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Monday, Jan 11 2021, 7AM
According to the REM Project Blog, the term 'king of birds' is a Mayan folk legend where the quetzal is chosen to be king. He does so with deception and then arrogance. The roadrunner had helped him with plumage and was repaid with nothing, as the quetzal left the roadrunner naked and alone. Read more: tinyurl.com
Darkside are back. Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington have shared “Liberty Bell,” their first new song in years off their upcoming album "Spiral". In a press release, the duo said they started writing together again in 2018. Read more, and find links to their recently released live album, on Pitchfork: Thttps://tinyurl.com/y4prpcdq
Enjoy their live 2013 KEXP performance here: youtu.be
Matthew Dear performed a guest DJ mix for KEXP's Midnight in a Perfect World back in 2020 -- He had these words to share about his mix:
"This mix was made during an unprecedented time in all of our lives. On one hand, it's the furthest thing from importance. I put it together between trips to the pharmacy and grocery store to make sure I had provisions to last my family for some time. On the other hand, it's a commitment to my craft, and following through on a promise to share a mix for the Midnight In A Perfect World series. Ultimately I hope this music can, if only for a short moment, make you feel like you are in a more perfect world."
Check it out at KEXP.org: tinyurl.com
Jamie xx's first solo album was composed over a five-year period, and features guest vocals from Romy and Oliver Sim from The xx, as well as from Young Thug and Popcaan. The album topped the Dance/Electronic charts in the US!
Cheryl Waters hosted The xx Live in the KEXP Studio in April 2017: tinyurl.com
Famed engineer Dave Bascombe co-produced 1987's "Music for the Masses", stepping in for Daniel Miller. He talked to Paul Sinclair at Super Deluxe Editions about the making of that album, including anecdotes about the band's samples -- this track uses a pneumatic coach door shutting as a high-hat! tinyurl.com
into a new frontier
until the new frontier
magnificent dawn
DJ and producer Erik Blood released this track with lyrics and vocals by Irene Barber from Hotels!
erikblood.bandcamp.com
Happy birthday to Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers!
Norwegian singer-songwriter and producer AURORA provided the vocals for this track. In a press release, The Chemical Brothers wrote: "AURORA really made this by coming up with these amazing images. Sonics-wise, there are a lot of ideas and a lot of movement... It’s a rolling psychedelic journey, for want of a better word." Read more: tinyurl.com
Cheryl Waters hosted AURORA Live in the KEXP Studio in February 2019: youtu.be
The "After Dark" compilations drop every seven years from Italians Do It Better Music on their After Dark label; Club Intl performed this live for the After Dark 3 Premiere, check out the video here: youtu.be
Learn more about the compilation with artists including Chromatics, Pink Gloves, and Joon here: tinyurl.com
By request!
Chris in DC writes: "Long time listener who was in the Capitol last Wednesday. Any chance you can fit in maybe 'All you fascists' from the Woody Guthrie/Billy Bragg/Wilco Mermaid Avenue or something similar!? Love your work, and remember you are not alone either!!"
Nance writes: "Morning. Welcome back. I am back in the classroom today as well. All three grades. Five days a week. Will miss having KEXP on all day in my home classroom. Not sure what song will help but will second the All you Fascists request. ❤️"
“This machine kills fascists” was emblazoned on folk singer Woody Guthrie’s guitar, and he used his weapon of choice to compose timely songs of protest, which still remain relevant. One of those tunes is “All You Fascists Bound To Lose” which Guthrie wrote in 1942.
