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Thursday, Mar 14 2024, 4PM
A Swedish electronic music duo from Gothenburg, The Knife formed in 1999. The group consists of siblings Karin and Olof Dreijer, who together also run their own record company, Rabid Records.
The Knife rarely cooperated with the media or the mainstream music scene. Until 2005, they did not perform live concerts. The group rarely made public appearances; most of their promotional photos featured the members wearing masks with birds' beaks, similar to the traditional Venetian Medico Della Peste (plague doctor) masks worn during Carnival.
The Knife won the Swedish Grammis award for Pop Group of the Year in 2003, but they boycotted the ceremony by sending two representatives of the Guerrilla Girls, with the number 50 written on their costumes, as a protest against male dominance in the music industry. tinyurl.com
This song was inspired by the city of Paris, where drivers (the sardines) ride around in little cars (the tin boxes). The altered spelling of the title is meant to give the feeling of compressed space.
The first track on Amnesiac, this song is typical of Radiohead's style, with prominent basslines, heavily produced vocals and programmed drums.
Radiohead drummer Phil Selway played kitchen pots in the intro to this song. tinyurl.com
"The third album from the all woman African supergroup is an irresistible fusion of synth pop, Afrobeats, trap, and hip hop. Beautifully sung in a wide range of West African languages with gorgeous harmonies, the collective addresses universal themes of women’s rights and freedom of expression throughout Musow Danse, serving as yet another reminder of how music connects us all."
Read more KEXP reviews like this one from our music director, Chris Sanley, here: tinyurl.com
While debut The Overload took shape during lockdown, Where’s My Utopia? was written deep into an 18-month tour. Surprisingly, it became a more insular record.
"Being a helpless observer manifested itself into the first album," Smith says. "This time we’d turn on the news in a different country and realise we couldn’t understand it anyway. So you tune out, get detached, and live in your own weird world."
There was also the small matter of everyone being in the same room together, rather than trading audio clips via Whatsapp. "This time, me, Sam and Jay got so in each other’s pockets with playing. We just know intuitively what we’re all trying to do." Finishing each other’s sentences? "Yeah! But with a bass guitar." tinyurl.com
Oakland-based Souls of Mischief (rappers A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Taja) sampled the hook from Billy Cobham's 1974 "Heather." They also sampled the drums from Graham Central Stations' "The Jam" and from "Chinese Chicken" from Duke Williams and the Extremes.
It was just announced that Souls of Mischief have finally earned a gold plaque, as the foursome's 1993 single "'93 'Til Infinity" was certified gold by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) on Dec. 6. (thirty years after its release): tinyurl.com
New single from this Brooklyn-based trio from Lima, Perú.
"Poco Tiempo," which means "little time" in Spanish, is a smooth tropical pop track with a dark edge that addresses the myriad unattainable standards placed on women in patriarchal society.
Speaking in the voice of society, one of the verses implores: "Tienes hijos, tienes plata, eres sexy, eres guapa? Tienes chico, un esposo? Ahora tienes, poco tiempo" [Do you have kids, do you have money, are you sexy, are you pretty? Do you have a boyfriend, a husband? Now you have so little time]
The chorus rebuffs these constraining narratives with a liberatory message: "Yo no quiero ser la mala, solo quiero una vida libre" [I don’t want to be a bad woman, I just want to live a free life]. tinyurl.com
Alicia Bognanno reveals, "The song was originally recorded with a drum machine and electric guitar; it was also quite a bit faster. When I played the demo for JT Daly (producer), he had the idea of moving it to the piano.
"I remember saying out loud, ‘Can you believe I’m trusting anybody like this?’ We both started laughing because starting off as someone who used to record, mix, and produce their own records to avoid the vulnerability that comes with working out creative ideas in the company of others, it was a huge step for me. That was our first real bonding moment, acknowledging that we were mutually up for trying new things and seeing each other’s ideas through before one of us shut it down." tinyurl.com
Madi Diaz will perform at Madame Lou's in Seattle on March 26! If you can't make the Seattle show, Madi will be in Vancouver, BC at the Fox Cabaret on March 25 AND in Portland, OR at The Get Down on March 27. Get your tickets here: tinyurl.com
“’Everything Almost’ is about my constant wondering within a relationship,” Diaz shares.
