Who would be in your dream band? If you could put together some of your favorite musicians into a fantasy project, you might very well have come up with Divine Fits. Britt Daniel of Spoon and Dan Boeckner of Handsome Furs and Wolf Parade have teamed up up with powerhouse drummer Sam Brown of New Bo…
The Joy Formidable have shared new details about their highly-anticipated album, Hitch. The LP, which is the band's first full-length since 2013's Wolf Law, will drop on March 25. Today they've shared the first single "The Last Thing On My Mind" and it's video. Frontwoman Rhiannon "Ritzy" Bryan de…
Every year that Capitol Hill Block Party returns, I can't wait to be uncomfortable with a bunch of sweaty people in the red-lit basement that is Cha Cha Lounge. That's not sarcasm. This year's lineup boasts some incredible headliners like Run The Jewels, Angel Olsen, Thundercat, Wolf Parade, and mo…
The history of the band Islands is so rich that it's almost hard to find where to start. Founded in Montreal in 2005, the band relocated to New York and then eventually moved the long distance to Los Angeles, where frontman Nick Thorburn decided to live after a difficult romantic breakup. In 2006, …
Finally! With all of these great new releases, 2013 is coming on with a roar. Well, maybe not The Big Roar this time, but rather Wolf's Law, the new and much anticipated second album from The Joy Formidable. Fans wondering how the Welsh trio could possibly follow up their hard hitting debut after s…
Welcome to Pickathon's 2016 Spring Season. Each week, the rustically set, Portland-area festival is running an ambitious program of four new episodes. Through twelve individual channels of content, you can experience this one-of-a-kind festival in the most intimate of ways... you'll go, On The Farm…
One of the many reasons KEXP went to Montreal was at the recommendation of our friend Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Operators), so when we had our plan in place to record at Breakglass Studios during the POP Montreal Festival, naturally we asked Dan if he had any local bands that he would recommend th…
Among the constant changing tides of the music industry and the struggle forward for artists to learn to adapt and improvise to find new ways to make it on the modern scene, it's nice to know sometimes that you can't keep a good man down. At least, that principle holds for Dan Boeckner. The masterm…
"I felt a blue wave coming on." If there were any way to sum up the trying events that led up to the amalgamation of Dan Boeckner's latest project Operators, the album's title track does it pretty well. Dan Boeckner, responsible for Wolf Parade (alongside Spencer Krug) and Handsome Furs (alongside …
Now in its fifth year, the Treefort Music Fest brings its biggest line-up yet to Boise, Idaho. Over the next five days, over 400 bands will take the stage across multiple venues in downtown Boise, including Built to Spill, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Youth Lagoon, Thundercat, Thee Oh…
Every year, it seems like the number of music festival in the great Pacific Northwest grows. While it's easy to get cynical about the overlap and general spectator approach to the music, there are diamonds in the rough. Of these, Pickathon, located on the beautiful Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, O…
Besides deliberate misspellings and prodigious capitalization in band names, we hope that one of the trends people will note about the music of 2013 is the ascendency of female voiced indie pop. CHVRCHES, HAERTS, HAIM (okay, a few bands fall into both categories!) as well as London Grammar, Lorde, …
Seven years after their last record, Canadian band Wolf Parade are back with a new full-length record. Called Cry Cry Cry, the album follows 2010's Expo 86 and last year's EP entitled EP 4. They've shared with us the first single off the album, "Valley Boy." The band is made up of Spencer Krug (Moo…
The soundtrack for the 1996 film Trainspotting was so revered, they even released a second volume. The same might end up being true for the sequel T2 Trainspotting, in theaters February 10th. Director Danny Boyle has yet again curated a fantastic mix, including artists you might expect like Ziggy …
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. While doing some internet surfing this week, I learned that tomorrow marks 25 years since A-ha hit #1 on the top 40 char…
Today was spent traveling the winding road through the still snow spotted mountains, before breaking out into beautiful, cloud filled endless sky and the growing feeling of excitement. After much ado finding and pitching our tents, and a surprisingly short wait to enter into the grounds, I walked i…
Since breaking out of their native Wales in late 2010, The Joy Formidable have straddled a line that few bands in a post-Internet world have been able to. They're not quite artsy enough to be fully embraced by the Pitchfork crowd, and they don't have the commercial-baiting hooks that both televisio…
Nominations were announced this morning for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, and many KEXP faves were on the list, including Kendrick Lamar, who garnered 11 nominations for his latest To Pimp A Butterfly. Courtney Barnett was nominated for Best New Artist, while local boys Death Cab for Cutie will b…
As we mentioned earlier this week, Yeasayer are releasing the Cold Night EP this Friday, which features two versions of the title track: the original off their latest album, Amen & Goodbye, and a "Dirge Version" which you can hear in this new video below. It's a particularly special song, as b…
