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…
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…
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…
Previous Mercury Prize-nominees Django Django have shared the second single from their forthcoming album Marble Skies. The track is called "In Your Beat" and comes with a pop-art inspired collage video directed by SKG (Sophie Koko-Gate) with art direction by Brodie Kaman. The band's producer/drumm…
After 10 amazing years at KEXP, DJ El Toro is moving to Tucson, AZ next month. In his final “Music That Matters” podcast, you'll hear some of his favorite new songs, with special emphasis on punk and no wave veterans (Jah Wobble, Alice Bag, James Chance) who continue to innovate and instigate…
Kathleen Hanna of the Olympia feminist punk riot grrrl band, Bikini Kill, talks with KEXP’s Martin Douglas about her career, activism and why she wanted to write her new memoir, Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk.
For fans of '90s shoegaze, the past few years have been a rush of reunions: Slowdive. Ride. Lush. Swirlies. Okay, hear me out. Unlike their UK contemporaries, the at-the-time Boston-based band followed a more lo-fi path, combining a DIY, punk aesthetic with their swoony, well, "swirly" guitars. In …
The music world struck it rich in 1977. It was ground zero for punk, with debut albums from the Sex Pistols, The Damned, and Dead Boys, to name a few. And not just one, but two albums each from David Bowie and The Ramones. The year was so notable, The Clash wrote a song about it, with lyrics like "…
It's a good week for comebacks. UK band Slowdive return with their first new album in 22 years. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls it "a strong return-to-form of shoegazerish dream-pop with swirling, reverbed guitars, ethereal vocals, hazy harmonies and blissed-out melodies." It's been 17 years si…
There's a new super group in our midsts. Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan, and Screaming Trees' Barrett Martin have joined forces to create Levee Walkers. Their website describes them as "a Seattle band to be sure, but their roots are firmly dug into the foundational music of…
A quick look at the Restorations tour schedule might have your eyes glazing over. After releasing their third studio album (LP3) in only four years at the end of 2014, the Philly indie-rockers have spent most of 2015 tirelessly touring across the U.S., the U.K., and even Jamaica. Or as singer/guita…
All throughout her conversation with Stevie Zoom, Mary Timony kept mentioning how Ex Hex "just came together". You'd be forgiven for thinking a band so fierce and tight could never be assembled so serendipitously, but when you've got a trio of D.C. punk lifers in the same room, there's no other pos…
Capitol Hill Block Party 2015 Sunday brought two things: rain and totally incredible music, and both in plentiful volume. But hey, this is Seattle right? Naturally, everyone has a jacket in their back seat/pocket and nothing about the festival seems to be missed under grey skies. The drop in temper…
Jenn from KEXP’s Sonic Reducer brings you a spring awakening of punk songs from the past year, including The Serfs, Shopping, Futuro, Taqbir, and more.
Anika is the stage name of British-born, frequently Berlin-based singer, songwriter, and political journalist Annika Henderson, a magnetic vocalist and writer that emerged as a solo artist in 2010 with releases on Portishead member Geoff Barrow's Invada Records as well as the highly revered Stones …
Sister musicians Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee and Allison Crutchfield ofSwearin' got together to cover Sleater-Kinney's "Modern Girl" for Vulture Festival in New York over the weekend. Before their solo careers, the Crutchfield's were in the beloved pop punk band P.S. Eliot, which broke up in 2…
This week sees the return of L.A.-based artist Aimee Mann. KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls her ninth solo album, "a consistently strong set of intimate, smartly crafted folk-pop, combining a dark, acoustic-oriented sound with her plaintive vocals and often-poignant lyrics reflecting upon lost l…
Last year, Sasquatch! Music Festival quite arguably had one of the best festival lineups in all of North America. Not counting the headliners, featuring leading voices in hip-hop, punk, and rock, the lineup was rich from bottom to top, covering a wide breadth of genres with a precisely-timed, (most…
Throughout the history of punk, director Julien Temple was there to film it. His very first short film was Sex Pistols Number 1, a documentary of the band from 1976-1977 that led to the 1980 mockumentary The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, and subsequently The Filth and the Fury. In addition to his fi…
Today, we conclude our weekly series of Polish bands KEXP recorded while at the OFF Festival in Katowice with a bang. Wrocław trio Ukryte Zalety Systemu, whose name translates to "Hidden Benefits System", clearly reference bands like Gang of Four as they decry the erosion of individualism in the fa…
