Cheryl Waters

This is the latest release from Ghanaian-Australian artist Genesis Owusu. "Get Inspired" was featured as a KEXP Song of the Day earlier this year, selected by Cheryl Waters: www.kexp.org.

Japanese Breakfast will play at ZooTunes (with Built to Spill!) in Seattle on Sunday, August 20th. She performed this track Live on KEXP in 2018: bit.ly. Also, don't miss Japanese Breakfast's Live on KEXP at Home session from July 2021: bit.ly. japanesebreakfast.rocks michellezauner.bandcamp.com

Enjoy Thao & The Get Down Stay Down's July 2020 Live on KEXP at Home performance: bit.ly. www.thaoandthegetdownstaydown.com

Miss Grit is the brainchild of Korean-American musician Margaret Sohn. Miss Grit shared a live performance recorded exclusively for KEXP and chatted with Cheryl for a Live on KEXP at Home session in April 2021. Watch the full session, including this track, here: youtu.be. missgrit.bandcamp.com missgrit.com

Playing The Neptune Tuesday, November 14th! Live Video from Altin Gün's 2022 KEXP In-Studio: bit.ly. altingunband.bandcamp.com

New Music! Hip-hop supergroup Dinner Party is a collaboration between musicians Kamasi Washington, Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin & 9th Wonder. Their latest album, Enigmatic Society, just came out this past April. dinnerparty.lnk.to bit.ly

Kara Jackson will open for Angel Olsen at the Neptune Theatre on Friday, October, 27th. The debut album from this Chicago-based artist (and former US National Youth Poet Laureate) is an impressive set of intimate, sometimes country-tinged folk-pop. Recorded with help from NNAMDÏ, Sen Morimoto and KAINA, the album features an atmospheric sound combining guitars, keyboards, strings, horns, woodwinds, banjo and more with smoky, world-weary vocals and finely chiseled lyrics of love, loss and grief. karajackson.bandcamp.com

Rest in Peace, Rob Laakso. From Rolling Stone: "Rob Laakso, a longtime guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in Kurt Vile and the Violators, died on Thursday, May 4. His wife Mamie-Claire Cornelius confirmed his death following a battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of bile duct cancer. Laakso was 44. She wrote on Instagram: “Thank you for giving me the most beautiful life, the most loving and beautiful children and for believing in me every day. You are the light of my life and the only slightest sliver of peace I have is that you are no longer in pain. We’ll be dreaming of you every night until we see you again.”" bit.ly The album was produced by Kurt Vile and Rob Laakso. They recorded at 10 different studios for these sessions.

'Glorious Game' is a collaboration between the Roots' Black Thought and El Michels Affair. Michels would record himself in his studio, sample himself, then chop and/or loop up his sounds and create instrumentals for Black Thought. elmichelsaffair.bandcamp.com

Caroline Rose's (they/she/it) latest, 'The Art of Forgetting', came out in March! Stay tuned on KEXP's YouTube channel for Caroline Rose's recent KEXP In-Studio! In the meantime, enjoy their Live on KEXP at Home performance from October 2020: bit.ly. Check out this interview in which they discuss the personal nature of the album: bit.ly. www.carolinerosemusic.com carolinerosemusic.bandcamp.com

Playing THING Fest Sunday, August 27th at Fort Warden, WA! thingnw.org Here's Live Video from Y La Bamba's 2021 Live on KEXP at Home session: bit.ly. ylabambamusic.com

Enjoy Live Video from Operators' 2019 KEXP In-Studio: bit.ly. Kevin Cole chose "Faithless" as KEXP's song of the day back in 2019. You can download the track here: bit.ly. operatorsmusic.com

