In Our Headphones

Mike Farris - "Havana Santa," a 2021 single on Compass Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss , host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer . Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christmas broa...

India Ramey - "Cocktail for Christmas" from the 2021 album Christmas Times A'Comin' 2021 on Medicine Show Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss , host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer . Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He...

Phone Jerks - "!Christmas on the Floor!," a 2020 self-released single. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss , host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer . Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Christm...

Attendant - "Roll On May (Misery Christmas)," a 2021 self-released single. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss , host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer . Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be hosting his non-traditional Chr...

SS-20 - "(No) War Toys On Christmas" from the 1987 EP Daddy's Drunk On Christmas on No Pretense Records. This week, we are continuing a long-held tradition of featuring Christmas-themed songs selected by Brian Foss , host of KEXP’s punk show Sonic Reducer . Brian has been doing a punk rock Christmas special every year since 2004 and has been a Christmas Day on-air DJ since 2012. He will be h...

Advertisement - "The Matador," a 2021 single on Fire Talk. Hot off the heels of their 4-song EP, Freedom , that came out last month, Seattle quintet Advertisement share the new single "The Matador," a song they say is about “being perceived by others as something different than you perceive yourself.” True to the aesthetic they established on their 2020 debut album American Advertiseme...

Bartees Strange - "Free Kelly Rowland (feat. Armand Hammer)" from the 2021 album Live Forever (Deluxe Edition) on Memory Music. Last year, DC-based musician Bartees Strange wowed us all with his debut full-length Live Forever, a genre-defying release exploring themes of racism and resilience. For the album's one-year anniversary, he reissued the LP in a deluxe edition version, which includes a re-...

Otis McDonald - "Keep It Sexy," a 2020 single on TrackTribe. Otis McDonald began as a studio experiment, where San Francisco-based producer and artist Joe Bagale spent three months writing, performing, recording, and sampling his own recordings. When it came time to release the results, Bagale looked towards two music icons to encapsulate the retro-tinged music he was composing: Shuggie Otis and M...

Sweeping Promises - "Pain Without A Touch," a 2021 single on Feel It Records / Sub Pop.  On last year's debut LP Hunger for a Way Out , Sweeping Promises premiered an infectious lo-fi post-punk sound, with angular guitars, synthpop sweeps, and Lira Mondal bold, buoyant vocals. Today's Song of the Day is their first single for Sub Pop, who signed the duo up last month. Their new wave groove st...

Dina Ögon - "Ficktjuven" from the 2021 album Dina Ögon on Sing a Song Fighter. Self-described as the "bastard love child of Eric B. & Rakim, Fleetwood Mac, Selda Bağcan, and Ted Gärdestad," Swedish pop group Dina Ögon brings a '70s funk vibe to today's Song of the Day.  The group is led by vocalist Anna Ahnlun and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Ögren, who used to pl...

Today, we bring you an episode of KEXP's Live on KEXP podcast featuring an exclusive session with Arlo Parks. With two EPs and a seemingly endless number of accolades from nearly every tastemaker in the music industry under her belt, it’s an understatement to say that Arlo Parks’ debut album was highly anticipated. Released in January, ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ lives up to th...

Sea Lemon - "Sunday," a 2021 self-released single. Seattle artist Sea Lemon (aka 26-year-old singer/songwriter Natalie Lew) shares a shimmery slice of dreampop on her debut single "Sunday," a first listen at her forthcoming EP, out next year. Producer Stefan Mac (Wallows, No Vacation) gives the song a bright ebullience, even while the lyrics confront negative emotions. “My first release, &ls...

Nilüfer Yanya - "Stabilise" from the 2022 album Painless on ATO. British singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya will release her highly-anticipated sophomore full-length Painless on March 4th, 2022 via ATO Records. Today's Song of the Day is a sneak peek at the upcoming release, a meditation on the monotony of daily life.  “I was really thinking about your surroundings and how much t...

Hatchie - "This Enchanted," a 2021 single on Secretly Canadian. Brisbane, Australia-based artist Hatchie (real name: Harriette Pilbeam) has signed to the label Secretly Canadian, sharing her first new single since her 2019 dream-pop debut LP Keepsake . In a press release, she states today's KEXP Song of the Day "encapsulates everything I wanted to do moving forward from my first album." She contin...

