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Thursday, Apr 8 2021, 10AM
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah performed live in the KEXP studio in 2015. Watch the full sessions, including "Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood," here:
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Shamir covers Sharon Van Etten’s “DsharpG” for the 'Epic Ten' anniversary reissue.
Shamir’s version adds a strumming guitar, which makes it feel more urgent than Van Etten’s original. Thanks to Shamir’s falsetto, the song is just as emotionally devastating as its inspiration.
In a statement, Van Etten shared her admiration for Shamir, saying:
“I was drawn to Shamir’s music by the immediate authenticity & originality of his voice and instrumentation choices. It felt simultaneously throwback and very here & now. So many genres melting into one another, I couldn’t peg it and I loved every minute of the wild ride. Not to mention that his vocal range is from another universe and his arrangements are dark and stormy… Shamir’s music is truly original and a force to be reckoned with in his reimagining of a time where I grew up fondly, angsty & dreaming.”
'Epic Ten' is out June 11th via Ba Da Bing.
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On Friday, April 16 Sharon Van Etten will release 'epic Ten,' a covers album made in celebration of the 10 year anniversary of her studio album epic. Featured artists include Fiona Apple, Big Red Machine, Courtney Barnett with Vagabon, Shamir and more.
Sharon Van Etten will perform 'epic' in its entirety from Zebulon LA on Friday, April 16 and Saturday, April 17. You can buy tickets to the live streamed event here: nocapshows.com
Learn more about the talented Anjimile (aka Anjimile Chithambo) in KEXP's 'Sound & Vision: Anjimile On Their Album Giver Taker':
kexp.org
Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner released her second Flock of Dimes full-length, 'Head of Roses.'
“‘Two’ is about trying to find a kind of balance between independence and interdependence, and the multitudes within ourselves,” Wasner said in a statement. “It’s about trying to reconcile the desire to maintain a sense of personal autonomy and freedom with the need to connect deeply with others. And it’s about struggling to feel at home in a body, and learning how to accept that the projection of self that you show to others will always be incomplete.”
pitchfork.com
'Fort Nightly' is that rare debut where potential isn't the operative word-- White Rabbits deliver the whole package straight away. The NYC six-piece writes great songs that merge rhythmic intensity with grandiose melodrama in a seamless and inventive package. Opening the album with a sinister left-handed piano riff, "Kid on My Shoulders" features steam engine drums that give the song's many hooks ample chance to sink in. It's a track that keeps getting catchier as it goes, ending with a choral coda that has a monumental sweep.
pitchfork.com
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White Rabbits performing "Kid On My Shoulder" live in DC:
youtu.be
Billboard described the song as "a dystopian, aggressive dive into a more rock-leaning sound."
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Pitchfork wrote that the self-produced song, which features Grimes’ ongoing collaborator HANA, is an immediate onslaught of mutilated noise—distorted metal guitar chug, bloody screams, a guitar loop that conjures fear and demands worship. Flashes of Nine Inch Nails’ 'Pretty Hate Machine' reverberate through the drum programming and synths.
Read the whole review on Pitchfork here:
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Born in Botswana and raised in Zambia, Sampa Tembo (aka Sampa the Great) moved to Australia in 2014 to start her music career. She's since become a staple in the Australian hip-hop scene, dropping her debut LP 'The Return' in September of 2019.
Check out the mix that Sampa the Great created for us for Midnight In A Perfect World here, including tracks by 2Pac, Burna Boy, Fela Kuti, Erykah Badu & The Roots, Mos Def and more: www.kexp.org
Seattle native Rudy Willingham is a DJ and producer who's also made a splash in the global arts community as a designer, copywriter, street artist, photographer, and product designer who's collaborated with the Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Sounders, and some of the world's biggest brands. Originally coming up in the Seattle music scene as one-half of the rap duo Slow Dance, Rudy's solo debut full-length album titled Dunk Reactions quickly become a KEXP favorite.
Rudy has titled his party-starting Midnight in a Perfect World DJ mix "Bad and Boogie" — a reference to the iconic Migos song as well as a fitting description for what he's put together for this mix, which is a bunch of new mash-ups and original remixes that combine classic disco tracks with modern-day rap and pop tracks.
kexp.org
"Borderline" was written by Kevin Parker, who performed all instruments and vocals. Watch the debut of this song during the band's performance on Saturday Night Live:
youtu.be
Join The Decemberists for three special shows — each with their own unique setlist — on April 11th, April 18th and April 25th. Bundles include a VIP experience post-show (featuring additional performances and a Q+A with the band) and a limited edition series poster illustrated by Carson Ellis.
