Two and a half years have passed since Purity Ring dropped their debut LP Shrines on 4AD. Every time I hear that, I'm totally baffled. How has it only been two and a half years? It feels like Purity Ring have been a household indie pop name for an eternity. After a handful of one off singles over t…
As the business model for the 21st music industry continues to shift and evolve, more and more artists are forming small, independent collectives, compiling funds between the group to make distribution easier to take on financially, but keeping ownership and obligations independent. One of the best…
For the small Barboza crowd that showed up to the Seattle debut of Mas Ysa, along with Lawrence Rothman, Wednesday night was a splendid display of left field musical prodigy. For those that didn’t, the joke’s on you – you most certainly won’t get a chance to see either of these two at such a small …
For Live on KEXP, Troy Nelson delves into the history of both rappers while speculating whether an ancient English stone has anything to do with the unique abilities of Blimes and Gab, who virtually perform five songs off Talk About It.
September closed out with a really strong week of new releases, including the long-awaited new album from Bon Iver. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it, "his most adventurous, forward-looking recording to date, combining spacy, digitally warped electro-pop with folk, gospel and other styles on s…
A mosh pit of all smiles is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Real mosh pits are great to start with. Not fake circle pits where following the leader dominates any true form of atomic self expression, but a real "I drank a little too much and don't mind being throw around by the couple people who re…
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. Anyone who follows football or has been to The Clink for a Hawks game knows that hands down it is the loudest stadium in…
In his interview with Stereogum, Kip Berman historically described The Pains of Being Pure At Heart as a project about writing songs and playing them with friends. Now, almost five years since the band’s divine eponymous debut, with a new backing lineup that helped record the new LP out in a week a…
"I brought tissues." That's what the girl next to me told her friends as she reached into her bag and started dishing out Kleenex. At any other show, the action might have been silly, but not tonight. Tonight, Volcano Choir, the spectacular collaboration between Bon Iver and Collections of Colonies…
Madrid indie rock quartet Hinds made their full length debut on Mom + Pop at the turn of the new year with a fantastic album called Leave Me Alone. But, after seeing them live, it's hard not to interpret the title as being somewhat ironic, because there are few bands around that are as fun to be in…
Dan Boeckner may have followed his own advice to “start again”, but even with a new moniker, a new band, and a self-released debut EP released four days after its announcement, there seems to be nothing preventing Boeckner from shining through the darkness, no matter how often he disappears back in…
Musicians have been making millions of dollars in recent weeks for auctioning off their music in the form of an NFT (Non-Fungible Token). Chase Danzig of YouTube channel "The Bitcoin Express" joins this episode to fill us in on how NFTs work.
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Popular YouTube and Spotify playlister "Alex Rainbird Music" talks about helping break indie artists, music discovery, and monetization in the streaming era.
The band Bait Bag calls North Haven Island, Maine, home, but their influences come from Washington State’s Riot Grrrl movement of the '90s.
Every year, Seattle gets a small taste of Sasquatch! Music Festival at home four months before the festival takes place. Sasquatch! Launch Party is a great event every single year, both with or without context. As the rain beats down on the dreariest months of the Seattle year, we all dream of Memo…
Thursday night before 4th of July at Neumos, you could tell who watched the show from the safety of the balcony from those on the floor strictly based on the quantity of sweat dripping from their clothes upon leaving the premises. I can't speak much for the casual observers above, but between the h…
Seattle independent artist Mark Diamond was surprised when he was able to pay his rent through song streams on Spotify. He later got picked up by a subsidiary label of Universal Music, only to realize he was making less money with the support of a label.
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