I used to listen to longtime Canadian music broadcaster Laurie Brown’s CBC Radio 2 show, The Signal until she left it in 2017 after ten years of playing progressive and eclectic music on late-evening radio. CBC filled her spot with Afterdark, a more extended program hosted by entertainer Odario Williams, who was born in Guyana and raised in Winnipeg, Canada. I stopped watching The Signal’s Facebook page for a while as it was full of serial complainers, endlessly lamenting the fact that Williams’ program wasn’t a carbon copy of Brown’s. I get that people missed their decade-long love affair with Brown, but it was quite tiresome.
I haven’t really followed Brown’s next project, an Internet-based program called Pondercast, which she runs under a crowdfunding model. The programs feature a lot of spoken word by Brown, surrounded by music, particularly the ambient-style music of a frequent collaborator, Joshua Van Tassel (who composed a neat instrumental called “Daniel Craig”). I should revisit the program and listen in again.
Agnes Obel is an Danish artist I learned of through The Signal. I’ve heard her on BBC 6 Music as well. But what would Odario play? (Okay, I’ll admit, familiar is good.)
I don’t know Obel’s music very well but like the dreamy sounds. Today’s song comes from her 2016 album, Citizen of Glass.
Now you know a little about why this is my song of the day for today. Thanks for joining me here, and please enjoy.
Here’s a video of Obel performing her song, “Familiar” on KCRW Log Angeles, a National Public Radio station.