"How much should I be saying things out loud or am I saying too much out loud? What should I keep for myself? What’s mine that could become ours, that should become ours? What dreams are just mine that I could share with you only to discover they’re your dreams too? It’s an investigation of the depth of how far this thing could go. Am I allowed to keep some of me for me? Saying all of this out loud feels important. It is about realizing I can’t ever be everything for someone but maybe I can be almost everything."
Deep Sea Diver will be performing in the PNW this spring. You can catch a show at
Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena on May 28 & May 30. If you can't make the Climate Pledge shows, you can catch Deep Sea Diver @ Moda Center in Portland, OR on May 10. You can also catch DSD in Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena on May 4 & May 6! tinyurl.com
This record was written after Jessica Dobson's experience with depression. She spoke with Emily Fox for KEXPs Sound & Vision about her journey on the album. Read/listen here: tinyurl.com
Originally recorded by the music-theatre company Operating Theatre, the single originally came out in 1986.
This cover includes background vocals by True Blue, the solo project of Maya Laner. tinyurl.com | tinyurl.com
Catch Polachek's June 2023 Live on KEXP In-Studio performance with DJ Kevin Cole hosting here: tinyurl.com
The second full-length album from Toronto-based electronic producer, singer, and songwriter Katie McBride.
McBride began as a trumpeter, picking up the instrument in 5th grade band class and eventually attending Humber College, where she studied jazz and composition. After graduation, she turned to writing and recording music for herself.
She soon became obsessed with Ableton, finding it to be an instrument without limitations, and her passion for digital creation bloomed, eventually branching into photography, video, and artwork. tinyurl.com
www.katiemcbride.net katiemcbride.bandcamp.com
Katie McBride’s biography as an artist traces a winding path. She played and practiced the trumpet intensively while growing up in Toronto, eventually attending Humber College in the city, where she studied jazz and composition. After finishing school, she dabbled in scoring for film and television. But finding her life upended by a difficult breakup, she soon turned to writing and recording music for herself as a way to process difficult experiences.
Inspired by artists like Bjork, Enya, J Dilla, and Aphex Twin, her forays into laptop production eventually yielded As Real as Anything Else, which McBride recorded and produced primarily at her Toronto home, with contributions by fellow Toronto-based producer Joe Manzoli (DJ Planet Express, Ginla, VTX). tinyurl.com
The moody and bittersweet music video for "Mistaken for Strangers" was filmed in Matt Berninger and wife Carin Besser's Brooklyn apartment, and was released in May 2007.
The video was directed by Thread-Count, a collaboration between Berninger's brother Tom, Ryer Banta, and Hope Hall.
In a June 2007 interview with The Scenestar, Matt Berninger explained the video as "very low-budget, without any narrative. No applied story to it. We're really happy with it. That kind of stuff, when it comes to videos, we'd much rather be cinéma vérité and just shooting the band as the band. Not the band on a desert or on a spaceship. That's usually more interesting I think." tinyurl.com
IDLES will bring their World Tour 2024 to The Paramount Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 7th and 8th! www.idlesband.com
idlesband.bandcamp.com
Released as the lead single from Idles' fifth album, Tangk, "Dancer" is the violence that comes from the pounding heart of the dancefloor," said vocalist Joe Talbot, "and rushes through your body and gives you life from music, from love and from you." tinyurl.com
A wee spotlight on Nancy Whang, synthesizer and keyboard player/vocalist in LCD Soundsystem and The Juan MacLean, in addition to numerous other musical collaborations.
Whang shares, "I often get asked the question, 'What is it like being an Asian-American female in the music world?' or 'The only female in an all-male band,' or 'The only Asian person in an all-white band,' or any variation of that.
"Honestly, I don’t know what it’s like. I know how I feel being me, but as far as the other stuff goes, I don’t know. I had this conversation with someone recently, and I couldn’t believe this was the first time that someone said this back to me, but growing up in Beaverton, it is very fucking white. You look around and it is all white people, and you assume that what you see, you are also. You don’t think about your 'otherness,' because there’s nothing there to remind you, except for people pointing it out to you." tinyurl.com
"There’s so much criticism of like Gen Z and millennials from older generations about how we’re spending our time and the kind of things we value," says Cambridge native Genevieve Glynn-Reeves, who with her four bandmates — guitarists Sean Sloan and Jake Jones, bass player Jay Humphreys and drummer Evan Reeves — turn the tables on the naysayers on their debut album Anti-Fun Propaganda.
