Seattle songwriter Raven Matthews goes by many names, from his birth name to RVN and now Raven Hollywood. With each new moniker, you can feel his progression as an artist. On his latest EP, IRL, the Raven Hollywood name aptly embodies the grand and murky folk noir visions. Following up last year's …
Ten minutes into Jonathan Wilson's terrific afternoon set at Sasquatch, something clicked. His band, already well into their second song of psychedelic, desert-tinged rock, hit a groove-based stride, and Wilson transformed the Yeti stage from a small corner in the Pacific Northwest into a highway i…
It's about as difficult to claim a favorite Nick Cave album as it is to claim a Tom Waits one. That the two artists get compared so frequently by critics and fans isn't due so much to their similar penchant for the seedier aspects of life but rather to their shared mastery of the album's form. Each…
I think I've found, in Ed Ka-Spel (and his band Legendary Pink Dots), an artist who could go up against Peter Hammill in terms of voluminous artistic output and lasting influence. Yet again I find myself faced with an insanely daunting discography and biography, and a raft of adoring comments (and,…
Thomas Arsenault is not afraid of feeling. He did it in droves on his debut EP Worth, and he does it again on this week's full length effort Seraph. On song after song, Mas Ysa brings joy, pain, abandon, doubt, and suffering in quantities that most bands hope to capture once in their career. Meanwh…
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. Using inspirational songs during sports competitions helps pump up and motivate both athletes and fans. Music plays a pa…
At nearly every day of any festival, there's an artist who's set time becomes a casualty to equipment changeover delays, and on Friday, that artist was Phosphorescent. But maybe it was a blessing in disguise, because those who waited through the nearly 20-minute delay at Sasquatch were rewarded wit…
Donald Glover has done a lot of thinking in the past two years. “That Camp was a million years ago, sing me a different song” he raps on the closer of his new record Because the Internet. The referenced 2011 studio album debut does feel like forever ago now. After self-releasing three albums and th…
Making a truly timeless record is really, really hard. Without the ability to look into the future and see what sounds and styles are going to fall out of fashion, artists often just have to take the gamble and see what happens. With all the knowledge and ability you have as an artist, you need to …
Conor Oberst has spent an entire career fighting against expectations. Even if he wasn't saddled with the "new Dylan" tags upon his emergence in the early 2000s, there undoubtedly still would have been a focus on his age (20 at the release of Bright Eyes' 2000 breakthrough Fevers and Mirrors), his …
El-P and Killer Mike - it's a combo that we've only known for a year and a half, but feels like it's been around forever. "I got paid to make a friend", said Michael Renders of their work together back in 2012. Though Mike had been killing it on the ATL scene for years (he's a long time Outkast aff…
Recently, Seattle Weekly posted a piece called "A Year of Emergency". While the piece deals with the city's prevailing homelessness epidemic, the societal range to which the phrase could be extended this year is nearly infinite. Human empathy is facing a year of emergency, and for better or worse, …
The cover of Skeleton Tree, the sixteenth studio album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is the most minimal and least revealing artwork of their career. Against a black backdrop in computerized font, the title of the record glares menacingly like the stuck screen of a heart rate monitor. It's quite…
I’m stunned and shocked at Prince’s passing. I wish I was in Seattle to do my show today, but I’m out of the country traveling, lucky to be with a small group of friends and loved ones from Minneapolis from back in the day, several of whom worked with me at First Avenue, and worked on Purple Rain, …
What exactly constitutes a festival "headliner" hasn't really been an issue until recently, but no artist has ever raised more skepticism regarding their headlining slot at Coachella 2013 than Phoenix. Sure, there was a Tumblr dedicated to collecting tweets from people who were unaware of the Stone…
Grace Madigan reports on how Asian American musicians have been impacted and responded through their music..
KEXP celebrates Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, spotlighting artists and stories from our community and beyond.
While he's been building steam for quite some time now, California rapper Vince Staples hit most people's radar hard with last year's excellent double LP studio debut, Summertime '06. Here, Vince showcased far more than bloodthirsty hooks and ravaging technique - he also displayed a keen awareness …
