Song of the Day: Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - Holy Roller

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 selection, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Holy Roller” by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down from their upcoming 2013 LP, We the Common, on Ribbon Music.

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - Holy Roller (MP3)

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down are a San Francisco based folk pop band based around the singing and songwriting of Thao Nguyen. Nguyen's ear for spare but powerful arrangements, based usually around her emphatic guitar work, her honest, often sexual lyrics and the experimental psychedelic tinge that pervades her songs make any album these guys put out worth adding to your collection. "Holy Roller" is no exception -- the plinking banjo and fuzzy guitars conceal a sophisticated composition with a veneer of danceable surf folk. She has been pretty busy lately playing with some of the brightest in sound and vision today -- she was in town over the summer touring with the Radiolab live show, Radiolab Live: In the Dark, providing music for their choreographed sequences, and on her upcoming album she has a song featuring Joanna Newsom. Thao & The Get Down Stay Down has signed with Ribbon Music to release We the Common on February 5, 2013 -- and today's featured song, "Holy Roller," is the first single from that upcoming release.