3,691Shows
177,540Spins
Friday, Oct 27 2017, 2PM
A four-piece audio-visual collective who formed in Zagreb, Croatia, in 2009.
Recorded and mixed over seven days, along with the rest of the songs from the album, "A Forest" is representative of The Cure's early 1980s gothic rock phase. The song has featured on the band's setlists for many years. Several versions have appeared on concert albums, and it was remixed and released as a single from the Mixed Up album in 1990. The song has been covered by several artists including Blank & Jones, Sophie Barker and Ror-Shak. Due to budgetary restraints, Seventeen Seconds was recorded and mixed in seven days on a budget of between £2000 and £3000, which resulted in the band working 16 or 17 hours a day to complete the album. Co-producer Mike Hedges and Robert Smith knew "A Forest" would take more work to complete than other songs on the album, and would require more overdubs. "A Forest" was one of the last tracks recorded; the backing tracks were recorded first, followed by touch-ups to the individual parts, then Smith's vocals. Fiction Records owner Chris Parry told Smith that the song had the potential to be a hit if they made it sound "radio friendly", but Smith refused, stating that the way the track sounded was the sound he envisioned in his head, dismissing concerns about radio friendliness. Work on mixing "A Forest" took up much of the final day of sessions for the album. goo.gl
First album by Tús Nua recorded in Zagreb (June-July 2016 and March-July 2017) in Chicken Sound Studio (except some synths, and back vocals which were recorded at home). tus-nua.bandcamp.com | Upcoming shows, for anyone lucky enough to be in these parts, Nov 11
in Graz, Austria, and Nov 18 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Musician, composer and producer from Odense Denmark. Creates electronic/ambient sounds under the names Manual, Billow Obsevatory (with Jason Kolb) and has worked with artists such as Icebreaker International and Ulrich Schnauss.
Also plays guitar in Causa Sui and related projects, has produced music for films and has produced and mixed albums for a number of bands such as Papir, Rumskib, Bright Kids, Salli Lunn, Balloon Magic, Kloster, Dorias Baracca and others. Co-runs El Paraiso Records with fellow music collaborator Jakob Skøtt.
"[Amen 2] is about relief, forgiveness and letting go. Some years ago I went through a period of deep anxiety and depression. Amen 1 was dwelling a lot on these feelings and ideas. I wrote the songs on Amen 2 at a time when I first started to feel that this period was maybe coming, or already had come to an end. It was also at those times when I realised that my lifelong companionship with God came to a conclusion that He, who once meant everything to me, no longer existed. These were the core-ideas how Amen 2 came to be. Like with all of the Amen songs, I recorded most of ‘House Of Fire’ in my family’s cabin in Lappajärvi. I continued making Amen 3 last fall after I was done with the first two. Until that time ‘House of Fire’ was an instrumental song. The second part with lyrics I wrote last fall. Even though the broader concept and music of Amen 3 was clear to me already in 2013, I wanted to keep the last album as free of thought as I possible could. I felt it was important to write a lot more on it after the actual release of the first two, so that it would consist of a genuine and a whole emotion of an end. So a lot more happened on Amen 3 in the last months compared to the first two." goo.gl | This incredible track has been a Featured Song of the Day; read more about it, and download your own copy, here: blog.kexp.org
Prior to the official release of the song, "Call the Police" was first performed live during one of the band's sets at the then-recently opened Brooklyn Steel venue in Brooklyn, New York. It was performed during the first encore of their April 6 show, where it was known as "Call Police" on the setlist. The band had made a plea to those in attendance at the show, asking them not to film their performance so they could officially release the track the way they wish to do so. Call the Police" was released alongside "American Dream" as a double A-side single digitally on May 5, 2017; they were made available once midnight was reached in one's time zone. The release acts as the band's first non-Christmas single in seven years (if "Christmas Will Break Your Heart" is not counted). The single release was accompanied by a lengthy post on the band's official Facebook page, which also included an update regarding the progress of their upcoming studio album. The band later performed "Call the Police" during the May 6 episode of Saturday Night Live's 42nd season. goo.gl
This song was written by Gerald Love, the band's bass player, who also performed lead vocals. " “I remember still living in the council flat with my mum and dad at that time. Four floors up, talking to our New York lawyer on the phone, him wanting to send me a fax, and me saying we didn’t have a fax, him expecting me to go out and buy one. (laughs, gently) He didn’t realise we didn’t have any money.” ~ Raymond McGinley goo.gl
"Just Like Honey" is a song by the Scottish alternative rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain from their 1985 debut album Psychocandy. The track was released as the third single from the record through Blanco y Negro Records in September 1985. The song was written by band members William Reid and Jim Reid.