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Rhiannon Giddens from the Carolina Chocolate Drops sings and plays fiddle with the Resistance Revival Chorus, an activist and musical group that formed out of the 2017 Women’s March-- video here: youtu.be
www.resistancerevivalchorus.com
“I was so excited to get to work on this project as I’ve always been a big fan of Brittany’s music,” Kiwanuka said in a statement. “Knowing this particular track and being such a fan of her voice, I wanted to not meddle with her voice, and then to make it front and center. She sounds so victorious when she sings and speaks, so the music I made was governed by that.” - bit.ly
"My songs were being 'synced' to things like the James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro. I started to learn more about Baldwin's life and artistry, and also really got into the work of Gordon Parks - his movies but also his photography around the Civil Rights Movement, his portraits of poor black families in the south. And when I started reading up on Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers, it helped unlock the lyrics to 'Hero,' which I'd be done a year earlier but couldn't get any further than the chorus. But thinking about Fred and the movement, the lyrics just poured out of me." - Michael Kiwanuka in an interview to Mojo magazine
From mystery collective SAULT's second great album of 2020 - "a sublime, soul-affirming masterpiece of transcendent musical power" - there are "moments... when you realize, in the middle of the fast and hard-driving “I Just Want to Dance,” that the lyrics have moved abruptly from dancefloor-loving lines like the title to “We lost another life” to “Why do my people always die?”
-- saultglobal.bandcamp.com
Hey John! I hope you had a great vacation, I'm excited to hear you back on air!
I wanted to pass along my new single: “Booby Trap” featuring the late, great Murder Dice. I actually played it for the first time on Lawn in the Morning!
Aaron Greene (aka Murder Dice) passed away around a year ago. He was my bandmate in “Slow Dance” and one of my best friends. Needless to say, it’s been really tough. One of the ways I’ve been dealing with the grief is by sampling old lyrics of his and building beats around them. In a way, it feels like we’re still making music together.
For this track, I sampled one of my favorite lyrics of his: “Growing old is a booby trap”. I combined it with catchy pianos, glorious horns, and funky synths. It was released on Murder Dice’s birthday, January 9th. The cover is a picture from our last performance together, at Neumos for Capitol Hill Block Party. It’s my first proper single since Dunk Reactions (One of KEXP’s Top 10 Albums of 2019!).
I hope you like it!
- Rudy
Spotify Link:
open.spotify.com
By listener request!
On the story behind this song from bassist Colin Moulding: “There were Nigels about. Some of them were quiet types. Bullied, perhaps. I guess I was writing a song for the bullied.” | bit.ly
Kris writes from a cabin outside of Edmonton: "Welcome back John! My wife Melanie would love to hear Cocteau Twins or Kate Bush, if you feel like it :) Thanks!"
To celebrate what would have been David Bowie’s 74th birthday (Jan. 8), Rhino Records has packaged two previously unheard studio covers as a limited edition 7-inch single.The newly unearthed recordings can also be streamed online, and they showcase Bowie versions of Bob Dylan’s “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” and John Lennon’s “Mother” (the latter was a part of an entire tribute LP to the Beatle, which was later scrapped).Both recordings date back to 1998 but never seemed to reach the light of day, until now.
The recording of Lennon’s “Mother” was made in 1998 alongside longtime producer Tony Visconti for a Lennon tribute album that was abandoned.
Author and academic Nick Bromell says in his book on rock and psychedelics in the 1960s that "I Want To Tell You" is one of the first examples of pop music "giving voice to the complexities of the breakthrough experience" afforded by LSD and other psychedelic drugs.
The Avalanches very recently were the guest DJ on Midnight in a Perfect World. Check out the archived show details here: www.kexp.org
The Avalanches' Robbie Chater says of the new album: “With this album, we got to have this experience with these amazing people – heroes of ours...– days of laughing and making music. It doesn’t matter what happens with this record once it’s released because we had a great f**king time making it.”: faroutmagazine.co.uk
Paris-bred producer Jean Christophe La-Saout (Wax Tailor) with Mark Lanegan from Queens of the Stone Age and Screaming Trees! Check out the video: youtu.be
Check out the video featuring the rock band's signature animated avatars exploring space in a flying RV while The Cure's Robert Smith appears via his face superimposed on the moon and a passing satellite.: www.youtube.com
By request! "The atmospheric river has arrived at my house in kent. Can you play Here comes the rain again by the Eurythmics?" -- Megan in Kent
Dave Stewart explains that he and Annie Lennox wrote this song when they were staying at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City.: "I'd been out on 46th Street and bought an early Casio keyboard,...I kept on playing this riff, and Annie was looking out the window at the slate grey sky above the New York skyline and just sang spontaneously, 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' And that was all we needed." youtu.be
This song by Malian rock band Songhoy Blues was a KEXP Song Of The Day back in September. Subscribe and download for free here:
www.kexp.org
Throwback time! Firewater, who rose to prominence in the 90s for integrating world music sounds with punk attitude, passed through KEXP in 2012. The studio was smaller then, but it had no limit on the band's energetic performance. Travel back here: bit.ly
By request! "Thanks for playing the Beatles. I can only imagine what John Lennon and Joe Strummer would say about last week. Can you play the Clash? Thanks,
Stacey"
Good Morning, John. Would you play one of your favorites songs from the year 1989? I remember 1989 being filled with music that I loved from a variety of genres so it sticks out in my brain. It was the year I fell in love with music.