More info and tickets available here:
bit.ly
Marie Ulven said of the album in a statement: "if i could make it go quiet is an attempt to learn what it’s like to be human; to deal with the scariest parts of myself; to live with the pain of knowing i’m only flesh and bones; to be angry, broken and unforgiving yet still able to wear my heart on my sleeve; i’m shedding light on the darkest parts of my mind and i’m letting everyone in; if i could make it go quiet is me simply trying to understand what the fuck is going on."
bit.ly
'if i could make it go quiet' comes out April 30th.
worldinred.com
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Check out girl in red live at Kex Hostel in Reykjavik during Iceland Airwaves 2019:
youtu.be
For Rahill Jamalifard, Habibi's lead singer and a daughter of Iranian immigrants, the group's sound has a deeper meaning: It's a way to honor her roots and pay tribute to the experimental culture that produced Iranian pop music in the 1960s and '70s. Jamalifard says that Habibi got its start when she bonded with musician and future bandmate Lenny Lynch over a shared love of that era of Middle Eastern psychedelia.
"It was just wild to me, because I know record collectors, I know all these people who love that sound, but for somebody who's my age, clearly white, and knew Iranian musicians that I loved, it was so amazing," she says "Because now there are a bunch of reissues of old Iranian psych and pop music, but at the time there wasn't as many and they weren't uploaded to YouTube."
n.pr
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Habibi performed songs from 'Anywhere But Here' live in the KEXP studio in March 2020. Watch it here:
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habibitheband.bandcamp.com
Spencer Krug is a founding member of Wolf Parade, and also records under "Moonface". spencerkrug.com
Dana Margolin of Porridge Radio shared an exclusive set recorded at home and chatted with Cheryl Waters Live on KEXP at Home in July 2020:
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porridgeradio.bandcamp.com
Dry Cleaning shared a live performance recorded exclusively for Live on KEXP at Home and spoke with Cheryl Waters. Posted just a few days ago - check it out!
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Florence Shaw never planned to front a band. When she was invited to join London’s Dry Cleaning, she was busy working as a university drawing lecturer and picture researcher, and as a visual artist. But that lack of pretense is one of the things that made her the perfect fit. Rather than going for heavy-handed sloganeering, Shaw’s lyrics are instead assembled from droll, haphazard observations—the perfect complement to the sinewy, minimal art-rock that backs her. For 'New Long Leg,' Dry Cleaning’s debut full-length, she filled a notebook with lists of words gathered from dreams, old texts, TV advertisements, even an empty packet of crisps. She brought that catalog of references—hot dogs, knitting circles, and 'Antiques Roadshow'—to band rehearsal, and turned them into lyrics. “We would jam or improvise, and I would do the same using the words. I jumped around looking for rhythms or things that were of a similar theme or subject,” she says.
daily.bandcamp.com
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drycleaning.bandcamp.com
Patti Smith Group's 'Radio Ethiopia' is the second album released in1976.
The album's cover photograph is by Judy Linn, while the back of the album features a photo by Lynn Goldsmith. The album was dedicated to Arthur Rimbaud and Constantin Brâncuși. The back cover of the album bears the legend: "Free Wayne Kramer", who at the time was incarcerated in Kentucky following his conviction for dealing cocaine.
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Brittany Howard covering Jackie Wilson.
“I first heard ‘Higher and Higher’ in Ghostbusters II,” Howard recalled.. “I became a huge fan of the song and of course of Jackie Wilson’s version. My solo band started playing the song on tour and it became one of those special moments of the show where you could feel the entire room locked in and the energy reaching the next level. I chose to release this song because it reminds me of those special nights with my band and for its message that through love we can be lifted up higher and higher.”
bit.ly
A love letter to the bipolar brain, (which I begrudgingly own). The corpus callosum is the neural bridge connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain. I’ve had the idea for the first half of this tune for years prior to our Man From the Future writing session. The concept was to musically express the dichotomous nature of the human mind in a danceable and palatable fashion, but I couldn’t settle on my, “right brain”, section. With immense encouragement from the band, I buckled down and came up with the, “sexy”, section the night before we began the recording session. Frankly, I didn’t think it would end up on the record, but the guys helped me shape it into something of which I’m very proud. – Scott Morning (Trumpet)
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Ben Bloom of Polyrhythmics was featured in KEXPs Feedback in Mary 2020, where he shares the tools he used to bring the band's cinematic sound to life.
