A Deeper Listen

Ibibio Sound Machine is an electronic group based in London. Singer Eno Williams sings in both her Nigerian family’s language of Ibibio as well as in English. The group’s music spreads messages of unity and bringing people together. That theme is present on their most recent album, Pull the Rope. Williams and Ibibio Sound Machine’s Max Grunhard talk about how their music unifies and Williams talks about her family's journey between Nigeria and London.

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The Oakland-based band Shannon and the Clams recently released their seventh album, 'The Moon Is In The Wrong Place.' The entire album touches on the loss of Shannon Shaw’s finance Joe Haener who died in a car accident in August of 2022, about two and a half months before their wedding. Shaw talks about Haener’s life, shares stories behind the tracks on the new record, and reflects on how she’s been processing her grief.

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St. Vincent is out with her 7th album, 'All Born Screaming.' In recent years, she has written a screenplay and starred in it, produced records for herself and others, and co-written hit songs like Taylor Swift’s "Cruel Summer" and Olivia Rodrigo’s "Obsessed."

St. Vincent joins Emily Fox to discuss her production work, share stories behind the songs on the new album, and how she feels it's her best record yet and that she's "just getting started."

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The four-time GRAMMY award winning artist Gary Clark Jr. is out with a new album, 'JPEG Raw.' Emily Fox talks with Clark about the songs on the album that address mental health, substance abuse, race, and reflections on the music industry.

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Chad Ubovich fronts the band Meatbodies, which recently released their fourth album, 'Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom.' The album has been mostly finished for years but it took a medically induced coma to allow Ubovich to complete the record. Ubovich talks with KEXP’s Emily Fox about what led to the coma, the visions he saw while under the coma, and how he was able to complete the album after his health emergency.

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Salt Cathedral is a New York via Bogota Colombia duo. Their song, "Terminal Woes," is the most played song on KEXP so far this year.

“This song came from that upsetness of thinking, we’re not taking care of our planet. As a woman in my 30s, thinking should I have children? Should we bring more children into this world because it’s a difficult world and it’s warming up and there’s no climate justice,” says Salt Cathedral’s Juliana Ronderos.

Ronderos, Salt Cathedral’s Nicolas Losada, and KEXP’s Emily Fox talk more about the future of children in the screen addiction era and how these themes are addressed in Salt Cathedral’s latest album, 'Before It’s Gone.'

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Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff talks about their new album, 'The Past Is Still Alive.' They share some of the stories that informed the album, like hitchhiking and train hopping around the country. They also talk about their experience helping those struggling with addiction, and how grief is an act of love.

“A lot on this record is about how grief is not a punishment, it’s an act of love and it’s just another expression of love,” Segarra says.

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On April 9, we're launching a new podcast right here on this feed. A Deeper Listen will be KEXP's new destination for transformative conversations with artists – the ones you already know and love, and the ones you have yet to discover. We’ll hear from renowned and emerging talents of all musical styles about the stories behind their songs and the life experiences that are inextricable from their work. As we uncover the humanity behind the music, we’ll also gain the tools to listen more deeply.

Over the past five years, Sound & Vision has brought you behind the scenes of the music industry through a variety of stories and formats. With A Deeper Listen, we dig deeper into our most popular type of feature: unfiltered, authentic conversations with artists. Each episode will go beyond the surface to bring us into the world of the artist and find new dimensions to their music.

Take a deeper listen with us every Tuesday, right here, starting April 9.

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KEXP’s Morgan Chosnyk talks us through this year’s Trans Musicales festival in France and shares five of her favorite live sessions KEXP captured while at the festival. Those sessions are now available on KEXP’s YouTube channel:

• Raül Refree
• Moja
• Chalk
• Flore Laurentienne
• Ana Lua Caiano

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The Eurosonic Festival features emerging artists from Europe. KEXP Drive Time DJ, Kevin Cole, attended the festival and saw about 50 of the roughly 280 performers there. In this episode, he talks about some of his favorite performances.

Songs featured in this episode:

• "Sluntseto Trepti" by TRIGAIDA
• "Kota Bandung" by Nusantara Beat
• "Liberate" by Izzy And The Black Trees
• "Esto me pertenece" by Dame Area
• "Found Love" by freekind.
• "Tristesse" by Zaho de Sagazan

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