The song appeared in several films, most notably in the closing scene of 2003's Lost In Translation, 2008's The Man Who Loved Yngve, 2014's The Curse of Styria, as well as a 2011 Volkswagen advertisement campaign. The beginning of the song uses the opening drum riff of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby". goo.gl
"The Cocteau Twins were, in the first place, Robin Guthrie and bassist Will Heggie. It started in Grangemouth, a small town near Falkirk on the east coast of Scotland. There's an oil refinery in Grangemouth and not much else. But in the late '70s, Robin was the DJ on punk nights in a local club.
Liz is nervously playing with a drinks mat on the table.
'I was going there for about a year before I started talking to him. Then I got pissed one night around Christmas time and started procrastinating (sic). He was nice because he was really shy, really introvert. He was in a band that did cover versions of Stooges songs, then he left that and ended up in a band with Will. Then they left that band together, got a drum machine, and started up the Cocs. Then I came along, but I left the band, got fed up with it and didn't feel like it was for me at all because I was a bit...l don't know, I just thought I couldn't cope. So I left the band - I think it was more the Iyrics I didn't have the faith in. I found it too hard. But I started going out with Robin - so I came back into the band six months later.'" goo.gl
The band performed in Portland last night, drove up to KEXP today in time to play this in-studio session, then will race back down to Portland to do their second sold-out night at the Doug Fir Lounge, and return tomorrow to Seattle to play at the Showbox. We are amazed, and thankful!
"When we made our first record, you do have that luxury of no one caring, but it's also a problem. We didn't have very much support. I think I had two jobs, maybe a third job, when we were recording and mastering that record. With this record, we have three labels, the Canadian privilege of being eligible of government funding, and so I guess that it's like a new painting whereas we've done something before and that previous painting is always gonna be on the wall staring at you. That seems to be something in my mind that has never left in terms of how to move forward without alienating the first piece of music we put out. The first record, we had to scrape 10K off of, we hit the tape too hard and there's a lot of digital distortion. Thus, it sounds like you're listening to our band through a pillow and this one is a little more clear and the veil has been slightly lifted. At some point I had to stop saying that I'm a singer out of necessity. When people are coming to see you and buying tickets, I had to admit to myself that I'm a singer. I still like vocal effects and they're fun to play with, but I say that I'm less self-conscious about bearing my voice. We had a lot of fun making the record, but it took a lot of time to give the songs the best possible sonic documents and sometimes we had to go back through our demos to see what was charming and what worked." ~ Molly Rankin goo.gl
On the three-year gap between albums: "I'm not the most prolific writer. I don't really force it, but we did tour for too long on that record and we could've toured longer. No one will tell you to stop touring. You just have to start refusing to do shows so you'll have time to make something new and we kind of learned that the hard way. It also takes us a long time to record. We're quite particular. It may not sound that way, but it takes a lot of time for us to get to the point where we're comfortable with how it sounds. We did a large chunk of recording in Los Angeles and that went well. When we got home, we realized that we had a lot more to do. I don't really like to rush just because people are looking at their watches. I also needed some time alone, which is what I did. I went to Toronto Island right off of Lake Ontario and took some time for myself to write. That's mainly how I get inspired [being isolated], which when you're touring for a long time, it's the opposite of isolation." ~ Molly Rankin goo.gl
"[Being the daughter of a fiddler in Canada's celebrated Rankin Family] is definitely something that I've had to be very comfortable talking about. It's not something that I'm trying to escape at all, but I didn't feel like it was all that relevant to what I was doing. If people found out and made the connection, I always enjoyed that people found it to be a pleasant surprise. I didn't think it would be some kind of angle, though, but I think that's what people drew from our first round of record press. I like to be quiet about my family life, but I think it's cool that people find out after the fact and a lot of people in the U.S. don't even know who they are, but I still do feel connected to Cape Breton." goo.gl
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr wrote "How Soon Is Now?" along with "William, It Was Really Nothing" and "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" during a four-day period at Earls Court in London in June 1984. His demo was originally called "Swamp". In contrast to the frequent chord changes he had employed in most Smiths' songs, Marr wanted to explore building a song around a single chord (in this case, F♯) as much as possible, which also appealed to producer John Porter. goo.gl
After a night out celebrating the session for "William, It Was Really Nothing" and "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want", the trio reconvened the following afternoon to record what became "How Soon Is Now?". Porter was impressed by the basic riff Marr showed him, but felt the song needed something else. Their discussion turned to the early recordings of Elvis Presley, which led to an impromptu jam session of the song "That's All Right". During the jam, Marr worked on his chord progression for "Swamp", which inspired the arrangement.
