Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005; it was their seventh album. And I remember when that album came out, how it felt like they were suddenly everywhere. And the breakout song from that breakout album was “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games.” And so, for this episode, I spoke to Kevin Barnes about how that song came together, and what it meant to them then, and what it means to them now.

For more info, visit songexploder.net/of-montreal.

Key Change is a new conversation series within Song Exploder, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that's transformed them.

My first guest is Sophie Thatcher, an actor and musician whose credits include starring in the TV show Yellowjackets, the film Heretic, and the new movie Companion. I met Sophie through Companion, because I composed the score to the film, and she contributes vocals to a few of the tracks I wrote. For this episode, we discussed how "Waltz #1" by Elliott Smith shaped Sophie's tastes and work.

For more, visit songexploder.net/keychange.

You can listen to "Waltz #1" by Elliott Smith here.

Yola is a singer/songwriter and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for 4 Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana Album, and Rolling Stone named it one of the best country albums of the year. But the thing is, Yola’s music career wasn’t new, and her background wasn’t in country music. She’s from Bristol in the UK, and starting back in the early 2000s, she was a vocalist recording tracks for DJs and electronic music producers. In January 2025, Yola put out an EP called My Way. And as you’ll hear her explain in this episode, a lot of her new music is motivated by wanting to assert her identity beyond the Americana and country music boundaries. In addition to her music, she’s also acting – she played Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 2022 film Elvis, and she starred on Broadway in the musical Hadestown. For this episode, I talked to Yola about her song “Symphony,” along with co-writer and co-producer Sean Douglas. Yola and Sean trace the journey of the song “Symphony,” and, along with it, Yola traces her own journey, too.

For more info, visit songexploder.net/yola.