521Shows
27,885Spins
Wednesday, Mar 24 2021, 1AM
Bat for Lashes — aka Natasha Khan's cover of the Carpenter's classic, "We've Only Just Begun." "According to an Instagram post announcing the cover, Khan recorded her vocals and piano in Los Angeles during lockdown. The strings were arranged by Hugh Brunt and performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra. The track was co-produced by Khan and TJ Allen." bit.ly
The lead single from Lana's sixth studio album released earlier this month.
This track is perhaps Portishead’s most well-known and loved track to date, released in January 1995 as the third and final single for their debut album, 'Dummy'. "Glory Box" features samples from two songs: 'Ike’s Rap II' by Isaac Hayes, and the bassline from 'Daydream' by the Wallace Collection." Read more about "Glory Box" here: bit.ly
Bonus visual treat: Watch them perform this song Live At Roseland NY in 1998: youtu.be
Warpaint was the LA-based quartet's self-titled sophomore album. The band produced the record alongside Flood (U2, PJ Harvey) and it was mixed by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Paul McCartney, Beck). bit.ly
Annie Clark described this song as "blues for 2021," saying, "I feel like we live in a world where we're often asked to choose between surviving and dignity." Then added, "It's also about how there's nothing that I've done in my life that didn't involve some sort of struggle," she continued. "Some of those struggles are really worthy ones to have and something great can come of them." - bit.ly
Lee Hazlewood (the songwriter) intended to record the song himself, saying that "it's not really a girl's song", but Nancy Sinatra talked him out of it, saying that "coming from a guy it was harsh and abusive, but was perfect for a little girl to sing". bit.ly
Alfonso "Fonzi" Thornton's vocal credits can be found on the recordings of Aretha Franklin, Luther Vandross, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, Chic, Diana Ross, Garth Brooks, Ray Charles, Mariah Carey, Steely Dan, David Bowie, Robert Palmer, Patti Labelle, Al Jarreau, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Phoebe Snow, Bette Midler, Lady Gaga and many others.
'In Standard Definition’ is due to be released on April 23rd via Paper Bag Records. Art d’Ecco said of the release, "I was picturing this alt version of Saturday Night Fever where the lead is this aging loner obsessed with dance, who every weekend shows up at different clubs around town and just murders the dance floor, and then disappears out the back door. There is a person from my home town who sort of fits this description quite well. I think every scene has their own version of Random Dancing Dude.” bit.ly
Watch the trippy music video for "Meteorological" here: www.youtube.com
Posthumous record from Tony Allen featuring lots of current artists!
Dorothy Smith better known by her stage name Patra, is a Jamaican reggae/dancehall singer.
"Just Another Day..." is a single released from Queen Latifah's 1993 third studio album Black Reign. It tells the story of an average day in Latifah's neighborhood. The track contains uncredited samples of Herb Alpert's "Making Love in the Rain" and Slick Rick's "Hey Young World." bit.ly
From Arizona-based indie label Mello Music Group's new compilation album. Oddisee is a DC-born Brooklyn-based artist. Stereogum said he "remains one of indie-rap’s great secret weapons" bit.ly
Mette has been touring the world for five years as Pharrell's lead backup dancer. She told The Line of Best Fit, “I remember I heard a lot of “no”s when I was younger and I internalised a lot of that," she explains. "I now realise I’ve been hiding this dream for so long that it’s like, okay, we need to move forward in authenticity. Music is my first love - period.” bit.ly
‘Save A Kiss’ is the latest single from Jessie Ware's upcoming album ‘What’s Your Pleasure?’ In an interview with NME, Ware said of the track, “This song has taken on a new meaning during these weird times and it seems like the right time to put it out. This track is an optimistic one for me, I hope it resonates with people wherever they are right now. It’s an upbeat song to dance along too and have fun with. I know I’ve got plenty of kisses I’m saving up for everyone when this is all over.”
The album, "how im feeling now" is Charli XCX's fourth studio album. It was made in a "do-it-yourself" collaborative process with her fans in the span of six weeks.
