Shut eyes, wide mouth, brow furrowed -- lead singer Tim Wilson’s face reads passion. If there was any doubt about his care for the songs he sings with the five-piece band Ivan & Alyosha, just take a moment to look at his visage. The band, one of the most well-coiffed in the business, took the M…
Few band names are as apt as The Cave Singers. Not quite a folk band and definitely not your typical indie rock band, The Cave Singers seem to have hatched their sound in seclusion, as if alone amid darkness and firelight. Their songs are rustic in style but not necessarily in execution, airy but a…
From their beginnings as Capitol Hill basement party staples to their current status as one of Seattle's most popular local bands, Tacocat have continually achieved their original goal of simply having fun, not least when they're doing it with their trademark sugar-sweet hooks and whip-smart lyr…
Last Thursday, Best Coast blasted the Showbox with that effortless cool and garage aesthetic that they have championed throughout the years, giving the audience the best of both worlds. With their latest album, California Nights, the California band marks their third release, but first on a major l…
Closing out a fantastic week of music live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival were London-based power-pop trio Dream Wife. The band is comprised of London-based musicians Alice and Bella, and Icelandic singer Rakel, who are known for their super-fun performances and strange, beautif…
The innovative releases continue for Lena Simon’s band, KAIROS. Who doesn’t like it when one masterful band takes the work of another for the sake of reinterpretation and homage? And today, we have two examples of this collaboration: a Cock & Swan remix of the KAIROS track, “Can / Cannot” and a…
Philadelphia band The War on Drugs return with the fourth album. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it, "an excellent set of expansive, '80s-steeped rock. Beautifully produced, the band's music has never sounded better than it does here with a bliss-inducing combination of expansive guitar leads, …
It's hard to think of a band more fitting than Gazebos to close out KEXP's Broadcast from Little London Plane, and nearly impossible to pick one who would have more fun doing so. The Hardly Art darlings' four-song session brought out the most entertaining qualities of the band's oddball pop.
It's the first day of Autumn, and the new releases are falling all over the place. The sophomore release from Alt-J is finally officially out. KEXP's Music Director Don Yates notes, "this English band carries on with their second album, a generally more subdued, organic and atmospheric take on the …
Tacocat is a band of closet-knit friends who like candy, having different color hair, joking and experiencing ice-cream-induced food comas together. Emily Nokes is the frontwoman for the band, and, it should be noted, sent the responses to these question over in different colored font! I hope you e…
Embodying the sounds and spirit of New Orleans' French Quarter for more than four decades, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is nothing short of an institution of American jazz music. Still touring extensively, the energy of the New Orleans-style jazz compositions is as vibrant as ever, certain…
Indie-jazz-folk sounds from this singer/songwriter and her band.
Now in its sixth year, KEXPort celebrates KEXP’s ongoing relationship with Kex Hostel in Reykjavik, where we broadcast every year during Iceland Airwaves. Typically, it's a music marathon consisting of 12 bands in 12 hours, but this year they've expanded the program to feature 15 bands over two da…
With the sun about to set both literally and metaphorically at Sasquatch! Music Festival on Sunday, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard brought their electric sound to the Yeti stage, immediately riling the crowd into a massive mosh pit that wouldn’t subside until the band left the stage. The grou…
A good way to see how far a band has come is to look at where they began. Case in point, one of 2013's more enjoyable internet moments was when someone unearthed an old image of Radiohead during their college days. Thom Yorke and co. look goofy, amiable, and exactly the sort of people that would ha…
Reading's Slowdive were one of the bands that defined the shoegaze sound of the early '90s, although their career suffered somewhat in that their first album, Just for a Day, was released just as the British press was tiring of the scene and ready for some backlash. Today, they're remembered as a k…
Often touted in 2013 as one of the bands you should know, KINS are quickly becoming one of the bands you do know. The Brighton-based band's well-received debut was several years in the making, starting from the original demos Australian transplant Thomas Savage brought with him from Melbourne, and …
When you hear a band is from Nashville, most likely you think of big coiffed hair, thick acoustic guitar sounds and gallon-sized hats. Well, Wild Cub, borne out of the Tennessee music hotbed, sounds more like they were from Northern California, or even the Pacific Northwest, than from the same plac…
It’s rare that a band has three songwriters. But camaraderie oozes from the Seattle group Hounds of the Wild Hunt – and it seems each member truly appreciates when another can show his stuff on the mic. Ryan Devlin, Jonny Henningson, Nikki O Anderson and drummer Cary Davis make up the band that ca…
Before performing at Capitol Hill’s Neumos, California-based band Rogue Wave stopped by KEXP for an energetic live in-studio. The four-piece played three songs from their new album, Nightingale Floors, released in June (their fifth studio record), as well as a tune from Out of the Shadow. The band’…
