Concluding the KEXP broadcast live at KEX Hostel for Iceland Airwaves 2013 is Icelandic singer-songwriter Ásgeir. His father is a poet and his brother a musician (in another Icelandic favorite, Hjatalin). He's not short on any of the family talent, and lucky for his listeners, an adolescent injury …
One of the hardest working artists in the Seattle music scene, DoNormaal (the moniker of Seattle-via-California musician/poet Christianne Karefa-Johnson) burst onto the local stage in 2015 with the release of her excellent debut LP, Jump or Die. Since then, she has unfailingly proven herself as a t…
Each Tuesday for the next two months, KEXP will present recordings we captured during the OFF Festival in Katowice, Poland. Our excursion there in the hot days of August - made possible by the festival and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland! initiative - introduced us to…
The guys in Iska Dhaaf are overachievers. Not only do they write and record music together with a meticulous eye for detail, but they both maintain separate projects besides. Seattleites will recognize guitarist/vocalist Nathan Quiroga from his word slinging antics as Buffalo Madonna from Mad Rad a…
Tuesday, April 11th is a very special edition of The Round at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, curated by Audioasis on KEXP’s DJ Sharlese! The showcase will feature amazing female talent from the Seattle area: musicians QOQO ROBOQS, Haley Heynderickx (PDX), guest poet Imani Sims, and live painter Sie…
We've reached day three, the halfway point of Iceland Airwaves Music Festival and of the KEXP broadcast. Rather than winding down, things are just getting going, as festival-goers prepare for a weekend that invariably becomes a music supermarathon, catching great music all over Reykjavik from noon …
The phrase "music is a universal language" is sometimes overused, but is perfectly fitting when it comes to Joe Driscoll & Sekou Kouyate. New York native Driscoll and Guinea-born Kouyate met at a music festival in Marseilles, France and instantly clicked. Despite the enormous language barrier -…
With their shifting, phased-out sound, local urban poets and Cloud Nice members Kingdom Crumbs have become of the 206's leading hip hop groups. (In a recent Stranger piece, our own Larry Mizell, Jr. called the group "hands-down full-stop one of the very very best groups our town has.") The Seattle …
Second on today's broadcast live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival was the incomparable Digable Planets. Formed in Brooklyn in 1992, the poet-rappers, comprised of Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, Mary Ann "Ladybug Mecca" Vieira and Craig "Doodlebug" Irving, continue to push the limits …
KEXP's stellar lineup at Bumbershoot continues with festival heavy-hitter Michael Franti & Spearhead live on the Secret Stage. Franti has his fingers in many pots. He’s a poet, rapper, and singer-songwriter, who has been spreading positivity all over the world since 1994 with his current projec…
I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is exactly the succulently-written, shit-talking, salty dog memoir you’d want from the man who dreamed and ignited punk. Richard Hell was a fun-loving little Kentucky cowboy as a kid, loving TV, growing up with peak period 60s Stones and Dylan LPs, dreaming of tak…
"You got your peanut butter on my chocolate?" No, we got your chocolate on Thurston Moore! Or maybe it was the other way around! Either way, a simple chocolate bar wrapper was the inspiration for a brand new song, written on the spot, by Thurston and his new project Chelsea Light Moving. No doubt …
Chicago poet and R&B songstress Jamila Woods is a budding phenom and self-love champion who radiates radically positive energy.
Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time on KEXP, is "Summertime" by The Suburbs, from the 2021 album Poet’s Party on Suburbs Music.
Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time on KEXP, is "Crisis" by Elizabeth M. Drummond, a 2022 single on Young Poet.
KEXP’s Isabel Khalili talks with Maral about the new album and how her approach to sampling is inspired by Persian classical music philosophy, the enduring legacy of poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and how her music reflects the resilience of Iranian culture and people.
&n…
