One of my most pleasant recent memories is of a quick visit to see my brother in Seattle. On my first day there he worked from home, and we sat companionably in his den for hours, drinking coffee and listening to KEXP 90.3 FM while he hacked out a presentation for work and I lounged on the couch with his dog and my laptop.

I always listen to KEXP when I go to Seattle, and I invariably discover some new band or hear some new song that I love. One of the many brilliant things about KEXP is that they publish time-stamped playlists on their website, so if you hear a song you like but don’t catch the name of it, you can write down when you heard it and then track it down at kexp.org.

Another great thing about KEXP (and I should perhaps add here that I am in no way affiliated with the station, I just like it a lot) is that they offer a lot of stuff to download on their site, including live performances and their song of the day—which, if you download the entire back catalogue of song-of-the-day podcasts (as I did), will give you a grand total of 283 full songs to trawl through.

Unsurprisingly for such a web-savvy station, KEXP also lets you listen live online. Surprisingly, I didn’t start taking advantage of this service until fairly recently—and now I’m hooked. Every day at 2 P.M. I turn off iTunes, fire up RealPlayer (I know, I know…) and tune in to The Morning Show with John Richards. Obviously it’s not morning for me, but I like imagining my little brother waking up in Seattle, making himself some good coffee, and listening to John in the Morning as he gets ready for work while I sit at my desk in Brighton listening to the same thing. I consider it a part of that ambient intimacy that becomes very important when you’re far away from the people you love.

For me, there’s an added bonus to listening to KEXP: For ages now, I’ve been content to listen to my favorite old music and just pick up the occasional new music through Jeremy and friends like Richard, who are more immersed in current music than I am. For someone who was all but obsessed with music as a teenager, I’ve become rather apathetic about it in recent years (apathetic and unforgiving—if something didn’t catch my attention right off the bat, I didn’t give it much of a chance). But now, for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I have some idea of what the “kids” are listening to. And—who would’ve guessed?—I like a lot of it too.

So, my interest has been rekindled and my music collection has been enlivened by an influx of new bands. Right now, I’m particularly liking The Bell from Sweden for their breezy 80s-inspired pop, Pela for their anthemic indie rock, the noise-pop of A Place of to Bury Strangers (who will be playing in Brighton next month), and the melodic melancholy of We Barbarians. Maybe it’s not all brilliant stuff that will stand the test of time, but it’s certainly entertaining me for the moment.

Further reading…