Glasgow band CHVRCHΞS was formed by members Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty. Cook bought a Minimoog Voyager and began "playing around with soundscapes and stuff like that...kind of with a view of doing stuff from the '80s" and CHVRCHΞS was born. bit.ly
M83 is a French electronic music project. The band's sole official member is vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer Anthony Gonzalez.
Watch Kelly Lee Owens perform her track "Lucid" live on KEXP in 2018 here: www.youtube.com
Sign Here’ "is a cheeky and sarcastic celebration of consumerism,” Doohickey Cubicle told Atwood Magazine. “Realizing that you are deeply attached to our wonky consumerist society when you thought you weren’t. Needing more to feel enough and to keep up with the people around you. Every so often I sit back and wonder, how much of what I buy, for pleasure and necessity, is just emulating others? The song exaggerates and leans into the indulgence of it all, baby.” bit.ly
Over ‘I’m Holding Out For Something’s relentless juggernaut of 00’s Rn’B beats, Virginia Wing's Merida Richards examines the relentless hope and desperation glued to modern consciousness, and speaks of how we often find the answer, or the route through, right at the breaking point. virginiawingmusic.bandcamp.com
This record is Maria Minerva's (aka Maria Juur) first solo release in six years. "The LA-based Estonian producer came up with the hypnagogic pop scene surrounding the Californian Not Not Fun label in the early 2010s before moving further into a more synth and nu-disco sound." Read more: bit.ly
As the singer with Barcelona’s Latin Grammy-winning multi-fusion band, Ojos de Brujo, Marinah was known as Marina ‘La Canillas’ Abad. When the band called it a day in 2013, she streamlined her name and jumped straight into her solo adventure, unveiling her successful debut album, El Baile de las Horas, a celebratory coupling of flamenco to Latin grooves with the happy appropriation of electrotango and Cuban hip-hop.
Zimbabwean-born Australian singer-songwriter and rapper Tkay Maidza released this Pixies cover for "Bills & Aches & Blues," an upcoming compilation celebrating record label 4AD's 40th anniversary. The release will be dropped on April 2nd and will feature bands like Big Thief, Tune-Yards, Future Islands, Dry Cleaning, Jenny Hval, and many more.
White Flowers is made up of Joey Cobb and Katie Drew. Their debut album ‘Day By Day’ will be arriving on 7th May via Tough Love Records. “The songs on the album were written from when we were teenagers up to our early 20s, so it’s come of age in this weird apocalyptic time,” Katie told DIY.
“Everything’s surrounded by uncertainty, but it isn’t all doom and gloom, there are positives, rules are out the window and you can do what you want. There’s some hope in there.” bit.ly
The title never appears in the lyrics. An iceblink is a reflection of light off of large masses of ice, which can cause optical illusions in the sky.
"Since Yesterday" is a song performed by Scottish synth-pop duo Strawberry Switchblade, the lead single from their self-titled album. It became their only major hit.
Watch King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard live on KEXP here: www.youtube.com
TEKE::TEKE was first an homage to legendary Japanese guitarist Takeshi ‘Terry’ Terauchi and has quickly evolved into a band of its own by blending Japanese ‘Eleki’ with elements of modern music such as shoegaze, post-rock and noise.
teketekeband.bandcamp.com
"It’s time to zoom out," the band told The FADER. "The picture is widening. As the image focuses, you begin to see the filth that lines its margins.” bit.ly
This "track was used effectively in the first three films in the Scream movie franchise, in an episode of The X-Files, and, well, in the movie Dumb & Dumber, which is scary in a different way. (Founding and former Bad Seeds member Mick Harvey told the NY Post, “That happened quite by accident... I’m not sure we would have wanted it in a film like that, but there you go!”) Most recently, the song has been the opening theme to the BBC crime show Peaky Blinders...." Read KEXP's discussion of this eerie tune: www.kexp.org
Pitchfork says, "The same Cave who has so naturally assumed the vantage point of murderers and outcasts now delivers an apocalyptic word association poem, seemingly inspired by George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” and last year’s protests around the death of George Floyd; the result feels unsettled, confrontational, and antagonistic." bit.ly
Garbage was formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1993. Their debut album sold over 4 million copies.
