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…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Afte…
One of the most exciting releases this week comes from Brooklyn-via-Jersey band Real Estate. KEXP's Music Director Don Yates describes their third album, Atlas, as "another masterful set of dreamy, surf-inflected indie-pop, featuring a more pristine sound this time around for their warm blend of ja…
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…
Perhaps nobody spends more time and works as closely with the artists performing in our live studio than KEXP's team of video producers. From setup, to performance, to the hours spent editing each session, KEXP video producers get to see the ins and outs of every performance, sometimes over and ove…
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…
The Head & The Heart have experienced one of the greatest Seattle success stories we've seen in recent years. Selling over 10,000 copies of their self-released self-titled debut LP by word of mouth before signing to Sub Pop to re-release it nationally in 2011, the band saw their homespun batch …
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…
We end our broadcast during Musicfest NW today with another great lineup at the Doug Fir in Portland. Tune in today starting at noon for four great bands performing live on air starting with New Jersey indie punks Titus Andronicus, followed by melodic Bay Area folk-pop duo The Dodos, Portland's own…
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 - …
"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…
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…
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…
