A Deeper Listen

Band of Horses is out with their first new album in six years. While it's called ‘Things Are Great,' the lyrics paint a different picture. Frontman Ben Bridwell talks about how the record was inspired by heartache and breakups. He also discusses his experience arriving in Seattle homeless years ago before starting the band. Finally, he shares his thoughts on the music industry and how he spent between $350k-$500k on this album in hopes the band's record label and sales would pay out. 

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James Bookert used to tour with a well-known bluegrass punk band, Whiskey Shivers (they even made an appearance in the movie Pitch Perfect 3.) After burnout and a battle with seizures, Bookert is making new music and community at his day job at a local liquor store.

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DakhaBrakha is a band from Ukraine whose live performance on KEXP from 2017 has garnered more than two million views on our YouTube channel. One member of that band, Iryna Kovalenko, has been living in Seattle for the past five years. She spoke with Sound & Vision’s Emily Fox on March 11 while her husband, Oleksandr Cherniyenko helped with interpretations. They talked about what is going on between Ukraine and Russia right now. 

Watch DakhaBrakha's Live on KEXP session here. 

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Musicians who score video games have found luck making connections and finding work here in the Pacific Northwest rather than larger cities like New York or LA. Seattle is a hub for big video game developers like Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve, and indie musicians have found (or even made) their own opportunities here, too.

Sound & Vision’s Roddy Nikpour brings us the story of two Seattle-based composers, Eric Barone and Andrew Rohrmann, and explores what it takes to break into the world of scoring video games with sound designer Akash Thakkar.  

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Laura Ballance is the bassist of the band Superchunk as well as a co-founder of Merge Records. Nearly 10 years ago, she stopped touring with Superchunk because of a hearing condition she developed from being exposed to loud sounds and music. Ballance talks about how her hearing issues have impacted her career in music.  

“If I’m around loud noises, which can be as minor as people talking too loudly when there’s more than a few people in a room, it hurts my ear. I get sort of a staticky feedback thing going on in my right ear. Being around drums or guitar amps is intolerable,” Ballance says.  

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Jen Malone is the music supervisor behind the hit TV shows Euphoria, Yellowjackets, Atlanta and more. KEXP’s Larry Mizell Jr. is a big fan of those shows and a fan of Malone’s work. He caught up with her recently to learn how it takes both a music lover and a sleuth to get songs placed on television. 

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It has been 25 years since the one-hit wonder White Town released the album that contained the hit, "Your Woman." The man behind White Town, Jyoti Mishra, breaks down how the song came together and why he wrote a song from a woman’s perspective. He discusses the bullying and racism he faced growing up in “white towns” in the UK after his family moved from India, his struggles with mental health, and the power of music in his life. He also explains how he pulled his single in the US when it was climbing the charts because he was not ready for the fame.

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Screaming Trees lead vocalist Mark Lanegan died February 22 at the age of 57. On today's bonus episode, we hear reflections on Lanegan's music, career, personality and life.

To share with us are founding Screaming Trees member and drummer, Mark Pickerel, along with guitarist Jeff Fielder who played with Lanegan from 2010-2020.

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Last Friday marked the official release of Beach House’s latest album, 'Once Twice Melody,' out via Sub Pop Records. Fans had already heard more than half of the album, though, since the band released it digitally in four “chapters” each month starting last November. Sound & Vision’s assistant producer Roddy Nikpour brings us this review of 'Once Twice Melody.'

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Yoko Ono turned 89 last Friday, the same day a new covers album of her music was released. The album was curated by Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and features artists like Japanese Breakfast, Sharon Van Etten, and David Byrne.

Gibbard talks about how Yoko Ono's work has been overlooked and that he hopes this tribute album "is not just a reevaluation but an evaluation" of her work as an artist and songwriter.

“This is an incredibly talented woman who mastered multiple mediums in a way that I can’t think of another artist in the 20th century doing and one component of her work that has been wildly overlooked is her songwriting,” Gibbard says.

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