Hand Habits - "More Than Love" from the 2021 album Fun House on Saddle Creek. It was a "fun house" indeed: during the pandemic, singer/songwriter Meg Duffy (who records as Hand Habits ) shared a home with fellow recording artist Sasami and engineer Kyle Thomas. The quarantine bubble provided Duffy with the creative environment and support they needed to craft their most adventurous album yet, Fun...

BLK ODYSSY - "MURDA" from the 2021 album BLK VINTAGE on After School. “I want to create something that will be culturally impactful for my people. I want to do something that is impactful on a larger scale, something that is for groups of Black people across the country,” says soulful songwriter Sam Houston, who records under the name BLK ODYSSY .  His debut album, BLK VINTAGE , f...

Smokey Brights - "Honey Eye," a 2021 single on Freakout. Today's Song of the Day — from Seattle's own Smokey Brights — is a love song for uncertain times, with frontman Ryan Devlin declaring "Honey I want to rock the world with you, before it splits in two / Don’t know what else to do." It's a fitting statement from a band led by married couple Devlin and Kim West, who've, indeed...

Just Mustard - "I Am You," a 2021 single on Partisan. Irish quintet Just Mustard caught our ears with their powerful noise rock debut Wednesday , an album that earned them a Choice Music Prize nomination for Album of the Year in 2018. Since then, they've signed to Partisan Records and have shared a first look at a sophomore release (projected released: 2022) with today's Song of the Day. The moody...

Spiritualized - "Always Together With You" from the 2022 album Everything Was Beautiful on Fat Possum. If today's Song of the Day sounds a little familiar, you're not just tripping on Spiritualized 's otherworldly psych-sound. “Always Together With You” was originally released in demo form in 2014 as “Always Forgetting With You (The Bridge Song)”, but it's since been rework...

Mandy, Indiana - "Bottle Episode" from the … EP on Fire Talk. Mandy, Indiana aren't from Indiana at all — the post-rock quartet actually hail from Manchester, England, where founding members Scott Fair (guitar/production) and Valentine Caulfield (vocals/lyrics) met at a show their respective separate bands were playing. After deciding to team up, the new group began working on their d...

Chris Carroll - "Blue (feat. Gabriel Teodros)," a 2021 single on Raindrop Sound. Seattle-based artist Chris Carroll made a name for himself with his impressive production work on music from Gifted Youngstaz, Ra Scion of Common Market, Entendres, and MADlines. And then in 2019, he began releasing his own music, first under the alias Spoke, and then under his own name. Today's Song of the Day showca...

Snotty Nose Rez Kids - "Change (feat. ebonEmpress & Jenny Lea)" from the 2021 album Life After on Distorted Muse. Vancouver-based duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids live up to their name. The duo of Darren “Young D” Metz and Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce formed the group in 2016 after seeing a show headlined by fellow-Indigenous artists, the hip-hop collective First Ladies Crew. As...

Jelly Cleaver - "Black Line," a 2021 single on Gearbox Records. On today's Song of the Day, South London-based artist/activist Jelly Cleaver uses her bluesy guitar rock to speak out on global warming. In a press release, she elaborates: “This song was especially inspired by the story of the Ogoni Nine and Shell oil corporation. Having poisoned the Niger Delta region with negligent oil spills...

Ivy Sole - "One More Night (feat. Topaz Jones)," a 2021 single on Les Fleurs Records. With her new single "One More Night", Philadelphia-based artist Ivy Sole teams up with Montclair, NJ-based rapper Topaz Jones for a soulful, R&B tinged exploration of romantic feelings. It's also the first listen to her just-announced full-length CANDID , which will be released February 2nd on Ivy's own Les F...

Coco Peila - "Pretty Girls (feat. Taj Mahal)," a 2021 single on JuixeGRL Records. With her latest single "Pretty Girls," Bay Area-based artist Coco Peila has elevated a movement to challenge beauty norms. As she expresses on her Facebook page, “It’s an opportunity for us as Black women to have a heart to heart about what it’s been like for all of us, and to challenge the ideas an...