A Deeper Listen

Songwriter Lucy Dacus talks about her new album, Forever Is A Feeling. In conversation with Emily Fox, she discusses everything from love, lyricism, and making conscious decisions to step away from boygenius and her solo work to find balance and stillness. She also breaks down some of her favorite songs and lyrical moments on the new record.

“I keep saying this, how you spend your time is how you spent your life. And that has been a really profound cliche to remember,” Dacus says. “You're in charge of your time more than you realize.”

Photo by Shervin Lainez

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Valerie and Veronica Tapacio left their corporate day jobs to dedicate their time to their Seattle band, La Fonda and their vintage clothing shop, Delusional Bird, which is named after one of their songs. Last year was the first year they made more money doing music and running their business than they did at their 8-5 desk jobs. The sisters talk about how their father’s detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2008 forced them into corporate work early and how the pandemic helped them reevaluate their life and priorities. 

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For years, Lupe Flores was primarily known as the drummer for a number of Seattle rock bands, including Wild Powwers. But as something to do to keep herself sane during pandemic lockdown, she reconnected with a childhood tradition.

“I feel like a lot of musicians are like, 'Oh, I sang whatever in church' or 'My parents always had music,’” Flores says. “There was literally no music. There has always been food.”

She started making tacos using her Lebanese-Mexican grandmother's recipe and began Lupe's Situ Tacos. (Situ is Arabic for "grandmother.") In an interview at her restaurant with KEXP’s Martin Douglas, Flores spoke of going from picking cilantro leaves in her grandmother's kitchen to starting a business in the heart of one of Seattle's coolest neighborhoods.

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Los Angeles-based DJ and producer, TOKiMONSTA is out with a new album called Eternal Reverie. The album was written while TOKiMONSTA’s best friend was diagnosed with cancer and ultimately passed away a few months later. TOKiMONSTA talks about how her friend informed this latest record, why it was important to delay this record and cancel her initial tour to be with her friend in her final months of life, and TOKiMONSTA shares the story of her own health crisis she faced 10 years that resulted in two brain surgeries.

“My career, these things can come back,” TOKiMONSTA says. “There’s always a possibility that if I made a poor decision in that regard, I could figure out a way. But I was never going to get my friend back. At the point that I had made that decision to cancel my tour, I already knew we weren’t going to have her for much longer.”

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Montreal-based electronic artist Marie Davidson is concerned about the rise of big tech and intrusion of privacy. In this episode, host Emily Fox talks with Davidson about her latest album City of Clowns, how these themes show up on the record, and the inspiration it took from Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

“I would say that I don't believe yet that we are doomed,” Davidson says. “I believe we're in a very tricky position right now, and that there's a lot of uncertainty, and there's still a lot of ignorance around everything that's happening with technology and and information privacy. But we all have a choice… to keep nurturing critical thinking.”

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Trevor Powers of Youth Lagoon talks about how rediscovering home videos inspired his latest album, Rarely Do I Dream. He also discusses songwriting, meditation, and about a health crisis that gave him new life.

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Neko Case recently put out a memoir called “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You.” It’s a story largely about neglect and abandonment. KEXP's Emily Fox reviews the book and shares her personal connection to Neko Case. 

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Bartees Strange talks with Emily Fox about his album, Horror. He talks about how his parents raised him on scary stories to showcase the fear and issues of being black in America, what his opera singing mother taught him about being a black performer in mostly white spaces, and how he’s feeling more comfortable, more empowered and more himself than ever through the process of making this record.

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Flung is the moniker of Seattle-raised and Oakland-based multi-instrumentalist Kashika Kollaikal. Her 2024 album, 'All Heartbeat,' is the result of listening deeply to her surroundings, tuning into what she calls the “hum of the world.”Kollaikal joins KEXP’s Isabel Khalili to talk about her approach to the record and how she finds inspiration in her physical environment. They also discuss the field recordings that made it onto the record, the making of her own music box, and how her mother's harmonium became the central hum of the record.

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This year’s Superbowl halftime show features Kendrick Lamar, who is in a long running beef with Drake. Seattle hip hop historian Daudi Abe talks with contributor Hans Anderson about the history of hip-hop beefs and how Kendrick Lamar’s beef made its way into the biggest music event of the year. 

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