A Deeper Listen

Latest Episodes:

Allen Stone on 'Building Balance’ and COVID-19 May 14, 2020

Show notes

Allen Stone is a soul singer and an actual son of a preacher. He started his music career in Seattle, but now with a wife and child in tow, he’s re-located to eastern Washington. His latest record, 'Building Balance,' was written in his family cabin in his tiny, one-stoplight hometown of Chewelah. KEXP caught up with Stone to talk about his karaoke music tour, having to cancel his album tour on his birthday due to COVID-19, how some of his songs have new meaning while under social isolation, and how he was, indeed, able to find balance through making his latest record.

“This whole record, Building Balance is really my journey towards center,” Stone says. “I went through several years of my life, growing up in the church and my ideology and world view had been kind of formed through that scope, and then I completely rebelled against that and left the church and was dancing with the devil for many years. Through the process of this record and the evolution of becoming a father and a husband and really an adult, I’ve managed to cultivate my own garden and find my own recipe to that life salad.”

Watch Allen Stone perform Live on KEXP

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From Nirvana to Dina Martina: Memories of Seattle’s Re-bar May 12, 2020

Show notes

Seattle’s 30-year-old Re-bar venue announced on May 9th that it will permanently close its location on Howell street in Seattle. The plans are to reopen in the fall of 2021 at a new space in South Seattle, where it’s more affordable. Re-bar owner, Dane Garfield Wilson says Re-bar has been at risk of closure because his building has been for sale for months. He’s also been having to pay $10,000 a month in rent and operation fees with no income for two months because of COVID-19. KEXP’s Sharlese Metcalf brings us an audio profile of what it felt like to be at Re-bar on a Sunday night. KEXP DJ Riz Rollins takes us through a history of the venue, including DJing for a Nirvana album release show. We also check in with Seattle’s Clockout Lounge, Tractor Tavern and The Crocodile to see how their independent music venues are faring under the extended "Stay Home, Stay Healthy" order.

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Parisalexa on Body Positivity, the Music Biz and Being Genuine May 08, 2020

Show notes

Seattle’s Parisalexa is out with her first full-length album, '2 REAL.' She’s in her early 20s and is already cowriting songs for other artists in LA and has appeared in NBC’s songwriter show, ‘Songland.'

Parisalexa reflects on the lessons she’s learned from the music industry, talks about staying genuine in her songwriting and on social media and about the representation and body positivity reflected in her songs, "Chocolate" and "Slimthick."

“Hearing all the people that ‘Slimthick’ and ‘Chocolate' encourage is amazing,” Parisalexa says. “I think one of the best stories I’ve heard from ‘Chocolate' was a girl who told me that she is a dark-skinned Filipino girl and that in Asian culture there’s a lot of colorism. When I wrote 'Chocolate,' I was talking about me. But she says every time she hears that song, that’s her anthem, because she’s dark skinned and she’s felt different from everyone else and that song empowers her and makes her feel so proud to be who she is.”

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Rufus Wainwright on Postponing His New Album May 07, 2020

Show notes

Rufus Wainwright was scheduled to release a new album on April 24th, but because of COVID-19, that album release has been moved to July. Part of the reason for the delay is that physical copies of the album couldn’t be pushed out in time. “All the hard copies, the vinyl and the CDs are all locked up in a warehouse,” Wainwright says. He also talks about his recent “Robe Recitals,” or “Quarantunes," where he performs songs from his repertoire for fans online daily, and how he fuses pop, classical, opera and musical theater into his music.

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Preventing Copyright Cases in Music May 05, 2020

Show notes

The Library of Congress is launching a tool this summer that will make its massive audio collection of free to use and reuse works available to DJs, hip hop artists, and others to sample in their music for free. The project is called "Citizen DJ." It’s led by the Library of Congress’ “innovator in residence,” Brian Foo. Foo talks about how the project works and the music he’s already been able to make from the library’s archive.

Attorney Damien Riehl and coder Noah Rubin explain how they are creating algorithms to document every melody that can exist and putting those melodies into the public domain to minimize copyright infringement cases and give more freedom to artists.

Explore Citizen DJ's online tool

Learn about the copyright and melodies project

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Damien Jurado on the Mystery of Songwriting May 01, 2020

Show notes

Damien Jurado released his 19th (!) album today, titled 'What’s New, Tomboy?' Jurado talks about his songwriting process. He describes songwriting as reading stories from a teleprompter– they just show up in front of him without him fully knowing what they're about. “I just answer the call of the songs that show up in my life,” Jurado says.

Jurado also discusses how his struggles with addiction have led him to remove smartphones, computers and technology from his life, and how he prefers making money by being a prolific songwriter, rather than spending his time touring on the road.

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Ben Gibbard, Deep Sea Diver and Seattle Opera Tenor on Getting Creative During COVID Apr 30, 2020

Show notes

Seattle-based band, Deep Sea Diver has been getting creative with their weekly live stream performances on Instagram Live. Each week they give fans a “stem”—a drum beat or guitar riff to play with and create a song out of. The best songs get featured in Deep Sea Diver’s entertaining live stream sessions. Deep Sea Diver even used their own stems from the project to create their single, “Stop Pretending.”

We also hear from a Seattle Opera tenor who is spending his weekday evenings singing opera arias to his neighbors from his front lawn.

Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard talks about his Live from Home concert series he’s been doing since mid March and why it was important for his performances to be benefit shows that give back to local Seattle-area organizations and charities.

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Laura Marling on Her New Album, ‘Song For Our Daughter' Apr 28, 2020

Show notes

Laura Marling has been releasing albums since she was 18. Now at the age of 30, she has released her seventh studio album, 'Song For Our Daughter.' Despite the title of the record, Marling admits she isn’t a mother herself.

“The title, ‘Song for our Daughter,’ was clearly a figurative consideration about what it would be like to raise a daughter given the experience of being a woman that I’ve had and what culture is going through at the moment, this kind of shift in empathetic relationships,” Marling explains.

She also talks about releasing her album early due to COVID-19, her guitar tutorials on Instagram, what she’s learned about trauma while pursuing a Master’s degree in psychoanalysis and the women’s stories she tells in the record.

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Lido Pimienta on How Racism, Beauty Pageants and National Identity Influenced Her New Album Apr 23, 2020

Show notes

Lido Pimienta is a Toronto-based, Colombian-born musician who won Canada’s biggest music prize, the Polaris Prize, in 2017. Her latest album, ‘Miss Colombia,' combines cumbia, reggaeton and latin folk with orchestral production and electronic beats.

In this interview, Lido talks about the inspiration for the album, from pageant culture’s racist and nationalist undertones to being teased about her hair in school. She also discusses her experience being of Indigenous Wayuu and African descent and learning to celebrate this mixed heritage through her music.

"Since I've been born, I've never known peace. I've never known respect for a culture. I've never known empowering of Indigenous communities. I don't know what it's like to see Black people truly free in my country.” Lido is doing her part to change that.

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Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on His First Solo Album Apr 21, 2020

Show notes

Radiohead guitarist, Ed O’Brien talks about his first solo album, EARTH. It was inspired by global travel, music festivals, spirituality, and the words of Walt Whitman and Carl Sagan.

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