show 31 offers up one installment from each of the best albums of 2016 — “best” being a relative term befitting beauty pageants and barstool arguments. Cymbals Eat Guitars — Finally  /  Merchandise — Lonesome Sound  /  Car Seat Headrest — Fill in the Blank  /  Cass McCombs — Opposite House (feat. Angel Olsen)  /  Mat Kerekes — From None  /  The 1975 — Somebody Else (edit)  /  Milemarker — Carrboro […]

show 30 is a 2-hour holiday music extravaganza, with more than a few that got away.  happy festivus, y’all. Dread Zeppelin — All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth  /  NRBQ — Christmas Wish  /  Slothrust — What a Wonderful World  /  Dreams So Real — Learn to Love Again  /  Vertical Horizon — The Man Who Would Be Santa (live)  / […]

show 29 fittingly resembles a 29-year-old — brash in its assertions, rambling between angst and grace, and quite unable to get to 30.  The Shacks, The Seams, Crystal Fairy, At the Drive-In, Faux Ferocious, more. Kate Bush — Top of the City (live at Hammersmith Apollo, 2014)  / Hooton Tennis Club — Bad Dream (Breakdown on St. George’s Mount)  /  The […]

show 28 features a special guest in the form of new KX intern Adeline, who makes her radio debut (at about the 26-min. mark) and shows dignity in the face of the host’s technical gaffes.  also onhand: The Seams, Tim Darcy, Jeff Rosenstock, Dams of the West, and more-ish   The Moonlandingz — Black Hanz (Dave Fridmann Radio […]

I came breezing in from the motorway at 4:59, just to bring you this bag of independent.  you basked in the warm glow of Total Slacker, Magnetic Fields, Mick Harvey, Preoccupations and the Lucy Show.  we both came away fulfilled.   Paper Route — Chariots  /  Total Slacker — Don’t Want to Be Alone  /  INHEAVEN — Tangerine  /  The Lucy Show — Sojourn’s End […]

show 26 is about Giving Thanks — to the stewards of indie rock.  (specifically, Wolf Parade, Merchandise, All Them Witches, LIV, His Clancyness, Joyce Manor, Power, Broncho, and a veritable cornucopia of other goodness. Jack Oblivian and the Sheiks — Hey Killer  /  Wolf Parade — Little Golden Age  /  Merchandise — Little Killer  /  Kate Bush — And Dream of Sheep (live; radio […]

show 25 heralds the swanson of A Tribe Called Quest, and transitions seamlessly into some goth-y goodness from Savages, The Chameleons and Protomartyr, and hitches a ride in the Wayback Machine for some Trip Shakespeare and Big Star.  now how much would you pay? A Tribe Called Quest — Ego (edit)  /  Beastie Boys — Bobo on the Corner […]

show 24 lives in a post-Election haze interrupted by the death of Leonard Cohen.  what can be said, when the title of the Joan As Police Woman track says it all?   Purling Hiss — 3000 AD  /  The Orwells — They Put a Body in the Bayou  /  Beef Jerk — Stay at Home Dads  /  Spirit of the West — 5 […]

show 23 has election fever, so — fittingly — it’s a bit manic and not too focused.  new cuts from Duchess Says, CC Dust, Soft Kill & Cloud Nothings, plus the return of Earwig, and a PUP take on Phantogram.  VOTE!   Duchess Says — I’m an Idea  /  CC Dust — New Ways  /  Kyle Forester — Downtown  /  His Clancyness — Watch Me […]

Happy Halloween from Open Water — a little Concrete Blonde to kick things off, alongside new cuts from The Shins, Pond, The Radio Dept., Futurebirds, The Oh Sees, and so so so so so much more unsafe candy.   Concrete Blonde — Bloodletting  /  Planet P Project — Why Me?  /  The Shins — Dead Alive  /  Hollow Everdaze — Still Ticking  /  Pond — Sweep […]