Seattle soul and funk act takes on 21st century dread with a defiant, hopeful message.
The band's first single from their upcoming debut album Sleeping Lessons showcases the band's knack for turning sadness into heart-swelling, relatable anthems.
Brooklyn band The Antlers release their fifth album, Familiars, today, and KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it, "a gorgeous, deeply felt set of dreamy ambient-pop tinged with elements of elegiac jazz and southern soul on lengthy, slowly swelling songs featuring muted guitars, mournful trumpets, …
The National has finally officially released "Demons" - a track from their upcoming album Trouble Will Find Me. Where the album artwork suggests a kind of duality of the self - a girls head looks at itself in a mirror - the song is similarly moody and heavy like much of their previous material. "I …
My favorite song of the year is “Color Decay” by Icelandic singer-songwriter Júníus Meyvant. I wasn’t blown away by the song the first time I heard it, but it’s not that type of song. It’s deceptively subtle, with a quality that pulled me in, haunted me, and made me want to listen to it again, and …
Just before Seattle’s Rose Windows played an evening set on the Elysian stage for the Sub Pop Silver Jubilee, a celebration of the record label’s 25th anniversary, Rabia Shaheen Qazi showed off their pipes during an exclusive session for KEXP backstage. While her voice filled the room of The Stable…
The last time we saw Ólafur Arnalds was at 2010's Iceland Airwaves where he played our Hostel KEXP. In that show, he demonstrated his continued desire to engage in experimental recording practices by asking the audience to help him sing a loop for a song. Since his first album, Found Songs, back i…
In the Nordstrom Recital Hall during Decibel Festival's Optical 4 showcase, the sound of WIFE was equal parts exciting and heavy - the sound was swelling with an emotional intensity unparalleled, and the room felt thick with listening. Visuals tracked through architectural yet emotive abstractions …
Saturday has turned out to be a spectacularly sunny day at the Gorge - not a rain cloud all day long! The line up Saturday of Sasquatch was absolutely stacked (as are the other 2 days, of course). But Saturday was chalk full of bands that lots of different people were excited about, bands from Seat…
Fresh off globetrotting tours to Australia, Canada, and the U.S., local based surf rockers, Guantanamo Baywatch, stopped by the KEXP live room to share new tracks from their sophomore LP, Darling... It's Too Late. The Portland four piece embody the sounds of summer as they shred through rockabilly …
The weather was still shades of gray on Sunday, but overall promised to cooperate a bit more than the deluge of Saturday. The second day of Bumbershoot kicked off with the big, warm country rock sounds of Israel Nash. Nash plays very much in the tradition of Neil Young, and marries swelling rock wi…
The otherworldliness of Iceland's landscape is never lost on those who live or travel there. Not just a land of fire and ice, it is also a land of light and dark, starkness and majesty, community and isolation. The only thing that isn't a wonder about Iceland is how artists of all kinds echo its un…
Plum Creek Sound at Dripping Springs in Texas Hill Country - it sounds like the setting of a story too idyllic to be true. And it almost is. There, in a Quonset hut studio on his own 15-acre ranch about 20 miles outside of Austin, Israel Nash has recorded a work of heart-swelling beauty. The lushly…
Following the smoky energy of Rose Windows, the Yeti stage was taken over by Secret Canadian's Suuns. The crowd swelled as they dove into their set. At times the trio went into nearly ambient jams, reverb heavy and almost ominous. But mostly the set was rhythm heavy, the audience waving their hands…
Last month, Brooklyn via Sydney, Australia, duo High Highs announced their long awaited sophomore LP with a debut of the title track to Cascades, due February 5th next year. The gentle yet lively "Cascades" glowed brightly through the song's haze, promising an upbeat return to the dreamy harmonic s…
While it's hard to begrudge Alt-J their winning the Mercury Prize, many of us at KEXP were also rooting for another young U.K. group, Django Django. These London-based Scots have also created a stunning art-pop debut, though on their self-titled release, Django Django tend to favor warmer, more Ame…
Will Butler, best known as a core member of Arcade Fire, opened up the second day of Sasquatch on the main stage with a fun set of driving rock. Butler is a multi-instrumentalist, and seems equally confident on guitar, keys, or just playing the front man and singing. Indeed, his dynamic stage prese…
With roots that stretch back to carefree two person jam sessions at Gasworks Park, the well-rounded Seattle septet Hey Marseilles has grown in the last nine years not just in size, but in the power and scope of their songwriting and performance. In this KEXP live in-studio performance they show wh…
As night came over the Gorge, people began to flock one of two ways - towards mainstage to try and catch good views for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, or toward the Bigfoot Stage to squeeze a place in for Vampire Weekend. I chose Vampire Weekend almost strictly as a guilty pleasure - though they may c…
