If you haven't already heard of the riff heavy, eternally energetic, best stage banter you might ever hear (seriously) Dude York, then we're not sure where you've been. Not only have they been on our own Audioasis recently, but they have been dropping bomb after bomb of incredible EP's since their …
Grant Hart, drummer and co-founder of the influential punk trio Hüsker Dü, has passed away at the age of 56. His wife, Brigid McGough, confirmed to NPR that he died Wednesday night at the University of Minnesota Medical Center of complications from liver cancer and hepatitis. On Facebook, his forme…
Categorization systems are important for us as humans. It's how we make sense of this sometimes nonsensical world we live in. Which is why as soon as radio delivered us a bevy of different styles of music, we immediately had to put everyone into categories, starting with the basics: jazz, rock, cla…
As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosp…
I've covered Beat Happening records in this space before, but it's been just over six years, so I figure the time is ripe to go back to that well. For my previous post, I compared the reactions to the Oly DIY heroes' first and fourth albums. Today we'll split the difference (sort of) and go back to…
Courtney Barnett may prefer the mundane, but that doesn't mean we have to. In the songs on her debut album, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, really two early EPs mashed together, the young Australian singer-songwriter relates with hyperfocus the details of a day or of moments of average signific…
Sometimes it’s the simplest words that stop you cold. Soft-spoken Tuareg artist Omara ‘Bombino’ Moctar proved this to me on a stiflingly hot summer evening at the 2012 Pickathon Festival backstage. I was talking to him for their post-performance video interviews, aided by French-Canadian guitarist…
In the late 90's, few bands were like Firewater. The NYC band was mixing Balkan folk with contemporary post-punk for sound that would eventually inspire others like Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box, Devotchka and even Beirut. Led by former Cop Shoot Cop frontman Tod A, Firewater became musical world…
Arto Lindsay, the guitaring/singing half of the art-pop duo Ambitious Lovers, is one of my favorite - and one of the most underrated - musical artists of the late 20th century (he has gone relatively quiet in the past decade or so, although some recent posts on his facebook page instill hopes that …
Today, over five and a half years after my post about Lida Husik's 2nd album and its reception at KCMU, I decided to share her very first album. Way back in 2010, I was lamenting whatever oversight had led to Ms. Husik's not being on Wikipedia, and expressing excitement that she was working on her …
By the time this gets posted, Mac DeMarco's Brooklyn backyard will be overflowing with fans. Last night, the charismatic artist invited everyone over to 153 Morgan Avenue to hear unreleased music that he'll be blasting from his car stereo (presumably his forthcoming mini-album Another One out on A…
London's Kitchens of Distinction, like so many bands championed by KCMU, were a promising and critically acclaimed band in the late '80s and '90s that never quite broke as big as they might have hoped, but have maintained a devoted following over the years. Last year, almost two decades after break…
Not sure if it's a compliment to be called a "thinking man's metal band" (or at least, it's not so nice to the other metal bands), but long running alternative metal band Helmet have always made smart music that never loses its punch. Vocalist/guitarist Page Hamilton founded the group back in '89, …
You'll never hear the sound of yearning like you will through the sonic lens of Daughn Gibson. The one-time trucker from Nazareth, Pennsylvania, is a new signee to Sub Pop, and this week, he releases his second LP, Me Moan, his first for the label. Gibson is a curiosity - his Sub Pop bio reads like…
Seattle super-group Walking Papers played a killer session in the KEXP studio for Audioasis, where they shared three songs off their Mike McCready (of Pearl Jam)-produced self-titled debut from October last year, released on Sunyata Records. Such an assured sound from a band that just released a d…
Known to many as the band who introduced the “post-dubstep” era, Mount Kimbie have always defied expectation. After meeting at college in London and bonding over a shared love of electronic music, the UK duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos explored the spaces around the popular dance music of 2008 …
Back to school, back to work, back to record shopping. This post-Labor Day week, it's time to get off your duffs and get back out into the world. To get you motivated is a handful of fantastic new releases, many of which you'll find getting major spins on the KEXP airwaves. Among them, is the lates…
Listening to The Long Ryders for the first time, it's not clear to me that they should have been lumped in with the Paisley Underground bands of the '80s (covered previously in this Rain Parade post). They definitely had '60s influences, but as far as I can tell they were much more a country-rock b…
ADULT. for nearly 20 years, consistently evolving their sound over six studio albums released on revered labels Mute, Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey, as well as their own imprint, Ersatz Audio. Currently in the midst of a stacked US tour in support of their new collaborative-heavy studio albu…
