A Deeper Listen

The Grammy Awards, as well as Republic Records, have announced they will no longer use the term “urban” in their award categories and music departments. Writer Jeremy Helligar discusses this welcome …

Today’s podcast is co-hosted by musician, community organizer and KEXP DJ, Gabriel Teodros. It celebrates the music of Black artists, some of whom are on the frontlines of the protests against police…

Following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Seattle has seen night after night of protests and KEXP DJs have responded by playing music by Black artists—music with a message. One of t…

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Joy Division frontman, Ian Curtis. In just two years, Joy Division recorded three albums worth of material and performed 120 shows. Curtis tragic…

Seattle Filmmaker, Lynn Shelton died May 16th at the age of 54 from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder. Her breakout movie, 'Humpday' won an award at Sundance Film Festival. She also directed fo…

Moses Sumney is out with the second part of his album, ‘græ.' Sumney, a Ghanaian American, was born in Southern California but spent portions of his childhood in Ghana. He spent the early half of his…

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down released their fifth full length album, ‘Temple,' on May 15th. Frontwoman Thao Nguyen talks about how her latest album is about coming out to her Vietnamese family and p…

Allen Stone is a soul singer and an actual son of a preacher. He started his music career in Seattle, but now with a wife and child in tow, he’s re-located to eastern Washington. His latest record, '…

Seattle’s 30-year-old Re-bar venue announced on May 9th that it will permanently close its location on Howell street in Seattle. The plans are to reopen in the fall of 2021 at a new space in South Se…

Seattle’s Parisalexa is out with her first full-length album, '2 REAL.' She’s in her early 20s and is already cowriting songs for other artists in LA and has appeared in NBC’s songwriter show, ‘Songl…

Rufus Wainwright was scheduled to release a new album on April 24th, but because of COVID-19, that album release has been moved to July. Part of the reason for the delay is that physical copies of th…

The Library of Congress is launching a tool this summer that will make its massive audio collection of free to use and reuse works available to DJs, hip hop artists, and others to sample in their mus…

Damien Jurado released his 19th (!) album today, titled 'What’s New, Tomboy?' Jurado talks about his songwriting process. He describes songwriting as reading stories from a teleprompter– they just sh…

Seattle-based band, Deep Sea Diver has been getting creative with their weekly live stream performances on Instagram Live. Each week they give fans a “stem”—a drum beat or guitar riff to play with an…

Laura Marling has been releasing albums since she was 18. Now at the age of 30, she has released her seventh studio album, 'Song For Our Daughter.' Despite the title of the record, Marling admits she…

Lido Pimienta is a Toronto-based, Colombian-born musician who won Canada’s biggest music prize, the Polaris Prize, in 2017. Her latest album, ‘Miss Colombia,' combines cumbia, reggaeton and latin fol…

Radiohead guitarist, Ed O’Brien talks about his first solo album, EARTH. It was inspired by global travel, music festivals, spirituality, and the words of Walt Whitman and Carl Sagan.

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Ishmael Butler of the Seattle hip hop duo, Shabazz Palaces takes us on a cosmic journey through his new record, 'The Don of Diamond Dreams.'

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Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee discusses how her struggle with addiction and codependency influenced her latest record, 'Saint Cloud.' Crutchfield has been sober for two years now, and although sob…

Thundercat’s latest album, 'It Is What It Is,' touches on the loss of rapper and producer Mac Miller who died from a drug overdose in 2018. The album also showcases Thundercat’s profound sense of hum…