KEXP has a special love for Operators in the live setting. Sure, synth-heavy brainchild of Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits) would fit on KEXP's airwaves regardless, but we have history together. Three days after the band announced it existed, they played on KEXP and later in t…
Brooklyn synth-pop duo Prince Rama ask their audience a simple question halfway through their new LP, Xtreme Now. "When was the last time you had fun?" On the record, it's supposed to be a question about belief, about conviction, and about our response to that in a positive and nourishing manner. I…
As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosp…
As major labels continue to exist behind the times, artists and labels with little capital and lesser reputations are producing some of the most innovative, interesting, and inspiring music. Whether it’s creating a new niche in digital technology or looking to once obsolete formats, Agitated Atmosp…
Folk - like rock, hip-hop, or jazz - is one of those elevated sub-genres on the music tree of life that’s just specific enough to conjure an immediate sound in one’s imagination while being just broad enough to have an endless array of tendrils splintering off of its hefty branch. Joanna Newsom and…
If everything else in the world seems to be going crazy at the moment, take solace knowing that The Joy Formidable still shamelessly tour with a gong. The Welsh trio's stage presence has always been one that's far larger than whatever venue they're playing in – inside or outside – and the gong that…
There's a great scene in Richard Linklater's film Boyhood where Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) is about 10 or 11 years old and is in Houston sleeping over at his dad's place when he asks him this great question. "Dad, there's no, like, real magic in the world is there?" Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) asks him…
If the Internet age is defined by one thing, it's probably disposability: the temporal state of everything we define ourselves by. We live in a world that is exponentially unsatisfied with singularity and smallness. Our good intentions for globalization and interconnectedness have gone by the waysi…
"Cheers to evolution, cheers to knowing where you are going, cheers to the future.” Those were Trevor Power's parting words as Boise and the U.S. said goodbye to Youth Lagoon on the final night of Treefort Music Fest. It was a moment Boise was surely dreading, but after a fun day with acts such as …
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.
