Her headlining spot at Little Big Show #15 has already sold out, but at least you can stream the new Santigold album in its entirety below. Her highly-anticipated third full-length 99¢ hits stores on February 26th via Atlantic, and includes guest appearances from Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmangli…
Last month, beloved local troubadour Karl Blau lost all of his instruments and recording gear in an accidental fire that destroyed the Anacortes Music Channel, an all-ages DIY art space, concert venue, recording studio, and online radio station that he established last year in Anacortes, Washington…
As Toronto-based teens, best buds Katie Monks and Liz Ball would sneak off to the park to play guitar. What started as a secret has now become broadcast around the world on KEXP: as Toronto quartet Dilly Dally, Monks and Ball channel their '90s influences into fierce, grunge-inspired pop, spotlight…
Over the weekend, long-running TV series Austin City Limits aired an excellent double-bill featuring The War on Drugs and TV on the Radio. TVotR highlighted five tracks from last year's excellent full-length Seeds, while TWoD focused on 2014's stellar Lost in the Dream. Watch below, and keep track…
Next on the Iceland Airwaves broadcast live from Kex Hostel was Icelandic indie-rock artist Júníus Meyvant. Hailing from the remote Vestmann Islands, Júníus Meyvant (the pseudonym used by Unnar Gísli Sigurmundsson) started playing music later than most, after finding a beat-up guitar at his parents…
If Chaz Bundick, a.k.a. multi-instrumentalist/producer Toro Y Moi, is one of the founding fathers of chillwave, he seems to have defected in recent years to a rogue nation operating under somewhat looser rules and conditions. In this new land, framed by Bundick’s most recent LP, What For?, a greate…
In a manner of speaking, frontmen Tim Jenkins and Tom Crandles are master tightrope walkers. The duo behind Au.Ra balance shared singing duties, varying music styles, and even hometowns (shuttling often between Sydney and London) with striking ease and control. Take “You’re On My Mind”, the first s…
Effortlessly weaving notes together to create airy, meandering harmonies, Shana Cleveland truly shines in the KEXP studio. In comparing Cleveland's other music project La Luz, which has has quickly gained a respectable fan base over the past years, Shana Cleveland & The Sandcastles' 6-year time…
When we asked our old friend Elvis Perkins to play a few songs live in-studio at KEXP, he obeyed, or rather, he aubade. The New York singer-songwriter's third album, I Aubade, is filled with love songs for the morning, or any time, with melodies steeped in '60s soul and rich ambient folk that gentl…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. This week, we’ll be featuring song…
With a little help from some talented friends, British composer Adam Bainbridge, a.k.a. Kindness, charmed his way into the KEXP live room to share his collection of chilled aesthetics. Highlighting tracks from both his recently released album, Otherness, and 2012’s World, You Need a Change of Mind…
I'm very excited to announce the launch of Immigrant Songs, a cool new series that highlights foreign-born musicians and their music along with unique stories of the immigrant experience. I'll be curating the series alongside Wo' Pop host Darek Mazzone. While Derek and I have always championed a wi…
It's hard to live up to a name like theirs, and harder still to shine brightly for over fifteen years, but Stars have not only lost none of their shimmering allure - they've somehow turned an amorphous Canadian collective, on par and in cahoots with Broken Social Scene, into a consistently producti…
It's difficult to imagine something Steve Earle hasn't done yet, but, believe it or not, until recently, the Texas-raised singer, songwriter, performer, actor, writer and teacher had yet to sing the blues. On his new LP, Earle pays overdue tribute to those who preceded and inspired him, and like th…
Generous musicians and Seattleites came together on Saturday night for the third year in a row to raise money for sick kids and their families. Health care can be intensely expensive, and no family should have to struggle to pay for the lifesaving care their infants and children need. That's why th…
"It's not the average, kind of whiny divorce record... You can dance to half the record and cry your eyes out to the rest of it." That's how Sondre Lerche describes his seventh and newest album, Please. Despite the innate heaviness of the subject material, Lerche is eager to explore every facet of …
Our fourth day of live Iceland Airwaves music from Kex Hostel in the volcanic wonderland of Iceland kicked off early and with a high energy middle finger. Oh, are you hung over from Reykjavik's infamously late nightlife? Pink Street Boys don't care. These boys claim to be the loudest band in Icelan…
Our second Iceland Airwaves band of the day live from Kex Hostel in downtown Reykjavik was Icelandic trip hop and electro pop group Young Karin, played Bumbershoot in Seattle this year. They are a new band, having formed just last year. But they are already garnering attention at home and abroad. T…
It's the classic peanut butter meets chocolate kind of story. A chance meeting, or really, a shared bill, brought Amelia Meath (of the harmonizing folk trio Mountain Man) and Nick Sanborn (of psychsters Megafaun and his own electronic project, Made of Oak) together. A conversation led to the two sh…
Seattle. 1998. The Murder City Devils, a band of Seattle's top garage punks, is playing shows with Pacific Northwestern 90s greats Pearl Jam, Built to Spill, and The Black Halos. Flash forward to 2014, and the band has gone through three albums, a deficit of one member, and most importantly, one br…