The fact that Turn Blue, the eighth album by The Black Keys, is full of songs about being hurt by a woman shouldn't be all that surprising. Although they, sonically speaking, haven't been a dirty, traditionalist-leaning blues band in a few years now, they remain one at heart, which is why Dan Auerb…
It’s been quite a year for Matthew Hemerlein. The Los Angeles-based musician operating, under the name Lo-Fang, has been piecing together his debut record Blue Film since 2009. First as a mixtape, now as a fully rendered personal work, the collection of songs seen here is awe-inspiring and striking…
There are very few bands that find a way to capture the absolute euphoria of endless, boundless love and affection. Plenty manage to navigate the confusing space between love and infatuation, the infinite battle of reconciling affection and compassion, and find countless new ways to spell the woes …
In his interview with Stereogum, Kip Berman historically described The Pains of Being Pure At Heart as a project about writing songs and playing them with friends. Now, almost five years since the band’s divine eponymous debut, with a new backing lineup that helped record the new LP out in a week a…
It's almost summer 2014, and that means we get to see the indie pop scene evolve once again. Back at the beginning of 2012, Grimes dropped a bomb with Visions that didn't stop shaking up the synth pop scene for nearly an entire year. The post-modern (or post-Internet, if you prefer) aesthetic and m…
If you are at all like me, I Never Learn is not the Lykke Li album you were expecting this year. After the rapturous viral success of "Get Some" from her 2011 sophomore LP, Wounded Rhymes, it is easy to imagine Li taking her sensual, entrancing songwriting to a more pop-centric place. After all, th…
When a crowd is truly, ruthlessly in love with the band they are about to see, you can tell from the moment they walk in the room. You don’t see it often, but when it happens, it’s a spectacle that you wouldn’t trade the world for. Friday night’s show with Warpaint at Neumos had one of those crowds…
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.