Nation Of Language have officially announced their third album, 'Strange Disciple', out September 15. They play at the Crocodile on Thursday/Friday, May 18th/19th! You can also find Nation of Language at this year's Day In Day Out fest on Sunday, August 13th at Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center. www.dayindayoutfest.com Enjoy Live Video from Nation of Language's KEXP performance from 2022's THING Festival: bit.ly. And check out NoL's Aidan interviewing random people on the streets of Brooklyn for KEXP: bit.ly. www.nationoflanguage.com

Check out Live Video from NAAVI's 2016 KEXP In-Studio: bit.ly. navvi.bandcamp.com

GENN hail from the island of Malta. Now based in Brighton, UK. www.genntheband.com genntheband.bandcamp.com

Habibi is a New York City-based band who blend psychedelic rock and sixties girl group harmonies. Their name Habibi comes from the Arabic word "my love," which frontwoman Rahil Jamalifard grew up using with her Iranian immigrant parents (even though the term is not typically used in Iran). Habibi performed live in the KEXP studio in March 2020, hosted by Cheryl Waters right before the lockdown. youtu.be. "Let Me In" was a track in the curated list by Troy Nelson for the Music That Matters Podcast: www.kexp.org. habibitheband.bandcamp.com

rvgband.bandcamp.com. Australian band RVG recorded a Live at Home session for KEXP in 2021: bit.ly.

"Next in line to join the prestigious Speedy alumni are London’s mysteriously enigmatic Hot Face (Sam Catchpole – Drums / George Cannell – Bass / James Bates – Guitar and Vox) – with their debut offering ‘dura dura’. A jagged, buzzsaw of a tune that recalls early King Gizzard, Vanishing Point-era Primal Scream and 60s psychedelic British pop. The band leave the beauty firmly in the ear of the beholder, proclaiming ‘you'll either love it or run from it’." bit.ly More info on this project: bit.ly. Official video: www.youtube.com.

Enjoy the full performance of Toro Y Moi live on KEXP, back in 2015: bit.ly. toroymoi.com

Playing Climate Pledge Arena Friday, September 8th. In an interview with AV Club, the interviewer mentioned, "'Float On' almost seems like it was written as a challenge to yourself to write a more 'up' song, both lyrically and musically." Isaac Brock replied, "It was a completely conscious thing. I was just kind of fed up with how bad shit had been going, and how dark everything was, with bad news coming from everywhere. Our president is just a fucking daily dose of bad news! Then you've got the well-intentioned scientists telling us that everything is fucked. "I just want to feel good for a day. I'd had some friends die, and with Jeremy kind of losing it… After we got out of that dark spot with everything melting down with the band, I just wanted to make a positive record. I think we managed to make a quarter of the record positive, and the rest is either kind of dark or more just relaxing into things being how they are, resigned." www.modestmouse.com

"A world of never ending happiness You can always see the sun, day or night..." Of course, his guitar playing is "crazy" here. For you guitar buffs, "The core of his rig for this song was a Hohner/H.S. Anderson MadCat Telecaster copy, which varied from a traditional Tele design with its Strat-style single-coil pickups, Strat-style hardtail bridge and maple body. The bridge pickup is also placed closer to the bridge than the bridge pickups on traditional Strat and Tele designs, giving the MadCat a more aggressive treble bite." Want to know more?: www.guitarworld.com www.prince.com

Jimi Hendrix's second album followed up his groundbreaking debut effort with a solid collection of great tunes and great interactive playing between himself, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, and the recording studio itself. Wisely retaining manager Chas Chandler to produce the album and Eddie Kramer as engineer, Hendrix stretched further musically than the first album, but even more so as a songwriter. www.allmusic.com

Debby Friday hails from Toronto, ON. debbyfriday.com debbyfriday.bandcamp.com

This is the latest single from Brooklyn, NY band Palehound. Their new record is called 'Eye On The Bat', the follow-up to 2019’s Black Friday, and is due out July 14 via Polyvinyl Record Co. palehound.bandcamp.com

BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT - Live, all over the planet, right NOW on kexp.org!

