In all the press shots for their new album, Swedish indie rock veterans Peter Bjorn and John are decked out in custom jumpsuits and armed with cartoon tools. They look like they are ready for a day of work at the zaniest garage or gear shop that you've ever seen. And yet, the imagery is fitting, pe…
Okkervil River's 2005 masterpiece, Black Sheep Boy, is one of those records that grabs you wherever you're at. If you haven't gotten the divine pleasure of experiencing it yet, I promise you, it will grab you at some point soon. There's just something about the coming-of-age brilliance of its narra…
Since he broke his band up in the most grandiose way possible, James Murphy has stayed incredibly busy - maybe busier than he was when he was in LCD Soundsystem. It seems like every couple months, there's word of a new project from James, though not necessarily musical in nature. Sure, James has co…
Before the Fallon performance, FKA Twigs was a pervasive mystery – a voice and an image spun together in perfect unity to create something entirely other worldly that you felt both drawn to and intimidated by. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was just mystery, but either way, FKA Twigs was impossible…
KEXP will observe Juneteenth — the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States — with a full day of music that celebrates freedom.
We often forget, but even Patti Smith -- an icon who has inspired and influenced a generation -- had her own musical idols in her youth, in this case, Bob Dylan. As you may have heard by now, Smith was invited to perform at the induction ceremony for Dylan's Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, and s…
Before most of the festival’s attendees have even arrived at Seattle Center, KEXP’s Bumbershoot was already underway. Setting a high bar right from the get-go, gospel legends Blind Boys of Alabama opened the festival with an intimate set at KEXP's Secret Stage. From their humble beginnings nearly 8…
In the years I've been doing this series we've talked about Daniel Johnston a couple times, and we've talked about Shimmy Disc many (many, many) times - so isn't it about time we hit both in one post? 1990 was the massively prolific singer-songwriter's first album not to appear under the Stress lab…
Hop Along frontwoman Frances Quinlan's distinctive voice has been compared to everything from a hurricane to sandpaper and everything in between, but what ultimately makes it so magnetic is its emotiveness, it's ability to sound human and stand out when surrounded by the pointed bluster of her band…
Portland band Radiation City have come a long way since their cassette-exclusive underground releases, tapes that quickly earned praise for their vintage stylings, pleasant dream-pop explosions over 60's harmonies and sways, synth parts that sound like what people thought 1984 would sound like befo…
By the end of Greg Dulli's second set of the night at The Triple Door, there were an atypically low number of dead bodies that had sung about by the Cincinnati songwriter. But while the fictional body count remained low, there were a few overeager audience members that might have pushed up the numb…
Starbucks, STG, and KEXP collaborate once again to bring you the next installment in their Little Big Show series. I can't believe we are already on #13! Every show in this series does the same thing, each time with a different beneficiary. 100% of tickets sales benefit a Seattle area organization …
I have to remind myself every single year, every time I look at the lineup, every time I hit a single event and walk into work dog tired the next day - Seattle is so lucky to play home to the visionaries that put on Decibel Festival year after year. There are so many electronic music festivals in t…
18 year old Swedish rapper Yung Lean (Jonatan Håstad) may be one of the most polarizing, confusing faces on the independent hip-hop scene of the last few years. Pitchfork hates him. Fader loves him. The rest of us find ourselves somewhere in between, trying to balance all of the bizarre parts of th…
Our third live show of the day from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Mammút. This rock band won acclaim with their latest album Komdu til mín svarta systir (Come to Me, My Dark Sister), scoring eight nominations at the 2013 Icelandic Music Awards. Eventually they snagged wins for best album, song…
What is Iron and Wine anyway? A man? A band? A concept? A sound? For the past decade, Sam Beam has used his stage name to mean all of those things. The Southeastern raised songwriter first caught people's attention in the Northwest, actually, through a demo featured in Yeti Magazine and followed by…
