The Seattle band Smokey Brights released a new album called Dashboard Heat this fall. The band is playing The Crocodile in Seattle on December 11. Emily Fox caught up with the band to hear about how the songs on the new album reflect the loss of a parent to cancer, the overturning of Roe v Wade and an ode to Seattle’s Northgate Way.

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Say She She’s album, Cut & Rewind is one of the most played albums on KEXP in 2025. Emily Fox speaks with the trio about how they met sharing a wall in a New York apartment building, their reflections on women’s rights in their song She Who Dares and about the racist history of Chicago’s 1979 Disco Demolition Night that shows up in their song, Disco Life.

“Let's take what happened at Comiskey Park where people were really just finding an excuse to burn black records, black musicians' records. Got nothing to do with disco, nothing to with genre,” Piya Malik says.

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The Montreal based and Anishinaabe-led band, Ribbon Skirt talks about their album, Bite Down and new EP, PENSACOLA. Frontwoman Tashiina Buswa talks with Emily Fox about how indigeneity comes up in her music, especially the song “Off Rez” and shares stories about her life and family, including how her mother was saved from the mass adoption of indigenous children known as the “Sixties Scoop.”

“You’re never really free, even if you're told you're free as an Indigenous person,” Buswa says. “It's why we are always saying land back. There’s been so much that has been stripped away and so much that won't ever be given back, but all we can do is just keep demanding and keep fighting for that freedom or that to have our rights to exist in this land is like that's the only thing that we can keep fighting for.”

photo credit: Ani Harroch

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Portugal. The Man is out with a new album called SHISH. Emily Fox caught up with the band’s singer, songwriter and founder, John Gourley at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo to hear how his off-the-grid childhood in Alaska as well as his daughter’s genetic conduction influenced the album. “My mom and dad both became Iditarod mushers and finishers, and it took us off grid. We didn’t have power until I was 16, 17,” Gourley said.

photo by Nathan Perkel

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Seattle’s Brandi Carlile recently released her eighth studio album — it’s called “Returning to Myself.” Carlile stopped by KEXP recently to speak with DJ Kevin Cole about the themes of togetherness, confronting middle age, and watching her daughters slowly grow up and become more independent. She tells the story about how writing a poem in a barn started the album writing process, and how she managed to become very close friends with Joni Mitchell. 

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Neko Case is out with a new album called Neon Grey Midnight Green. In conversation with Emily Fox, Case breaks down what spiderwebs can teach us about self-importance, what female and non-binary folks in the music industry have taught her about confidence and not caring about the male gaze and rock n’ roll’s mythology of “you’re lucky to be here.”

“The mythology of you're lucky to be here of rock n’ roll… is very harmful and it's often leveraged to make people think that that theater wasn't built to play music in,” Case says. “Like really? That's weird because I don't know, there's a stage and you have a huge sound system in here. Gosh, I guess we could probably get together and make this happen.”

photo by Ebru Yildiz

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The Seattle-based jazz musician Kassa Overall released CREAM in September 2025, an album that showcases new, original takes on some of the most classic tracks in 90s rap — from Wu Tang to Biggie and beyond. Overall spoke with KEXP’s Dusty Henry about his work.

"As we're recording these songs, I'm realizing this is actually a response record to my other records," Overall says in the interview. "This is actually a commentary on the whole jazz hip-hop conversation. This is a commentary on my own career."

Overall adds historical context: "Jazz musicians always would take songs that were popular in the public sphere and just use them as materials — not so much a cover, but just as a starting point for the listener. The idea that you remain faithful to the original — maybe some people think about that as a sign of respect to the music, but I don't see it like that. The respect comes from studying the original and then finding your own way to approach it."

Photo Credit: Erik Barden

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Jay Som is the moniker of Melina Duterte, a songwriter and producer originally based out of the Bay Area now living in Los Angeles. After producing music for other artists for so many years, she’s back with her fourth studio album, Belong, named for her quest to figure out her place in the indie music scene. While her tracks take you across various genre explorations from straight-up pop to downright experimental, she masterfully curates a cohesive experience. 

KEXP’s Dusty Henry spoke with Duterte about the expansive sound of the record, including collaborations with emo idols Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World and Hayley Williams of Paramore. 

“I’m always desperate for connection and understanding other people,” Duterte says in the interview. “When I get to have that experience, I feel closer to myself. That’s what this album helped me with.” 

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Photo Credit: Daniel Topete

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In 2024, the Scottish-Danish artist Clarissa Connelly put out an album called World of Work. It doesn’t exactly deal with “work” the way that you might imagine in a 21st-century context. On the contrary, Connelly’s opus dives deep into philosophical concepts regarding our relationship with our mortal world, bodily movement, and what’s known as “religious ecstasy.” 

KEXP contributor Isabel Khalili spoke with Connelly about the themes she taps into, which are as timeless as the sound of the music itself. The album centers around the use of bells, circularity, and death as a form of revelation. 

“The feeling of being part of something bigger — what is that?” Connelly asks in the interview, nodding to the first existential questions of our human ancestors. “Connecting with the past gives me a feeling of getting really high. Bells have always been a way of connecting to that. They are our structure of society.” Her hope for the listener is that the album can create space, peace, and “even just a brief moment of clarity or wanting to let go and being brave.” 

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Izzy Glaudini, Halle Saxon, and Lola Dompé make up the Los Angeles post-punk trio Automatic. They released their third album Is It Now? last month on Stones Throw Records. 

KEXP’s Martin Douglas spoke with all three members of the band about the new album, how touring influenced their new sound, and finding joy in a polarized political climate. 

“The worse things become politically, it becomes even more important to have a vision of what you want the world to be like,” Glaudini says in the interview. “There’s not much room for self-pity and cynicism. That’s a luxury that we don’t have. So, when your back’s against the wall, you have to get your dukes up,” she laughs. 

“It’s inspiring to feel active and believe in something — which sounds hokey but seems to be the truth. When push comes to shove, people don’t want to see injustice or fascism take over.” 

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photo by Erica Snyder

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