Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves music festival is Icelandic psych outfit Par-Ðar. Their name serving as a description for the band's sound, "PAR" is an acronym for Psychedelic Ambient Rock, and "Ðar" is the band’s made-up word for a state of enlightenment or being. Th…
It's been a couple years, but we have here another release from That Petrol Emotion, this time the band's third LP - which, being a third LP, is mostly compared negatively to the second. (And I'd have to check, but I bet that was compared negatively to the first. This is college radio, after all.) …
In early October, KEXP was thrilled to host an evening with leftist icon and buck-the-man songwriter Billy Bragg, as part of Songbook: KEXP’s Music & Literature Series. Over the summer, Bragg released his second nonfiction book Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World, said t…
It just wouldn’t be Airwaves without seeing one of Jófríður Ákadóttir’s many musical projects, and today we’re being treated to some of her new solo work, produced under the moniker JFDR, live from Kex Hostel in Reykjavík. A local songwriting prodigy, Jófríður has been playing music since she was 1…
There's something about the booming sound of an analog synthesizer that excites the imagination. Decades of filmmakers and composers have utilized the mesmerizing power of these instruments, from John Carpenter to Vangelis all the way through Hanz Zimmer and Cliff Martinez. So it made sense that Se…
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. This week, we are featuring songs …
Another day, another dollar (or is it another krona?). While I'm not quite sure what the conversion rate is for days and poorly-executed metaphors here in Iceland, one thing I am sure of is that we are bringing you another incredible day of live music here at Kex Hostel during Iceland Airwaves Musi…
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings recorded one last album before Jones passed away due to pancreatic cancer last year. Entitled Soul Of A Woman, the album will be released November 17. Today the Dap-Kings shared the track "Call on God," a song Jones wrote in the '70s for E.I. Fields' Gospel Wonders an…
Wow, what an unbelievable end to a great day of live music. Day one of the Airwaves broadcast live from Kex Hostel closed with a bang as we welcomed Iceland’s favorite new live act Hatari. Icelandic for "Hater," Hatari was formed by Klemens Hannigan, Matthías Tryggvi Haraldson, and Einar Stéfansson…

In 2018, KEXP celebrated the 30th anniversary of local record label Sub Pop with a four-month retrospective, "counting up" every catalog number in their vast discography of over 1,200 releases. Dig into the archives of our catalog coverage, featuring in-depth coverage on the history of their releases.