdoura – Khayal خيال (Official Video)

love this song. From their Bandcamp page

Kazdoura is a Toronto-based band that serves up Arabic fusion with a modern twist. Equal parts nostalgia and reinvention, their style is a cross-cultural blend of Eastern and Western music that blends old-world Arabic classics with jazz, funk, electro-pop, and disco.

Kazdoura is a Toronto-based Lebasese-Syrian duo.

more here

Kazdoura, the Toronto-based Syrian-Lebanese musical duo known for blending Arabic music with jazz, funk, and soul, has released their deeply personal and evocative new single, Khayal. The track, according to listeners and critics, is more than just music — it is a raw reflection of the emotional and psychological complexities faced by immigrants, particularly those who, like the band members, have experienced displacement, war, and cultural disconnection. “Their performances have been both enriching and impactful, highlighting their vital role in the Arabic community in Toronto,” says Kristyn Gelfand, Managing Director, Uma Nota Music and Production.

Gulf Today

December 10, 2024

just a bit more, I don’t know if they have an album out yet

Kazdoura’s forte is Arabic fusion with a modern twist. Equal parts nostalgia and reinvention, the style is a cross-cultural blend that mixes Arabic with jazz, funk, soul and trip hop. Singer Leen and multi-instrumentalist Johnny Abou Chacra, founded the project together.

Savina Yannatou, Primavera en Salonico and Lamia Bedioui – The Song of Klidonas

Wild, wayward … Savina Yannatou. Photograph: © Spyros Perdiou/ECM Records

some material from the Guardian. Incredible musical traditions here and an evocative theme

Savina Yannatou is a fabulous Greek singer whose work over the last five decades hasn’t stood still. Her CV includes interpretations of early music, throat singing, composing for video art and improvisations with Can’s Damo Suzuki. Her new album with Greek jazz ensemble and long-term collaborators Primavera en Salonica and Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui is a global tour of traditional songs about water: how it can be balm and curse, source of life and storm.

their album, Watersong starts with the song featured this week

Watersong begins beautifully, in Greece, with The Song of Klidonas. Singing of a mid-summer ritual in which girls place charms in a pot of clean water to be left outside bathed in starlight, Yannatou dusts the beautiful melody with melancholy.

Savina Yannatou has a huge body of work, going back to 1980. I should look for more by this beautiful singer/songwriter…

Lights – Alive Again

This is just fun. After to listening to water songs, songs about displacement, and romantic melancholy, this might just clean the palate.

Lights – ALIVE AGAIN [Official Music Video]

this is what Lights writes about the song on her Facebook Page

ALIVE AGAIN is kind of a last hope anthem. It’s about the lows we hit and the demons we carry and from that vantage point sometimes we gain clarity about what we want, out of people or our lives. We all have demons, we might as well learn to party with them. Oh and try to catch all the horror references in the new music video😈

Lights is now on tour – starting in Vancouver and ending in Toronto, not much else in Canada at all. Oh well…her loss

she is described as an ” Electro-pop heavyweight”

but who really cares.

actually she is from Timmins born from missionary parents.

She has done lots since 2009

Wiki says

Lights Valerie Anne Poxleitner-Bokan (born Valerie Anne Poxleitner; April 11, 1987), known mononymously as Lights (previously stylized in all caps), is a Canadian musician, singer, comic book author and artist, and songwriter. Her debut album, The Listening (2009),^[1] included the singles “Drive My Soul” and “Saviour“. Her second album, Siberia, which featured the single “Toes“, was released in 2011.^[2] Her work has earned multiple Canadian Independent Music Awards, and Juno Awards including Pop Album of the Year for her third album Little Machines, which included the single “Up We Go“, and fourth album Skin & Earth, in 2015 and 2018, respectively.^[3] Lights’ fifth studio album, Pep, was released in 2022. Her newest record A6 was released May 2, 2025.^[4]

MJ Lenderman – “ Joker Lips” – Manning Fireworks

I’ll have to check with the Podcast gods, The International Olympic Committee and the SPCA, but I believe this is the first time on this podcast that we have chosen a third song from the same record! Last summer MJ Lenderman released the mighty fine lp Manning Fireworks and this week we decided to go with the track Joker Lips. https://www.stereogum.com/2273699/mj-lenderman-joker-lips/music/

Tchotchke – “Did You Hear?” single Yiddish knickknack “chotchka”

The great blog Burning Wood sent me investigating the next band . https://burnwoodtonite.blogspot.com/2025/05/did-you-hear.html

Tchotchke is a the Los Angeles-bred, NYC-based trio of Anastasia Sanchez, Eva Chambers, and Emily Tooraen. They released a full length back in 2022 and have returned with this new gem. Don’t confuse them with tchotchkes which are of course knicknacks. If you have the inclination or the time, here’s a hour loop of music displaying some tchotchkes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xN0klyoFn0

Our version of Tchotchke is more fun. https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/tchotchke/exclusive-tchotchke-share-first-single-since-2022-listen-to-did-you-hear

Lemonheads – ‘Sad Cinderella’ – single

The Lemonheads are an American band formed in Boston in 1986 by Evan Dando. He is the only original member still in the band. This is apparently footage from their very first show in 1986. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuVwIbFv4pg

After their initial punk-influenced releases and tours in the late 1980s, the Lemonheads’ popularity with a mass audience grew in 1992 with the major label album It’s a Shame about Ray and their version of Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson.

Now in 2025, Dando has returned with a new single. I chose the flip side which is a Townes Van Zandt cover.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGb7xBGDZg4

A new album is just down the road. https://blurredculture.com/from-summer-school-to-the-deep-end-the-lemonheads-return-with-new-music-and-familiar-warmth/

Stereolab – “Aerial Troubles” – Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Stereolab are an Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group’s sound incorporates repetitive beats with the use of vintage electronic keyboards and female vocals sung in English and French, drawing influences from krautrock, funk, jazz, 1960s French pop and Brazilian music. Spin Magazine once said of Stereolab, “Stereolab are too pretentious to be cute too cute to be pretentious.” I ‘m gonna include my two fave tracks from the past.