Late last year, Wavves frontman Nathan Williams launched a label, Ghost Ramp, and for 2016, their kicking off their subscription series in an awesome way: a split 7" single featuring his band on one side, and Best Coast on the other side, covering the Nirvana track "Dumb." Listen to a vinyl rip be…
Local duo Chimurenga Renaissance (aka Tendai Maraire of Shabazz Palaces and Hussein Kalonji) debut a new track today titled "Girls With Gunz," a song they say was inspired by African assassin Grace Maseva, a woman who fought in the Second Chimurenga, the war that ended white rule in Zimbabwe. Loca…
In case you missed its debut on The Morning Show on KEXP yesterday, Nada Surf are back with new music: stream the single "Believe You’re Mine" below. The Brooklyn band's eighth studio album, You Know Who You Are, will be out March 4th via beloved local label Barsuk, and features two tracks co-writ…
We continue our weekly series of recordings KEXP captured during the OFF Festival in Katowice, Poland. Thanks to festival and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland! initiative, who made our trip possible, we're thrilled to share with KEXP listeners new bands that we've disc…
West coast weirdo Ariel Pink shares a video today for the track "Jell-O" off last year's stellar full-length Pom Pom. The psychedelic clip, directed by Dan Kapelovitz, showcases vintage meat industry footage interspersed with the band making Jell-O shots. The video is dedicated to the late Kim Fow…
December kicks off with another slew of great reissues, including a deluxe version of Yo La Tengo's 1994 release Painful. As frontman Ira Kaplan delightfully quips, "Anyone who ever said they liked our older records more than Painful, I just told them they’re wrong." The deluxe version, titled Extr…
The expectations are always a little different when you go see a musician who is potentially past his/her prime. John Cale has been playing for over thirty years, and as a seminal member of the Velvet Underground and a striking solo artist since the 70s, there is an incredible amount of material h…
This week Variety Mix host DJ El Toro compiles sixteen of his favorite new songs, a mix of the melancholy, moody, and melodramatic—plus a couple eleventh-hour barnstormers to make you tap your toes. The legendary chef Julia Child, who praised iceberg lettuce in her essential 1989 book The Way to C…
Barboza, the intimate venue underneath Neumos, feels cut off from the rest of the world, with no sight or sound of the rest of the world. In some ways, it's the perfect venue for a band like Hælos, whose particular brand of UK club R&B feels wholly detached from the rest of the world, cinematic…
Nada Surf have made a career out of finding their place in the world. When they were just kids, they wrote the teenage guide to popularity, navigating a close proximity between love and lust and insecurity. When they grew up and into real relationship, they found the inside of love, discovering tha…
We woke up Kex Hostel this morning with a surprise dorm room performance by DJ flugvél & geimskip, who rolled in all her equipment on a cart equipped with a speaker, lit incense, turned on some DJ lights, and greeted the sleepy travelers with charming electronic backed songs about evil cats, ma…
We just can't get enough of shoegazey band Oyama, who we featured this morning for our Song of the Day podcast. Later this month, the young Icelandic group is about to release their full-length debut, recorded with friend of KEXP Pétur Ben at Sigur Rós' Sundlaugin studio. And also today, they share…
Our third Iceland Airwaves performance at Kex Hostel was Uni Stefson, who shortened his name Unnsteinn Manuel Stefánsson for his first solo outing earlier this year. This solo project is a marked departure from his past eight years fronting electro pop band Retro Stefson. His new album, Enginn Græt…
We may never know what 1984 KCMU DJs thought of Joe Jackson's Body and Soul, the follow up to Night and Day (on which we have plenty of input from the contemporaneous DJs). It's pretty likely that many of those who loved his early stuff remained less than pleased with his doubling-down on the highl…
Pulling this album from my digital pile of photos brought up an interesting (to me, anyway) bit of synchronicity. The last time I posted about the Smiths, I wasn't yet a father - being an adoptive dad, I didn't even know that I would have a son in a matter of weeks. Now I have a boy who will turn …
Going into Jagwar Ma’s Saturday night set at the Yeti Stage at Sasquatch, fans had plenty of reasons to be excited about the Australian trio’s hour-long set. The group has opened for Tame Impala and the xx, two other bands who have made being an introvert sound very cool again, and they've released…
Last year, legendary singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen passed away at the age of 82. Today, his son Adam shares a posthumous video for the track "Traveling Light" using previously unseen footage of his father. The video was co-directed with Sammy Slabbinck, who also worked on Cohen's final album You…
Congratulations to Mavis Staples, who just won a Grammy last night for Best American Roots Performance. It's great timing as the legendary blues singer will release Livin' On A High Note, on Friday. This, her fourteenth studio album, features songs written by Justin Vernon, M. Ward, Benjamin Booker…
The owls may not be what they seem, but neither does David Lynch. As a director, writer, musician, actor, artist, even furniture designer, he truly does it all. It's no surprise that his surrealistic influence extends to the music world, so on today, his 69th birthday, KEXP pays tribute to Lynch wi…