Toronto new wave group, Metric self-released their album 'Fantasies'. Tracks from the album have been featured in several tv shows including Grey's Anatomy, Entourage, and The Vampire Diaries. bit.ly
LP releases March 26, 2021! In the meantime, you can pre-order: antonioni.bandcamp.com
Foals' debut album 'Antidotes' came out this day 13 years ago. It was recorded in many unorthodox ways, including the drums being recorded in alleyways on cassette tape recorders.
In 2010, rapper Azealia Banks covered 'Slow Hands' and released it on YouTube.
IDLES have unveiled their thunderous cover of Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Peace Signs’ and it's a powerful take on Van Etten's original - bit.ly
IDLES sharing songs recorded exclusively for KEXP from Abbey Road Studios: www.youtube.com
Magazine were an English post-punk band formed by former Buzzcocks member Howard Devoto in 1977.
ESG (Emerald Sapphire & Gold) is an American funk rock band formed in the South Bronx in 1978. The band's track "UFO" is one of the most sampled songs in history. bit.ly
'Jump (for My Love)' was and international hit for Grammy winning R&B group the Pointer Sisters. It was also an international hit for English-Irish group Girls Aloud in 2003.
'Jump Around' is widely regarded as a club classic. Producer DJ Muggs has stated that he originally produced the beat for Cypress Hill, but rapper B-Real did not want to record at that time. It was subsequently offered to Ice Cube, who refused it, before finally being taken and used by House of Pain. Their loss! bit.ly
“Keep Moving” is the first single off of the just announced, and hotly anticipated, forthcoming record from the British songwriting and production duo. NME dives deep into the evolution of the band since their beginnings in 2013, and one half of the duo Thomas McFarland noted that this album “feels like what we’ve always had in our heads. If you go back and compare it to the first record, they feel smaller and more introverted. This feels like a whole new level.” Read the whole article here: www.nme.com
"Formed from the ashes of psychedelic pop experimentalists, Simian, James Ford and Jas Shaw have been recording and performing as Simian Mobile Disco / SMD for over ten years and five studio albums."
simianmobiledisco.bandcamp.com
Ora The Molecule is the musical moniker of Norwegian-born avant-pop artist Nora Schjelderup. Per their Facebook page -- "for Schjelderup, life has always been about observation and finding one's purpose in the community at large. She is the molecule personified: the smallest bit of matter that retains its own identity while being part of something greater. This keen sense of inspection and willingness to surrender to feelings of wide-eyed wonder guided Schjelderup from her childhood to the release of her debut album, Human Safari."
Check them out here: www.orathemolecule.com
Cover of the Birthday Party! Released as part of 4AD's Bills & Aches & Blues compilation.
'If We Don't Make It' is part of UNKLE's upcoming mixtape Rōnin I. James Lavelle says of the project, "Rōnin was an idea that started in lockdown back in June 2020 where Steven (Weston) and I started doing some remixes for a new set we thought we would be playing later in the year. As the lockdown continued and any hope of live shows disappeared, we decided to work on it as a mixtape where we could create an hours worth of new remixes and incorporate brand new tracks in the spirit of a new live show, but give it a proper release due to the circumstances." Read more: bit.ly
Brooklyn funk group Crown Heights Affair were originally known as Ben Iverson and the Nue Dey Express before being renamed after a neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Margino (aka Kim Kallie) is a South African artist who did vocals with reggae group Kariba and jazz rock outfit Turbo in the early 80s, and later did backing vocals for Future. She now operates a performance academy in Cape Town.
In a statement, Sofia Kourtesis said “By Your Side” “is about having someone there when you need it most… For me it’s one of those sounds that soundtracks the final few moments of daylight.” The project is named after her mother whom she says has spent her life “[fighting] hard for the people of Magdalena, Peru.” Read more: bit.ly
"Indian Yard" is the debut record from Sitka, Alaska project Ya Tseen. The project's founder is artist Nicholas Galanin, one of the most vital voices in contemporary art. Born in Sheet’ka (Sitka, Alaska), Galanin is Tlingit and Unangax̂; he creates from his perspective as an Indigenous man.: megamart.subpop.com
comprising ex-Secret Machines guitarist Ben Curtis and twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza of On!Air!Library
