Did you come to Iceland Airwaves to lose your mind? FM Belfast and their fans certainly did. Our fourth show of the day at Kex Hostel was Iceland's highest energy party act, as we once again featured the typically headlining band in this very intimate space during our broadcast. This electro pop ou…
It's 37 degrees in Reykjavik, and KEXP is setting up at Kex Hostel for four days of incredible live music. Iceland Airwaves festival is just getting warmed up (it officially kicks off tomorrow), but things are already hot here at the hippest hostel in Iceland. We've brought along all the necessary …
For a band celebrating The Age of Fracture, CYMBALS sure form a cohesive sound. On their debut, the UK foursome may shirk "concepts", but their songs are nevertheless about ideas – about "action and desire", "the city", "working", "love" and so much more – but they're even more about dancing and el…
The light rain didn't keep the crowds away from attending the first day of the 2014 Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, and the improving weather will only make today more enjoyable. No doubt people will come rain or shine for legendary bands like Big Star's Third and The Replacements, but you m…
Founding member Chris Walla has announced he's leaving Death Cab for Cutie. In a statement he shared with The Stranger, Walla says "Deciding to leave the band was not, and is not, easy. It’s really, really sad. I love my bandmates, and I’m proud of what we’ve done, and mercifully, those things don…
It's only fitting that he's on a record label called Truth & Soul Records, because that's exactly the kind of music the legendary Lee Fields creates. The 63-year-old music veteran is still going strong after 43 years in the business, and his most recent release, Emma Jean, is just as vital as e…
I got my first dose of Young Fathers after I bought a t-shirt from the Anticon Record Label’s online store. To promote them, Anticon slipped a copy of Tape Two with every shipped order, resulting in widespread dissemination of the new band's developing sound. Luckily, I was one of the many to recei…
The release of Jack White's highly anticipated album Lazaretto is just around the corner (June 10), and he's already shared the title track and the intense instrumental "High Ball Stepper." Today, White has gifted the world with a third single. "Just One Drink" sounds like a rustic, southern rocke…
Ever since Warpaint first made their mark around 2008, the words "hypnotic", "atmospheric" and "brooding" have been applied by critics and fans in the most appealing ways. Their recent self-titled, sophomore full-length finds the LA band no less ethereal yet stretching further out with their minima…
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…
Tomorrow, Friday, October 6th, Rhino Records are releasing The Replacements For Sale: Live At Maxwell’s 1986, a two-disc set capturing The Replacements at their mid-career best. Last month, KEXP premiered the live version of "Takin’ A Ride," and today, we share the band's ramshackle take on "Color …
Mike Fuller serves up a baker's dozen of super-rockin' tunes that he's unearthed since settling into the captain's chair on Shake the Shack. 1. The Hillbilly Moon Explosion - Depression2. Southern Culture on the Skids - Dirt Road3. Eleven Hundred Springs - Raise Hell, Drink Beer4. The Hi-Risers - …
At KEXP, our love for post-punk sirens Savages knows no bounds. Their debut LP Silence Yourself is without a doubt one of the best introductions of the year. These four women have put together a sound and a vision whose fury and vigil have no equal. Listening to Savages is an experience - it goes p…
"I feel like all 4,000 people in this room should hug right now," the mid-30s woman beside me says to me as the house lights go on after The xx show last Monday night. I nod my head in approval. I understand what she means - not hugs of comfort but hugs of recognition of community and of the beauti…
A year after his debut album release, it is no doubt that Benjamin Booker is a rockstar. He's played the festival main stages, toured across the country, and even guitar dueled with Jack White. It's deserved notoriety for a man who makes such a unique blend of punk, rock, blues and folk. And even w…
The best collection of rock and roll comics of late recently premiered at the Emerald City Comic Convention in Seattle this past weekend, but won’t be available en masse from publisher Fantagraphics Books Inc. till May 17. Be sure to pre-order Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff soon though, because it is an…
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…
Seattle's Wishbeard is one of those great bands that keeps the high hat and snare drum going. This is part of what makes them eminently danceable. With etherial guitars and vocal shouts like wolves howling into the night, the drum keeps a tight, pushing rhythm highlighted by the quickly hit snares …
