Despite the many, many hours in the late '80s and early '90s I spent immersing myself in the sounds of Manchester (both contemporary and historical), for some reason the Happy Mondays never really clicked with me. Maybe they were just a bit too fun and dancey for my mopey teenaged self, who knows. …
Future Islands has certainly blown up over the last year, as evidenced by the large crowd they drew to their main stage set at Sasquatch. This Baltimore, Maryland band is one of those rare groups whose breakthrough success essentially comes down to one single performance. In their case, it was thei…
Seattle's own funk masters Polyrhythmics have become well known for their dynamic, hard-hitting live performances and today's Bumbershoot audience was experience it first hand. Polyrhythmics has made such a huge impact for such a young band, the eight piece orchestra was founded in 2010 by friends …
It's been six years, but former Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis returns with her third solo album, Voyager, this July on Warner Bros Records. She explained to the Charleston City Paper, "I worked on these songs for a long time so there’s no stone unturned, lyrically. I thought about them while w…
What a happy coincidence! When I began my usual internet research for this week's piece on Northwest heroes Mecca Normal, I fully expected to find the usual nostalgic laments for a great band that was no more. How wrong I was! Not only is the two-piece guitar/voice unit of Jean Smith and David Lest…
For Seattle garage rock fans, Friday night's bill at Tractor Tavern was a dream come true. San Francisco's Mikal Cronin made his way up the coast in support of his highly acclaimed new record MKII and brought along Oakland friends Shannon & The Clams and rising local three-piece Dude York. Each…
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Russian punk band Glintshake. Formed in 2012, much of their early music was in english, but they’ve since switched to making music in Russian, even re-recording some of their English songs in their native language and changing their…
James Atkins, bassist for Hammerbox and longtime fixture of the Seattle music scene, sadly passed away on Saturday, February 27th after a battle with esophageal cancer. He was surrounded by friends and his favorite music, including AC/DC, Motörhead, Soul Asylum, and The Replacements.
Check out some of the KEXP DJ’s favorite artists from the Pacific Northwest and around the world on-the-go. KEXP’s Music That Matters weekly podcast brings you an exclusive mix of new music from the world’s best independent artists.
So often we find ourselves looking at festival lineups, picking and prodding for female artists, but here, in the world of Decibel, female artists were the focal point of the night. The Discwoman showcase on Thursday night was fantastic, energetic, and powerful.
For this year’s International Clash Day: Clash For Climate, we knew we had to talk to Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett, who, besides being the frontman for one of the most politically active bands ever, was also a public servant in the Australia government for over 10 years.
Hiss Spun, the fifth album from Chelsea Wolfe, was written as a “personal exorcism” from the events of the prior few years in the California musician’s past. Filled with a cataclysmic fury, Wolfe and her band join DJ Abbie in the KEXP Live Room for a session of four howling Hiss Spun tracks.
Nicolas Jaar is one of those young musicians who you can already imagine in 10, 15, 20 years as being an staple who is looked up to by musicians who are young when he is older. Not only did his most recent album, Space is Only Noise, reflect a seeping depth of influences, but it was incredibly matu…
While there was often a healthy debate on any given album's merits at KCMU, every once in a while it seems that everybody just ganged up on some poor defenseless record for no good reason. Icky Joey (not a name familiar to me until I pulled this record off the shelf) was a super group of sorts, fea…
Back in 1994, a new club hit Capitol Hill called Moe’s Mo’Roc’N Café. It re-opened in 2004 as Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room (pronounced "new-Moe's," get it?). And for the next week of 2014, Seattle celebrates the 10th and 20th year anniversaries of these venues with eight-rockin'-days of local m…
For months now, we've been playing tracks from the new Temples album and just saying "out next year." Now, we have an actual date to share! The LP Volcano will be out March 3rd, 2017 via Fat Possum, their first new album since their 2014 debut, Sun Structures. Via a press release, frontman James B…
