KEXP
Another month, another $100 donation, this time to Seattle independent non-profit radio station KEXP, which plays mostly indie rock but also hip-hop and electronica on weekends. They're currently undergoing their pledge drive, and I normally think pledge drives are annoying (a necessary annoyance for non-profits like KEXP, but an annoyance nonetheless), but at least I get a t-shirt out of the deal for having done it now. Not listening to the station during the day anymore due to a day-job, I mostly catch it on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, to catch DJ Riz. See also some links from last year to articles about KEXP, as well as AccordionGuy's post that introduced me to the radio station.
On Just a Gwai Lo, I've setup a page that aggregates all mentions of KEXP in weblogs and elsewhere.
After hearing a song on KEXP (where DJ Riz was doing his usual late-night ambient dub set), and after Riz mentioned the name of the artist and that he was Vancouver-based, I checked the online playlist (which is not nearly as cool as Digitally Imported's playlists, which automatically create a forum thread for that song for people to comment on it and give it a rating) to see which song it was. I forget the name of the track, but the artist name was Loscil, and immediately I decided to create a PubSub feed for the artist syndicated on my aggregator, and thanks to that, I found a short post with a link to an MP3 of Loscil's "Lucy Dub".
A profile at Epitonic.com does a good job of describing what I've heard of his so far: “His recipes are simple: start with a simple, gently fluctuating synth pulse, add a steady drumbeat, layer with chilly sound effects, and tweak slightly. What you get are extraordinarily minimal, ethereal compositions which exert a narcotic pull on the listener's consciousness. Not much happens in Loscil's music; the drama is in the sounds' essence, in the shape and texture of distinct tones, in the myriad microscopic variations which take place in the course of each hypnotic piece.” The official Loscil site has some streaming samples of his work, and the Kranky record label profile goes into some detail about how he chose the name "Loscil" and where he went to university (my alma mater, Simon Fraser University, it turns out).
For more links to Loscil that I come across in the future, check the items I tag as such in del.icio.us.
DJ Riz on the Experience Music Project and Jimi Hendrix: “What [Paul] Allen and his ilk are doing is removing the juice from the fruit of culture. So with Hendrix, you reduce him to a merely great instrumentalist, as opposed to an insightful philosopher, hedonist, and partly disgruntled charlatan who also refused to live or perform here. You can commodify the former, while the latter remains fluid and elusive. But in doing so--in reducing him--you've further removed the focus from inspirational power, and that's tragic. Allen and that museum enshrine the past rather than allow themselves to be instructed by it.”
That's from an interview mostly focussing on the city of Seattle, where Riz is a DJ for KEXP, funded by the very Experience Music project he criticizes in the above quote. He's a really great DJ, very low-key and with a unique voice when he's listing the tracks he played or going through upcoming concerts. I mostly love the tracks he plays because they're perfect for a quiet late night: ambient noise mixed sometimes with drum'n'bass beats, but usually fairly beat-free. Which makes the criticism of the Experience Music Project feel a little weird: that it would take on as a DJ someone who takes the 'hiring' organization to task speaks a few volumes about that organization.
It's a really great interview, and I've never really been able to 'get' Seattle either, but that may have to do with my never really being in the downtown core save for baseball games at the Kingdome, and that was nowhere near to a downtown core. Portland has always made more 'sense' to me, with a fairly large downtown university campus and, well, walking distance to everything from the apartment of the friends I stay over with. (That and the MAX.)
Mark Rahner: “KEXP's content and vibe fall somewhere between college radio and NPR. Its music is either eclectic or obscure depending upon your mood, but as far as you can get from the sameness and heavy rotation of a few artists, played by the strenuously unfunny morning hosts on most commercial pop stations. If there's one thing that fans and detractors agree on, it's that you can listen to KEXP for long stretches without hearing a familiar tune.”
Tricia Romano: “Shocking news: New York City doesn't have everything! Seattle radio station KEXP is a hit with New Yorkers. New Yorkers love the station so much they comprise the largest number of listeners outside of the Seattle area, tuning in online and donating $20,000 to the station.”
AccordionGuy: “one of the best radio stations out there is Seattle's KEXP, which broadcasts both on regular analog radio and online. They are an independent, commercial-free radio station with amazing DJs, playlists to die for, and have shows and guests that nobody else could have possibly landed (one recent treat was french synthpop duo Air peforming live in their studios).”
Since WOXY Cincinnati sold its air license and ended its Internet broadcasts, (see below), and after hearing about it from the AccordionGuy, KEXP replaced has been my radio station of choice. Vancouver has nothing like WOXY or KEXP, which both have great music without the left-wing politics talk shows during the day like Vancouver's independent and university stations, and KEXP is so good that I'm considering junking my MP3 collection, small as it is. KEXP's playlist is constantly updated, so if you don't recognize the tune but really like it, there's a listing of the track title, artist and album the song came from, sometimes with notes about the song.
Check it out though: WOXY Cincinatti is coming back: “Like Phoenix rising from the ashes, 97X - just as we have always loved it - will be returning soon. It will take us a few weeks to get set up for the future, but be assured that Mike and Barb and Shiv and Bryan Jay are already hard at work to bring it all back.”