Like a lipstick-stained group of New Romantics, Spesh’s scuzzy neon blur is infectiously accessible and thrillingly dynamic.
London, Morrocco, West Africa, Hell, Plastic Beach, Congo, London (again), and now Hong Kong. Damon Albarn's globe-trotting take on pop music has brought him far beyond Britpop, to say the least. But as he travels across the globe and in and out of projects, the line between his personal and preten…
It's been twelve long years, but there's finally a new album from UK pop giants Blur out today! KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes their eighth album as "a strong return-to-form incorporating everything from classic-sounding, crunchy Brit-pop to excursions into spacy electro-pop, brooding, dub…
The 2013 Coachella lineup has been officially shared with public. It's a pretty astounding group -- a mix of resurgent bands like Blur or The Postal Service along with tons of others who are at the top of their game. According to the timer on the website, it looks like tickets will go on sale at …
It's a strong week for new albums, including the long-awaited solo debut from Blur frontman (and Gorillaz leader) Damon Albarn. KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes the release as "a mostly dark, brooding set of eclectic, beat-driven pop with a stripped-down, dub-influenced sound combining haunt…
Nothing like dirtying up a pristine wooded oasis with some gritty rock from Those Darlins. The Nashville band joined us in the Bunny Glade during Pickathon last month for an acoustic set of twang-tinged girl group meets garage rock songs from their latest album, Blur The Line, and a chilling cover …
Though it's the first album released solely under his own name, there is a strong argument to be made that Everyday Robots is not the official solo debut of English legend Damon Albarn. That could be the soundtrack to the 1999 film Ravenous, which was the first music outside of his then-main band B…
Damon Albarn, of Blur and the Gorillaz, is bringing Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland into the tech world in his new musical Wonder.land. The story follows a girl named Aly looking for solace in an online game called Alice after being bullied at school. Albarn wrote the music, with lyric…
When it comes to Britpop, Super Furry Animals are truly a whole 'nother beast. Though they tend to get lumped in with bands like Pulp (who were an early champion of SFA) and Blur, the Furries are a unique animal, bending genres and breaking boundaries throughout their 20 year career. The band went …
Here's wishing the best seismic health to Southern California this April, as pretty much every current band you'd ever want to see will be in or around Indio, CA, for the weekends of April 12-14 and April 19-21. Why? Because of Coachella 2013. The newly announced lineup is a who's who of indie and …
Ever since moving to Seattle from Lansing, Michigan, in 1989, Shomari Shanks (a.k.a. DJ Sho Nuph (f.k.a. Sho Nuff) has been immersed within the local music community, first connecting with seminal 1990s local hip-hop crew Tribal Music before diving into the electronic music scene in the early 2000…
In the last few years, there’s been a slew of English, (mostly) London-based bands emerging from basement gigs with world-beating ambitions and the musical elements to make good on them: a heavy dose of pop melody, a balance of snarky storytelling and heartfelt appeal, and most of all, hooks that a…
It's almost summer 2014, and that means we get to see the indie pop scene evolve once again. Back at the beginning of 2012, Grimes dropped a bomb with Visions that didn't stop shaking up the synth pop scene for nearly an entire year. The post-modern (or post-Internet, if you prefer) aesthetic and m…
Recently, Seattle Weekly posted a piece called "A Year of Emergency". While the piece deals with the city's prevailing homelessness epidemic, the societal range to which the phrase could be extended this year is nearly infinite. Human empathy is facing a year of emergency, and for better or worse, …
When we saw Pixies return to the scene last summer, everything moved in a bit of a blur. With the departure of Kim Deal came the immediate release of "Bagboy", the first new Pixies offering since the Kim-led "Bam Thwok" single of 2004 (which was the only original release from Pixies since they brok…
After being part of the bands Blur and Gorillaz, Damon Albarn is out with a new solo album called The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows.
During the 2019 Spring Fundraising Drive, we'll down the most-played albums in KEXP’s history, going back over a decade of airplay. See the list.
