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 …
Stephin Merritt likes to keep it clever with his long-running project The Magnetic Fields. From 1999's 3-CD set 69 Love Songs, to his recent A-Z tour (performing a song starting with each letter of the alphabet), and now a five CD set titled 50 Song Memoir scheduled for a March 3rd release on None…
While a room full of journalists listened to 22, A Million, the highly-anticipated third Bon Iver album, in the Oxbow Hotel on a Friday night in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Justin Vernon did what anyone else would do before a big interview: he smoked a cigarette. He knew he was maybe twenty minutes away…
That David Byrne is unstoppable. The influential icon was just in town, launching a run of his musical Here Lies Love at the Seattle Repertory Theater (watch an exclusive KEXP interview about it here). And now, upon his return home, he's announced a "music-related variety show" to held for one nig…
Hardly anyone on the Seattle electronic scene does intimacy quite like NAVVI does. In the two and a half years since they started asking about our weekend plans, the duo of Brad Boettger and Kristin Henry has worked slowly and steadily on perfecting the tug of war that makes their vision of relatio…
These days, it's a lot easier to sell headlines than it is to sell records. If you write a great pop song, your best bets to sell are either to stack it so chock full of name-drops that you hardly see your own, or to dial the clickbait schtick meter up as high as it will go. But when presented with…
From the second Claire Boucher steps on the main stage at Sasquatch! Music Festival, it seems as if there are two versions of Grimes present during her shows. One, perhaps more reflective of the artist than her art, is the sincere, enthusiastic, slightly awkward person that speaks on the mic in bet…
Working with friends is the best. That's essentially the mantra behind eccentric Halifax producer Ryan Hemsworth's project Secret Songs. With it, Ryan has worked hard to curate and collaborate with some incredibly talented individuals to release music in a concentric and life-giving way (plus, it's…
Listening to St. Vincent's new self-titled LP, I find it harder and harder to market Annie Clark's music to friends by method of comparison. On her past efforts, including 2011's excellent Strange Mercy and her breakthrough 2009 record Actor, Clark has stood out on the forefront of a brave, new wav…
The kids may be off to school but former teen group Arctic Monkeys is all grown up. Now on their fifth full-length, out this week, the British-born, LA-based band have left behind any brattiness for what our Music Director, Don Yates, calls "a slower, thicker and more atmospheric rock sound, while …
Quadron have made some pretty big steps onto the American scene in the last few years, but they’ve received almost none of the credit for them as Quadron. The Danish duo is made up of singer Coco O and producer Robin Hannibal. Coco’s sultry soul has been heard from one end of the music spectrum to …
The Babies, Brooklyn indie rock collaboration between Kevin Morby of Woods and Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls, stopped by KEXP three weeks after the release of their new album Our House on the Hill to give us a taste of the live adaptation of the record. In case you haven't checked it out yet, Our H…
Some singers can sing anything, and some of them practically do. Mark Lanegan has one of those voices that will stop you dead in your tracks no matter when or how you hear him. The former local boy (he's lived in LA now probably longer than anywhere else) began a series of deep, dark solo albums th…
For quite a while now, I’ve been booking the KEXP Community Partnership Benefit Shows, but not once has one of the benefits fallen on my birthday. Well, this year I’m lucky enough to have this dream come true. So this Saturday, July 5th, I’m inviting you to come out and celebrate 36 years of my exi…
Soul legend Bobby Womack has passed away today at the age of 70. Cause of death is not currently being reported. Womack began performing music in the mid-'50s, and was discovered by Sam Cooke who signed his band, The Valentinos, to SAR Records. The Valentinos' 1964 single "It's All Over Now" was co…
