I can't think of many one-hit wonders who have careers with the length and breadth of Chris Isaak. If you were alive in the late '80s, the song (and video!) "Wicked Game" is probably what comes to mind when you hear Isaak's name. That song was on his third album, though (a testament to Warner Broth…
Sylvan Esso released their sophomore LP What Now in April and today the band has shared a video for the song "The Glow." The song is a celebration of young love and the video directed by Elise Tyler follows the lives of various young couples in New York who end up at a Sylvan Esso concert. Sylvan E…
The War on Drugs released a new song today and also announced their follow-up record to 2014's critically-acclaimed Lost in the Dream. The song is called "Holding On" and feels like it could have easily fit on that last LP, with Adam Granduciel sounding Springsteen-esque without sounding derivative…
We're just a week away from PJ Harvey's first Seattle show in five years, and just when we thought we couldn't be more excited, she goes and drops a new single outta nowhere. Stream the track "A Dog Called Money" below, arriving tomorrow via a double-A side digital single with "I’ll Be Waiting." B…
I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction from our occasionally snobbish friends at KCMU circa 1989 to the eponymous major label debut by Indigo Girls (who I'm assuming need no introduction, but maybe millennials have no idea who I'm talking about; well, I guess this record is as good a place to s…
Anxiety, nausea, discord - they're not just the frequent subjects of Parquet Courts' songs, but the feelings their fans get while waiting between albums. Usually, the wait's never too long, as the Brooklyn group eases jitters by alternating albums and EP's in quick succession. The extra months it t…
When we asked our old friend Elvis Perkins to play a few songs live in-studio at KEXP, he obeyed, or rather, he aubade. The New York singer-songwriter's third album, I Aubade, is filled with love songs for the morning, or any time, with melodies steeped in '60s soul and rich ambient folk that gentl…
As we mentioned last month, Sharon Van Etten (aka the busiest gal in music) has a new EP on the horizon titled I Don’t Want to Let You Down. The five-song release features guest appearances from Adam Granduciel and Dave Hartley of The War on Drugs, Megafaun’s Brad Cook, and Ben Folds Five’s Darre…
Ziggy Marley, the multi-Grammy award winning musician and son of Reggae legend Bob Marley, likens being a musician to being a farmer – he waits for the writing season, tends the seeds of ideas, and harvests a crop of songs. "The music comes organically," he says. And what sweet fruit it is. Watch a…
"You don’t have to be anyone if you don’t want to / You don’t have to get a job if you don’t want to" and you definitely don't have to listen to Howler if you don't want to. But that would be a damn shame because the Minneapolis yeehaw boys have returned with their second album of infectious punky …
Recently, Alec Ounsworth, frontman of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, happened to be in the vicinity of the KEXP studio. He wasn't scheduled, and we only learned he was in town the same day, but we grabbed him anyway, sat him down, and asked him to play a few songs on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters. …
New Zealand band Ghost Wave blew us away with their hypnotic set of moody psych-rock songs at our CMJ broadcast last year, so we're especially thrilled to debut the band's music video for the track "Orb." The closing track off their debut Flying Nun Records release, Ages, "Orb" finds the group of A…
In addition to producing about three months of shows and two new songs, The Postal Service reunion can now add a video to the list of things its produced. The AB/CD/CD-directed clip for the new song "A Tattered Line of String" finds a man fighting off a laundry machine that's trying to suck him in.…
As was made our way to the mainstage for Built to Spill, slow drops of rain began to fall. The rain would never become hard or steady, instead lending the stage a golden glitter - the sun setting came in beams across the stage as Doug Martsch carefully but effortlessly lead the way through classic …
Seattle songwriter Kris Orlowski has the honesty, voice, and soul needed in a great pop folk songwriter. Since the mid-2000s, Orlowski has been on the Seattle circuit building a reputation for the highest quality songwriting with an equally talented band that seems to understand every turn and moo…
Back in 2015, Conor Oberst stepped away from the Desaparecidos' tour due to "laryngitis, anxiety, and exhaustion." During his recuperation in his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, he began to create the songs for last year's full-length, the acoustic LP Ruminations. (Earlier this year, he released the f…
With a name like Dog Mountain, how could you ever fail? The Bellingham indie rock quartet doesn't need the name as a crutch -- they match both the majesty of mountains and dogs by crafting powerful, tastefully arranged guitar-heavy tracks that aptly blend the band's humor with their own introspecti…
Thee Oh Sees have cycled through a number of name changes over the years, and a few just in the past couple months, but for their forthcoming album Memory Of A Cut Off Head the California band is circling back to their original name OCS. Today OCS shared a new song off the new album called "The Foo…
Fresh off releasing one of this year's standout R&B albums, LA-based artist Rochelle Jordan shares songs from her new record 'Play With The Changes' alongside iconic jams and new favorites on her guest DJ mix for Midnight In A Perfect World.
Fresh off the release of his new EP IV, prodigious Scottish electronic musician Sam Gellaitry delivers an infectious guest DJ mix that blazes through nearly 40 songs.
