Earlier this year, we got a sneak peek at the new alt-J album as the UK trio stopped by KEXP for an in-studio session. Now, the entire LP is out -- a release KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls, "their most adventurous, ranging from catchy prog-pop and solemn atmospheric folk ballads to decidedly o…
Not to be outdone by fellow shoegazers Ride, Slowdive have announced their first new album in 22 years! The self-titled LP will be out May 5th via Dead Oceans. We've already heard the single "Star Roving." Stream a new track below, titled "Sugar for the Pill." On Wednesday, the band will perform l…
Last year, legendary singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen passed away at the age of 82. Today, his son Adam shares a posthumous video for the track "Traveling Light" using previously unseen footage of his father. The video was co-directed with Sammy Slabbinck, who also worked on Cohen's final album You…
You only have a few days left to enter KEXP’s 2016 Vive Latino flyaway and seize the opportunity to win a free trip to two for this awesome music festival in Mexico City, April 23 and 24. KEXP asked last year’s winner to share a few of her memories from Vive Latino 2015, and here’s her enthusiastic…
You'd be hard pressed to find a list of 2016's most anticipated albums without Porches on it. The moniker of New York's Aaron Maine and friends makes its Domino debut this year with Pool, a record that sounds and feels like a breakout ready to happen. Here, Maine ditches the lo-fi indie rock baseme…
How many indie rock dudes does it take to cover a Sharon Van Etten song? By our count, four, as footage has surfaced of a 2010 concert where Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Bryce and Aaron Dessner of The National, and Colin Stetson covered her single "Love More." Watch below. The footage comes from a Mu…
Seattle-via-Brooklyn DJ/producer Jaymz Nylon has been crafting supremely funky dancefloor grooves over the past two decades, forging his "Afro-tech" sound through a unique fusion of Afro house, Latin house, deep house, tech-house, disco, and jazz. In addition to a stacked discography that includes …
Seattle's Megan "Emecks" Xaybanha is a triple threat as a musician, DJ and professional dancer and may be best known as a core member of the wildly fun and genre-smashing local group Don't Talk To The Cops! In addition to her work in DTTTC! (be on the lookout for their new album, Forevers, dropping…
You'd be forgiven for asking why Conor Oberst, M. Ward, and the Felice Brothers were playing the Moore this September. They were on a brief, West Coast-only jaunt, none of them have records out this year, and because of it, there was barely any publicity for the show. But even for those who walked …
Well, now I'm depressed. I just did some math, and it turns out that in 1990, when John Doe took a break after having released six albums as a member of the legendary punk rock band X (see here for #6) and released his first solo album - as practically an elder statesman of punk rock - he was 3 yea…
London's William Doyle creates innovative, beautifully-constructed, critically-acclaimed music under the name East India Youth. While he's only been active for a few years at this point, he's quickly turned heads with his 2014 Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Total Strife Forever, and his recent 2015…
After a tumultuous four years (in which frontman Zach Condon went through an ugly divorce and was later hospitalized), it's great to see Beirut being silly and having a good time again. Check out the playful video for "No No No" (directed by Brother Willis) below. Will skunks and baguettes be used…
On Sprinter, the latest album by TORRES, Mackenzie Scott does not run away from the big issues. The 24-year old Brooklyn-based artist has clearly grown from her Southern Baptist upbringing, outpacing the usual "country girl meets big city" timeline but not so quickly that she dodges heavy themes of…
San Francisco has been doing the shoegaze revival right for a while now. There's something about the way bay area indie rock meshes with the sounds of My Bloody Valentine and Ride to give the classic, noisy 80s textures a brisk, airy sensibility, and the denseness of the classics is made new throug…
If you caught the most recent episode of HBO's Girls, you may have heard the previously unreleased track from St. Vincent. If not, stream the song below. The track is said to be a demo left over from last year's self-titled fourth studio album. Girls music supervisor Manish Raval told Billboard: “…
No other group in Seattle has the reach of THEESatisfaction. In creating their unique psychedelic hip hop stylings, local duo Cat and Stas reach as high among the stars as low within the roots below, and place their feet years beyond as eons ago. In fact, critics can't help but describe their new a…
When Sólstafir plays for KEXP, the gods take notice. Two years ago, during KEXP's broadcast at Iceland Airwaves, hurricane-level gales swept across Reykjavik as the hard rocking band brewed up their own storm inside Kex Hostel. Last month, on their first tour of the West Coast, heavy winds followed…
I guess this year I'm making up for the previous lack of XTC posts in this series. The Dukes of Stratosphear were XTC in all but name, working under a different moniker to crank out a couple albums of pop genius that heavily mined some of their favorite sounds of the '60s, from Barrett-era Pink Flo…
Sisters Kara and Johanna Söderberg embody the phrase "beyond their years". As Swedish duo First Aid Kit, they've managed to capture generations' worth of American country and folk while still in their teens, and on their reverential 2012 hit "Emmylou" sounded as if they could already hold their own…
This first day of live broadcasting from Iceland Airwaves ended with a bang. Kex Hostel was packed to the gills with eager fans of quintessential Icelandic singer songwriter Mugison (full name Örn Elías Guðmundsson). Raised in the small village of Isafjordur and now living in another tiny village, …
