Rival Consoles - “World Turns” from the 2022 album Now Is on Erased Tapes. Ryan Lee West has been making electronic music under the name Rival Consoles since 2007, experimenting with a diverse range of styles and influences primarily with analog equipment. His latest release Now Is was made during the pandemic and sees the English producer in a contemplative mood, painting an atmospheric kaleidoscope of occasionally glitchy sounds. He had this to say about the record: “There are some pieces that...
Nov 03, 2022•5 min•Ep 4353•Transcript available on Metacast Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - “When the Lights Go” from the 2022 album When the Lights Go on Nice Age. Over the past decade, Orlando Higginbottom has been thriving under the name Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs . The British producer scored a Grammy nomination for his collaboration with Bonobo, and has released several singles and EPs since his 2012 debut LP Trouble . Ten years later, he shares his sophomore full-length, When The Lights Go , which he says is "about love and the end of ...
Nov 02, 2022•5 min•Ep 4352•Transcript available on Metacast United Freedom Collective - “MERCY (feat. FACESOUL)” from the 2022 Am Ta EP on Dama Dama. At the core of the United Freedom Collective are three musicians: Mathieu Seynaeve, WaiFung Tsang, and Robbie Redway. The trio convened in a remote barn in Cornwall, in South West England, to create music inspired by Zen Taoism, Buddhism, Jungian analysis, meditation, yoga, and more. “It’s supposed to be something more than us” they explain in a press statement, “it’s music with intention, music for healing...
Nov 01, 2022•4 min•Ep 4351•Transcript available on Metacast Bill Callahan - “Coyotes” from the 2022 album YTI⅃AƎЯ on Drag City. Singer/songwriter Bill Callahan is shaking up reality — literally, with the backwards title of his latest LP, YTILAER , out now via his long-time label Drag City. “It felt like it was necessary to rouse people — rouse their love, their kindness, their anger, rouse anything in them. Get their senses working again,” he shared in a press release. On today's Song of the Day, that reality takes us to his backyard, where the titular a...
Oct 31, 2022•6 min•Ep 4350•Transcript available on Metacast Grynch Paper Route (feat. Sir Mix‐A‐Lot) from the 2022 self-released album Born in '86 . Nearly fifteen years after dropping his debut full-length, My Second Wind , Grynch is back with his first solo record since 2014 titled Born in ‘86 . While it may be a solo record, that doesn’t mean the Seattle-born-and-bred rapper isn’t still open to sharing the mic. The deeply collaborative artist invited artists like Boom Bap Project, Blake Lewis, Prometheus Brown, and Daz Dillinger to help add color to t...
Oct 28, 2022•4 min•Ep 4349•Transcript available on Metacast 4348 Kevin Cole Thursday 10/27/22 Bosq Song for Ehi (feat. The Ibibio Horns and Kaleta) a 2022 single on Canopy Limited. Bosq is the musical pseudonym for Benjamin Woods, who has been utilizing Afro-Latin music in fusion with Funk, Disco, Reggae, House and Hip Hop to dazzling effect for a decade now. The Boston-bred, Colombia-based musician has released 4 full albums, heaps of EP's of original music, and countless collaborative singles and remixes with artists like Fania Records, Orchestre Poly ...
Oct 27, 2022•7 min•Ep 4348•Transcript available on Metacast You Said Strange - "So Sorry" from the 2021 album Thousand Shadows Vol.1 on Le Cèpe Records / Modulor. For their debut album , Salvation Prayer , the French band You Said Strange recorded in Portland with Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter G Holmström. For they're latest LP, titled Thousand Shadows Vol.1 , they hunkered down at home, building their own studio in Évreux, equipped with a vintage analog console and microphones gathered during previous tours. The band told Psychedelic Baby Magazine tha...
Oct 26, 2022•3 min•Ep 4347•Transcript available on Metacast Love'n'joy - "Psy Summer" from the 2022 self-released album Half Home . Kyiv-based band Love’n’Joy completed their latest album Half Home just three days before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Vocalist/guitarist Anton Pushkar explained to Psychdelic Baby Magazine , "The idea of the album title was mainly connected with the loss of Crimea, the place where me and Sergey (Zlobin, drummer) were born and raised and where our relatives live under russian occupation. After th...
