The UK electronic dance music scene is just divine this fall. I know, I know, you can pretty much say that year round any year and it would be at least partially true, but this is especially true right now. Just last month, we got a full length masterpiece by up-and-coming Glasgow pioneer Rustie. T…
Pigface is yet another band that I should have been all over in my high school years, as a fan of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Big Black, Foetus, and all things tinny and discordant and rhythmic and yelly. I know I was aware of their existence, but did I know their debut full length album, Gub, featu…
What does the passing of time sound like? That's the question that Santa Barbara retro synth-pop band Gardens & Villa seem to be asking often on their sophomore record Dunes, out this week on Secretly Canadian. We first met Gardens & Villa back in 2011 with a self-titled LP decorated with j…
February is kicking off with lots of interesting stuff for your ears, most notably, the sophomore release from duo Broken Bells -- Danger Mouse and James Mercer of The Shins. KEXP's Music Director, Don Yates, describes the new album After the Disco as "a strong set of psych-tinged rhythmic pop that…
While many people are compiling their year-end lists and shopping for gift-worthy deluxe reissues for the upcoming holidays, some bands are still releasing excellent new albums that you'll want to hear before you make any final decisions. A few of this week's releases see some KEXP favorites making…
On their dreamy fifth album, Scottish band Camera Obscura adds a local flavor by recording with Portland based producer (and former Seattleite) Tucker Martine. Our Music Director, Don Yates, calls Desire Lines "a beautifully crafted set of bittersweet, soul-tinged indie-pop, featuring a warm, lush …
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival is Icelandic psych outfit Par-Ðar. Their name serving as a description for the band's sound, "PAR" is an acronym for Psychedelic Ambient Rock, and "Ðar" is the band’s made-up word for a state of enlightenment or being. Th…
KEXP celebrates Mixtape Week, August 26-30.
Fly Moon Royalty lit up the KEXP stage this afternoon with their glorious, funky jams. Originating as a twosome in Seattle in 2011, with the powerful voice of Adra Boo and the rapid rhymes of Mike Illvester, they've now grown into a full band, synchronized backup singers and all. Always a crowd fav…
Sam Beam's project Iron & Wine is back with a new album, a new single with video, and some tour dates. The single is called "Call It Dreaming" and the video was directed by J. Austin Wilson. The video features Beam and his friends performing in a magical pickup truck that moved by itself withou…
Save for the jam band-heavy lineup of the festival's inaugural year – it's weird to think about now, but in the early 2000s, jam bands were as prominent at festivals as EDM is now – Sasquatch has long been an indie rock heavy festival, and even though this year's lineup is slightly less heavy on gu…
Julian Casablancas kicked off his Showbox set Thursday night with an eleven minute experimental track about the corruption of the music industry and the doom of creativity called "Human Sadness". It is truly a new era for one of our generation's best songwriters, personally coming full circle with …
On a rainy Wednesday evening, Annie Clark brought wonder and beauty to Seattle and to the Moore Theater with her St. Vincent return to our fair city. Both of the last times we've had the chance to see clark, it was alongside David Byrne, playing some original material, but mostly cuts from their co…
“Boy, the come down here was easy, like the arrival of a new day.” That’s how Adam Granduciel chooses to open the new album from The War on Drugs after a minute and a half of dreamscape Americana. As the listener, you could say the same thing. The Philadelphia band have always found a way to worm i…
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…
The name of their 2009 release (2008 in Colombia), “Blow Up”, was prescient. While the music of Bomba Estéreo is stylistically explosive, their popularity at the time of its release was just beginning to grow. We watched them ascend as their in-studio performance from late 2009 quickly became one o…
There are few moments in rock 'n' roll as iconic as the opening drum-and-breath line in "Time of the Season." Yet unlike many of their British Invasion co-horts (like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Moody Blues), The Zombies never reached the same level of success. Maybe it was tha…
