Angela Conway, the force behind A.C. Marias, doesn't seem to have been particularly prolific as an artist, but what she lacked in quantity she more than made up for in quality - as evidenced by the KCMU gang's high regard for One of Our Girls, the sole A.C. Marias full-length. Conway collaborated e…
"I'm going to get all VH1 on you for a minute if you're okay with that, crowd of 85% shirtless men." Colin Meloy may be a bookworm at heart, but he's spent the last fifteen years learning how to be a rock frontman, and during The Decemberists' Saturday evening mainstage set, those skills were put t…
Seven years without a new album. Nearly biannual membership shuffles. Repeated reports of studio sessions without any release. For a minute, Modest Mouse looked like they might have been heading down the lucrative but artistically fruitless legacy act path that a few of their contemporaries are sta…
The good folks over at Decibel Festival have made April of this year really special for Seattle. For those of us who are waiting on pins and needles for this year's lineup to drop, the announcement of DB Micro Fest was a wonderful surprise. All April, we've had incredible shows, from John Talabot &…
In the last few years, there’s been a slew of English, (mostly) London-based bands emerging from basement gigs with world-beating ambitions and the musical elements to make good on them: a heavy dose of pop melody, a balance of snarky storytelling and heartfelt appeal, and most of all, hooks that a…
There are some people that say there is art in restraint. Those are the types of people Sleigh Bells eat for breakfast. Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss are back for round three this week with Bitter Rivals, and they are going even harder and even heavier. And it’s a good thing too – now more than ev…
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…
French indie rock veterans Phoenix are poised to make a comeback of epic proportions this year. Last time we got a full length release from the band, it redefined the band's following for good. 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is still to this day one of the most well-loved indie pop records in rece…
Last year, Odd Future (a.k.a. OFWGKTA) really stepped up its game. Although it has always been more than the negative headlines that circulated around co-founder Tyler, the Creator, who nonetheless held critics' praise, the LA hip hop collective proved to be more than a gimmick with the huge succes…
KEXP begins Day 2 of Bumbershoot in-studios at the new home with Black Joe Lewis and his band the Honeybears. The Austin blues singer is three years deep into a cathartic rampage. With the release of Electric Slave in 2013, Lewis shed all extra weight from his warpath. The band name is slimmer, the…
Can someone tell Rustie to slow down, please? His last LP for Warp, Green Language, barely came out a year ago. In the meantime, he's played a world tour, including a Sasquatch! date, dropped a free EP of music, and produced a track from a hospital bed. Russell Whyte does not let up on the gas, eve…
Philadelphia rockers The War On Drugs have been touring tirelessly on the wide success of their third album, 2014's Lost In The Dream. KEXP listeners voted it as their top album of the year, and with good reason. Singer and songwriter Adam Granduciel wrote the songs during a post-tour period of iso…
For all of those in attendance at the Crocodile on Saturday night, rest assured that you got see a show that will never, ever happen again. Tonight, we saw Columbia and RCA's freshest flagship acts play a co-headlining date showing off records that are only crawling up the charts as we speak, and t…
Good morning campers. The sun is shining bright and clear here in Reykjavik. We will admit we had actually forgotten what blue skies looked like. It turns out it is absolutely beautiful in this chilly city! The golden sun bouncing off a calmer sea and kissing snow covered mountains in the distance …
If Sharon Van Etten were a different person, her brutal honesty would be too much to bear. On her terrific new album, Are We There (read our review of it here), no painful moment, self-critique or regret is too deep to share... and there are real depths in her songs! But just as her songs never dwe…
Good morning! How about a little funky Afropop, all the way from Iceland, to start your morning? That's how we began our broadcast from Iceland Airwaves last month, with the 13 member Samúel Jón Samúelsson Big Band blasting you awake at 6AM. Now you have the luxury to enjoy the SJS Big Band wheneve…
Today was spent traveling the winding road through the still snow spotted mountains, before breaking out into beautiful, cloud filled endless sky and the growing feeling of excitement. After much ado finding and pitching our tents, and a surprisingly short wait to enter into the grounds, I walked i…
Aminéisn't just up-and-coming anymore -- he's arrived. The Portland rapper made his Seattle debut in probably the biggest way possible -- playing to a packed out crowd at Key Arena at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival. Walking on to the beastly, hyphy-like beat of "Red Mercedes," Aminé kept…
