A Deeper Listen

Portland-raised rapper Aminé talks about how the racial tensions he felt in his hometown are reflected in his latest album, 'Limbo.'

“Growing up as a Black kid in Portland, Oregon, there just isn’t a lot of us there so we never felt like we were welcomed in with open arms or felt comfortable walking around in my own city, which I love dearly to my heart,” Aminé says.

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“The Postal Service is the last lifeline for us musicians," says Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver. On this episode, labels and musicians weigh in on changes to the USPS.

The Postmaster general has been testifying before Congress about changes at the Postal Service, including reducing overtime hours and the removal of mail sorting machines. The changes have led to accusations of slowing down mail delivery ahead of November’s presidential election. But slowdowns at the U.S. Postal Service will also affect small businesses who rely on the service -- including record labels and independent musicians. We hear from indie labels, Asian Man Records, Help Yourself Records and the band, Deep Sea Diver about their reliance on the USPS and what changes to the service could mean for them.

Learn more about KEXP’s “Good Mail Day,” taking place September 22nd.

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Unity Arena, a socially-distanced outdoor concert space with a 2,500-person capacity, has opened up in northern England. (Here’s what it looks like.) It’s hosted four massive shows so far with over 20 more planned or in the works. Steve Davis, Director and Promoter at SSD Concerts, which is operating Unity Arena, talks about what the arena looks like and how it functions while keeping people safe amid a pandemic.

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Indoor theaters and music venues opened back up in England on August 15th with social distance rules in place. Founder of Music Venues Trust, Mark Davyd, talks about what these reopenings will look like. 

“Venues are operating at roughly 30% capacity. Everybody has to be seated. Drinks are only brought to the table. There are massive additional costs in meeting the health and safety demands of managing the virus. And frankly the kind of music you can program is also very limited. We’re not going to see any hardcore punk gigs. It’s going to be a lot of folk and jazz and singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars,” Davyd says.  

Davyd adds that operating at 30% capacity will not be a financial benefit to music venues. He estimates that 93% of England’s music venues are still under threat of permanent closure because of COVID-19.  

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Anacortes, WA native, Phil Elverum talks about how he tried to break nostalgia by creating a one-track, 45-minute album under his old stage name, The Microphones.  

"I wanted to get at what The Microphones was,” Elverum says.  

Elverum also talks about maintaining his DIY and indie approach to music-making and defying the streaming era model of money-making by releasing such a long song and avoiding streaming services altogether. 

“It’s maybe an act of protest in a way,” Elverum says. “Songs are getting shorter, people’s attention spans are getting whittled away. I don’t feel great about that and I want to maybe push in the other direction.”

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