Oct 25, 2022•6 min•Ep 4346•Transcript available on Metacast Elsy Wameyo - "River Nile" from the 2022 Nilotic EP on Music in Exile. Over the past few years, Nairobi-born, Adelaide-based artist Elsy Wameyo has made a name for herself in hip-hop, garnering both the Young Kenyan of the Year award in 2018, and the People's Choice Best Hip Hop Award at the annual South Australian Music Awards in 2019. Her debut EP, titled Nilotic , is a tribute to her indigenous roots to the people of the Nile Valley who speak Nilotic languages. In a press release, she explain...
Oct 24, 2022•3 min•Ep 4345•Transcript available on Metacast Enumclaw - "Jimmy Neutron" from the 2022 album Save the Baby on Luminelle Recordings. It can often be tough to trace exactly where and when a band “broke” but for Enumclaw , it’s pretty straightforward. KEXP’s own Martin Douglas first wrote about the Tacoma band on KEXP’s website and, shortly after, major publications like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Gorilla vs. Bear, and The Fader followed suit. So, for all intents and purposes, we claim them as ours. Last week, the quartet - made up of Aramis Johnso...
Oct 21, 2022•4 min•Ep 4344•Transcript available on Metacast Cheekface - "I Feel So Weird!" from the 2022 album Too Much To Ask on New Professor. In times like we’ve been living through the past handful of years, humor has become more and more tantamount to survival. Cheekface understands that and displays it with aplomb. The Los Angeles-based band made up of Greg Katz, Amanda Tannen, Mark “Echo” Edwards channels Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, and Stephan Malkmus with their speak-singing but has plenty of wisdom behind their absurdist, critical, and, dare I ...
Oct 20, 2022•3 min•Ep 4343•Transcript available on Metacast PVA - "Untethered" from the 2022 album BLUSH on Ninja Tune. South London trio PVA have gained a reputation for their live sets, with their dark, industrial-tinged dance music and frontwoman Ella Harris' deadpan vocals. (Early in their career, the band came up with the term “country-friend techno” to describe their sound.) With their debut LP BLUSH , the group channels the raw energy of their shows, while displaying an increased confidence in the studio. “We wanted to surprise people and do somet...
Oct 19, 2022•4 min•Ep 4342•Transcript available on Metacast Benedek - "Emotional (feat. Devin Morrison)" from the 2022 Zebrano EP on Apron Records. Los Angeles-based producer/musician Benedek (real name: Nicholas Benedek) began playing guitar at the age of nine, and first started composing beats using his Nintendo Game Boy Camera software. With admiration for artists like Herbie Hancock and Jeff Beck, he's developed a unique style drawing from funk, hip-hop, soul, house, as well as science fiction and '90s video games. On today's Song of the Day, Benedek...
Oct 18, 2022•3 min•Ep 4341•Transcript available on Metacast STR4TA - "Turn Me Around" from the 2022 album STR4TASFEAR on Brownswood. Just before the world shut down in 2020, renowned DJ/record label owner Gilles Peterson joined acid jazz legend Jean-Paul Maunick (better known as "Bluey") for an improvised jam session in Bluey's parents’ garden shed in London. The result became STR4TA , and last year's debut LP, Aspects , draws influence from the '70s/'80s Brit-Funk sound they both grew up with. Their sophomore full-length, STR4TASFEAR , will be released ...
Oct 17, 2022•5 min•Ep 4340•Transcript available on Metacast Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Taabu, Shad - Red Sky at Night - Remix a 2022 single on Distorted Muse. Snotty Nose Rez Kids are a Polaris and Juno Award-nominated indigenous hip hop duo that are beacons amongst their community for addressing the generational trauma affecting indigenous people with wit, humor, and bars for days. Their most recent album Life After dropped in 2021 but recently they unveiled a remix of standout track “Red Sky at Night” featuring veteran emcee Shad and producer Taabu . While ...