www.kexp.org
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Check out their February 2020 session where the Polyrhythmics play tracks from 'Man From the Future':
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polyrhythmics.bandcamp.com
Corvair is a Portland-based “super duo” comprised of Brian Naubert (Ruston Mire, Tube Top, Pop Sickle, The Service Providers) and Heather Larimer (Eux Autres). www.corvairband.com
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Corvair’s debut album charts a starcrossed love story over three decades, five cities, and six continents. Spanning from atmospheric pop to jangly confessional, chugging groovers to molten guitar anthems, 70s AM to 90s FM, this work is laden with stunning turns of phrase and prodigious melodies, two voices leaping to meet in the ether. The album was mostly created during the COVID pandemic shut-down of Spring 2020.
corvair.bandcamp.com
Car Seat Headrest released their twelfth studio album in May 2020.
Here’s what Will Toledo had to say about 'Making a Door Less Open':
Each track is the result of an intense battle to bring out its natural colors and transform it into a complete work. The songs contain elements of EDM, hip-hop, futurism, doo-wop, soul, and of course rock and roll. But underneath all these things I think these may be folk songs, because they can be played and sung in many different ways, and they’re about things that are important to a lot of people: anger with society, sickness, loneliness, love… the way this album plays out is just our own interpretation of the tracks, with Andrew, Ethan and I forming a sort of choir of contrasting natures.
carseatheadrest.bandcamp.com
Hibou's "Junipero Love" was KEXPs Song of the Day, as chosen by Cheryl Waters. Read more about this song, subscribe and download this track for free here:
kexp.org
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In 2018, Seattle band Hibou performed live in the KEXP studio, closing out their set with "Junipero Love."
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hibouband.bandcamp.com
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever performed live in the KEXP studio in 2017. Watch the full session, including "French Press," here:
youtu.be
Portland, OR-based Vietnamese American singer & scholar Julian Saporiti's '1975' is named for the year Saigon fell. Saporiti investigates his own family heritage as well as life in WWII Japanese internment camps, immigrant detention centers & refugee camps in 2020, & other stories of immigration that illustrate the complexities of becoming American.
nonoboy.bandcamp.com
The First Nations songwriter receives his overdue recognition with this brilliant and troubling anthology, which shows the breadth of his skill. Nearly every song is remarkable, and nearly any of them could have served as a breakthrough.
pitchfork.com
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williedunn.bandcamp.com
Elliott Smith's third album, 'Either/Or,' was released in 1997.
The album's title derives from the Søren Kierkegaard book of the same name, in which "either/or" refers to the contrast between aesthetic/subjective experience and ethical/objective being.
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In its retrospective review, Tiny Mix Tapes opined: "Simply put, the songs on Either/Or are Elliott Smith's best".
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Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst performing together as Better Oblivion Community Center stopped by the KEXP studio in 2019. Watch that session here:
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Better Oblivion Community Center playing "Big Black Heart" live in Omaha NE:
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betteroblivioncommunitycenter.bandcamp.com
The famous bass line was played by a session musician named Herbie Flowers. He was paid £17 for his work. Flowers was modest about his contribution to this and other songs. He once told Mojo writer Phil Sutcliffe about his role as a session musician, "You do the job and get your arse away. You take a £12 fee, you can't play a load of bol--cks. Wouldn't it be awful if someone came up to me on the street and congratulated me for Transformer."
Hip-hop artists frequently sample this track. The most famous appropriation is by A Tribe Called Quest on their 1990 song "Can I Kick It?"
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Lorely Rodriguez, aka Empress Of, shared an exclusive live set and spoke with DJ Troy Nelson Live on KEXP at Home:
youtu.be
From the debut record by Ya Tseen. The project's founder, Nicholas Galanin, was born in Sheet’ka (Sitka, Alaska),
Galanin is Tlingit and Unangax̂ and is one of the most vital voices in contemporary art. His work spans sculpture, video, installation, photography, jewelry and music; advocating for Indigenous sovereignty, racial, social and environmental justice, for present, and future generations. See the video for "Knives": www.youtube.com
Visit Nicholas Galanin's website: galan.in
Empat Lima are a beat-garage trio from Melbourne. Over their 5 year span they have participated in 24-hour art installations, played with Indonesian post-punk heroes in rice fields, and inadvertently induced labour with their music. They continue to draw upon the inspiration of the great women in music before them, mixing in their own unique style of overlapping melodies and driving dance beats.
empatlima.bandcamp.com
Thao & the Get Down Stay Down opened up their 2016 session live in the KEXP studio with "Hand to God." Watch the full performance here:
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thaoandthegetdownstaydown.bandcamp.com
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Frontwoman Thao Nguyen talks about how her latest album is about coming out to her Vietnamese family and processing her family’s story of war.
