While the official website remains mum about Lollapalooza 2013 lineup confirmations, rumors and confirmations as to who will play the Chicago music festival are popping up every day. But now the artists have started confirming appearances themselves, and it looks like the headliners this year will…
Though he'd been playing a variety instruments and styles for years, Oakland music Luis Vasquez never intended his current project, The Soft Moon, to catch on. A true bedroom project, The Soft Moon was originally meant to be a device of self-exploration, a spelunking of the depths, as it were, of V…
You should expect chaos when a world full of musicians enters your room. Even as the live session began, the twelve members of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros were still scrambling to find their place and check their tuning. But it fits their neo-hippy vibe. After all, long before Josh Tillm…
It's difficult to imagine Iska Dhaaf as only a two-piece, even when they're right in front of you. The sound of their full-bodied post-punk is supported by Benjamin Verdoes' (Mt. St. Helen's Vietnam Band) unique ability to simultaneously play the keyboard and drums. It takes a talented musician to …
Brooklyn-based electronic producer James Hinton has bubbled up from the underground over the past 5 years under the alias The Range, crafting vibrant and forward-thinking beats and experimental club rhythms on labels such as Astro Nautico, Donky Pitch, Project: Mooncircle, and Domino Records. His l…
Though they hail from Los Angeles, Dengue Fever are like Cambodian ambassadors to the Pacific Northwest. On their recent return to the KEXP airwaves, the six-piece seemed right at home, even in our new studio. The band's instrumentation is uniquely cinematic, a multicultural modernization of the ps…
UK indie pop trio London Grammar have been causing quite a stir lately, and the fact that they don’t even have a record out in the United States yet didn’t deter a single member of the full house they met Monday night at the Crocodile. Their debut LP, If You Wait, has soared towards the top of the …
Perennially nice guy Mac DeMarco has put four test pressings of his 2012 EP Rock and Roll Night Club up for sale via Discogs. Each pressing is unique, featuring different doodles and signatures by DeMarco. And proceeds will go to benefit Waves for Water, a Caribbean hurricane relief initiative. (D…
Perfume Genius mastermind Mike Hadreas is a local, but it wasn't until the 2010 Matador 21 anniversary shows in Las Vegas that I first saw him live. Sandwiched on the bill between two iconic heavyweights (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Cat Power, for crissakes), Mike sat timidly behind his piano w…
It’s a rare opportunity to see a band as hyped as Whitney at a venue as intimate as the Sunset Tavern. Or as frontman Julien Ehrlich noted with an off-the-cuff affect he deploys for most his on stage thoughts, “This show’s been sold out a long time.” No surprise there. With the June release of thei…
There is much to agree about when it comes to Sutari - the intricacy of their compositions, the appeal of their stage presence, the aptness of their found instruments and the relevance today of the traditional songs they play. Even their name implies accord. "Sutarti", the Lithuanian word that lend…
The fact that Theoretics remixed the Blade Runner theme a few months back automatically backs up drummer Adam Gross' statement, "We're all sort of sci-fi nerds." A five-piece livetronica band from our very own city, Theoretics certainly deliver sound-wise, taking us on a funky space-age aural explo…
A rubber band is the perfect picture to fit Swedish electronic outfit Little Dragon. Up to this point, the band has been carving a unique sound that occupies a haunting modern space somewhere between historical influences like Massive Attack and Bjork. After singer Yukumi Nagano made an appearance …
Seattle natives Iska Dhaaf now live in New York, but they still introduce themselves as a band from Seattle. This theme of sticking to your origins was found throughout their set at Sasquatch! Music Festival Monday afternoon. The group now takes the stage as a four-piece, a fitting change as their …
Not surprisingly, Valerie June's childhood was steeped in spiritual music at church and R&B and soul music at home. Between her time spent singing with choruses consisting of sometimes hundreds of parishioners and the influence of her father, who booked and promoted concerts near her hometown o…
KEXP is proud to support Pickathon and happy to announce the release of this year's daily schedule. The three-day festival at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, OR (very close to Portland), on August 2-4, includes performances by over 45 artists on 7 stages, but one of its most unique features is that…
Unless Kanye West decides to use the phrase on his next album, there will only be one love song with the lyric "fingering oblivion" released in 2015 and it's the title track to Father John Misty's sophomore effort, I Love You, Honeybear. It is probably the only time that phrase will ever be used ro…
Known to many as the band who introduced the “post-dubstep” era, Mount Kimbie have always defied expectation. After meeting at college in London and bonding over a shared love of electronic music, the UK duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos explored the spaces around the popular dance music of 2008 …