Marr recorded the song with bandmates Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce that July at London's Jam Studios. They recall the session as being accompanied by heavy marijuana use. "We used to smoke dope from when we got out of bed to when we got back to bed," recalls Porter, and Marr concurred: "You're from Manchester, you smoke weed till it comes out of your ears." Joyce said the band even replaced the studio's light bulbs with red ones for ambience. Porter recorded the first takes with microphones set up at varying distances from the band to better create a "swampy" mood. Marr was able to keep the F♯ chord going for as long as 16 bars at a time. Despite only doing a few takes, they had filled an entire reel of tape, as one had gone on for 15 minutes.
Marr and Porter decided to add a tremolo effect to the guitar part. He was inspired by Bo Diddley's distinctive syncopated shuffle guitar style, Hamilton Bohannon's "Disco Stomp" and the two guitars in the instrumental break of Can's "I Want More". The effect was created by running the original guitar track through the studio desk into three separate Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers, each with the tremolo control set to a different oscillation speed. Marr and Porter would adjust each by hand while the music played to keep it in rhythm; when they failed, engineer Mark Wallis would rewind the tape and start them again. Some of these segments were no longer than ten seconds. goo.gl
"Lyrically, I think I was taking way more cues than usual from rock music. One of the main projects for Destroyer, at least through the first 10 or 12 years of its life was taking inspiration from outside of pop music when it came to writing things. Taking things that sounded like they had no business being in a song and sticking them into a song. I don’t really know if ken is part of that project or not.
With this record I was going back and listening to the very first records that I got into in my life, the records that predate me as a musician and were just me as a teenage music obsessive. Maybe I abandoned them purposefully because they seemed too teenager-y or maybe I just felt too old to be listening to a John Hughes soundtrack cassette. They’re foundational things that will always be integral to everything I do." goo.gl
“I guess the creative process [in writing] is sort of mysterious. Some songs start out as stories—more or less prose, and you have to figure out what they sound like. And other things are products of working on a drum machine and building rhythm first. Sometimes I just wake up with melodies in my head and I try to capture them as quickly as possible.” goo.gl
"Yes, the world is a mess, but I’ve been attempting to look more and more inward: how do all of these 'isms' that we live in manifest in me, in my daily activities, interactions?
Some of the ’80s throwback production came from wanting the vocals to sound robotic, maybe to counter the sincerity of the lyrics. I started sampling my vocals with an MPC which I’ve wanted to do for years, and there was something that felt really right about my voice being trapped in a machine." ~ Merril Garbus goo.gl
Recorded March 8, 1982 at First Ave, Minneapolis... the first time this song was ever performed live. On a side note: “I’ve messed around with a few actresses, and they all look the same when they come outta the shower.” ~ Prince
“With [Cry Cry Cry], we thought, ‘Ok, let’s trim everything away.' Everything that wasn’t useful in a song was pretty much immediately discarded. And then, because we’re ourselves, we ended up with two fairly long prog songs, which are kind of my favorite songs on the whole record... In retrospect, this is the record that would’ve been a more logical follow-up to Apologies. But I think after Apologies came out, our subsequent two records were really just a reaction to public reaction. I think the band maybe had an existential crisis. I’m not saying At Mount Zoomer and Expo weren’t totally valid expressions of art, but I think that existential crisis informed the type of songs that we were writing.” ~ Dan Boeckner goo.gl
“I don’t even listen to our records. Once you release them, they’re not for you anymore, they’re for everyone and it becomes very different.” ~ Josh Hayward goo.gl
The album features remixes of tracks from her eighth studio album, Biophilia (2011). All of the remixes were previously released on The Crystalline Series or the Biophilia Remix Series, and were all remastered by Mandy Parnell. Although all tracks had already been released, Björk "felt it important to gather together the essence of the remixes" so she "picked a quarter of them for one CD for people who are perhaps not too sassy [sic] downloaders or don't have the time or energy to partake in the hunter-gathering rituals of the internet". The cover features the 'strata' persona Björk adopted for the "Mutual Core" music video which was directed by Andrew Thomas Huang. goo.gl
On Kevin's personal copy of this vinyl is a stuck-on label announcing: "VERY LIMITED BJORK: White Label Remix of 'All Is Full of Love.' Buy now or search later on eBay!!"