Through tracks like “Kids Wanna Dance” and “That’s Enough Internet for Today,” Gen and the Degenerates dissect the youth experience under the Internet bubble, where every momentary mistake and mishap is fed into an algorithm and archived in the cloud somewhere.
That’s disconcerting for Glynn-Reeves, who notes her dislike for permanance: "I don’t even write the lyrics for my songs down. If they aren’t good enough to be remembered, they probably should be forgotten." tinyurl.com
Gustaf will be here in Seattle, playing the Belltown Bloom on Saturday and Sunday, May 4th and 5th.
Brooklyn-based Gustaf is Lydia Gammill, Tine Hill, Vram Kherlopian, Melissa Lucciola and Tarra Thiessen, and Package Pt. 2 is their sophomore album.
"Starting and Staring" is accompanied by an Alex Ross Perry-directed video of the band performing at an intimate house party, with frontperson Gammil's intensity in full-force as she commands the camera to maintain eye contact: tinyurl.com
Happy Birthday to Mike Muir, who was born on this day in 1963!
This track was written by Suicidal Tendencies lead singer Muir, who shares, "Not to use the Shrek onion layer analogy, but there's a lot of different levels to it. For one, it was stuff that had happened specifically to a couple of friends of mine. And then at the time there were a lot of those - I don't know what they call them - those boot camp things where parents would get their kids taken at 4 in the morning and send them off to these camps in Arizona or Idaho or wherever.
"The way I look at it and what I thought was, here are people that were parents for 14 or 15 years, they can't brag about their kids at a party so there must be something wrong with the kid. Then they send them off and stuff.
"They used to have commercials: 'Does your kid get angry when things don't go their way? Do they do this and that? If you answer yes to three or more of these, they might have a drug or alcohol problem. And you're not alone, we can help.' And I'm sitting there going, Dude, I've never done drugs, I don't drink, and yeah, I get angry when things don't go my way. It's called being human. I'm not a machine. I think it made an easy scapegoat for kids to be the problem. I think a lot of times it was lack of parental skills and time. It happens and it's a timeless thing, there will always be that generational gap, so to speak." tinyurl.com
Davis turns their vibrant creativity and seemingly-limitless talent to share all they’ve endured -- from discrimination as a Black, non-binary, blind musician, to traumatic family experiences touching on abuse, gun violence, and the prison system -- as a means to honor how much they’ve already overcome and risen above.
"As a blind person I've never had an actual visual experience, sound is the way I've always seen the world."
It's from this perspective that Seattle's rising star Brittany Davis invites us to see life from their unique, underrepresented lens on Image Issues; a deeply candid and profoundly curated 'audio movie' serving as Davis' debut full-length project out via Pearl Jam founder Stone Gossard’s Loosegroove Records. tinyurl.com
Celebrating Michael Bland, drummer of The New Power Generation, Nick Jonas & the Administration, Dr. Mambo's Combo, and Soul Asylum, who was born on this day in 1969!
"Sexy MF" is a song by American musician Prince and the New Power Generation, released as a single from their 1992 album Love Symbol.
The music and most of the lyrics were composed by Prince, while Levi Seacer Jr. came up with the chorus and the song's title. Tony M. also delivers a rap, which he wrote.
The song and its refrain "You sexy motherfucker" caused some controversy, and edited versions were produced for radio, the music video and the US version of the album. It was recorded in Paisley Park's Studio A in December 1991. tinyurl.com
Wonder 45 are a London-based soul ensemble, formed as an instrumental recording project by producer/writer Holley Gray.
Collaborating with guitarist Ross Ewart, drummer Chris Nickolls, and keys player Steve Pringle, Wonder 45 are committed to writing and recording authentic soul music from their suburban London base.
The band came into their own when they linked up with singer/songwriters Jess Greenfield and Gavin Conder, (who as The Kondoors, were described by Blues Matters’ as a “slick and stylish group oozing with class”) to add the top line vocal melodies that bring the songs to life. tinyurl.com
Catch mega cat at the Treefort Music Festival on Saturday, March 23! tinyurl.com
mega cat was first discovered in a basement home studio in the Central District of Seattle, Washington by audio chemists Aaron Benson (drums, percussion, guitar) Kim West (synthesizer, piano) and Ryan Devlin (bass, guitar). tinyurl.com
This track from local band mega cat features trombonist Jason Cressey and trumpeter Bill Jones soloing atop a slippery groove full of slinky synthesizers, all fortified by the strong saxophone work of Peter Daniel. With a big descending riff sliding into a spacious terrain, the song is an homage of sorts to Herbie Hancock’s 1973 lizard inspired classic Chameleon.
