Besides deliberate misspellings and prodigious capitalization in band names, we hope that one of the trends people will note about the music of 2013 is the ascendency of female voiced indie pop. CHVRCHES, HAERTS, HAIM (okay, a few bands fall into both categories!) as well as London Grammar, Lorde, …
Since Lake Street Dive's stunning performances during the last two years at Pickathon, fans in the Northwest have been clamoring for a new full-length from the Brooklyn based soul peddlers. Fortunately, they won't have to wait much longer, as Bad Self-Portraits is due February 18, 2014. In anticipa…
During our CMJ broadcast last month, KEXP was excited to host a performance from New York's own HAERTS, a band clearly on the brink of something big. With just a couple of singles and one EP to their charmingly-misspelled name, we felt fortunate to share some of their unreleased tracks with the wor…
Where does a young band go after making a name for themselves with a gorgeous album like Dye It Blonde, of Nuggets-mining jangly psych pop? They dig deeper. At least, that's what Smith Westerns did on their followup, Soft Will, as they dig deeper both into the history of rock and their own songwrit…
The history of the band Islands is so rich that it's almost hard to find where to start. Founded in Montreal in 2005, the band relocated to New York and then eventually moved the long distance to Los Angeles, where frontman Nick Thorburn decided to live after a difficult romantic breakup. In 2006, …
If rock and roll music – specifically punk rock – is a genre for the young, then The So So Glos have done as much as anyone to help foster and support that spirit. Not only does the Brooklyn-based band -- comprised of brothers Alex and Ryan Levine, their step-brother Zach Staggers, and Matt Elkin -…
Considering all of the terrific live sessions Cheryl Waters is witness to in the KEXP live room, it's rare she'd be knocked speechless after a first song. But clearly London Grammar has learned from the best. Through the moody atmospherics of guitarist Dan Rothman and keyboardist Dot Major and the …
Portland riff-brokers Red Fang recorded a crushing in-studio session for Seek & Destroy's four-year anniversary on October 27, playing songs in from their new album, Whales & Leeches. You can watch the full performance below, and you can also catch them live at their S&D-sponsored, all-…
If surf rock is making a comeback with the rise of bands like Seattle’s La Luz, then Portland-based band The Shivas may well be ahead of the curve. Their head-bobbing rhythms and cute, airy background vocals envelope the ears like a warm tropical day. The band can rock, too, like on their song “Sta…
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.
