Two Singapore acts, motifs and sub:shaman, are among the 12 Southeast Asian artists that Seattle public radio station KEXP filmed in Bali this August for its Live on KEXP series. The sessions were recorded during AXEAN Festival 2026 and have been rolling out on the Live on KEXP YouTube channel since 20 October, so a new favourite band is a few clicks from your HDB bedroom.
A Long Way From Seattle
KEXP is a Seattle-based public radio station and music discovery platform, and Live on KEXP is its series of filmed performances. According to AXEAN co-founder Piyapong “Py” Muenprasertdee, the series has run sessions with festivals like Trans Musicales in Rennes, Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik and BIME in Bilbao. AXEAN and KEXP say the Bali project is the first time Live on KEXP has travelled to Asia for an on-location recording project.
The 12 sessions were curated by Diana Ratsamee, host of KEXP’s Eastern Echoes, a programme that has consistently championed music from Asia and its diaspora. Indonesia sent Numeron, The Panturas, Çudamani and Basajan, while Malaysia is represented by Commemorate. Thailand brought five acts, and Singapore rounds out the list with its two.
“We wanted to challenge the idea that Southeast Asian music can be defined by any single sound,” Diana says. Her picks run from post-rock, shoegaze and metal to traditional folk and what the release calls “culturally rooted contemporary expressions”, a spread wide enough that you’ll probably love one session and bounce off another. That’s the point of a discovery series, right?
Start With the Home Team
For readers here, motifs and sub:shaman are the obvious first click, and Py’s take on the whole project explains why that matters. “Being added to that list tells us our work is being taken seriously and that KEXP sees Southeast Asia as a scene worth documenting, not a novelty,” he says, “as we hope the rest of the world will too.”
Two Singapore acts out of 12 puts the Lion City on the same international channel that films Europe’s festival circuit. If you’ve ever complained that the best new music always seems to come from somewhere else, this is the easiest rebuttal you’ll get all year.
The Session That Made a Drummer Cry
Indonesia’s Basajan is the session to queue up next, for the reason AXEAN co-founder David Siow gives. “It means so much more to the 12 Southeast Asian artists featured!” he says. “I remember seeing the drummer of Basajan in tears after recording his set. That was truly such a beautiful moment to witness.”
It’s a reminder that, for an independent band from the region, a slot on Live on KEXP is a career moment and not merely another gig. Watching the set with that story in your head makes it hit a little harder.
Thailand Brought Five
Thailand sent the biggest group of any country: TONTRAKUL, Yellow Fang, Hariguem Zaboy, Inspirative and Slowwves. That makes Thailand the best single place to test Diana’s claim that the region can’t be boiled down to one sound, since five acts from one country gives you plenty of room for contrast.
Diana says she approached the curation with an emphasis on musical individuality, cultural identity and creative expression. With five acts from one country, Thailand’s lineup makes a fair test of that brief.
The release also names Yellow Fang among its lead photos, and Hariguem Zaboy got his own frame in the press set. Between them and Slowwves and Inspirative, a full evening of Thai sessions would cover more ground than most playlists manage in a month.
Bali, Not Seattle
Here’s the part that matters most for the bands. KEXP brought its production team directly to Southeast Asia, and the release frames that as tackling the geographical and logistical barriers that have long kept regional musicians from recording at its Seattle studios.
KEXP’s Chief Programming Officer Chris Kellogg says bringing the series to Asia had long been an aspiration waiting for the right partner. “Just like so much of the world, the music scene across Southeast Asia is deep and rich, and AXEAN was the best partner to help us bring some of that music to the global KEXP audience,” he says.
Both organisations say they hope the sessions push international listeners to explore the region’s independent scenes. They also want more touring, distribution and licensing opportunities for Southeast Asian artists, which is the kind of follow-through that turns a viral video into an actual career.
Who Is AXEAN?
AXEAN Festival is a Southeast Asian music export platform that combines a music conference with a festival of live sets. It launched in 2020 during the pandemic, ran virtually until 2021 and has been in-person since 2022, and across seven editions it has featured over 290 artists from 23 countries and drawn close to 22,000 live attendees, according to the organisers.
AXEAN reported more than 4,000 attendees across its three-day run, a figure that includes private events and is nearly double the previous year, by the festival’s count.
As for the KEXP sessions, AXEAN describes the response so far as unanimously positive, with viewers in YouTube comments excited to find artists they hadn’t heard before. “There’s no shortage of talent in Southeast Asia, but there is a need for more platforms to share it with the world,” Diana says.
🗓️ Date: Filmed in August 2026; sessions released from 20 October 2026
📍 Location: Bali, Indonesia, during AXEAN Festival 2026 at Jimbaran Hub
🎸 Artists: Numeron, The Panturas, Çudamani, Basajan (Indonesia); motifs, sub:shaman (Singapore); TONTRAKUL, Yellow Fang, Hariguem Zaboy, Inspirative, Slowwves (Thailand); Commemorate (Malaysia)
🎧 Curator: Diana Ratsamee, host of KEXP’s Eastern Echoes
📺 Where to Watch: Live on KEXP YouTube channel
Pick one Singapore set, Basajan’s tear-jerker and one of the Thai five, and you’ll have a solid read on a region that rarely gets this kind of global airtime. Then keep an eye on AXEAN Festival, because after three straight years in Bali and a session series that carried its artists to KEXP’s international audience, the next edition is one Southeast Asian music fans will want on their radar!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of AXEAN Festival and KEXP.
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