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 featured selection, chosen by Midday Show host Cheryl Waters, is Coleen
by The Heavy from the 2008 album Great Vengeance and Furious Fire on Counter Records.
The Heavy come from a little town called Noid just outside of Bath in England yet their debut oozes with the confidence of an established London or NYC outfit. This, their first long player, was preceded by a number of singles, all released on the Ninja Tune-affiliated Counter Records. Here, the band’s attention to soul and funk is equally matched by their love for hip-hop beats and sleazy, lo-fi garage rock, procuring for themselves a sound all their own. Above the smartly produced and fuzzed-out instrumentation lay the infectious vocals. Sounding an awful lot like Curtis Mayfield, Kelvin Swaby’s falsetto is perfectly matched to these tracks — all largely about the bedroom side of love. They don’t pretend to hide it either. There’s good reason why these sweaty psych-rockers were chosen to be part of Playboy’s 2008 Rock the Rabbit shenanigans. Since Coleen
is one of their sparer tracks, be sure to check out their MySpace page to get the full picture. Or, you could do worse than to start with this video for That Kind of Man
:
