It's an impressive week for new releases! Beloved Northwest band Sleater-Kinney end their hiatus with the release of No Cities To Love. KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes, "The recently reunited trio’s eighth album (and first in 10 years) is a strong return-to-form, with an intense blend of punk, …
Ten-year old, eight-piece L.A. based soul/funk band Orgone has that perfect combination of tight refinement raw gut-punching power that is needed to become known, as they have, as one of the baddest funk bands around today. They play an updated take on the spirit of classic groups like The Meters,…
KEXP, the community of Everett, and the Everett Music Initiative banded together over the weekend of May 16th and 17th to bring some powerful sound (more than 50 bands in total!) to Snohomish County's own sleepy fishing town with the inception of the very first Fisherman's Village Music Festival. A…
There's a bittersweetness to the latest from long-running power pop veterans The Posies. The Bellingham-bred band endured two tragedies prior to the new album's release: bassist Joe Skyward passed away from cancer earlier this year, and drummer Darius Minwalla passed from unknown causes last year. …
Following his stunning participation in A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and His Month of Song at Benaroya Hall last month, L.A. punk legend John Doe shares a video for the track "A Little Help," which, incidentally, gets a little help from Chan Marshall aka Cat Power. Doe explains, "There is beauty &am…
There are many ways to “get down,” and Thao and crew seemingly discovered them all on Monday at Sasquatch! Music Festival. Thao and the Get Down ripped through a festival ready set, encouraging the crowd to get down in every possible way. Whether it was through the plucky rhythm the group often hel…
It's been an exciting couple years for Chinese record label Modern Sky. Not only did they just sign rock stalwarts Miserable Faith for their first ever U.S. tour - they've also expanded their hugely successful music festival into two U.S. cities in the span of just as many years. While Modern Sky h…
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba are set on changing the way we think about world music. Pushing the limits of traditional West African instruments themselves to embrace western styles and a more versatile melodic range, Bassekou Kouyate is proud of the modern innovations he's made with the ngoni, a…
I want to live in whatever atmosphere Seth Haley goes to when he writes material for Com Truise. If you don't know the story, Com Truise is an alter ego for Haley - he's a robotic astronaut going boldly where no man has gone before etc etc. Wave 1, his first offering of brand spanking new material …
29-year old Gary Clark Jr. may seem young to be a Grammy-nominated blues artist – and he is – but the Austin, Texas, native has been winning awards for his stellar blues guitar playing for most of his life. After all, how many teenagers have a day named after them by their city's mayor? (May 3, 200…
Whether it be creating a playlist for the long haul over to the Gorge on our Music That Matters Podcast, or keeping you in the know with the inside details, over here at KEXP, we're preparing you to enjoy each and every moment at Sasquatch! Festival as best you can. Sure, there are inevitable glitc…
Angel Olsen has a voice powerful that it belongs on the list of singers compared to forces of nature. Considering that, it's a little ironic that Angel Olsen's Sasquatch set was delayed by an actual force of nature. But the wind and rain that forced a late start ended up playing to in St. Louis son…
Listening to The Long Ryders for the first time, it's not clear to me that they should have been lumped in with the Paisley Underground bands of the '80s (covered previously in this Rain Parade post). They definitely had '60s influences, but as far as I can tell they were much more a country-rock b…
It's a short list of new releases this week, as all eyes and ears are on the SXSW festival, but there are a few key releases you'll want to pick up in stores today. First and foremost, the latest from David Bowie, whose first album in ten years is not only a surprise to all David Bowie listeners an…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, selected by Midday S…
With a bright blue mantra and neon promise to boot, Cut Copy return this year with their fourth LP Free Your Mind. Dan Whitford and the gang don't seem to be slowing down much in their second decade together. Zonoscope, the band's 2011 award-winning classic, took the band's one of a kind combinatio…
Opening Decibel Festival 2013 at Neumos was a show that set the bar so high that it's going to be hard to compete with it for the next four days. Peter Hook & The Light headlined the Factory Pop Showcase with a double header of classic New Order albums: Movement and Power, Corruption, & Lie…
Montreal experimental band Suuns have grown in leaps and bounds in the last couple years. No doubt, their debut LP Zeroes QC was a solid entry point, with a clever mixture of noise and pop and a good sampling through the various electronic derivations of alternative rock we’ve seen in the last 20 y…
