Local Natives might as well be full-time residents at KEXP. With their sunny indie rock melodies and radiant vocal harmonies, the LA-based quintet have cranked out three amazing albums since 2009, including their joyous 2016 release, Sunlit Youth, which finds the band taking their expansive folk-po…
The Radio Dept. don't seem like your typical "summer festival" style band. On their most recent album, 2016's Running Out of Love, the Swedish duo paired their dreamy '80s-influenced synthpop with fierce, biting lyrics towards their homeland's government. But, somehow, the group got the bros and te…
It's difficult to figure out which part of singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews' music is most appealing. Her Saturday afternoon set at the Yeti Stage brought it all: timeless country-folk songwriting, warm melodies, and strong, but understated support from her backing band. Her song selection …
Our second live performance of the day came from Mr. Karl Blau, long a fixture of the local music scene in Anacortes, WA, who has released upwards of 30 records since the early-90s. Playing tracks from a forthcoming record, as well as his interpretations of songs from the 60s and 70s presented on 2…
Late last year, Nine Inch Nails surprised fans with an EP of new songs titled Not the Actual Events. Digital copies were already emailed to customers, but now the physical versions are starting to make the rounds, and it's a mess. Literally. A warning label is affixed to the package reading "actio…
Florence + the Machine have shared their contributions to the new Final Fantasy XV game (out on September 30). In a statement on twitter, Florence Welch said: "In some ways the landscape of Final Fantasy and my own internal landscape seems to fit quite well. It's mythical and beautiful and epic." …
Today, KEXP celebrates the birthday of Stevland Hardaway Morris, better known to the world as Stevie Wonder. Wonder turns 66 years old today, and it's impressive to think he's been a musician and songwriter for 55 of those years, recording more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and racking up 25 Grammy Awa…
James Blake has dropped his highly anticipated album The Colour In Anything, his first full-length release since 2013's outstanding Overgrown. The track "I Need a Forest Fire" is a collaboration with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and Frank Ocean earned writing credits on the songs "Always" and "My Will…
Warpaint bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg shares her debut solo album under the moniker jennylee. KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes the release "brings a bit more of a rhythmic emphasis to her regular band’s brooding, goth-tinged dream-pop, while still sharing a dark sound with atmospheric guitars and …
When Australian band Crayon Fields first formed, they were scrappy high school students with a love for jangle-pop music. After two excellent full-lengths, many worldwide tours, and one KEXP performance from SXSW, the band took a five-year hiatus that ends this September with the release of their t…
It's finally here: the long-awaited sophomore release from KEXP's Iceland discovery Of Monsters & Men! The album was co-produced by the band and Los Angeles-based producer Rich Costey who's worked with artists such as Sigur Rós, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Shins, just to name a very few. (And …
We knew an excellent in-studio session was in the cards when Canadian rock legends Sloan stopped by KEXP. On their eleventh studio album, Commonwealth, the Toronto quartet split the deck on an ambitious double album, with each band member taking a side represented by a playing card symbol. The four…
It's scary how many great albums are coming out on this Halloween week! Highlights include the fourth album from Scottish band The Twilight Sad. KEXP Music Director Don Yates says the band, "brings back the loud, shoegazerish guitars that were mostly absent from their last release (2012’s No One Ca…
Leather-clad bad boys, Drowners, rushed over to the KEXP studio for a live session so great, it left us all gasping for air. Taking their name from a Suede song, the group cites influence from one of the greatest Brit-pop supergroups, often reaching the high bar of their namesake. Perhaps its the c…
Australian dance masters Cut Copy have announced they'll be releasing a deluxe edition of last year's amazing album, Free Your Mind. This expanded edition comes out July 22nd on Loma Vista Records, and will feature five new songs taken from the album's recording session (including the two used on …
One of the joys of returning to Iceland year after year is watching young bands grow up. All teenagers when they began in 2004, and some were even still when we first discovered them back in 2009, Mammút have honed their emotionally expressive and dynamic sound over the past years into an award win…
Black Keys band member Patrick Carney played the title track for the duo's new album, Turn Blue, today. This is the second song, along with "Fever", to be released from the new record. The bluesy tune features rumbling drums and a thoughtful lyrical tone. The new record is also a collaboration betw…
Wrapping up a week-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Beatles' performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, Arctic Monkeys took the stage at Madison Square Garden Saturday night and performed their take on "All My Loving," one of the three songs the Liverpool lads performed that historical ni…
Cock & Swan members Johnny Goss and Ola Hungerford make beautiful, yet mysteriously herky-jerky music. They compose songs in a dazey space and admit that's the realm in which they like to inhabit. Along with their own music, they've recorded and helped to produce albums for many Seattle bands, …
The bouncy garage rock of PAWS brings together a pleasant combination of the innocent music one starts to play when one first joins a band and the subtle, nuanced songwriting of seasoned veterans. The Edinburgh three-piece pack in the noise – punching out songs like a heavyweight contender. And the…
