This year’s Decibel Festival will receive a strong boost this
Saturday from KEXP with a special edition of Audioasis devoted to local artists playing the prestigious event’s fifth year.
Hosting is Alex Ruder, 25, a fill-in DJ and record reviewer at
KEXP who isn’t shy about airing his excellently broad and deep musical
tastes, whether during the graveyard shift or subbing for the legendary
DJ Riz on select Wednesday or Thursday evenings.
Ruder, who started interning at KEXP in June 2005 soon after
graduating from the University of Washington, had previously served two
years at UW’s Rainydawg Radio. “I walked away from school with a
stronger love and passion for hearing, discovering, and sharing music,”
Ruder says. “And being a [Seattle] native, I knew that KEXP was the
most ideal place to continue doing what I love.”
Ruder debuted on KEXP’s airwaves on February 5, 2008, after
volunteering “thousands of hours for over two and a half years.” After
helping to plan and produce last year’s Decibel-friendly
Audioasis, Ruder’s been rewarded with the task of hosting 2008’s
all-electronic version; the weekly program typically highlights
Seattle’s rock scene. For this show, electronic-music groups and
producers Obelus, ndCv, Caitlin Sherman, and
the Sight Below will play live sets. All of these artists excel
at intelligent sound design, melodic beauty, and cinematic
atmospheres.
Ruder says that he chose these musicians to achieve “a balance
between familiar versus unfamiliar and accessible versus experimental.
Obelus and ndCv have been well-known staples in the Seattle
electronic-music community over the past few years, and Obelus’s recent
work with Caitlin Sherman offers an accessible sound to kick off the
show. With ndCv working frequently with Obelus lately, I thought it’d
be intriguing to have them all come in for a live session. They might
even play some brand-new material that they’ve been working on all
together specifically for the show!
“[Decibel director] Sean Horton tipped me to Seattle’s the
Sight Below, who recently released his debut EP
on Ghostly
International. The Sight Below is more on the minimal end of the
electronic-music spectrum; his music is a hypnotic mixture of
ambient techno and dreamy shoegaze textures, kind of like the
Field on Vicodin.”
Ruder earnestly declares, “I want to program an exciting show
that’ll showcase the best electronic music from the Pacific Northwest.
I hope [Audioasis] will introduce listeners to Decibel Festival,
or get listeners more enthused about this year’s lineup; I hope it’ll
be a show that both casual and die-hard electronic fans can enjoy.”
Ruder’s recommendations for this year’s Decibel include the
following showcases: Deconstructing Pop (Sept 25, Neumos),
Ghostly International (Sept 27, Baltic Room), Ambient (Sept 28, Triple Door), Decibel Finale (Sept 28, Neumos). Smart
kid… 
Audioasis airs Sat Sept 20, 6–9 pm,
90.3 FM and
www.kexp.org.
mmmhmmmm….vicodin