Live on KEXP

Burien’s biggest musical export Travis Thompson has been building buzz since signing a record deal with major label Epic last year to release his latest album Reckless Endangerment. Filling the KEXP stage with a full band, the young rapper spits his flows gracefully and effortlessly like a seasoned pro. Troy Nelson traces Thompson’s trajectory from spitting rhymes over Lil Wayne beats...

Brother band Moundrag brag about their lack of guitars, which may not seem like a big deal, but you try making heavy progressive psych without it! Camille and Colin Goallen created the band from a former 4-piece project called Smooth Motion. Troy Nelson dives into a history lesson on other notable bands that have spawned from less-notable projects while also giving us the 411 on Moundrag, who hail...

Swiss six-piece L’Eclair make eccentric grooves inspired by an eclectic combination of sources including dub, funk, krautrock, ambient, and prog. A jam band at heart, the Geneva band can stretch sets out for hours at a time, if the audience so desires. Which, they usually do. We hop the pond for a dash of European culture on this week’s Live on KEXP. Witness Troy Nelson attempt to educ...

Welsh band The Joy Formidable have spent the past decade making stadium-ready indie rock opuses that sound larger than life itself. In 2019, after releasing four great albums, the band celebrated the 10-year anniversary of their debut EP, 'A Balloon Called Moaning,' with a deluxe re-issue and a major tour behind the album. That’s when the band found themselves amongst the glimmering lights o...

Veteran electronic producer Matthew Dear is a self-described “tinkerer” and “loop-obsessed” musician who is known for crafting eclectically varied and mesmerizingly strange sounds under a number of various names including Audion, False, and Jabberjaw alongside his government name. Dear’s most recent album, 2018’s Bunny, was described by KEXP (aka myself) as havi...

Time warp with us to a year that’s *not* 2020 to settle into the sultry sounds of Joey Quiñones and Thee Sinseers. The East Los Angeles band takes their inspiration from the soulful ‘60s of SoCal to bring some seriously sexy heat. Despite having only released a string of singles, Thee Sinseers are one of the most popular groups in SoCal, in-demand for parties up and down the Cal...

Just in time for the sun-soaked dog days of summer, High Pulp are here to bring the heat with their jazz-influenced funky, soulful rhythms. The Seattle-based band is a giant collective ranging anywhere between 6 and 11 skilled musicians at any time who believe that collaboration is key. Troy Nelson details the band’s growth from the basement to Bad Juice and name-checks the local luminaries...

Mexican-Panamian artist Michelle Blades brings a vast range of influences to her unique transcontinental post-psych. Born into a family of salsa musicians, Blades has a rich musical history that includes the Arizona-based noise rock band called North Dakota and the French synthpop group Fishbach. Troy Nelson journeys down “the rabbit hole of French awesome” and digs into her continent-...

For over 15 years, Emily King has been showcasing her gorgeously soulful vocals and prize-winning songwriting on platforms both minor and major. The daughter of two musicians kicked off her career in a major way by signing to J Records, being a featured vocalist on Nas’ 2004 album Street Disciple, and spending the next few years opening for legendary artists like Alicia Keys, Chaka Khan, Joh...

If fiery fuzzed-out riffs and tireless headbangable energy is your thing then SONS is your band. The Belgian four-piece has spent the past couple of years introducing their brand of blistering garage rock to the world via nonstop touring. This performance of SONS finds them in the wintery wonderland of Reykjavik for Iceland Airwaves, where the band turns the heat up to tropical levels to melt both...

Palestinian-Jordanian band 47Soul are making waves around the world in a cultish way with their completely unique take on traditional Palestinian street music infused with electronic, hip hop, dancehall, and dabke that they call Shamstep. This trailblazing new genre is named after the province Bilad Al-Sham, with their lyrics focusing on themes of displacement and community. Troy Nelson takes you...

You may know composer, singer, and producer Caroline Polachek best as the frontperson of the iPod-hawking band Chairlift. But, as Troy Nelson details on this episode of Live on KEXP, the New York-based artist has long been busily churning out music for herself as well as a wide list of artists including the Queen Bee herself. Her latest record, 2019’s 'Pang,' is the first to be released unde...

A prolific musical force, Georgia Anne Muldrow has released 19 albums since 2006 and has worked with everyone from Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Brittany Howard, and Blood Orange. Her latest release, 2019’s 'Black Love & War,' is a collaboration with husband Dudley Perkins that sees the poetic geniuses explore the funky depths of Afrofuturism.  Troy Nelson expands on Muldrow’s rich hi...

