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, …
With a bright blue mantra and neon promise to boot, Cut Copy return this year with their fourth LP Free Your Mind. Dan Whitford and the gang don't seem to be slowing down much in their second decade together. Zonoscope, the band's 2011 award-winning classic, took the band's one of a kind combinatio…
Electronic music’s second massive wave of popularity is in full swing. For the first time since disco, Top 40 music is far more influenced by modern dance trends than traditional R&B or rock elements. By and large, the highest paid DJs do better than the highest paid rappers. After being critic…
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…
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 kicking off the first day of our 2013 Spring Fundraising Drive here at KEXP so we are looking at songs abou…
If there's a band member sweating on stage during Philip Selway's sets, how is it not going to be the drummer? Selway's work with Radiohead through the late 90s, 2000s, and even the 2010s continuously reinvents how we see and hear the art of drumming in the modern rock and electronic atmosphere. Th…
If Brooklyn producer The Range and Atlanta rapper Rome Fortune have any one thing in common, it's an unfettered line of sight towards a marvelous horizon. Both artists make music that is wrought with present-tense turmoil, but the future always looks brighter - and not only that, it looks magnanimo…
Janice Headley looks back at the 1983 kung-fu film Shaolin and Wu Tang, and its influence on the iconic New York hip-hop collective, Wu-Tang Clan.
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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!
Dauwd is the alias of Dauwd Al Hilali, a US-born, UK-raised, Berlin-based electronic producer who has provided a steady supply of stellar tech-house grooves over the past six years, releasing high-quality EPs for Pictures Music, Ghostly International, and Berlin's renowned Kompakt Records along the…
It's hard to describe our anticipation for the full-length debut from Mr. Silla. We've featured Sigurlaug Gisladóttir, a longtime member of Icelandic band múm, with her own project for the past few years -- recording her first in her own Reykjavik studio in 2011, then during our broadcast at Icelan…
Closing up Decibel Festival is no small task, but if anyone is up to the task and still ready to party after four previous nights of madness, it's LA hip hop collective Friends of Friends. The group houses a brilliant group of young musicians, specializing in electronic, trap, hip-hop, and experime…
There's only one thing that's remained constant on the weird, mystical journey of Seattle experimental hip-hop duo Shabazz Palaces: progressive thinking. Everything else is up for grabs. Where their debut EPs were bombastic and shocking in their odd use of sampling and jazz rhythms in a bass-heavy …
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. Thanksgiving is around the corner and it’s time to prepare for feasting. Did you know that the average American eats any…
French indie rock veterans Phoenix are poised to make a comeback of epic proportions this year. Last time we got a full length release from the band, it redefined the band's following for good. 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is still to this day one of the most well-loved indie pop records in rece…
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…
Saqqara Dogs seems to be yet another band that absolutely delighted a certain subset of nerdy college radio DJs (and soon-to-be-incredibly-influential New York Times music critics - you've got to love any band that forces the Times to refer to someone as "Mr. 66"), but didn't seem to make much of a…
It's hard enough to make money nowadays as a musician, let alone when you have to ditch all momentum you've gained thus far and start again. But watching the bands the make the cut and bottle lightning a second time is like watching a boxer come off a loss stronger than ever. It's not just good - i…
