Yes, yes, we're all excited that the Postal Service is playing tonight at Key Arena. But did you know that long before the Postal Service there was a band from Chicago called The Service? Neither did I until just now, but based on Trouser Press's description, this sounds like an '80s college radio …
2013 continues to bolt out of the gate with another solid week of new releases. With the long awaited followup to their well-received 2009 debut, Local Natives top our list of must-buys. Hummingbird finds the Silver Lake, Los Angeles, group pushing into new territories of song structure, challengin…
Tom Krell sure had one hell of a year last year. The new How To Dress Well record, Total Loss, was almost unanimously well received for its bare bones mixture of R&B and electronica. It also helps that it was a heartfelt, heartbroken record that tells the true story of Krell's last year (read m…
At a festival, it's rare to get a performance that feels "intimate." It's something most fans reconcile with before they ever enter the gates and scan their wristbands. So walking into the KEXP Gathering Space on Saturday afternoon at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival and finding the crowd …
Wow, what an unbelievable end to a great day of live music. Day one of the Airwaves broadcast live from Kex Hostel closed with a bang as we welcomed Iceland’s favorite new live act Hatari. Icelandic for "Hater," Hatari was formed by Klemens Hannigan, Matthías Tryggvi Haraldson, and Einar Stéfansson…
On September 22nd, it’s KEXP’s Good Mail Day! We’ll be playing all requests and reading messages that we get by mail. So send us a postcard!
Each week, The Cobain 50 podcast digs into albums Kurt Cobain listed in his journal as his "Top 50" and how they may have influenced him and Nirvana.
There was a very distinct moment at the Ibeyi show last Sunday night where the energy for the evening turned from simply good to really, really great. It happened during the duo's explosive self-titled album single "River", the song most well known by the world and easily the most far reaching in i…
We've got new music to share from the hardest-working slacker in the biz: listen to two new tracks from Mac DeMarco below, "This Old Dog" and "My Old Man" off his upcoming release This Old Dog. The album was written before a cross-country move to Los Angeles. In a press release, DeMarco shares, "I…
Earlier this month, we announced that grunge supergroup Temple of the Dog were reuniting for the 25th anniversary of their debut, self-titled, and only LP. Well, now, according to an interview in Rolling Stone, it sounds like there might even be new music from the team of Chris Cornell of Soundgar…
You've probably watched a lot of our in-studio videos, but you probably haven't seen one quite like this one from Seattle's eccentric, Johnny Cash-saddled Brent Amaker and the Rodeo. Having been around for ten years, Brent Amaker and the Rodeo certainly have their sound and live performance down pa…
We've all heard of music's power to heal, but, as everyone who was or knew a rebellious teen in their life understands, it can also isolate, alienate or offend. In Ragnar Bragason's Metalhead (Málmhaus), music can be both a creative and destructive force for young Hera Karlsdottir, who witnessed he…
The UK electronic dance music scene is just divine this fall. I know, I know, you can pretty much say that year round any year and it would be at least partially true, but this is especially true right now. Just last month, we got a full length masterpiece by up-and-coming Glasgow pioneer Rustie. T…
On their dreamy fifth album, Scottish band Camera Obscura adds a local flavor by recording with Portland based producer (and former Seattleite) Tucker Martine. Our Music Director, Don Yates, calls Desire Lines "a beautifully crafted set of bittersweet, soul-tinged indie-pop, featuring a warm, lush …
Last year, Odd Future (a.k.a. OFWGKTA) really stepped up its game. Although it has always been more than the negative headlines that circulated around co-founder Tyler, the Creator, who nonetheless held critics' praise, the LA hip hop collective proved to be more than a gimmick with the huge succes…
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival is Icelandic psych outfit Par-Ðar. Their name serving as a description for the band's sound, "PAR" is an acronym for Psychedelic Ambient Rock, and "Ðar" is the band’s made-up word for a state of enlightenment or being. Th…
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