We rounded out day two of our Iceland Airwaves broadcast live from Kex Hostel with Icelandic punk band Hórmónar. Like many of our favorite Icelandic acts, Hórmónar were the winners of last year’s Músíktilraunir or “Music Experiments,” Iceland’s youth-focused battle of the bands (other winners inclu…
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Russian punk band Glintshake. Formed in 2012, much of their early music was in english, but they’ve since switched to making music in Russian, even re-recording some of their English songs in their native language and changing their…
All photos and review by Bebe Besch (view set)
Throwaway Style is a weekly column dedicated to examining all aspects of the Northwest music scene. Whether it’s a new artist making waves, headlines affecting local talent, or reflecting on some of the music that’s been a foundation in our region; this space celebrates everything happening in the …
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…
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.
