Five years ago, Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch dropped God Help the Girl, an album of songs that he planned to use for a musical movie. Well the film, which stars Emily Browning (Sucker Punch) finally has the release date of September 5 in the US. Listen to Browning sing the film's dr…
Lana Del Rey unexpectedly cancelled last night's appearance on The Late Show at the last minute, but luckily for David Letterman, Elvis Costello was able to swoop in and save the show. Being the brilliant musician that he is, Costello only needed himself, his guitar, and a brand new song he wrote …
Long Island dream pop outfit Twin Sister have decided that after six years on the music scene, it's time for a slight name update. Henceforth, they would like to be known as Mr. Twin Sister, nothing too drastic. They haven't shared anything new since 2011, but now their back with the mysterious "O…
Former Fiery Furnaces frontwoman Eleanor Friedberger returns next year with her third solo full-length, New View, out January 22nd on Frenchkiss Records. The album was recorded "live to tape" with her backing band, Icewater, and producer Clemens Knieper in a converted barn studio in Germantown, Ne…
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…
Tom Krell sure had one hell of a year last year. The new How To Dress Well record, Total Loss, was almost unanimously well received for its bare bones mixture of R&B and electronica. It also helps that it was a heartfelt, heartbroken record that tells the true story of Krell's last year (read m…
Nada Surf have made a career out of finding their place in the world. When they were just kids, they wrote the teenage guide to popularity, navigating a close proximity between love and lust and insecurity. When they grew up and into real relationship, they found the inside of love, discovering tha…
Brooklyn-bred band Grizzly Bear return with their fifth LP, a release KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls "an adventurous set of densely layered and intricately arranged prog-pop, featuring a punchier, more beat-driven sound to more forcefully drive home the band's dark, imagistic lyrics of decay a…
The Replacements may have broken up 25 years ago (and then gotten back together, and broken up again), but their influence grows larger every year. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy once declared that everything his band does is based on The Replacements. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day calls them his favorite…
Five years is way too long for a visit from Midlake, but let's just say the hauntingly-beautiful folk-rock group from Denton, Texas had a good reason. After spending two years recording in the farm, frontman and founding member Tim Smith announced he was leaving the band. Rather than break-up, the …
"I felt a blue wave coming on." If there were any way to sum up the trying events that led up to the amalgamation of Dan Boeckner's latest project Operators, the album's title track does it pretty well. Dan Boeckner, responsible for Wolf Parade (alongside Spencer Krug) and Handsome Furs (alongside …
San Francisco garage rock band Weekend have been doing some serious growth over the last couple years. On their 2010 debut Sports, Weekend gave us an enjoyable, noisy introduction that put them in tune with the scene and its direction. Now, with a couple years under their belt and a fresh batch of …
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was the genre-bending psych-pop/blues/avant-garde band Fai Baba. Based in Zurich, Fai Baba is the solo project of Fabian Sigmund, accompanied by a varied lineup of musicians over the years. Fai Baba began about 10 years ago, after Fabia…
Australia's golden child of the past couple years, Courtney Barnett, has released a brand new old song, a track she used to perform often at open mics when she was just starting out. Titled "How To Boil An Egg," it has finally been recorded and released for our listening pleasure. The single is bei…
It's true: Sleater-Kinney are back! The beloved Northwest trio went on hiatus in 2006, but will release their eighth full-length album, No Cities to Love, on January 20th via Sub Pop. Get a sneak peek with the lyric video to the first single "Bury Our Friends," featuring director/actor Miranda Jul…
Before legendary soul singer Sharon Jones died last year from pancreatic cancer, she recorded a final album with the Dap-Kings. Today the album has been officially announced and the lead single has been shared. The LP is called Soul Of A Woman and will be out November 17 via Daptone. The single is …
As usual, things have slowed way down in the new release world as we close in on the end of the year. A few noteworthy releases include the debut solo EP from Spencer Tweedy, half of the duo Tweedy with his father, Jeff. Omar Rodríguez-López shares his 12th solo album, a collection of archival mate…
In the wake of their 2013 full-length Folly, the first new album from Kitchens of Distinction in 19 years, the UK trio celebrates Record Store Day with the limited-edition 10-inch single "Extravagance," featuring two B-sides culled from the band's KEXP in-studio session last year. I asked Patrick F…
This week in new releases, we hear from several artists who've been dormant for a while. Sufjan Stevens returns with his majestic new album, Carrie & Lowell, named after his mother and stepfather and partly inspired by his mother’s death. Several KEXP DJs have already hailed it as a contender f…
No surprise, but the latest video from Washed Out can only be described as "dreamy." Take a break for seven-and-a-half minutes to watch the clip for "Weightless," off last year's Sub Pop release Paracosm. Director David Altobelli tells a lovely story of unrequited love that the compliments the eth…
