Soul legend Mavis Staples has announced a new album called If All I Was Was Black. The album was produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, a regular collaborator with Staples since 2010. The title track has been shared, as well as the cover art and tracklist. Tweedy said of the political messages within the…
On Subjective Concepts Olympia trio Strange Wilds have produced a faultless full length of feedback ridden, jagged jams that have helped bring a riotous, rebellious renaissance to Seattle’s notorious label, Sub Pop. To discuss the cover art, steeped in the same tightrope tension as the music, KEXP …
Tuesday, April 11th is a very special edition of The Round at the Fremont Abbey Arts Center, curated by Audioasis on KEXP’s DJ Sharlese! The showcase will feature amazing female talent from the Seattle area: musicians QOQO ROBOQS, Haley Heynderickx (PDX), guest poet Imani Sims, and live painter Sie…
Upon hearing the sounds of DakhaBrakha (Ukrainian for “Give/Take”), it’s no surprise that the quartet was founded at a contemporary art museum by an avant-garde theater director.
The black-and-white clip was inspired by the 1968 art film Fando Y Lis by Alejandro Jodorowsky
The album was exclusively sold at the opening for his art show of the same name and is his fifth album of 2018
It's with great sadness that KEXP reports the passing of Aaron Huffman from respiratory failure following a lengthy illness. Not only was Huffman the art director at The Stranger since 2006, but he was the bassist for Harvey Danger and The Weather (formerly Campfire OK). He was 43 years old. KEXP s…
Back in 1999, Olympia-based queer feminist artist Wynne Greenwood started the electro-punk trio Tracy + the Plastics. Tracy was the bad-ass lead vocalist, Nikki was on keyboards, and Cola on drums. Oh, and all three band members were actually Greenwood herself.
Warhol would've been proud. Although the wigged genius fostered relative grumps like the Velvet Underground as his house band, his own art was often considered just this side, if not over the line, of parody. Warhol was both revered and despised for presenting such common items as soup cans or doll…
With a brimming abundance of food, art, and music festivals this year, summer in the PNW has never been better. Now adding to that is the fifth annual VanFest, taking place this Saturday, August 15th in Maple Valley, WA.
To call Erik Blood’s set at the KEXP stage during Bumbershoot "performance art" might be to accidentally imply a lack of pop music value. This would not be true. And yet, to call it anything else would feel like a disservice to the meticulously planned and beautifully executed art direction of the …
Previous Mercury Prize-nominees Django Django have shared the second single from their forthcoming album Marble Skies. The track is called "In Your Beat" and comes with a pop-art inspired collage video directed by SKG (Sophie Koko-Gate) with art direction by Brodie Kaman. The band's producer/drumm…
Next on the KEXP broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Icelandic art-rock band Agent Fresco. Formed in 2008, mere weeks before playing in the Icelandic battle of the bands (Músíktilraunir), at which they won best guitar, best drumming, and best bass playing. The four-piece band inc…
It's fitting that the Arts in Nature Festival is where Cloud Cult planted the seed. Their concert last summer inside the Lodge at Seattle's Camp Long marked the first time the the Minnesota band went fully acoustic. They had recently rearranged songs spanning their entire catalog for what would bec…
The Thermals may have moved to Saddle Creek Records for their latest album, but frontman Hutch Harris showed some Seattle pride at the Doug Fir, sporting a Hardly Art shirt, which, along with the rest of Harris, was inevitably soaked by the end of their live set.
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck opened Thursday, April 23, as an exclusive engagement in select movie theaters prior to the…
Jim Sullivan was a struggling LA singer/songwriter in the 60s and 70s. In 1975 he left for Nashville to see if he could catch a break there. But on the way, he disappeared in the New Mexico desert and was never seen again. Matt Sullivan of Light in the Attic records talks about the mysterious disap…
On Labor Day weekend 2007, Tim Lennon was working the perimeter at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival. All weekend long, as others danced and partied, Lennon stood dutifully by the gates, occasionally letting artists in, but mainly just standing, waiting. He could hear the laughter of the fe…
Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival was in a time of fairly major transition in 2015, as it entered its 44th year. Many long time fans of the festival wondered how the beloved event would change under the new management of AEG, which penned a five year deal with the nonprofit OneReel after the orga…
