It's been "a long time coming" — The Head and the Heart's own Josiah Johnson said what was on all of their fans' minds. Though only two years have elapsed since local label Sub Pop released their self-titled debut, the Seattle band had been making a name for themselves well before, and given their …
This weekend, the streets will be alive with the sound of music – the Seattle way! There are a ton of terrific bands to see and hear this year at the Capitol Hill Block Party, from The Flaming Lips and Dirty Projectors to La Luz to Pickwick. Whole areas of Capitol Hill will be blocked off from traf…
There have been some great team-ups in the history of popular music and rap. Recently, two of Seattle's own, Grynch & Budo, debuted a new pairing that can’t help but remind listeners of other powerful duos like Brother Ali and Jake One, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and The Black Keys, but in their…
It's hard to believe that That's It!, the new album by Preservation Hall Jazz Band, is their first record of all new material, not just because they've had a prolific 50 year history already, but also because the songs fit so seamlessly into the rest of the New Orleans traditionalists' catalog. Ban…
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind, our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Today we are fundraising for only 12 hours, thanks to our Amplifier Monthly Giving Club. Amplifiers have made it possib…
Is it weird that I actually noticed that singer Jason Bartell was wearing the same star studded shirt today at Sasquatch that he was wearing during Fang Island's session in 2010 at KEXP? I only notice because that's one way I think of their music - the sincerity of their power chord power stance pe…
Fans of The Joy Formidable are used to seeing guitarist and vocalist Ritzy Bryan thrashing about wild-eyed on stage, practically destroying her guitar, her amps and the audience's ears. She and bassist/vocalist Rhydian Dafydd and percussionist Matthew James Thomas always seem to keep it together, …
Telekinesis is the name of Seattle's own Michael Benjamin Lerner and his soft-spoken, incredibly charming indie-rock solo act. Since his 2009 self-released debut EP, Lerner has garnered a reputation for himself blending 80's pop sensibilities with mellowed-out vocal stylings, a tried and true dynam…
As Kaoru Ishibashi himself admits, a year ago no one knew who he was. Now, with his musical project Kishi Bashi, he's selling out shows with his intricate and ecstatic performances. Inspired by as much by free jazz as bluegrass, hip-hop, and classical music, Kishi Bashi's baroque indie pop easily d…
Had they come around some 25 years ago, Nashville's Wild Cub would surely have been "pretty in pink." Formed only a year ago by singer/songwriter Keegan DeWitt and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Bullock, the Nashville group sounds less like their Music City contemporaries and more like they belong on…
Deep Sea Diver have been kicking around in one form or another since 2007, but last year, the Jessica Dobson-led group spent a fair amount of time outside of the studio, taking the kinetic pop songs from their album History Speaks on the road while Dobson wasn't playing with another guitar-centric …
Dee Dee, songwriter and main force behind the Dum Dum Girls, stopped by the KEXP studio to chat with Stevie Zoom and perform alone with just her heavy-tremolo-ed guitar. Her Girls-less performance is a throwback to the early 2008 to 2010 years, which saw Dee Dee's first CDR release on her own label…
Another Icelandic band whose debut we are eagerly looking forward to is Mr. Silla, a "supergroup" of sorts, led by Sigurlaug Gísladóttir (a.k.a. Silla) of of múm, and members of Sin Fang, amiina, Seabear, Tilbury and other great bands. We caught them in their studio a year ago, when they had just a…
It's not every day a musical legend walks through your door. At age 70, with some 50 years in the music industry as a performer, composer, and producer, John Cale has made an indelible stamp on the history of music alone and alongside fellow legends like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Sto…
Perhaps no other duo has collaborated, toured with or been covered by as wide a range of artists as Tegan and Sara. Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin, who have been making music together since they were in high school, have toured with the likes of Neil Young, whose label they were first si…
While it's hard to begrudge Alt-J their winning the Mercury Prize, many of us at KEXP were also rooting for another young U.K. group, Django Django. These London-based Scots have also created a stunning art-pop debut, though on their self-titled release, Django Django tend to favor warmer, more Ame…
Influential British trio and longtime KEXP favorites Saint Etienne released a wonderful cover of Neil Young's song "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" as their breakout debut single nearly 30 years ago, and they're still going strong today. With each new release, they continue to find ways to tweak an…
Closing out this year’s video stream live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival were legendary Icelandic rock band HAM. It was with a few gigs opening for the Sugarcubes in 1988 that HAM’s popularity bloomed, especially in Nordic countries (this part of the world does love their heavy …
Vancouver, BC artist Dan Bejar -- better known as Destroyer -- returns with his 11th album, which KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes as "a powerful set of dark,'80s-steeped New Wave/post-punk with prominent percussive synths, gleaming guitars and occasional strings and horns accompanying his d…
This year's Oscar nominations rolled out this morning and some very familiar names to KEXP are on the list. Indie-folk genius Sufjan Stevens is nominated in the Best Original Song category for one of the two songs he contributed to Luca Guadagnino's Call Me Be Your Name, "Mystery Of Love." Stevens …