Playing TONIGHT, Monday May 8th at Alma Mater in Tacoma, WA. www.blackbelteaglescout.com

Black Belt Eagle Scout - playing tunes from their latest, 'The Land, The Water, The Sky'. "This land runs through Katherine Paul’s blood. And it called to her. In dreams she saw the river, her ancestors, and her home. When the land calls, you listen. And KP found herself far from her ancestral lands during a time of collective trauma, when the world was wounded and in need of healing. In 2020 she made the journey from Portland back to the Skagit River, back to the cedar trees that stand tall and shrouded in fog, back to the tide flats and the mountains, back to Swinomish." blackbelteaglescout.bandcamp.com

"Katherine Paul, who performs under the moniker Black Belt Eagle Scout, first learned to drum from her family’s drum group, the Skagit Valley Singers. Years later, her dynamic percussion infuses her third album, the intimate The Land, the Water, the Sky, with frictionless momentum. Sometimes, Paul attacks her kit with abandon; elsewhere, a steady beat slowly builds into a rolling boil. All at once or slow and steady: Both approaches evoke urgency and a need to escape. It’s time for Paul to head home. The Land, the Water, the Sky, is an intimate survey of Paul’s rocky, COVID-era return trip from Portland to her ancestral lands in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the hard-won peace she found once she arrived." bit.ly

Tanukichan is the project of multi-instrumentalist Hannah van Loon who began her music career with the band Trails and Ways in 2012. Her debut solo album was produced by Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi in 2018. Here's an interview with Tanukichan about her new album "Gizmo": www.stereogum.com. tanukichan.bandcamp.com

Blondshell will play an all-ages show at Madame Lou's on Saturday, July 8! She will be LIVE on KEXP at 1pm that day as well. On the release of her debut, Sabrina Teitelbaum said: “It’s hard to summarize what this album means to me. I was able to work through so much by writing and singing these songs... I wasn’t intending to write an album as much as I was just trying to get relief from an intense and difficult time in my life. My biggest hope is that people can see the album for what it is: there’s no happy ending or ‘message,’ it’s just a window into what it’s like when you’re trying to figure out who you are and what you want.” www.blondshellmusic.com

The supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy has been photographed for the first time, giving astronomers invaluable insight into how black holes interact with their surroundings. bit.ly Late and beloved songwriter Chris Cornell said of this song: "I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff." "I spent a lot of time spinning those melodies in my head so I wouldn't forget them," he continued. "I got home and whistled it into a Dictaphone. The next day I brought it into the real world, assigning a couple of key changes in the verse to make the melodies more interesting. Then I wrote the lyrics and that was similar, a stream of consciousness based on the feeling I got from the chorus and title." bit.ly Watch the video here: youtu.be

Out of London - Nabihah Iqbal Live on KEXP, Monday, June 5th at 12 PM on the Midday Show! The night prior, Nabilah will play a 21+ show at Barboza (Sunday, June 4th). In 2018, she performed Live for KEXP listeners from the Musée de la danse in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales: bit.ly. Her new album, DREAMER, came out just last month: nabihahiqbal.bandcamp.com.

Brijean is the Oakland-based collaboration of DJ, session and live player Brijean Murphy (Poolside, Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls) and multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart. "Feelings" is their sophomore follow-up to 2019's "Walkie Talkie." brijean.bandcamp.com

bar italia, the London trio of Nina Cristante, Jezmi Tarik Fehmi and Sam Fenton, have announced details of their new album Tracey Denim, which will be released digitally and on CD May 19th on Matador. The album will be available on vinyl September 8. Tracey Denim was recorded and produced by bar italia with mixing from Marta Salogni. It features the single "“Nurse!" which was released in March to acclaim, and described as "a hypnotic post-punk ballad"” (The Guardian) and "narcotically arresting" (Pitchfork). bit.ly baritalia.bandcamp.com

Playing Woodland Park's ZooTunes Sunday August 20th (with Japanese Breakfast)! www.builttospill.com