Twenty years ago, music had one of its most creatively abundant years of music. 1994 saw strong debut releases in every genre, from Oasis to Outkast. Grunge was at the height of its power with excellent local releases from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana released their MTV Unpl…
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…
It's a family affair for local artist Noah Gundersen. Accompanied by his sister, brother, and friends, the soft-spoken singer/songwriter performed a dynamic, yet delicate Morning Show session featuring tracks from his then-unreleased debut full-length, Ledges. It comes as no surprise that Gundersen…
After 14 years together, San Fransisco band Thee Oh Sees have announced an "indefinite hiatus." They've been consistently turning out loads of fresh material over the last five years, but things recently got hectic when frontman John Dwyer decided to move from San Fan to Los Angeles. Their manager…
Few Seattle bands put on as energetic and frenetic of a live show as Kithkin. In keeping with the fantastical woodland creatures they're named for (from Magic: The Gathering), the group is even known to decorate the stages they play with fir trees and other forest paraphernalia. They are slated to …
UK post-punk band The Vaccines took a more somber turn last year with their excellent album Come of Age. After their pitch perfect indie rock masterpiece of a debut, Come of Age was a surprise to most – a melodic turn towards introspection and harsh reality rather than reckless lust for youth. With…
I honestly don't know how I do it. A few times a year, I collect a whole bunch of these album covers - enough to last me for months - and then at some point I grab one and write about it. And yet I often end up with some extraordinary timely coincidences. For instance, did you know that KEXP/KCMU f…
Throw out your rule book and rewrite the record book. That's what you must do to keep up with Chance the Rapper. Earlier this year, the 24-year-old Chicago rapper became the first musician to win a Grammy without releasing physical versions of his songs, clinching "Best Rap Album," for his upliftin…
This Saturday, March 11th, MoPOP hosts this year's finals of Sound Off!. KEXP will broadcast the competition live on air as part of Audioasis, our local music show. The pairing is perfect, as not only is Sound Off! the Northwest’s premiere 21-and-under battle of the bands, but many past artists hav…
Unlike many of the bands I've covered in this blog over the years, I've actually heard of Hunters & Collectors! I'm not sure where or how I first was made aware of this long-running Australian band, but I presume it was in my formative years, listening to college radio in the Boston area. As I …
It's hard to believe it's been four years since Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys, passed away from cancer. SoCal punks FIDLAR posted a tribute today online, a loving rendition of the single "Sabotage" from the 1994 Beasties album Ill Communication. Listen below. FIDLAR have long cited the g…
British electronic duo Maribou State (Chris Davids & Liam Ivory) have been producing consistently high-quality deep lush house grooves over the past five years with early releases on Fat!, Southern Fried, and Anjunadeep Records. Their new album, Portraits, marked their debut for Counter/Ninja T…
Has it really been 20 years? Scottish post-punk band Mogwai celebrate two decades as a band with the retrospective collection Central Belters, a box set of hits and rarities available as a three-CD or six-LP. As an example of the goods, today they share a video for an 18-year-old track “Helicon 1″…
Because being the frontman for Radiohead and Atoms for Peace still leaves a little bit of free time in his schedule, Thom Yorke has been working on some soundtracks across the past year. However, unlike his film-scoring bandmate Jonny Greenwood, Thom has been making soundtracks for fashion montages…
Indie folk darling Angel Olsen kicked off her North American tour last night in Charlottesville and treated the audience to a surprise cover of beloved icon David Bowie's "Five Years." The song comes from 1972's classic The Rise and Fall Of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Olsen recently …
A native of Red Bluff, California, Margaret Glaspy moved across the country to Boston, where she cut her teeth with master classes at Berklee (regardless of whether or not she was a student at the time) and local gigs. A few years – and one set of studio sessions redoing her original, iPad-recorde…
Closing out his career as Fruit Bats, Eric D. Johnson has come full circle. Sixteen years ago, he started the folksy project as a personal outlet, but, as these things happen, the singer-songwriter solo effort eventually grew into a full band, first, with support of his tourmates, Califone (one of …
29-year old Gary Clark Jr. may seem young to be a Grammy-nominated blues artist – and he is – but the Austin, Texas, native has been winning awards for his stellar blues guitar playing for most of his life. After all, how many teenagers have a day named after them by their city's mayor? (May 3, 200…
