What's the best thing about the Seattle band Country Lips? Is it their name? Maybe. Is it their traditional Americana music? Getting close... Is it that they get people to dance and dance often? Yes! In a city not known for it's folk music, accordion playing and hip shaking, Country Lips bring the …
Sorry not sorry: I'll confess outright to being a huge Real Estate fan. Their previous album, Days, easily cinched the number one spot on my Top Albums of 2011 list. So, understandably, I've been excited for the follow-up, Atlas, which came out earlier this year on Domino Records, and the resulting…
Since we first heard them four years, Capsula have thrilled us with on blazing performance after another. The Argentinian, by way of Spain, band returned to Seattle his past December and since they had already previewed their stellar 2013 album, Solar Secrets, last time we had them in, this time th…
Michael Benjamin Learner is the singer, songwriter and recording artist extraordinaire for the band Telekinesis - he writes all the parts, plays all the instruments and treats the project with a fatherly-like care. Learner, as Telekinesis, also has the pleasure of playing this year's inaugural Timb…
With all the information passing between people on the internet, I suppose it’s no wonder an amazing band could form via Craigslist – yet, it still comes as a bit of a surprise that JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound came together this way. It’s like hearing the perfect couple met on a dating web site.…
This week we celebrate the 15th year of one of Seattle’s favorite hometown labels: Barsuk Records! Since its birth in 1998, Barsuk has helped create a platform for dozens of great bands, from the Pacific northwest and otherwise, to get off the ground and put forth incredible music. Even in the deca…
Portland riff-brokers Red Fang recorded a crushing in-studio session for Seek & Destroy's four-year anniversary on October 27, playing songs in from their new album, Whales & Leeches. You can watch the full performance below, and you can also catch them live at their S&D-sponsored, all-…
Not ones to wait for official announcements, Arcade Fire let the citizens of Barcelona know that they'd be playing next year's Primavera Sound via a large format poster raised along the city's main shopping street, Portal de l'Àngel, on Monday. The festival just confirmed the resulting social medi…
Earlier this year, it was reported that Sharon Jones was diagnosed with stage-one bile duct cancer, but thankfully, she is said to be "doing much better," and she and her Dap-Kings have announced a January 14th release date for their next album on Daptone Records. To celebrate, they've shared a ne…
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is on a hunger strike, protesting an atmosphere of “slave labor” in her Russian prison. Today, she writes in a letter proliferated by her husband, “I am going on hunger strike and refusing to participate in colony slave labor. I will do this until the administrat…
Saturday's Bumbershoot festivities got the 2013 season off to a great start. With the turnout highlight of the day going to rising Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar, and with a three way tie for most dancing going to !!!, Charles Bradley, and Crystal Castles, the day was an eclectic bunch of gems. Bein…
Last night, Beck finally performed his first concert of material from last year's full sheet music album, Song Reader. Franz Ferdinand, the Staves, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jarvis Cocker, and so many more joined him on stage in London. Check out the performances below (click on the next link for more…
You won't find many wallflowers growing among the hills and dales of Scotland. Even in their quieter moments, Scots tend to go big. Witness Glasgow band Frightened Rabbit, who on their latest album, Pedestrian Verse, play "folk rock" at its most anthemic. The impassioned lads are no strangers to KE…
The Seattle International Film Festival has had a succulent series of movies based on sounds for a while, sponsored by KEXP and called Face The Music. Whether they be documentaries or fictional narratives or band concerts or somewhere in between, up to a dozen independent and/or international films…
It seems like forever ago that Toro Y Moi were lumped in with the chillwave movement, but across the last four years and three albums, Chaz Bundick’s music and (and it’s four person live incarnation) have gradually evolved into something bigger than a blogosphere-darling bedroom project: a fully-fl…
After spending days in a hundred year old barn in upstate New York Widowspeak is back with a new album Almanac - and now we can listen to "The Dark Age" from said album. Helped by Kevin McMahon who has worked with Real Estate and Swans, the new songs from the album feature stronger guitar riffs whi…
Before legendary soul singer Sharon Jones died last year from pancreatic cancer, she recorded a final album with the Dap-Kings. Today the album has been officially announced and the lead single has been shared. The LP is called Soul Of A Woman and will be out November 17 via Daptone. The single is …
Former Gossip frontwoman Beth Ditto has shared her take on Tommy James & The Shondells' 1968 song "I'm Alive." Ditto said of the cover: "Being alive is radical right now. So let's live!" Ditto released her solo debut Fake Sugar last year. Catch Ditto at the Showbox on Thursday, March 29. [ SPIN…
Kendrick Lamar has unveiled his cinematic new video for "LOVE" off of this year's instant-classic DAMN. Directed by frequent collaborator Dave Meyers and the Little Homies (aka Lamar and TDE president Dave Free), the video cuts between a number of different scenes but overall follows the dissolutio…
In an episode of Music that Matters that doubles as a showcase for some of the region's most notable rock, electronic, and hip-hop outfits, Audioasis host Sharlese highlights thirteen of the Pacific Northwestern acts playing this year's edition of Bumbershoot, a music and arts festival that takes …