“It’s about the idea of existing as my full self and that full self is also acknowledging my heritage and who I come from and my culture,” Nguyen says.
kexp.org
"Put most simply, I think that 'Faith Healer' is a song about vices, both the obvious and the more insidious ways that they show up in the human experience," Baker explains. "There are so many channels and behaviors that we use to placate discomfort unhealthily which exist outside the formal definition of addiction. I (and so many other people) are willing to believe whomever — a political pundit, a preacher, a drug dealer, an energy healer — when they promise healing, and how that willingness, however genuine, might actually impede healing." bit.ly
Watch Julien Baker sharing a live performance recorded exclusively for KEXP, recorded January 6, 2021:
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Julien Baker with special guests DEHD & Katie Malco will be playing LIVE at The Moore Theatre on November 10, 2021!!
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Lido Pimienta performed this song exclusively for KEXP (for a benefit series supporting Mary's Place). Watch this gorgeous session here:
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Lido spoke with KEXP's Emily Fox for Sound & Vision.
In this interview, Lido talks about the inspiration for the album, from pageant culture’s racist and nationalist undertones to being teased about her hair in school. She also discusses her experience being of Indigenous Wayuu and African descent and learning to celebrate this mixed heritage through her music.
"Since I've been born, I've never known peace. I've never known respect for a culture. I've never known empowering of Indigenous communities. I don't know what it's like to see Black people truly free in my country.” Lido is doing her part to change that.
kexp.org
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lidopimienta.bandcamp.com
The Twin Cities-based musician, artist, and community organizer co-curated a gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Art to create a dialog between works by Black visual artists from the United States, Africa, the greater African Diaspora, and this new album.
I Self explains, "'Rituals of Resilience' is about the act of survival under intense pressure and heat. A place to hide when being in your body isn't safe. A reimagining of new worlds and possibilities. The creative culture of Indigenous and diasporic ethnic groups of African descent surviving and dismantling 400 hundred years of white supremacy ...through a visceral fabric of repetitious intentional movements, vibrations, gatherings, acts, symbols, and codes."
improvisedweaponry.bandcamp.com
Dessa performed live in the KEXP studio in April 2018. Watch the full performance, starting with "Fire Drills" here: youtu.be
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"With 'Fire Drills,' I wanted to write about the experience of traveling as a woman, and often as a woman alone," Dessa writes via email. "I didn't want to be scolding or vengeful — I wanted a song that could serve as a little portal into a particular way of looking at the world. In the interest of keeping themselves safe, women are discouraged from participating in vast swaths of human experience. We're advised to travel in the daylight, in groups, and on familiar roads. But wandering lost alone has value, man. And getting home before dark every night means you miss all the fireworks. Asking women to live smaller lives is not an acceptable solution to the problem of a dangerous world.
www.npr.org
Altın Gün return with a masterful album that widens their critically acclaimed exploration of Anatolian rock and Turkish psychedelic stylings to include dreamy 80’s synth-pop and dancefloor excursions. Yol (Road) brings together all vectors of the Altın Gün experience.
altingun.bandcamp.com
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Check out Altin Gün playing "Sevda Olmasaydı" live:
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The song was produced by James Murphy, who is best known for his work with LCD Soundsystem. It features backing vocals by David Bowie, who was a fan of Arcade Fire for many years. Win Butler once said of their famous supporter, "I remember when we first met David Bowie and he said, 'You'll definitely be big in the UK.' He was always enthusiastic about the band."
bit.ly
TV Priest shared a live performance, recorded exclusively for KEXP, and TV Priest's Charlie Drinkwater spoke with Kevin Cole in March 2021. Watch it here:
youtu.be
It's a beautiful Thursday afternoon in Seattle. Thanks so much for listening to The Afternoon Show with Evie!
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"Glowing in the Dark" is Django Django's fourth album: pitchfork.com
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The video for "Spirals" imagines frontman Vincent Neff as something of a hybrid human and double helix. The clip “uses the image of DNA to muse on how the connections we have as humans are stronger than the divisions,” reads a statement.: www.youtube.com