Instead of releasing a new session today, we are continuing our station-wide pause on new content to hold space for anti-racist education and action . Meanwhile, we are using our platform to amplify Black voices in music. Today, we revisit one of our favorite KEXP sessions by Seattle group, The Black Tones. Their 2019 debut full-length album, 'Cobain and Cornbread,' is an invigorating blend of blu...

Hailing from Portland, The Shivas make surfy psychedelic that takes a massive amount of inspiration from the 1960s. For this episode of Live on KEXP, Troy Nelson draws parallels from artists of that era like the Beatles, Little Richard, and The Kingsmen to the explosive shake-n-shimmy of The Shivas. For the past 14 years, the quartet has charmed audiences with their bombastic live performances and...

Formed by brother/sister duo Jack and Lily Wolter on a small island called Isle of Man, Penelope Isles channels salty seas and flowing currents for their eclectic and lustrous style of fuzzy dream pop. Now Brighton-based, the band is rounded out by Brighton locals Becky Redford on bass and Jack Sowton on drums. For this Live On KEXP session, Troy Nelson gives some background on the Isle of Man, wh...

Fourteen years ago, Latin-infused Americana band Calexico teamed up with folk singer-songwriter Sam Beam, better known as Iron & Wine, for an EP called In the Reins. After much delay, the old friends reunited in 2018 to work on their debut full-length, Years to Burn, which was unveiled last year. The chemistry between the good chums is unmistakable during this KEXP performance, recorded at 201...

For his third KEXP in-studio performance as Hiss Golden Messenger, folk-rocker M.C. Taylor brought a whole gang of talented musicians to join him. Flanked by Phil Cook, Chris Boerner, Erin Rae, Alex Bingham, and Al Smith, the sextet played a stunning set of songs off Hiss Golden Messenger’s latest record, 'Terms of Surrender.’  Recorded 10/11/2019. I Need A Teacher Down At The Upt...

Greek-Sudanese musician Marina Satti and her ever-present all-female polyhphonic vocal group Fonέs wowed the audience at the La Chapelle by le Studio in Rennes, France during Trans Musicales this past December with their modern take on Greek, Balkan, Arabic, and Middle-Eastern sounds. After having gone viral in 2017 with her single-shot video for “Mantissa,” Satti has become a beloved...

Burien’s biggest musical export Travis Thompson has been building buzz since signing a record deal with major label Epic last year to release his latest album Reckless Endangerment. Filling the KEXP stage with a full band, the young rapper spits his flows gracefully and effortlessly like a seasoned pro. Thompson and Audioasis host Eva Walker chat about their common history of starting out in...

Are you wondering about changes you've noticed to the KEXP podcasts lately? In addition to the name change (from "Live Performances" to simply "Live on KEXP") and the new graphic that nods to KEXP's iconic Live Room lights, we've got some more exciting updates in store...  Sit back and let your new host, KEXP's own DJ Troy Nelson, tell you all about the changes that will go into effect starti...

The Bandcamp page housing Kikagaku Moyo’s discography simply describes the band as “feeling good music.” It’s succinct and perhaps reductive to the intricate tapestry of sounds the Japanese band weaves but nonetheless completely accurate. In November, they made a crowd of VIP donors at The Triple Door feel very good while basking in the haze of Kikagaku Moyo’s free fl...

This past fall, beloved KEXP show Street Sounds went live with a performance in the Gathering Space from notable hip hop and R&B artists. The first to take the stage was electro-soul duo Soultanz. A collaboration between producer Jared Rubens and singer/producer Shayhan Mashayekh, the two mix samples of samba, bossa nova, soul, classical, and classic rock with Mashayekh’s smooth vocals t...

It’s only been two years since Los Bitchos uploaded their first bedroom recordings onto Bandcamp but they’ve quickly won hearts with their flavorful take on psychedelic cumbia. Currently London-based, the five talented musicians hail from Uruguay, Sweden, Australia, and England. For this breakout performance at Trans Musicales 2019, the band brings their sun-soaked rhythms indoors to L...

Icelandic group Hatari are an experience unlike any other. Almost more performance art than anything else, their music lies somewhere between techno and metal with a sprinkling of pop while their stage show is an artfully curated futuristic BDSM anti-capitalist daydream. After a big year, where the band sparked controversy with their comments about Palestine before and during their performance in...