In Our Headphones

K!MMORTAL - "Breathe," a 2020 self-released single. Throughout the month of May, KEXP has been celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month . We’re putting an extra spotlight this week on API artists with this week’s Song of the Day picks, continuing with K!MMORTAL’s “Breathe.” "Breathe” was released for the current moment of uncertainty during the global p...

Lightning Bug - "The Onely Ones," a 2020 single on Fat Possum. Throughout the month of May, KEXP has been celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month . We’re putting an extra spotlight this week on API artists with this week’s Song of the Day picks, continuing with Lightning Bug’s “The Only Ones.” Helmed by songwriter Audrey Kang, Lightning Bug has been making h...

MYXA - "Carrion" from the 2019 self-released album Mosca 蠅. Throughout the month of May, KEXP has been celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month . We’re putting an extra spotlight this week on API artists with this week’s Song of the Day picks, continuing with MYXA’s “Carrion.” The Seattle trip-hop duo emerged last year with their dark and vibey debut MOSCA E...

MAITA - "Someone's Lost Their Wallet" from the 2020 album Best Wishes on Kill Rock Stars. Throughout the month of May, KEXP has been celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month . We’re putting an extra spotlight this week on API artists with this week’s Song of the Day picks, starting off with MAITA’s excellent “Someone’s Lost Their Wallet.”  Read an...

We’ve finally reached World Goth Day and DJ Abbie is going out with a bang – or rather a “Ravebomb.” This alternate mix from the Vancouver B.C. techno outfit lives up to its name. It’s a haunted eruption of sound, shrieking against the clamoring of drums. Bold, unrelenting, and even a bit frightening, it hits all the hallmarks of goth music. Read the full post on KEXP...

Oakland’s Houses of Heaven takes us into the homestretch of DJ Abbie’s Song of the Day pics leading into World Goth Day on May 22. The center piece of the group’s debut LP, “A Place Between” is quintessential goth with sharp, spelling-binding and dissonant percussion and whirls of cryptic drones and vocals. Playing the track loudly invokes the feeling of sweatily danc...

Continuing with her week of goth song of the day picks, DJ Abbie brings us the industrial banger that is Fee Lion’s “Blood Sisters.” The moniker of Justina Kairyte, she’s described the EP and titular song as themed around self-love.  “I was experiencing a deep disconnect with myself and had to begin the journey of re-learning how to love myself, which can be so d...

We’re continuing DJ Abbie’s week of songs leading up to World Goth Day on May 22. Despite what the name may imply, Glasgow band The Ninth Wave’s “Happy Days!” is not a happy affair. This is ‘Goth Day,’ we’re talking about here – what did you expect?  “’Happy Days!’ is a song of ups and downs,” the band told DIY Mag...

Leading up to World Goth Day, DJ Abbie is giving you a dose of variations of goth every day this week. She’s kicking things off with an essential cut from The Birthday Party’s own Rowland S. Howard.  While often associated with post-punk, there’s an unmistakable goth-ness to the landmark Australian musician’s work. “Autoluminescent,” a standout track from H...

Smokey Brights - "I Love You But Damn" from the 2020 album I Love You But Damn on Freakout Records. Seattle's own Smokey Brights — led by husband and wife duo Kim West and Ryan Devlin — return this summer with a new album titled I Love You But Damn , out in July via Freakout Records. Via their Facebook page, the band describe the song as "a love song for times of distance. Written abou...

Coriky - "Clean Kill" from the 2020 album Coriky on Dischord Records. Combine the melodic energy of the Evens and the gruff bark of Fugazi and you've got Coriky , not surprisingly, 'cause they feature members of both those bands. The trio of guitarist Ian MacKaye (Fugazi, Evens), bassist Joe Lally (Fugazi), and drummer Amy Farina (Evens) played their first show in late 2018, at St. Stephen and the...

DJ Python - "ADMSDP (feat. LA Warman)" from the 2020 album Mas Amable on Incienso. New York-based producer Brian Piñeyro records under many names: Deejay Xanax, DJ Wey, Luis; but, it's under the moniker DJ Python that he takes things to a hypnotic level. On his sophomore full-length Mas Amable , released last month on Incienso, he combines ambient techno and what he calls "deep reggaeton" i...

Holy Esque - "Reverence Falls" from the 2020 CPH EP on Beyond the Frequency. Scottish post-punk band Holy Esque are projecting a third album will be out in 2021, but until then, they've released their third EP, CPH , a collection of rarities, to tide us over in the meantime. The tracks on CPH were recorded back in 2014 at STC Studios, Copenhagen. Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: ht...

