Jessi Zazu of Those Darlins has passed away at the age of 28. As we reported back in December 2016, Zazu was diagnosed with cervical cancer just one week after finishing her final tour with Those Darlins. In a statement on the band's Facebook page, her bandmate Linwood Regensburg reports: "She mai…
Grammy-nominated singer Mary Lambert has been doing things for herself lately. And, she says, it feels exhilarating. But between performances and business moves – like signing her own distribution deal and releasing her latest EP, Bold, in May – she’s been playing a lot of The Sims computer game, c…
Chelsea Wolfe is releasing a new album called Hiss Spun on September 22 via Sargent House. In collaboration with Converge's Kurt Ballou and Queens Of The Stone Age's Troy Van Leeuwen, she's delving deeper into metal influences on the new album. She's previously shared "16 Psyche" and "Vex" and toda…
She may be young (she just turned 22 in March), but New York's Frankie Cosmos (real name: Greta Kline) literally has too many albums to count, in that, I tried, and I got tired of counting. With album titles like the landlord LOVES restaurants! (2011) and Collaborative Farting (2011), and song titl…
"I'm Neko Case, and I'm from Tacoma, Washington," an atypically curt Neko Case remarked halfway through her Saturday evening set at Sasquatch. "And now I've gotten the pandering out of the way." Also claiming ties to Vancouver and Seattle, Case has been a Pacific Northwestern staple for a while, so…
Mindie Lind has a timeless voice. She has a silky, sultry, smokey sound that transports you to the place of dark night clubs, cigarette smoke and charm. She also fronts the new Seattle band Inly. KEXP caught up with Mindie to see what was up with the new project, what singers inspire her and how Ca…
“I'm just writing to write and to let that be heard.” Luz Elena Mendoza says she processes events and experiences pretty quickly, and it shows in her songs, full of musical ideas with vibrant energy. The Y La Bamba leader clearly has a lot to say, and in this session with DJ Sharlese on Audio…
It's with an incredibly heavy heart that we share, Sharon Lafaye Jones has passed away at the age of 60, after a heroic battle against pancreatic cancer. She was surrounded by her loved ones, including the Dap-Kings. "I just keep thinking what an incredibly passionate and generous woman she is," sh…
Sound & Vision’s Emily Fox talks with Pai about Enso and delves into some of the particular stories she relates in the book. From the legacy of Seattle cabaret and musical theater singer Pat Suzuki as well as her own experiences with racism and micro-aggressions. Pai also reads a recent work she pu…
In the three hours before she sat down with KEXP for an interview at the Sasquatch! Music Festival, Courtney Barnett nailed a mainstage performance, signed a massive stack of records for fans, and posed for some portraits backstage. Despite having an incredibly busy afternoon, however, the Melbourn…
Today, over five and a half years after my post about Lida Husik's 2nd album and its reception at KCMU, I decided to share her very first album. Way back in 2010, I was lamenting whatever oversight had led to Ms. Husik's not being on Wikipedia, and expressing excitement that she was working on her …
Not surprisingly, Valerie June's childhood was steeped in spiritual music at church and R&B and soul music at home. Between her time spent singing with choruses consisting of sometimes hundreds of parishioners and the influence of her father, who booked and promoted concerts near her hometown o…
Follow your muse wherever she may take you. A lovely solo piano performance from Ron Weinstein.
LoneLady is the music project of British vocalist/guitarist Julie Campbell, an artist heavily inspired by the post-punk and leftfield-disco movements of the early 1980s. She's tweaked these influential, groovy sounds to her own liking over two albums released on the esteemed UK label Warp Records a…
Singer Ann Wilson appreciates people. The powerful-voiced frontwoman for the legendary rock ‘n’ roll band, Heart, which has sold tens of millions of records over four decades, continues her career in the music industry so that she might continue to engage in honest, even primal expressions and conn…
Composing great dance music is more than just choosing the right beats per minute and finding a catchy synth patch. It's about capturing an emotional impulse in the groove – that indescribable, wordless "something" that resonates beyond how it booms out the speakers. It's an idea that Seattle produ…
We often forget, but even Patti Smith -- an icon who has inspired and influenced a generation -- had her own musical idols in her youth, in this case, Bob Dylan. As you may have heard by now, Smith was invited to perform at the induction ceremony for Dylan's Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, and s…
Iconic songwriter and performer Tina Turner has passed away following a longterm illness. She was 83.
It just wouldn’t be Airwaves without seeing one of Jófríður Ákadóttir’s many musical projects, and today we’re being treated to some of her new solo work, produced under the moniker JFDR, live from Kex Hostel in Reykjavík. A local songwriting prodigy, Jófríður has been playing music since she was 1…
The song is the latest in a series of singles from the Brooklyn band
