photo by Dave Lichterman (more photos here)

Last week, Bogota, Colombia’s Bomba Estéreo dropped on Seattle like an a-bomb. Performing in the bunker-like KEXP in-studio space, bassist/producer Simon Mejia and vocalist Liliana “Li” Saumet along with Kike Egurrola on drums and Julian Salazar on guitar, blew the lid off the Midday Show as they combined modern rock with traditional cumbia, while touching on a variety of contents and styles: from hip-hop to Afro beat, pysch rock to reggae. Check out why DJ Cheryl Waters was all a-flustered:

photo by Laura Totten (view more here)

This week’s Live Performances podcast features a unique collective based out of LA called Fool’s Gold. With about 11 performers at any given time, Fool’s Gold is not only a mix of artists from bands like Foreign Born and We Are Scientists but also an unlikely combination of African and Middle Eastern styles. Co-founder Luke Top, born in Tel Aviv, Israel, sings predominantly in Hebrew, while lead guitarist Lewis Pesacov, coincidentally also born in Israel, mines a variety of African styles, from Balinese Gamelan to Ethiopian drone to Malian blues. On paper, it’s a ridiculous concept, but in practice it’s a blissful celebration of free-spirited musical exploration.

While the band was in town last month, they performed a mesmerizing set live on The Best Ambiance with Jon Kertzer. Check out the video below and watch out for them in your own city. They’re still touring and will be back in the Northwest later this month… in fact, they’ll be at Neumo’s on December 5th!

The xx (photo by Carolina Rivera)

Here are a couple more amazing videos from KEXP’s broadcast during CMJ at the Cutting Room Studios NYC. Gathering huge buzz lately is young UK band The xx, who turn out a hypnotic rendition of “Crystalised”, and Australian (by way of England) group The Temper Trap, whose “Fader” has to be one of the catchiest songs you’ll hear all year!

Video by Electric Tweed and KEXP’s Scott Holpainen
Photos by Carolina Rivera here

photo by Dave Lichterman

Everything is New, indeed. British singer-songwriter Jack Peñate has upped the ante on his second album on XL, making it eminently danceable by adding horns, strings, and electronics, while adding touches of funk, samba, Afrobeat, and other hip shake-inducing influences to his formerly rock-centric mix. Jack stopped by the KEXP studio when he was in town at the end of September and performed a few new songs on the Midday show. Here’s “Tonight’s Today”, “Pull My Heart Away” and “Be The One”:

more photos of Jack Peñate by Dave Lichterman

photo by Gabi Porter

While all of the 15 bands performing during KEXP’s broadcast from Cutting Room Studios NYC during CMJ were great in their individual ways, the one that seemed to catch our listeners off guard with its stunning beauty and intensity was Choir of Young Believers. Morning Show host John Richards wrote all about it for NPR Music:

For the fifth day of KEXP’s remote CMJ broadcast from Cutting Room Studios in New York City, we moved over from their main studio to the smaller, more intimate “Studio B” to record the final three of the week’s 15 sessions. When you’ve been gone so long in a remote setting, have already seen a dozen bands, and are winding down on the last day, you’re just hoping for a quiet end to the week. But then we met Jannis Noya Makrigiannis and Caecilie Trier from Choir of Young Believers.

I wasn’t sure how many people were in this “choir,” or even how the many voices on the album would translate to live radio, but I was pretty sure that more than two were required — even though that’s about all that would fit in this space anyway. As the duo warmed up on cello, guitar and two mics, I could already tell that something special was about to happen. But nothing prepared me for the four songs they would perform live on KEXP.

more…

Check out the video, courtesy of Electric Tweed:
And thanks to The Cutting Room Studios NYC

photo by Brittney Bollay

We’ve featured A Place to Bury Strangers’s excellent new album, Exploding Head (Mute) here before and before that, but nothing can prepare you for witnessing the sonic attack that APTBS’s live performance, as during their recent performance in the KEXP studio. One of their more epic tracks, “I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Love,” starts off all dreamy and Cure-like, but soon enough noise peddler Oliver Ackermann (that’s a joke, if you’re nerdy enough to get it), Jono MOFO and Jay Space do what they do best: tear the &#@$ out of the song! The half as long title track channels a more agitated Pornography-era Cure, but the boys manage to remain calm. That’s ’cause “Exploding Head” is only the setup for the final eruption!

Here are the first and last tracks of the set, courtesy of More Dust Than Digital. You can listen to the entire performance, which just so happens to be our current Live Performances podcast.

Check out more photos here.

video by Scott Holpainen

Check out photos from the sessions here.

Hanuman:

Buster Voodoo:

Hora Zero / 11:11:

session photos by Jim Bennett:

photo by Christopher Nelson

Membership does have its rewards, and if you support KEXP during the Fall Membership Drive at the $500 level, you will automatically be enrolled in the KEXP 500 Club and invited to four exclusive VIP Club Concert Series performances throughout the year. In the past, these concerts have featured such great bands as Interpol, The Frames, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Sebadoh, Okkervil River, Neko Case, The Walkmen, and many, many others.

Last week, Norwegian singer, guitarist, and songwriter, Sondre Lerche played a stripped down and intimate set of songs new and old just for KEXP listeners at The Triple Door, one of Seattle’s most beautiful venues. Enjoy these songs from the session and remember that all gifts of support to KEXP enable us to not only put on these exclusive performances but also videotape and present them for all members to see!

photo by Maryanne Ventrice

Last month, Brooklyn-based siblings Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, aka The Fiery Furnaces, performed songs from their new album, I’m Going Away, live on the Morning Show. The duo, who have consistently released in album a year for the past eight years, stated in a press release about their new LP that the “dramatic music” they make is “something more like a version of Taxi than something like a version of Titanic” and that their hope is to make “theme songs to folk’s own personal versions of Taxi.” So in other words, as you find yourself in the exhaust-filled garage that is life, awaiting your next fare but really waiting for your big ticket out, for some eventual recognition or success as the comedies of life’s failures unfold around you, pull up a chair and take a listen to the Friedbergers’ tale of willful ignorance, “Keep Me In The Dark,” from their live session at the Cutting Room Studios NYC:

more photos by Maryanne Ventrice: