Decibel Festival's Optical showcases serve to remove the notion that electronic music is simply made for dancing. Instead, they present an array of musicians who specialize in everything from neo-classical to drone to ambient to horror soundtracks. For its 10th anniversary, Decibel brought back bel…
Nearly 35 years in music and Bob Mould shows no signs of slowing down! From his early punk roots with Hüsker Dü in the 1980s through his alternative pop years with Sugar in the 1990s, and in the years between and afterwards with his ten solo albums, the veteran songwriter has explored a variety of …
For the second night of Decibel Festival 2013, I headed down to the Showbox SoDo for the Moby & Friends showcase, featuring of course Moby doing a DJ set, along with Blondes and the Loops of Fury. And Decibel Festival's own Assistant Visual Director, Zach Walker, provided the very cool video pr…
Robert Glasper was exposed to music at a young age. His mother brought him as a boy out to her jazz and blues gigs, and he also learned much about music in church, where he began to sing and mix gospel and jazz harmonies. Since those humble but enriching beginnings, Glasper has built a strong caree…
At last year's Decibel Festival, as part of the Optical series, there was a live scoring to an incredibly absurdly spliced film from the 70s, unfortunately missing this year. Luckily, Optical 4 made up for it, featuring the doom electro-acoustics of London duo Raime, the terrifying ambient textures…
On Wednesday, I was excited to begin my fifth time attending Decibel Festival with the Abstract Earth Project showcase at the Showbox at the Market. This showcase featured Wax Tailor, an artist whose work I'd never yet picked up, but hearing some of it recently on KEXP had me saying "oh yeah, this …
Gracing the Triple Door Saturday night during Decibel Festival was an incredible Sacred Bones double header from Zola Jesus and Pharmakon. With a dazzling night sky of stars in the background and a visually arresting display from each up front, Saturday's Optical session was one for the books, show…
Nicolas Jaar is one of those young musicians who you can already imagine in 10, 15, 20 years as being an staple who is looked up to by musicians who are young when he is older. Not only did his most recent album, Space is Only Noise, reflect a seeping depth of influences, but it was incredibly matu…
As you can expect, Saturday night's Mad Decent Presents Showcase during Decibel Festival was one of the biggest parties thrown all weekend. The Philadelphia via LA label headed by Diplo (smash hit dub/hip-hop producer, founding member of Major Lazer, and unofficial god of Instagram twerking) has be…
In 2018, KEXP celebrated the 30th anniversary of local record label Sub Pop with a four-month retrospective, "counting up" every catalog number in their vast discography of over 1,200 releases. Dig into the archives of our catalog coverage, featuring in-depth coverage on the history of their releases.