"Ceremony" was one of the last Joy Division songs to be composed, with lyrics written by Ian Curtis. There are three recorded versions by Joy Division in existence. The first is a live version, available on the Still album, from their final concert at High Hall, Birmingham University on 2 May 1980. The second, available on the Heart and Soul four-disc box set, is from a studio session on 14 May 1980, four days before Curtis's suicide. It was the band's last recording. The third is a version recorded at the soundcheck on the afternoon of 2 May 1980 (along with "Decades") and is only available on bootleg. In all recordings, the vocals are only partially audible.
After the death of Ian Curtis, the remaining members of Joy Division regrouped as New Order. Their first release was a re-recording of "Ceremony" as a stand-alone single backed with "In a Lonely Place", with guitarist Bernard Sumner taking over lead vocals. Sumner said that he had to put the "Ceremony" rehearsal tape as sung by Curtis through a graphic equalizer to transcribe the lyrics.
In March 1981, the first version of "Ceremony" was released on Factory Records (FAC 33). Martin Hannett (Joy Division's producer) produced the record and Peter Saville designed the sleeve graphics.
The 7" record was issued in a stamped gold-bronze sleeve. The 12" sleeve was a completely separate design: gold typography on a green background. goo.gl
"People don’t necessarily make a connection between ‘indie music’ and the Dead, but Day of the Dead showed that to be an artificial separation; a lot of our heroes were coming in to contribute, like Lee Ranaldo, Stephen Malkmus and Ira Kaplan from Yo La Tengo, and they all love the Dead. Cat Power, too. Bob Weir from the Dead was involved, and he went on to make his first solo record in 30 years, Blue Mountain, which we played on, and toured with him on. It was fun to shine a light on how good those Dead songs were, and their commitment to improvisation and avant garde experimentalism. I took a lot out of it." ~ Aaron Dessner goo.gl
"In the past, I've always tried to cloak stuff and dance around the meanings in the lyrics. I'm starting to come around to more straightforward lyric writing; I've been trying to do more of a Raymond Chandler thing, just keep it really simple... I'd hope that I'm starting to move into some lyrical direction that's not a single subject over and over again." goo.gl
On his original recording of the song, which was released as the non-album B-side to his 1982 single "1999", Prince performs most of the song in his falsetto range, with his own bluesy piano playing providing the only instrumental accompaniment. The song's first album appearance was on his 1993 compilation The Hits/The B-Sides. It was later included on the soundtrack to the 1996 film Girl 6. Prince also performs the song on his 2002 live album One Nite Alone... Live! goo.gl
Commemorating the 11th anniversary of this incredible album.
During her cancer treatment Sharon Jones chose not to listen to music: "I didn't. I didn't. Because I couldn't sing. I couldn't get air because, people didn't realize, I was cut across the diaphragm, all the way up from right under the center under my breasts, all the way down to the top of my navel, almost. They had to cut through the diaphragm, through the stomach, remove stuff. They removed like 10 pounds of things ... 10 pounds that I never gained back." goo.gl
"Co-produced by Beastie Boys and Mario C., the album is among the band's most varied releases, drawing from hip hop, punk rock, jazz and funk. As with their prior release Check Your Head, this album continues the band's trend away from sampling and towards live instruments. It features musical contributions from Money Mark, Eric Bobo and Amery "AWOL" Smith and vocal contributions from Q-Tip and Biz Markie. The Beastie Boys were influenced by Miles Davis' jazz rock albums Agharta and On the Corner while recording Ill Communication." goo.gl
On the cover art: “For us, the RTJ1 hands were about ‘taking what’s yours’ – your world, your life, your attitude. The RTJ2 hands were wrapped in bandages, signifying injury and healing, which for us represented the growth in ideas and tone of that album. For RTJ3 the bandages are off, the chain is gone and the hands have been transformed into gold. For us this represents the idea that there is nothing to take that exists outside of yourself. You are the jewel.”