Machinedrum, the long-running project of producer Travis Stewart, has announced a new album called 3FOR82.
The album’s title is a play on his birthday (3/4/82)! It’s his first full-length since 2020’s A View Of U, and he put it together on a trip to Joshua Tree.
"I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and I’ve always felt a great sense of clarity every time I visit," he said. "And I knew that I should, at some point in my life, go out there to work on something creatively." tinyurl.com
This track uses a sample from "Gucci Again" by rapper Schoolly D, which appeared on his 1989 album Am I Black Enough For You?. The drums are sampled from "Changes" by Bernard Purdie and 1969's "Got Myself a Good Man"by Pucho & the Latin Soul Brothers.
This won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, which was surprising because the song does contain vocals and was not a hit in the United States. tinyurl.com
A kaleidoscopic sonic riot, Nandakke? is the hotly anticipated debut album from Japanese-Belgian duo Aili, composed of members Aili Maruyama and Orson Wouters.
Recorded over the course of six months in Orson's studio, packed full of vintage synths, Nandakke? captures the spontaneous spirit and creativity of those sessions.
"I thought that I was done with that after our debut EP, but apparently not as I speak even more Japanese on the album!" said Maruyama. "Every time we were in the studio these words would just tumble out. It's a complicated language but I just love to play with it.
"In many ways I'm an outsider, I left Tokyo aged 7, so there's a lot I notice as someone who is not a native speaker and it doesn't always make sense, there’s a lot of mistakes in it. But in a way that sums up the whole philosophy of the album and how Orson and I work together." tinyurl.com
B-Side to "Here to Stay" single (produced by Chemical Brothers), the closing track of Michael Winterbottom's 2002 comedy biopic, 24 Hour Party People.
"Player in the League" was also New Order's failed entry for ITV's football highlights programme The Premiership, and was originally slated for inclusion on Get Ready, but eventually dropped. tinyurl.com
This track is credited as "New Order featuring Moby" on the 24 Hour Party People soundtrack. It’s a live recording from Area Festival on August 5th, 2001, featuring Moby on vocals; Bernard Sumner, Billy Corgan, and John Frusciante on guitars; and Peter Hook on bass, who shared that Moby was in tears while performing it. tinyurl.com
Hooky recounts, "One of my greatest moments was when we toured with Moby, and he was playing 'New Dawn Fades.' He said to Bernard and I, 'Why don’t you two get up and do it with us? Come on, it’ll be great.'"
"We said, 'Well, we don’t know it.' And [Moby] got the Red Hot Chili Peppers to teach Bernard and I the music for ‘New Dawn Fades’ so we could go out and play it with him on stage.
"You think you wouldn’t ever forget [how to play the song], would you? That was one of the most surreal moments in my life, that particular episode.
"With people who are your contemporaries, your heroes in many ways — and they’re sat there teaching you your band’s song for a band that finished 40 years ago." tinyurl.com
Released on this day in 1995!
Following the release of two albums, Moby and Ambient, on Instinct, Moby signed to Mute and Elektra and began work on what he felt was his first "legitimate" album, seeking to create a record that encompassed his various musical influences.
Moby has described Everything Is Wrong as "a record that almost served as a lifeboat for the songs I cared the most about," noting that he attempted to cover as many musical styles as possible not "out of trying to be eclectic, but just because I was in love with all of these genres and I felt like this may be my only chance to make a record."
Moby recorded and mixed the album himself in his apartment on Mott Street in Manhattan, New York, using inexpensive recording equipment.
Everything Is Wrong features guest vocal contributions from Rozz Morehead, whom Moby had met while performing on the British television program Top of the Pops, and Mimi Goese, whose work with the band Hugo Largo he admired, and who he later found out lived just a block away from him. tinyurl.com
Pronounced "Jo-ah-lin," Joalin is a Finnish 22-year-old artist and dancer who revels in the power of vulnerability.
A play on Spanish slang that translates to "this girl right here," the self-produced "La Chica-cá" follows Joalin's emotional journey through accountability and memories of a love past.
