cover version
21 tracksA new recording of a song by an artist other than the original. A cover can be faithful or transform the song's genre and meaning.
Performance
live recording
12 tracks.
What it is
A recording made in front of an audience rather than built in a studio. It captures energy, improvisation and the sound of the room, and often differs from the studio version.
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Hear it in these tracks
Gotan Project
La vigüela
Bandoneon, guitar and Cristina Vilallonga's voice drifting over a slow electronic pulse, La Vigüela is Gotan Project's tango heading out into the open pampas.
Gorillaz, Neneh Cherry
Kids with Guns
A cold, clanking Gorillaz track from Demon Days where Damon Albarn's weary vocal and Neneh Cherry's spectral backing turn a nursery-rhyme melody into a quiet alarm about children and violence.
Gabriella Cilmi
Cry Me A River (Live Version)
A sixteen-year-old Gabriella Cilmi takes Justin Timberlake's 2002 break-up hit into smoky, live soul territory with a three-piece band: a 2008 B-side recorded by Xenomania, her husky voice carrying all the hurt.
Depeche Mode
Wrong (Live in Barcelona)
Depeche Mode's jagged litany of mistakes, hammered out live in Barcelona with snarling synths, live drums and Dave Gahan relishing every bad decision.
Daft Punk
Face to Face / Short Circuit
Recorded live at Bercy, Daft Punk fold the sunny house bounce of Face to Face into the jittery robot funk of Short Circuit, and the pyramid crowd goes up with it.
Ayọ
Down On My Knees
Ayọ pleads for a lost love over acoustic guitar and a gentle reggae lilt: the 2006 debut single, recorded with a live band in five days in New York, that made a German-Nigerian singer a star in France.
Hania Rani
Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
A serene, immersive 36-minute KEXP session recorded in July 2022: the Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani plays 24.03, Ghosts, Komeda Part 3 and Buka on piano and synthesizers, pieces that would reach her later albums.
Aloe Blacc
I Need a Dollar (Live)
A hard-times plea set to a Brooklyn retro-soul jam: Aloe Blacc's 2010 hit, the theme of HBO's How to Make It in America, heard here live in Berlin in 2011, where a chorus about a job lost and a dollar borrowed is made for a room to sing.
IDLES
The Wheel
IDLES' song about the cycle of alcoholism passed from mother to son, from their 2021 album Crawler: a menacing one-note riff, heavy chords and Joe Talbot howling a gospel-preacher call, here in a live KEXP session.
Gabriella Cilmi
Cry Me a River (Cover)
A teenage Gabriella Cilmi takes Justin Timberlake's 2002 break-up hit out of Timbaland's beatbox-and-clavinet production and sings it as a stripped-down soul lament, her husky voice carrying all the hurt.
Róisín Murphy
Primitive
The slow, string-laced turn on Róisín Murphy's 2007 electro-disco album Overpowered, co-written with Ill Factor and arranged by Philadelphia soul veteran Larry Gold, heard here in a live performance from the album's era.
Sleaford Mods
Tweet Tweet Tweet
'Tweet Tweet Tweet' by Sleaford Mods is a gritty post-punk rant born on a dismal bus ride, aimed at people lost in their phones and at the politics of 2014 England, filmed here live for KEXP in 2023: one man pressing play, one man spitting fire.