-Brian
Fine Young Cannibals came together after the dissolution of The Beat -- Andy Cox and Roland Gift formed the group with Roland Gift from another British ska band, Akryllykz -- who had previously supported The Beat on tour.
Formed out of the ashes of Bauhaus in 1985 by former members Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins. The band's name was taken from the comic book series Love and Rockets by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. More: bit.ly
On Friday, August 26th, 2016, KEXP dedicated 12 hours to celebrating De La Soul's classic 1989 debut album 3 Feet High and Rising. Look back on the highlights here: www.kexp.org
This track was co-written and produced by Rick Rubin; Rubin created the concept based on his ambivalence about moving from NYC to LA. Read more at The Argonaut: tinyurl.com
Seattle band Polyrhythmics released their Fondue Party EP in December (of the recently departed year 2020), hot on the heels of their "Man From the Future" full length. You can pick it up at polyrhythmics.bandcamp.com
Aaron Frazer from Durand Jones & The Indications has used music to call attention to issues of inequity and injustice, while highlighting the work of organizations like the Poor People’s Campaign. “It’s important ethically to try to use music for good. If you have something to say politically, don’t hide it until it’s asked about.”
Read more from Aaron Frazer: aaronfrazermusic.com
Rolling Stone described this essential classic as #161of its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time":
'Originally a rootsy Dylan hommage, the song evolved into a proto-punk classic steeped in New York grit. The Velvets mixed R&B rhythm-guitar workout, blues-piano stomp and dreamy art drone, as Reed deadpans a story about scoring $26 worth of heroin in Harlem. "Everything about that song holds true," said Reed, "except the price."'
tinyurl.com
New track from Shame! shame.world
Kevin Cole hosted Shame Live in the KEXP Studio in October 2018 -- check it out! bit.ly
The initial sessions for the record were done with producer Gil Norton (Pixies – ‘Doolittle’) but were scrapped by the band as they felt that the output sounded “too pretentious”. The group then teamed up with Gordon Raphael who they met at one of their live shows six months earlier; read more at NME: tinyurl.com
Cheryl Waters hosted The Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr Live in the KEXP Studio in April 2018 -- you can watch his whole performance here: youtu.be
The West Yorkshire teen quartet said, “‘Burn the Heather’ is a song deeply rooted in where we come from. The lyrics are our interpretation of some of the darker aspects of where we live, and our personal reaction to them. Musically, ‘Burn the Heather’ is intended to be an adrenaline shot to the brain." - bit.ly
The line, 'and her Walkman started to melt',' is often changed by Morrissey in live performances, to the more technologically current 'and her iPod started to melt.' bit.ly
The third album by The Pretenders was released in 1984, after a hiatus that two of the band members died of drug overdoses (James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon). The title of this album came from Chrissie Hynde's then-infant daughter, who was learning to crawl while the band worked on this album.
By request from so many!
This highly relevant song was a single by funk band The Honey Drippers, written and produced by Roy Charles Hammond, known as Roy C. It has been sampled (as you might guess) many times.: www.inc.com
There has to be at least 50 songs that have sampled 'Impeach the President' by The Honey Drippers. Check out the list here: en.wikipedia.org
Cheryl Waters was the online host for Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, and Alan Wyffels as they performed "Jason" and other songs from their California home last June, as part of KEXP's Live at Home experiences: youtu.be.