UPDATE 12:00 PM PT: the first half of a track has been shared via BBC Radio 1; listen below.
LCD Soundsystem are releasing two new songs tonight, titled “Call the Police” and “American Dream”! No, we don't actually have the songs yet, but midnight EST (or 9:00 PM PST), both tracks will become avail…
Digable Planets is officially back. After announcing their reunion tour at a NYE show in Seattle, the group followed through with the announcement as they took the main stage of Sasquatch! Music Festival by storm Saturday night. Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, Craig "Doodlebug" Irving and Mary Ann "Lad…
Angela Conway, the force behind A.C. Marias, doesn't seem to have been particularly prolific as an artist, but what she lacked in quantity she more than made up for in quality - as evidenced by the KCMU gang's high regard for One of Our Girls, the sole A.C. Marias full-length. Conway collaborated e…
KEXP's Resident Runner and host of the Morning Show, John Richards, presents Volume 2 of our new Runner Powered Podcast series. Hit your second wind with two hours (31 tracks!) of high energy KEXP favorites. 1. Animal Collective - What Would I Want? Sky 2. Small Black (Feat. Aaron Rockers) - Free…
Jim James picked a pretty lofty title for his first solo LP. But after a dozen listens or so, I can say in confidence that he has every reason to do so. He's led Kentucky psych-rock band My Morning Jacket for almost 15 years, releasing six studio albums and a dozen or so EPs (their 2005 LP Z and 20…
It's only the end of July, but it's already been an eventful year for Heems. The New York rapper dropped his first proper solo LP, Eat Pray Thug back in March, an excellent record that tells a heavy-handed story of what it's like to like in a perpetually post-9/11 New York as a person of Indian des…
Well, Seattle, it looks like we've corrupted Flight of the Conchords. Jemaine Clement, the gap-toothed glasses-wearing half of the New Zealand duo, confessed to the audience: he ate half a banana... and just left the other half sitting backstage! WHOA. "I'm the Iggy Pop of the band," he admitted ru…
For all of those in attendance at the Crocodile on Saturday night, rest assured that you got see a show that will never, ever happen again. Tonight, we saw Columbia and RCA's freshest flagship acts play a co-headlining date showing off records that are only crawling up the charts as we speak, and t…
“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…
Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a bit of a conundrum, at least when it comes to classifying them. Not really a "band," UMO is really the project of Ruban Nielson, who wrote and recorded songs in his bedroom and even posted the insanely catchy "Ffunny Ffrends" first online anonymously. Not really a loca…
For New Order fans, it has been a long, bitter wait for Lost Sirens. In the almost eight years since the release of Waiting for the Siren's Call, much animosity has plagued the band's ability (or desire) to release any new material or tour together. And really, these are no trivial bickerings - for…
We can finally say it: Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is here! And yet, now listening to it, it seems like the record wouldn't have been appropriate coming any sooner than it did. The long-anticipated, long dreamed about concept piece from Animal Collective founding member Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Pan…
“Hey Joe, sorry to hurt you, but they say love is a virtue, don’t they?” On The National’s new single “Sea of Love”, this quiet apology to a friend is a battle cry for affirmation of love. At this point, The National are indie rock legends, and themes of terrible love and trying relationship are no…
Halfway through the American Football show at Neptune Theatre, the band is tuning up guitars and getting ready to launch into another number, and there's a small, singular moment of silence. Then, from somewhere in the throng of voices, someone yells out, "I still can't believe this is even happeni…
Donald Glover has done a lot of thinking in the past two years. “That Camp was a million years ago, sing me a different song” he raps on the closer of his new record Because the Internet. The referenced 2011 studio album debut does feel like forever ago now. After self-releasing three albums and th…
Before the Fallon performance, FKA Twigs was a pervasive mystery – a voice and an image spun together in perfect unity to create something entirely other worldly that you felt both drawn to and intimidated by. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was just mystery, but either way, FKA Twigs was impossible…
Starbucks, KEXP & Friends Of Waterfront Seattle bring you SEAchanger, a waterfront concert to raise awareness around issues facing unsheltered families.
As we waited at the Paramount Theatre for the Father John Misty show to begin, a fellow show-goer said to me, "Sometimes he walks around the crowd during the opener. He followed me on Twitter today and I literally died, so I'm gonna say hi to him if I can find him." I wondered in my head how this g…
Latin-infused Americana band Calexico and folk singer-songwriter Sam Beam, better known as Iron & Wine, are gearing up to release their debut collaborative full-length, Years to Burn. The record comes 14 years after they released the EP In the Reins and is due for release on June 14 via Sub Pop…
It's funny to say it, but in the last half decade of Kele's work, Bloc Party's comeback LP Four is an outlier amongst an otherwise continuous show of strength in another direction. Sure, Four gave Bloc Party fans another great record to rotate out in their stash, but since the band's electronic-hea…