"I think just as anyone with growing up and having more life experiences and putting your own life into political context, I think it’s definitely changed my songwriting in that I have a more personal connection to things. You want to write about politics as a 19-year-old [and] if you haven’t paid any bills yet, how do you fit your life into the realities of capitalism and the realities of income inequality? At least for me anyway, there are certain things now that I am more aware of and more personally affected by as an adult. In that way, I feel like my anger towards things is more substantial or more legitimate because I’ve seen how different administrations have completely changed things for my life. Whether that’s sending people I know to war or giving me health insurance. How certain people empower or respond to police brutality. How they respond to immigration. How they respond to LBGT rights. If it weren’t for the federal government recognizing gay marriage, my partner and our lead guitarist would not be in the country right now. Those things have impacted my life so extremely that it absolutely works its way in my songwriting. I’ve written about our long distance relationship that is now no longer long distance because she was allowed to move here. Being connected to those things has definitely changed my perspective on how that comes through in our songs." ~ Lauren Denitzio goo.gl
"Bollocks was such a solid piece of work, yet when we were recording it, it felt anything but. Next door, Queen was recording one of their albums [News of the World] and Brian May asked me if I would do some backing vocals on their album. I don't remember which song, it's not the 'Galileo' one. But I went in and it was amazing to hear the way that Freddie [Mercury] recorded every line separately – sometimes just a word – and then they'd edit them. Bloody hell, I got one take and that's it; I'd get two if I made a mistake. I eventually realized that the music will overcome, regardless of the alleged rules and regulations that were always being thrown at us." ~ Johnny Rotten goo.gl
Note to all who share Imposter Syndrome: “I know that songwriting is a craft that you need to work on for a lifetime, and I really feel that the only reason why I am able to go to airport and write down 'Musician' in the occupation part of the immigration card is because I just worked really, really hard.” ~ Alex Lahey
From new Seattle supergroup composed of Lisa Prank’s Robin Edwards, Tacocat’s Bree McKenna, and Chastity Belt’s Julia Shapiro.
Rich with bold brass and hypnotic percussion, Polyrhythmics' latest album, Caldera, showcases the instrumental eight-piece's impossibly tight grooves and virtuosic musicianship as they tear through a singular blend of funk, soul, psychedelic rock, R&B, progressive jazz, and Afrobeat. Check out more from this album here: polyrhythmics.bandcamp.com
Dedicated to our own Andy Klatt, who has been an invaluable and treasured member of the KEXP family for the past eight years. Andy, we'll miss you, and are so glad to have been blessed with your time and work here!
"It’s a weird thing to be singled out as the start of a wave of something, [this] innovative R&B, as if it were the first time being innovative. The whole point of this is, I’m trying to play a game, trying to see how much I can push while using myself as the tool for that change that I’m trying to see in the world. I want to be very literal and overt and clear about that: it’s white men who lead and are still in control of the music industry, while people of color — specifically black women — have been contributing and influencing so much. That’s the dichotomy that I’m overtly trying to attack." goo.gl
"Irresistible Bitch" was released as the B-side of the single Let's Pretend We're Married, the fourth and final single from Prince's fifth album 1999.
In 1993, it was included as the eleventh track on The B-Sides compilation (included as the third and final disc on The Hits / The B-Sides).
While specific recording dates for Irresistible Bitch are not known, it was initially recorded in sequence with Feel U Up in late 1981 at Prince's Kiowa Trail Home Studio, Chanhassen, MN, USA.
It was later re-recorded at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA, USA on 15 September 1983 (five days before The Beautiful Ones). goo.gl
According to PrinceVault, a woman from St. Paul named Mi-Ling Stone revealed she was the inspiration for the song after Prince's passing.
She first met him in 1976 and then again in 1979. She was a student at the University of Minnesota, locally known as "Fancy Dancer" and thinks Sexy Dancer could also have been about her. Prince started dating her in January 1979.
She lived in a duplex on Fuller Street in Saint Paul, MN and she had pictures of jockeys on her wall, among them Mike “Hercules” Weaver, who at some point she also dated. Prince and her stopped seeing each other when she left Minnesota in 1980. goo.gl
The B-Side to the single "Delirious," the fourth single to be released from Prince's fifth studio album,1999. According to historians, Prince has never performed this song live.
Thinking of Lewis Allan Reed, who passed away this day in 2013. The elaborate twin guitar "intro" on the Rock 'n' Roll Animal version was written by Steve Hunter and played by Hunter and Dick Wagner, two Detroit guitarists who would go on to play with Alice Cooper. This live track was recorded December 21, 1973 and released on Rock'n'Roll Animal in February 1974. goo.gl
Norse mythology tells us that there will be three harsh winters before Ragnarok (the end of the world). There are three members of a trio, so this song is spooky.