No, we haven't time-warped to twenty years ago: on this holiday week, the reissues and anniversary editions dominate the new release list. One of the highlights is the reissue of Flake Music's 1997 debut (and sole release) When You Land Here, It’s Time to Return. Flake Music was an early incarnatio…
Toronto-based trio The Rural Alberta Advantage burst onto the scene back in 2006, racking up countless awards and accolades with each release: two Juno Award Nominations (Best New Group, Video of the Year), a long list nomination for the Polaris Music Prize, and rave reviews across the board. KEXP …
Last year Frankie Rose, formerly of the dream pop bands Vivian Girls/Crystal Stilts/Dum Dum Girls, stepped into her own solo career and released her breezy debut album, Interstellar. This September she will follow it up with Herein Wild and today we have the first single to sink our teeth into. "S…
Farewell, Kevin Ayers. The co-founder of the pastoral prog-rock group The Soft Machine in the late 60s and celebrated solo artist died two days ago in his sleep. Ayers had came out of a 15-year reclusive existence in France in 2007 to release The Unfairground, on which he collaborated with member…
When Seattle prog-rock purveyors Merso released last year's Red World, they sought to examine what it's like to become a monster, drawing heavily from Alan Moore's iconic run of the Swamp Thing comics. Monsters can be a hard thing to define. They're not always the mythic beasts we see in literature…
Afternoon Show host Kevin Cole lays down fifteen of his current faves including new music from The Heavenly States, EZTV, The Space Merchants, Ezra Furman, and OCnotes. Perfect soundtrack for driving the backstreets or interstellar escapades. 1. The Cairo Gang - Be What You Are 2. EZTV - Bury Yo…
Out in support of her third album, New View, Eleanor Friedberger stopped by the KEXP studios to share some of the new tracks. This wasn't her first time in studio - she was here back in 2013 in support of Personal Record , but it's clear that three years of grind have sharpened her act. Her albums …
Decked out in polychromatic tees, unabashedly hip San Francisco band Painted Palms lit up KEXP with a vibrant live set back in July. The band, brainchild of Louisiana-born cousins Christopher Prudhomme and Reese Donohue, released their new album, Forever, on Polyvinyl Records earlier this year. The…
After the band finished ripping through a particularly danceable rendition of "Spirit" off their new record Singles, Future Islands frontman Sam Herring looked down at his sweat soaked shirt and pants. After a failed attempt to wring a piece of it out, he just laughed along with the rest of the cro…
While many people are compiling their year-end lists and shopping for gift-worthy deluxe reissues for the upcoming holidays, some bands are still releasing excellent new albums that you'll want to hear before you make any final decisions. A few of this week's releases see some KEXP favorites making…
As the days get shorter, so do our lists of new releases, but don't give up on 2013 just yet. You may need to revise your own Top Ten list of 2013 after you consider some of the new releases hitting record store shelves today. A definite contender: Purgatory/Paradise by Throwing Muses, their first …
Details and a FAQ to the KEXP.ORG redesign.
It's been a long time coming, but British post-industrial trio Factory Floor have finally made it out to the US west coast. The band dropped their self-titled debut LP last year on DFA after releasing one-off singles and remixes in the current lineup for the better part of four years. Over the year…
Latin-infused Americana band Calexico and folk singer-songwriter Sam Beam, better known as Iron & Wine, are gearing up to release their debut collaborative full-length, Years to Burn. The record comes 14 years after they released the EP In the Reins and is due for release on June 14 via Sub Pop…
It's that time of year again: MoPOP’s Sound Off! has been pitting local bands against each other for 16 years now. The all-ages "battle of the bands" has introduced us to acts like The Lonely Forest, Naked Giants, Manatee Commune, and more. Every Friday night this month, a new band will progress to…
This morning, Pickathon announced its 2016 lineup, and it's a doozy! Wilco's Jeff Tweedy headlines along with Yo La Tengo, Beach House, and Ty Segall & The Muggers, plus so many other KEXP favorites - like Black Mountain, Thee Oh Sees, Dan Deacon, Ibeyi, Fruit Bats, My Bubba, Hurray for the Rif…
Happy 2015! As always at the beginning of a new year there's been a lot of looking back at the year that just passed, but in this series I tend to cast my glance a bit farther back. So let's take a trip to 1984, and a little straight edge hardcore band from Boston called D.Y.S. I'm actually pretty …
It's nice to pick up a relatively obscure album from the KEXP stacks and discover that it's found a bit of new life in this century. It's not exactly a mysterious discovery along the lines of Light in the Attic's release of L'amour (though I will be looking for a vintage copy of that gem next time …
Though they'd been playing reunion shows for the past six years, no one expected the first Redd Kross album in 15 years to be so mind-blowing. The Hawthorne, CA, band, started by brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald, played their first gig opening for Black Flag in 1980, and went on to perform with co…
New York based Freelance Whales may have gotten their start playing on subway platforms in 2008, but now they are one of the most critically acclaimed indie rock bands in years. Judah Dadone, Doris Cellar, and company stopped by the KEXP studio in October to play some tracks off of their Diluvia al…
