The penultimate act on our roster for day one of KEXP's Iceland Airwaves broadcast, live from KEX Hostel in Reykjavik is another fantastic Icelandic band, Valdimar. Both of Valdimar’s albums, Undraland (2010) and Um Stund (2012), have seen quite a lot of commercial success in their native Iceland, …
The latest from Australian band Royal Headache doesn't hurt KEXP's ears: our Music Director Don Yates calls it, "another first-rate set of urgent, soul-steeped garage-rock and post-punk, combining buzzing guitars and energetic rhythms with emotive lyrics and lead singer Shogun’s gritty, soulful voc…
Has it really been 20 years? Scottish post-punk band Mogwai celebrate two decades as a band with the retrospective collection Central Belters, a box set of hits and rarities available as a three-CD or six-LP. As an example of the goods, today they share a video for an 18-year-old track “Helicon 1″…
UK post-punk band The Vaccines took a more somber turn last year with their excellent album Come of Age. After their pitch perfect indie rock masterpiece of a debut, Come of Age was a surprise to most – a melodic turn towards introspection and harsh reality rather than reckless lust for youth. With…
Next on the video stream live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was Icelandic atmospheric metal band GlerAkur. The solo project of sound designer for National Theater of Iceland Elvar Geir Sævarsson, creating post-rock flavored metal. His debut record The Mountains Are Beautiful No…
Swingin' Doors host Don Slack brings you new music to get excited about this Spring, from power pop and garage-rock to edgy post-punk, surf, hip hop and more. 1. Alabama Shakes - Don't Wanna Fight 2. Mikal Cronin - Made My Mind Up 3. Weed - Stay in the Summer 4. Speedy Ortiz - Raising The S…
From last week's Spud War, we continue our tuberous theme with Tater Totz, which you might think would be even more contentious than Devo's synth-heavy fifth album, but which seems to have been more well received at KCMU. What is the deal with Tater Totz? I think just attempting to explain this pro…
The duo behind The Grizzled Mighty play hard, up-tempo rock. Their big, beefy chords and frenetic drumming inspire the blood cells running in your veins to speed up and push you to new heights. Don't believe us? You can check out the band's new album here and go see them live at Neumos today (Satur…
Post-punk gods Savages have done the unthinkable with their second outing: they made their sophomore record an unabashed anthem to embracing life and love. "Love is the answer" - this is the message of Savages' first single off of Adore Life, their second LP and follow up to the highly acclaimed 20…
Veteran LA-based artist Moby debuts his new project, Moby & The Void Pacific Choir, and KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes their first LP is "a potent set of noisy, goth-tinged post-punk with loud, distorted synths, rumbling guitars, pounding industrial rhythms, dour vocals, soaring song hooks…
Next on KEXP live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was an insane set from Icelandic band Grísalappalísa. The band, whose name means "pig-legged Lisa," plays raucus music that genre-jumps like nothing I've ever seen before. Vocalists Gunnar Ragnarsson and Baldur Baldursson scream and grunt, with …
If volume is your only musical qualifier, then there is probably only one band on your best of 2013 list. San Francisco metal duo Deafheaven dropped Sunbather last month, a seven track sonic masterpiece that relentlessly pulls at your heartstrings and threatens hearing damage for 60 minutes. The al…
Categorization systems are important for us as humans. It's how we make sense of this sometimes nonsensical world we live in. Which is why as soon as radio delivered us a bevy of different styles of music, we immediately had to put everyone into categories, starting with the basics: jazz, rock, cla…
Leave it to a neuroscientist to create an out of body experience. UK's Sam Shepherd blows minds post-doc with his experimental electronic project, Floating Points, combining jazz, space rock, prog, EDM, classical and other genres that can but shouldn't be named into an out of this world experience.…
For longtime followers of the band, it's a little strange that Modest Mouse has now spent more time as a big-name ticket than a scrappy indie rock band from Issaquah, but in retrospect, the band's current status goes along with Modest Mouse's singular trajectory. Although many would label them with…
When Sólstafir plays for KEXP, the gods take notice. Two years ago, during KEXP's broadcast at Iceland Airwaves, hurricane-level gales swept across Reykjavik as the hard rocking band brewed up their own storm inside Kex Hostel. Last month, on their first tour of the West Coast, heavy winds followed…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. This week, we are featuring Christmas…
As the first day of Treefort Music Fest got underway, many of the Thursday bands were stuck in Denver battling a snow storm. It was a theme that resonated as Day 2 of Treefort came around, with cancellations and delays peppered throughout the schedule as a result. But the unfortunate circumstances …
Scottish post-rock band Mogwai are releasing their 9th studio album in twenty years called Every Country's Sun next week. We got a taste of the album via previously released tracks "Coolverine" and "Party In The Dark" but today they're giving us a non-album track, the B-side to "Party In The Dark" …