Oct 14, 2022•4 min•Ep 4339•Transcript available on Metacast Bobby Sanchez - Trans 101 (Scarim) from the 2022 Prophecy EP on Harawiq Records. Bobby Sanchez carries a plethora of identities on their shoulders - poet, musician, painter, model, activist. The American-Peruvian Indigenous artist is vocal about speaking on the topics close to their heart such as Indigenous displacement, gentrification, environmentalism, and gender identity. Their most recent EP Prophecy covers all of these in just four short yet vibey tracks. Based solely on the number of Tik T...
Oct 13, 2022•3 min•Ep 4338•Transcript available on Metacast Byron Nicholai - "Tengauryugtua (I Want To Fly)" from the 2022 album Ayagnera (The Beginning) on Tuallu Entertainment. Back in 2014, a young Byron Nicholai went viral when he began posting videos of himself singing in the Indigenous Yup'ik language on Facebook. The media even dubbed him the "Justin Bieber of Alaska." Since then, he's relocated from the coastal town of Toksook Bay to Anchorage, to "get faster internet," he confessed to KYUK . “I feel like it would mess with my momentum a little b...
Oct 12, 2022•4 min•Ep 4337•Transcript available on Metacast Digging Roots - "Tall Grass" from the 2022 album Zhawenim on Ishkōdé Records. Canadian duo Digging Roots returned this summer with their fourth LP Zhawenim. Since 2004, the husband-and-wife team of Raven Kanatakta Polson-Lahache and Sho-Shona Kish have crafted an award-winning blend of folk, hip-hop, and more with traditional Indigenous music. (Sho-Shona is Anishinabe, from Batchewana First Nation, while Raven is Anishinabe and Mohawk, from Winneway, Quebec.) The album title of "zhawenim" transl...
Oct 11, 2022•4 min•Ep 4336•Transcript available on Metacast Mare Advertencia - "Escribiendo La Historia" from the 2022 Siempreviva EP on Derretida Ent / MuyMAL. An Indigenous Zapotec artist, rapper and activist Mare Advertencia Lirika has been using her voice to amplify underrepresented communities since she burst onto the scene in 2003 alongside Dj TBear. "My life context has taught me that I can use my voice,” she told Refinery 29 last year, “And maybe that’s a privilege of mine, one I shouldn’t have, but I trust very much what I have to say. I don’t f...
Oct 10, 2022•3 min•Ep 4335•Transcript available on Metacast TeZATalks - Lex Luthor a 2022 self-released single. Since 2016, TeZATalks has been enchanting fans with her unique genre-blending sound that explores electronic, hip-hop, metal, and dark pop in bewitching fashion. The self-described “Hard-Core Popstar” was born in Oahu but calls Seattle home and we’re more than happy to have her represent the diversity of music that breeds here. “Lex Luther” is the artist’s most recent release and the first taste from her upcoming debut full-length, of which she...
Oct 07, 2022•2 min•Ep 4334•Transcript available on Metacast Disq - "Cujo Kiddies" from the 2022 album Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet on Saddle Creek. Wisconsin-based quintet Disq are releasing their sophomore record Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet this Friday two years after dropping their debut Collector . Our Song of the Day and the album’s lead single “Cujo Kiddies” emphasizes the band’s ability to craft eclectic art rock but is also a deeply personal song for vocalist/bassist Raina Bock. In a lengthy statement, Bock had this to say about...
Oct 06, 2022•4 min•Ep 4333•Transcript available on Metacast Miss Grit - "Like You," a 2022 single on Mute. New York-based, Korean-American artist Miss Grit (real name: Margaret Sohn) shares the new single "Like You," her first track released since signing to Mute Records. “Mute is one of the labels I put on a pedestal in my mind, so the fact I was even on their radar was really flattering,” Sohn said in a press release. “And then to think they believed in my music enough to want to work together made me so happy.” Today's Song of the Day is an electropop...
Oct 05, 2022•4 min•Ep 4332•Transcript available on Metacast Ty Segall - "Distraction" from the 2022 album "Hello, Hi" on Drag City. From glam rock to garage to experimental noise, Ty Segall has covered it all over his 14-album discography. On his latest, titled “Hello, Hi” , he takes an intimate acoustic approach to songs that gestated during the pandemic. The album title itself acknowledges the strange isolation of that period, and how he missed just talking to people. “It’s a simple sentiment,” Segall told Esquire . “A salutation. And just, how nice th...
