The Suffers have earned their name: it took them about five years of running the Houston circuit before jumping overnight to national attention. Houston is one of the cities that often gets overlooked in the discussion of the American music scene, partially because neighboring New Orleans dwarfs it…
Seattle's Lemolo specializes in the kind of dark, introspective, and haunting music that fit so well in the old live performance space at KEXP's Dexter studio (and will surely fit in the new one as well!), which is perhaps one reason we keep asking them back. Ahead of the release of their 2015 albu…
Next on the KEXP broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was wild Japanese psychadelic punk band Bo Ningen. A four-piece acid-punk band all hailing from Japan, but got together as a band in London in 2006-7. Taigen Kwabe (vocal & bass) met Kohhei Matsuda (guitar) in 2…
UK quartet Savages share a new single from their highly-anticipated sophomore release, Adore Life, out January 22nd via Matador. The album was recorded in London with producer Johnny Hostile and engineer Richard Woodcraft, and mixed in Copenhagen with Trentemøller. The video for the track "The Ans…
As if we needed an excuse to get Cloud Cult on our airwaves again... The longtime KEXP favorites released an acoustic album earlier this year featuring live recordings of acoustic sets the band performed at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Seattle, though, was their inspiration, as band re-tool…
The final act to be affected by the mid-afternoon Bigfoot set delay at Sasquatch, Mogwai were fortuitous enough to be the only set to perform in full darkness. Although the Glaswegian quintet don't move much onstage – save for Stuart Braithwaite's possessed, wide-eyed wiggle – their dark lighting …
Once again, Sub Pop and KEXP are teaming up to present a very special Record Store Day release! In 2012, we offered the now out-of-print and highly-coveted Shabazz Palaces: Live at KEXP EP. And, now, in 2014, we will offer: Mudhoney On Top: KEXP Presents Mudhoney Live on Top of the Space Needle LP.…
It's been "a long time coming" — The Head and the Heart's own Josiah Johnson said what was on all of their fans' minds. Though only two years have elapsed since local label Sub Pop released their self-titled debut, the Seattle band had been making a name for themselves well before, and given their …
Considering all of the terrific live sessions Cheryl Waters is witness to in the KEXP live room, it's rare she'd be knocked speechless after a first song. But clearly London Grammar has learned from the best. Through the moody atmospherics of guitarist Dan Rothman and keyboardist Dot Major and the …
K-vicker? No, K-vaker! Today's release of Sigur Rós' 2013 album, Kveikur, may seem like a speedy turn-around on the heels of their 2012 LP, Valtari, but the ground-shaking sound on the new LP is what the Icelandic band has been building toward over the past few years. While the relatively placid Va…
There's been one name on the lips of every credible music news source for the last two weeks: Disclosure. The band has been gaining buzz with excellent singles and some great international dance chart action in the six months, but two weeks out from their album's release, the duo - Surrey brothers …
I covered a Robyn Hitchcock in this space a while back, but this is the first time we've looked at an album from The Soft Boys, the band that first brought him to the attention of college radio nerds across the globe. The band was rather short-lived, breaking up shortly after the relatively unsucce…
London post-punk band Savages made an explosive entrance onto the American scene last year at CMJ (and then this year at SXSW) and have quickly become one of the most anticipated new acts of year. And after witnessing them live for the first time on Seattle soil, all this writer can say is this: no…
Thurston Moore has thrown us for a couple loops in the last couple years, starting with the long-time coming disbandment of Sonic Youth. Arguably one fo the most influential American bands of all time, Sonic Youth have, for many years, had a turbulent air about them, but after 2009's noisy but exce…
Had they come around some 25 years ago, Nashville's Wild Cub would surely have been "pretty in pink." Formed only a year ago by singer/songwriter Keegan DeWitt and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Bullock, the Nashville group sounds less like their Music City contemporaries and more like they belong on…
Another Icelandic band whose debut we are eagerly looking forward to is Mr. Silla, a "supergroup" of sorts, led by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir (a.k.a. Silla) of of múm, and members of Sin Fang, amiina, Seabear, Tilbury and other great bands. We caught them in their studio a year ago, when they had just a…
While it's hard to begrudge Alt-J their winning the Mercury Prize, many of us at KEXP were also rooting for another young U.K. group, Django Django. These London-based Scots have also created a stunning art-pop debut, though on their self-titled release, Django Django tend to favor warmer, more Ame…
Closing out this year’s video stream live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival were legendary Icelandic rock band HAM. It was with a few gigs opening for the Sugarcubes in 1988 that HAM’s popularity bloomed, especially in Nordic countries (this part of the world does love their heavy …
The Growlers perform live on KEXP in Seattle, Washington
We're weeks away from the release of the new Cloud Nothings album, Life Without Sound, and here's another sneak peek with a video for the track "Internal World." Director Jonny Look provides an instructional clip from the "Department of Human Being Assimilation," which may or may not help the liza…
