There's history to bands covering Pavement's "Box Elder." When The Wedding Present recorded their interpretation of the track from Pavement's Slay Tracks (1933–1969) EP track back in '89, it caught the ear of renowned BBC DJ John Peel and helped generate buzz for the release abroad. Nearly three de…
Every once in a while, I post an album from a band that's been so minimally documented on the Internet that I feel I'm adding significantly to the body of public knowledge about them with one little blog post. This is dangerous because usually I know next to nothing about these bands. Take Ism, for…
It’s a rare opportunity to see a band as hyped as Whitney at a venue as intimate as the Sunset Tavern. Or as frontman Julien Ehrlich noted with an off-the-cuff affect he deploys for most his on stage thoughts, “This show’s been sold out a long time.” No surprise there. With the June release of thei…
While gale winds canceled some early main stage shows, a different force of nature was met with far warmer reception on the Bigfoot stage. Yo La Tengo is certainly a force of nature in the indie music scene and a walk back through their discography is a long one, as the group have consistently rele…
As Cheryl Waters jokes, it's taken over ten years to get Trevor Powers' band Youth Lagoon in the KEXP studio. Really, the band has only been around since 2010 - it just feels like we've all been waiting that long. We were all happy finally to have wrangled Youth Lagoon come grace us, and the timing…
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, …
Talk about a storied past. The Jayhawks rose from the fertile era of Twin Cities rock that also produced such contemporaries as The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum and Prince. Though they often get tagged as "country rock revivalists" or "alt-country icons", the band's sound and personnel shif…
Decked out in polychromatic tees, unabashedly hip San Francisco band Painted Palms lit up KEXP with a vibrant live set back in July. The band, brainchild of Louisiana-born cousins Christopher Prudhomme and Reese Donohue, released their new album, Forever, on Polyvinyl Records earlier this year. The…
Crystal Antlers is hard to pin down. With each release, the energetic band leaves genre behind, making fans uncertain of their future endeavors, yet they manage to avoid slipping into frustrating unpredictability. Recently, Crystal Antlers wrapped up their North American tour with a stop in Seattle…
Sometimes it’s the simplest words that stop you cold. Soft-spoken Tuareg artist Omara ‘Bombino’ Moctar proved this to me on a stiflingly hot summer evening at the 2012 Pickathon Festival backstage. I was talking to him for their post-performance video interviews, aided by French-Canadian guitarist…
Yes, we waited a long time, we waited through an audience rendition of "Oh Canada", we waited through rumors of the show being canceled. Yes, this was the band so many people had said was the one band they really needed (not wanted) to see this weekend. Yes, I actually walked to the wrong stage ass…
Pamplona, Spain-based band Melenas share a mix of influential songs that inspire their own addictive indie pop on their exclusive guest DJ mix.
Fresh off the release of their breakthrough 'Ramble in the Rainbow' EP, Tokyo-based four-piece band TAMTAM offer up a trippy and groovy guest DJ mix for Midnight in a Perfect World.
Mia Zapata, vocalist for the Gits, was one of the best singers to ever call Seattle home. Martin Douglas dives into her talent and the albums the band released in the early 1990s.
On their forthcoming fifth full-length Always Ascending, Scottish band Franz Ferdinand reach new heights. Frontman Alex Kapranos talks to KEXP about the lyrical influences on the new release.
Arcade Fire teams up with Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Blood Orange drops two new songs, plus tracks from of Montreal and Titus Andronicus all in today's music news round-up.
Today, we kick off sharing our discoveries from the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France, where last December we captured twelve exclusive sessions. This week’s feature is of psychedelic girl-group inspired band Gloria.
The Philadelphia band's new album drops this Friday, April 27 via Thirty Tigers.
Dubbed Pearl Jam: Home and Away, the exhibit will open on August 11th to coincide with the band’s Seattle Home Shows at Safeco Field