Oct 04, 2022•5 min•Ep 4331•Transcript available on Metacast MorMor - "Seasons Change," a 2022 single on Don't Guess / AWAL. On today's Song of the Day, Toronto-based artist MorMor (real name: Seth Nyquist) encourages listeners to seize the day. "I won't leave it to fate / as seasons change," he sings against a laid-back, electro-pop groove, reminiscent of fellow Canadians Broken Social Scene. "‘Seasons Change’ is a song about the constraints of time," he explained via a press release. "The sentiment is that if you are to live once, why not give into your...
Oct 03, 2022•2 min•Ep 4330•Transcript available on Metacast Cumulus - "Sunbeam" from the 2022 album Something Brighter on Share It Music. KEXP’s love and respect for Cumulus has been at least a decade in the making, spanning before the release of their 2013 debut I Never Meant to Be Like This . Back in 2018, our coverage of Cumulus’ sophomore record Comfort World was glowing and persistent, and for good reason. Alexandra Lockhart (née Niedzialkowski)’s ability to convey a wide range of introspective feelings while keeping every single song immensely catc...
Sep 30, 2022•3 min•Ep 4329•Transcript available on Metacast Big Joanie - "In My Arms" from the 2022 album Back Home on Kill Rock Stars. British punk trio and International Clash Day alums Big Joanie are releasing this sophomore record Back Home on November 4th via Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz’s Daydream Library Series (UK) and Kill Rock Stars in the US. Ahead of its release, they’ve dropped a string of singles including “Happier Still” and our Song of the Day, “In My Arms.” Led by a rambling guitar, the nostalgic track looks back on a past relationship w...
Sep 29, 2022•3 min•Ep 4328•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Matthew Bauer - "Skulls" from the 2022 album Flowers on Fortune Tellers. With The Walkmen still on hiatus, multi-instrumentalist Peter Matthew Bauer continues their anthemic style of indie rock on his latest solo LP, Flowers . On today's Song of the Day, he displays the ways he's developed musically since the band took a break. "'Skulls' was inspired by a new style of guitar playing that I stumbled on," he told Under the Radar . "In all the years I’d made music, I’d never figured out a way...
Sep 28, 2022•5 min•Ep 4327•Transcript available on Metacast Rocky Votolato - "Little Black Diamond" from the 2022 album Wild Roots on Spartan. Long-beloved local artist Rocky Votolato returns with his most personal album yet. Wild Roots is his first new album in seven years. Written during the pandemic, Votolato sought to craft an album about "family connection," adding to People magazine , "but on a deeper level, it's about the human struggle and overcoming and surviving anything that is handed to you." (You can hear and read more about this album in an...
Sep 27, 2022•3 min•Ep 4326•Transcript available on Metacast Karate, Guns and Tanning - "Enchanter," a 2022 self-released single. Indianapolis-based band Karate, Guns & Tanning formed out of the 15-year friendship of bassist/vocalist Valerie Green and keyboardist/vocalist Paige Shedletsky. “We basically share a brain,” Shedletsky told Post-Punk.com . Together, they craft a dark, riot grrrl-tinged shoegaze, influenced by David Lynch and Hunter S. Thompson. On today's Song of the Day, they evoke the chilly synths of Ladytron with a soaring '80s-style gu...
Sep 26, 2022•4 min•Ep 4325•Transcript available on Metacast Livt - Let It Go (feat. Dave B) from the 2022 album Pink and Orange on LIV Free Media / DAY ONE ENT. If you weren’t able to make it to our KEXP 50th anniversary party earlier this summer, then you missed an incredible performance by local artist LIVt kicking the festivities off. KEXP has become a major champion of the Tacoma, WA-raised musician’s poetic lyricism touting messages of radical self-love and acceptance. Her most recent record, 2022’s Pink and Orange expands on the soulful soundscapes...
Sep 23, 2022•3 min•Ep 4324•Transcript available on Metacast 
