1/18/26 New Noize on 92.9 KJEE Santa Barbara's Modern Rock
Song of the Week: Mitski "Where's My Phone?" Dead Oceans
Album of the Week: A$AP Rocky "Don't Be Dumb" RCA
Puscifer "ImpetuoUs"
Kim Gordon "NOT TODAY"
NOTHING "toothless coal"
Xiu Xiu "I Put a Spell on You"
sunn O))) "Glory Black"
Mitski "Where's My Phone?"
Band of Horses "Boat to Row"
A$AP Rocky (feat Westside Gunn & Damon Albarn) "WHISKEY (RELEASE ME)"
The Olympians "Strawberry Kiwi"
The Sha La Das "Young Love and Laughter"
The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis "Gestations"
Surfbort "Lucky"
Mute Swan "Phantasms of the Living"
waterbaby (feat. ttoh) "Memory Be a Blade"
Hour 2
Eric Hilton "The Dharma Lovers"
Jill Scott "Pressha"
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore "Perpetual Adoration"
Lamb of God "Into Oblivion"
Cryptic Shift "Hexagonal Eyes"
Converge "We Were Never the Same"
Arlo Parks "2SIDED"
Apparat "Hum Of Maybe"
Lava La Rue & Foster The People "JET LAGGED"
Disgusting Sisters "Calvin Klein"
Peaches "No Lube So Rude"
Fcukers "L.U.C.K.Y"
Jill Blutt "Nice2MeetU"
Lonely Bunker "Repeat"
image made by AI - ChatGPT
Not On Spotify:
Xiu Xiu "I Put a Spell on You"
After a crazy weekend in LA and MLK day you get the New Noize update on a Tuesday aka today. Lets get into it.
We’re only three weeks into 2026 and I’m already dangerously optimistic about how stacked this year is about to be. I had to cut down almost 45 minutes of music just to squeeze this into the 2-hour format. And yes I had two songs clocking in over the 10-minute mark, because of course I did.
Singles are raining from the sky right now, and where there are singles… there are promises of incoming albums. Sunn O))) “Glory Black” feels like a ritual and a warning shot at the same time and I cannot wait for whatever this duo is about to unleash via Sub Pop.
Band of Horses are back with “(Biding Time Is a) Boat to Row” and they just announced a tour that includes a stop at the Santa Barbara Bowl in June, which means: congrats to my wallet, it’s already stressed.
Fcukers are also warming up for a 2026 run and dropped “L.U.C.K.Y” to celebrate the announcement. Pure “we’re outside this year” energy.
And then there’s Kim Gordon. The pioneer. The visionary. The effortlessly stylish human moodboard. “NOT TODAY” is here, and yes: I’m a HUGE Kim Gordon fan. I will be completely unbearable once the full album drops. You’ve been warned.
The New Noize Song of the Week goes to Mitski with “Where’s My Phone?” It’s giving early era Mitski in the best way. Raw, sharp, immediate but we need more context to see what direction she’s taking this project. Her albums always have these conceptual components that reveal themselves track by track, record by record… and when she tours, she brings the whole world with her. The hype for this upcoming tour + the new material? I’m locked in. Oh and on this song she drops a MF DOOM bleep over a curse word not as censorship but as part of the song like DOOM would.
Album-wise, 2026 is already stacking up too. The Sha La Das dropped Your Picture and it feels like a Polaroid that’s been sun-faded for 30 years in the best possible way. Soul throwback grooves with echo filled harmonies will have you and your lover dancing on the hardwood.
And Xiu Xiu… look. Xiu Xiu records are always special. This band is ridiculous in all the right ways, and more people should absolutely dive into their catalog. Their latest release Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1 is a covers album that covers ALL the covers. Talking Heads, The Normal, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Throbbing Gristle, Roy Orbison, Soft Cell, Robyn, This Heat, GloRilla, Daniel Johnston, Coil… it’s chaos, it’s art, it’s therapy, it’s an exorcism
"Don't Be Dumb" is a mantra I live by and is also the New Noize Album of the Week by A$AP Rocky.
My guy executed this project flawlessly. It’s maximal, it’s cinematic, it’s weird in the right places, and it moves like a circus with A$AP as the ringmaster. The patience it took to build this era is insane. It took something like 5 months just to make the “Punk Rocky” video:
There is so much diverse talent on this and it all interweaves. Let's take Tim Burtons doing all the art, which A$AP uses in his music videos as avatars much like the Gorillaz, which he also has featured on this record with Griselda (WESTSIDE GUNN). The features are stacked, the talent is diverse, and somehow it all weaves together without losing Rocky’s identity. If anything, it enhances it. Getting Danny Elfman and Thundercat on a track is genuinely unhinged genius. I haven't even got to the Tyler feature plus so much more. You’d think a record with all this talent would eclipse the artist at the center but Rocky stays the main character the whole time.
In true New Noize (which happens on Sundays nights 9-11PM on 92.9 KJEE) fashion I played “WHISKEY (RELEASE ME)” and then the next day Rocky drops this:
My track record of pulling the best songs off new albums and then watching the artist/label push that exact track the next day has been a trend for me for 18 years. All my day ones know.
But do you know how you get paid for that skill?