William McCarthy - "Ballad for the Unemployed," a 2020 self-released single. As the frontman for Pela and Augustines, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter William McCarthy has never shied away from difficult topics. (Augustine's 2011 album Rise Ye Sunken Ships was influenced by the deaths of his mother and brother.)  As a solo artist, McCarthy continues to explore darker subjects in his music, li...

DJ Houseplants - "Just Don't Know," a 2020 self-released single. Seattle's own DJ Houseplants (aka DJ, producer, designer, and aspiring botanist Justin Av) says he's "driven by the vibrancy of the community there is at house & techno shows and wants everyone to thrive to the music." He certainly accomplishes that on today's Song of the Day. KEXP's own Alex Ruder tells us: "He first made a spla...

Black Flowers Cafe - "Who" from the 2020 album Flow on La Lumaca Dischi. Keen-eared listeners of the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole may recognize this song from when it had its global debut on the KEXP airwaves in late April.  Italian indie rock quartet Black Flowers Cafe craft what they call "flower pop," mixing influences from Bombay Bicycle Club to Caribbean folk to Afrobeat. Formed in 201...

ALTA - "Figured Out" from the 2019 album Reasons on Soothsayer. On their debut album Reasons , Melbourne-based duo ALTA strived to create what they call "emotional dance music." Vocalist Hannah Lesser and producer Julius Dowson spent ten months at home recording the album themselves. "We get a little obsessive and care a lot about the feel of the vocal take, and when we’ve tried we can&rsquo...

Daníel Hjálmtýsson - "Birds," a 2020 self-released single. Icelandic singer/songwriter Daníel Hjálmtýsson kicked off 2020 in a big way: by releasing his debut solo single "Birds" back on January 3rd.  Hjálmtýsson may be better known as half of the experimental duo HYOWLP, a project with producer and multi-instrumentalist Hjalti Steinn Si...

Lee Fields & The Expressions - "Don't Give Up," a 2019 single on Big Crown Records. Plainfield, NJ-based artist Lee Fields just celebrated his 70th birthday last week, and he's spent 50 of those years performing old-school soul, funk, and R&B. His first single was released in 1969, and he went on to work with artists like B.B. King, Clarence Carter, Kool & The Gang, and more. Last year...

STRFKR - “Never The Same” from the 2020 album Future Past Life on Polyvinyl. STRFKR returned this month with their sixth full-length, Future Past Life , which finds the long-running Portland-based band evolving from their psych-synth dance-heavy pop to something more stripped down and organic. For the first time ever, every song on the album is led by acoustic guitar with the synth sou...

Washed Out - “Too Late," a 2020 single on Sub Pop. What started out as a hindrance due to the coronavirus pandemic, ended up becoming a beautiful expression of support and community. For his latest digital single “Too Late”, Ernest Greene (aka chillwave pioneer Washed Out ) had planned to shoot the music video in Italy, collaborating with an international team of filmmakers. In a...

Hazel English - “Off My Mind” from the 2020 album Wake UP! on Polyvinyl / Marathon Artists. Don't let her sweet voice and the swingin' '60s vibe of today's Song of the Day fool you. Australian-born, LA-based artist Hazel English just released her debut album Wake UP! , and she's imploring listeners to do just that. She describes the album as “a reminder to wake up and be present...

Chemtrails - “Frightful in the Sunlight” from the 2020 album The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable on PNKSLM. "Like riding into hell on a unicorn." That's how a friend of Manchester-via-London band Chemtrails described their latest single. (They clarify on Facebook, "his music taste is questionable, but we'll take it.")  Originally a lo-fi home recording project of musical and roma...

Woods - “Where Do You Go When You Dream?” from the 2020 album Strange to Explain on Woodsist. New York psych-folk band Woods return this Spring with their first new album in three years, titled Strange To Explain . The album will be their first since frontman Jeremy Earl became a father and since guitarist Jarvis Taveniere relocated to Los Angeles, adding new challenges for the 15-year...

Shane Tutmarc - "A Brave New World," a 2020 self-released single. “We’re all together / We’re not alone / Through the window through the phone / Where it stops nobody knows” Former Seattle-ite/current Nashvillian Shane Tutmarc shared the quarantine-inspired track "A Brave New World" earlier this month, inspired by reporter Eric Johnson of KOMO News in Seattle. Tutmarc remar...