"I'm sure I did many things wrong; I could've tried just a bit harder," she coos over atmospheric keys and an intoxicatingly lo-fi dembow rhythm.
"There's a lot of soul and feeling in my music," she says. "I leave a part of me in the songs." tinyurl.com
The coming together of rapper Brandon "BEZ" (B Easy) Evans and beatmaker/producer Jonah Swilley was, by their own admission, a divine appointment.
Both halves musically and spiritually forged in the twin flames of Georgia's Pentecostal churches and grassroots hip-hop scene, Revival Season tell straight-shooting tales of our golden age - chop, cops, badass bitches, self-snitches, drug-dealing and revolution - chronicling and critiquing the culture over baselines and beats that kick squarely in the teeth with a platform boot.
Much in the spirit of Swilley's teenage bedroom beatmaking, their debut album, Golden Age Of Self Snitching, was pieced together largely self-sufficiently, written both remotely and in person, and recorded between a temporary studio space in a health centre and an ad-hoc setup in Swilley's dining room. tinyurl.com
Happy Birthday to Quincy Jones, who was born on this day in 1933!
Born Quincy Delight, Jr., Jones was born in Chicago. In 1943, he and his family moved to Bremerton, Washington, where his father got a wartime job at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. After the war, the family moved to Seattle, where Jones attended Garfield High School.
In his storied career as a musician, composer, and record producer for musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion and Aretha Franklin.
Fun fact: Quincy Jones was convinced at an early age to explore music by his teenage friend Ray Charles. Yep, that Ray Charles.
In 1968, Jones became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "The Eyes of Love" from the film Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film In Cold Blood, making him the first African American to be nominated twice in the same year.
Jones produced three of Michael Jackson's most successful albums: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song "We Are the World", which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.
Jones is also known as father of actress and filmmaker Rashida Jones, and father-in-law of Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors.
Björk reveals, "'Human Behaviour' is an animal's point of view on humans. And the animals are definitely supposed to win in the end. So why, one might ask, is the conquering bear presented as a man-made toy? I don't know. I guess I just didn't think it would be fair to force an animal to act in a video. I mean, that would be an extension of what I'm against.
"I told him (Michel Gondry the video's director), 'I want a bear and textures like handmade wood and leaves and earth, and I want it to seem like animation.' Then I backed out."
Björk initially wrote the vocal melody in 1988 when she was still the lead singer of the Sugarcubes, but they couldn't come up with the music to fit it. Producer Nellee Hooper found the solution in a tinkered sample from "Go Down Dying" by Brazilian musician Antonio Carlos Jobim. tinyurl.com
The debut full length album from Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Meryyn Jeann is all consuming. Her unique brand of art-pop with elements of jazz and folk paired with her rich vocals and clever lyricism is positively spellbinding. Dog Beach is an impressive first outing from an artist with a singular point of view that leaves the listener begging for more.
Each week, Music Director Chris Sanley and Associate Music Director Alex Ruder share brief insights on new and upcoming releases for KEXP's rotation.
See what we added this week, including new releases from GHLOW, Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, and more: tinyurl.com
Released on this day in 1995!
This is the one and only album from PNW supergroup consisting of guitarist Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, lead singer Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, drummer Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and bassist John Baker Saunders.
Catch a live performance by the band at the Moore here: tinyurl.com
Middle Kids are playing in Seattle at Neumos on June 18th!
Faith Crisis Pt 1 was recorded in five weeks back in June of 2022 in Eastbourne, United Kingdom. During their sessions, the band experimented with synths and organs for the first time.
Hannah Joy shared that -- unlike their previous albums, which were very intertwined with their daily lives, with "snippets written in sound checks, visiting a studio whilst on the road [and] recording vocals after doing the dishes at home" -- during the process of making Faith Crisis Pt 1, they sought separation from daily life and the going-ons of society by "carving out the space and world for making this record, which, yeah, was awesome – but absolutely fried the mainframes." tinyurl.com
Brainstory is playing a 21+ show in Seattle on Tuesday, May 7, at High Dive: tinyurl.com
"Nobody But You" is built on drummer Eric Hagstrom’s crushing back beat that lays the foundation for this inspirational feel good banger that manages to take the uncomfortable truth that "nobody will save you but you" and turn it into pure blissful motivation. tinyurl.com