You won't find a more kicked-back band than Nada Surf. Their relaxed demeanor, easy banter and effortless performances make you think they're the kind of guys you just want to hang out with. During their recent acoustic session, live on KEXP from the Bumbershoot Music Lounge, it was like the entire…
At last year's Decibel Festival, as part of the Optical series, there was a live scoring to an incredibly absurdly spliced film from the 70s, unfortunately missing this year. Luckily, Optical 4 made up for it, featuring the doom electro-acoustics of London duo Raime, the terrifying ambient textures…
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…
Next on the broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was the genre-bending psych-pop/blues/avant-garde band Fai Baba. Based in Zurich, Fai Baba is the solo project of Fabian Sigmund, accompanied by a varied lineup of musicians over the years. Fai Baba began about 10 years ago, after Fabia…
Hibou, the moniker of Seattle songwriter Peter Michel, returns with a new LP entitled Something Familiar out March 2 via Barsuk Records. The album follows up on the project's 2015 self-titled debut, which Michel recorded in a walk-in closet. This time around he's recorded with a full-band at Chris …
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…
A little over a decade ago, Josh Homme - singer/guitarist/only consistent member of Queens of the Stone Age - broke out of the Palm Desert scene that birthed his first projects (including desert rock pioneers Kyuss and the ever-changing Desert Sessions) and into England with QOTSA's second album, R…
On the tenth anniversary of The Helio Sequence’s landmark album Keep Your Eyes Ahead, frontman Brandon Summers opens up about what was really in his sights.
The Audioasis Youth Initiative is a new project, fostering creative collaboration between KEXP and its Seattle Center neighbors, The Center School. The ability to facilitate educational partnerships like this one was an important consideration in KEXP’s long-term vision for its new home at Seattle …
The penultimate act of the KEXP broadcast live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Icelandic yacht rock band Moses Hightower. Named for the character played by the late Bubba Smith in the Police Academy movie series, the band draws from a lot of influences, including funk, jazz, and psych.
Randall Dunn leads this 70's era Miles Davis tribute band with Dave Carter (trumpet), John Bush (percussion), Ollie Klomp (drums), PK (bass), Paul Moore (keys), Dara Quinn (keys), Brad Houser (bari sax), Randall Dunn (soprano sax) and Ron Stower (guitar). This Sonarchy Archive performance was reco…
Closing out another unbelievable night of music at KEX Hostel was English rapper and poet Kate Tempest. A “wayward youth” in her early teens, she was later inspired by an english teacher who got her into poetry, and at age 16 began her career as a poet, playwright, rapper, and spoken word artist. S…
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 "…
Beach House are releasing a compilation called B-Sides and Rarities, which features (you guessed it) previously unreleased B-sides and rarities on June 30 via Sub Pop. Today, they shared a video for the track "Chariot," which was self-directed by the band. The video depicts a movie theater audience…
You read that right. We're just as surprised to learn of his passing as you are. Chris Cornell, who was found dead in his Detroit hotel room late last night, has been a Seattle institution for decades, having formed Soundgarden in 1984 and predating in popularity nearly all of the so-called "grunge…
Unbelievably, It's been almost exactly 8 years since I last shared an album by Hüsker Dü in this parts, and at the time I was surprised I hadn't already gotten around to it. That actually means that the amount of time between these two Hüsker Dü posts is longer than the band itself existed, and twi…
Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg of A Tribe Called Quest, passed away yesterday at the age of 45, as a result of complications due to diabetes. Taylor formed A Tribe Called Quest with his childhood best friends in 1985, releasing their now-legendary debut People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of …
Despite the many, many hours in the late '80s and early '90s I spent immersing myself in the sounds of Manchester (both contemporary and historical), for some reason the Happy Mondays never really clicked with me. Maybe they were just a bit too fun and dancey for my mopey teenaged self, who knows. …
Future Islands has certainly blown up over the last year, as evidenced by the large crowd they drew to their main stage set at Sasquatch. This Baltimore, Maryland band is one of those rare groups whose breakthrough success essentially comes down to one single performance. In their case, it was thei…
