Of Monsters and Men are no longer the undiscovered artists who charmed audiences across the web back in 2010 with their intimate, stripped back living room performance, recorded by KEXP, of “Little Talks”. Since signing to a major label subsidiary, Republic Records, for their debut album in 2011, t…
It's been four long years, but folk-rock band Beirut will return with their fourth album, titled No No No, on September 11th via 4AD. Founding member and frontman Zach Condon reveals in a press release that the past years of touring and a messy divorce resulted in his hospitalization in Australia …
Everyone's recovering from the long Memorial Day weekend, including the music industry, but there are still some excellent new releases awake today. One of the highlights is the third full-length from Portland band Unknown Mortal Orchestra. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it "an adventurous, im…
This Thursday, KEXP is teaming up with Starbucks and STG for Little Big Show #12 at Neptune Theatre with Cloud Nothings, Tacocat and Chastity Belt! So far, Little Big Show has raised more than $100,000 for non-profits since being conceived in 2012. This time, all ticket sales will go to Teen Tix, w…
Family band - it's a term that can evoke either wholesome 70's stereotypes or embittered alt rock rivalries, but London siblings Kitty, Daisy & Lewis seem from a time further removed. Their sound and style recall those carnivalesque clans of dustbowl days with alluringly alliterative names that…
Animal Collective added their voices to Shabazz Places' "#CAKE." They're calling this intensely chaotic remix the "Animal Collective Premature Deflirt Mix." Special shout-out to I Want You magazine's Christian Peterson for some exotic and trippy artwork. Shabazz Places perform this Saturday at Th…
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…
Delorean's synth-heavy alternative dance music resonates like the clean whir of a fully-functioning flux capacitor. Typically, their albums contain influences ranging from punk rock to electronic music, giving Delorean their eclectic sound. Having dropped a new album, Apar, in Fall of 2013 on the N…
Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, but represented by Seattle's own Sub Pop Records, Obits came by the KEXP studios for a live — part tribal, part rock — set to celebrate the release of their new album, Bed & Bugs. Lead singer Rick Froberg mixed his Jack White-style singing voice with a penchant for sc…
It’s always interesting when you learn about an artist’s path to recognition – and it’s even more captivating when it involves details and arcs you’d never expect. This is the intriguing life of singer-songwriter Laura Veirs: she was raised in Colorado in the 70s, where she studied geology and Mand…
Since Kim Deal left, iconic band The Pixies have had a public struggle trying to replace her. And in a recent interview with Brooklyn Vegan, drummer David Lovering acknowledges that Deal is irreplaceable: "Basically, no-one can replace Kim Deal. It would be impossible to do." Kim Shattuck of the M…
The Maldives’ Jason Dodson and The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow collaborated recently on a split 7” release, put out by Spark & Shine records. To celebrate the release, the two played a couple shows together, one at Easy Street Records, and another live at KEXP. Prior, Dodson’s band had backed Stri…
Robert Glasper was exposed to music at a young age. His mother brought him as a boy out to her jazz and blues gigs, and he also learned much about music in church, where he began to sing and mix gospel and jazz harmonies. Since those humble but enriching beginnings, Glasper has built a strong caree…
Vacation's over, folks. Those last several weeks of light weekly lists with barely a handful of worthwhile new releases are no more. Time to get back to record shopping in earnest. And this week is a doozy! Topping the list is the tenth album from veteran Chapel Hill, NC, group Superchunk. Released…
Noise for the Needy, a music festival that raises money for Seattle charities through a variety of shows and events, will culminate in June with performances at the Conor Byrne Pub, the Sunset Tavern, Hattie's Hat and the Tractor Tavern June 20 - 23 in Ballard. Two artists featured in this year's p…
Afrobeat, trance, indie rock: these are just some of the words tossed around when talking about Pollens, among the more composed acts doing the rounds in Seattle currently. And while those words do describe the band, to a degree, they fail to include the constant smiles, the deep dips in vocals, th…
Trends come and go quickly in music. Something can be hot one day and out the next, while some things take hold and never let go. The latter can be sincerely said of The Zombies enduring jazz-infused psychedelia, especially their handful of American hits and acclaimed album Odessey and Oracle. Al…
Montreal's Suuns make a particular kind of low-drone heavy but never "drone music" - they walk the fine line between being experimental and being simply loud rock music. There's never really been the kind of rock n roll vibes you get from other bands walking that line, but instead an industrial syn…
Here's wishing the best seismic health to Southern California this April, as pretty much every current band you'd ever want to see will be in or around Indio, CA, for the weekends of April 12-14 and April 19-21. Why? Because of Coachella 2013. The newly announced lineup is a who's who of indie and …
If it seems like everyone is reuniting lately, it's true, because now The Postal Service is back with a show and a re-release. Today we found out that not only will the band be releasing the Deluxe Tenth Anniversary Edition of Give Up on Sub Pop featuring two new tracks, "Turn Around" and "A Tatter…
