Thurston Moore has thrown us for a couple loops in the last couple years, starting with the long-time coming disbandment of Sonic Youth. Arguably one fo the most influential American bands of all time, Sonic Youth have, for many years, had a turbulent air about them, but after 2009's noisy but exce…
Telekinesis is the name of Seattle's own Michael Benjamin Lerner and his soft-spoken, incredibly charming indie-rock solo act. Since his 2009 self-released debut EP, Lerner has garnered a reputation for himself blending 80's pop sensibilities with mellowed-out vocal stylings, a tried and true dynam…
As Kaoru Ishibashi himself admits, a year ago no one knew who he was. Now, with his musical project Kishi Bashi, he's selling out shows with his intricate and ecstatic performances. Inspired by as much by free jazz as bluegrass, hip-hop, and classical music, Kishi Bashi's baroque indie pop easily d…
Had they come around some 25 years ago, Nashville's Wild Cub would surely have been "pretty in pink." Formed only a year ago by singer/songwriter Keegan DeWitt and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Bullock, the Nashville group sounds less like their Music City contemporaries and more like they belong on…
Closing out this year’s video stream live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival were legendary Icelandic rock band HAM. It was with a few gigs opening for the Sugarcubes in 1988 that HAM’s popularity bloomed, especially in Nordic countries (this part of the world does love their heavy …
This year's Oscar nominations rolled out this morning and some very familiar names to KEXP are on the list. Indie-folk genius Sufjan Stevens is nominated in the Best Original Song category for one of the two songs he contributed to Luca Guadagnino's Call Me Be Your Name, "Mystery Of Love." Stevens …
These are a few of Greg Vandy's favorite things in The Roadhouse and out. Most of his Top 10 LPs are represented here, but also his favorite songs of the year. It was a great year in music! Download, share, and tune into The Roadhouse on Wednesdays from 6-9pm for what's hot in the new year. 1. Pr…
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…
Yoko Ono turned 89 last Friday, the same day a new covers album of her music was released. The album was curated by Ben Gibbard and features artists like Japanese Breakfast, Sharon Van Etten, and David Byrne.
KEXP shares our response to Covid-19 as well as ways others can help artists and the community at large.
Minneapolis' ubiquitous underground hip hop figure P.O.S has a long list of credentials: guitarist for Building Better Bombs, vocalist and keyboard player for Marijuana Deathsquads, member of well-populated supergroup Gayngs, and a founding member of the Doomtree collective. All of these were runni…
“I got knocked down, but I’ll get up.” That’s how School of Seven Bells’ Alejandra Deheza said goodbye to bandmate Benjamin Curtis a little more than two years ago. The Joey Ramone cover was recorded from Benjamin Curtis’s hospital room in late 2013. After a long battle with T-cell Lymphoblastic Ly…
Rounding out our last day of the KEXP broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival is Icelandic dream-pop band Vök. Formed in 2013 as a duo (singer Margrét Rán Magnúsdóttir and saxophonist Andri Már Enoksson) to enter Músíktilraunir (or "Musical Experiment Contest")--a battle o…
We've got more new music to share from Return to the Moon, the highly-anticipated debut of EL VY, a collaboration between Matt Berninger of The National and Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls/Menomena, out October 30th on 4AD. Check out a lyric video, directed by Matt's brother Tom Berninger, for the sin…
When the most recent Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album, Skeleton Tree, hit stores earlier this fall, it was accompanied by the release of the documentary, One More Time With Feeling, a gorgeous, if heart-wrenching, feature-length film on the making of the album. The film returns to theaters on D…
Second on today's broadcast live from KEX hostel at at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was Icelandic singer-songwriter Axel Flóvent. Axel has achieved recent international prominence after years playing in his hometown of Húsavik (a small fishing village in the north of Iceland), and all around his…
With Decibel Festival ending its incredible decade-long run, there was a void in Seattle that the Chance of Rain Festival is poised to fill. The inaugural five-day fest kicks off tonight, presenting art, fashion, and music in nightly showcases at venues across the city: Q Nightclub, Crocodile, Re-b…
Beck has finally announced his follow-up to 2015's Grammy-winning Album of the Year, Morning Phase. Entitled Colors, he's had the album done for quite a while and has been teasing it for the last year, dropping the singles, "Wow," "Dreams," and "Up All Night." Beck said in a new interview, “I suppo…
Zola Jesus is releasing her 6th album Okovi in September via Sacred Bones. She previously shared the lead single "Exhumed" and today the correlating video for the song has been released. Directed by Jacqueline Castel, the creepy black and white footage bears a resemblance to The Ring, with a simila…
Earlier this week New York duo Cults (Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion) teased a possible new album by sharing a 20-second clip of a song called "Gilded Lilly" on Instagram. Today they announced the new album, called Offering, and shared its title track, their first release in four years after 20…
