Beach Slang either have terrible luck or are possibly not very good at locking up their equipment. The band announced today that they were, once again, robbed. The unfortunate event happened right here, in Seattle, after their November 11 show at Chop Suey. Their brief statement on Facebook reads: …
Second on today's broadcast live from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves was Australian artist Gordi. Gordi is the stage name of Australian Folktronica artist Sophie Payten, who began playing music while in university, and began to gain traction across Australia after she was featured in prominent radi…
The Decemberists have announced a new album to be released this March entitled I'll Be Your Girl. The album is said to be a departure from their signature indie folk and takes on a synth pop, glam sound courtesy of super-producer John Congleton, who the band is working with for the first time. In a…
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…
Seattle's Earshot Jazz Festival is respected for its massive and adventurous artistic legacy. Now in its 26th year as Seattle's major annual jazz festival, Earshot is known for presenting creative masters and important emerging artists, and for finding fresh synergies between international artists…
We know you're probably hoping to catch your breath, and rest your wallet, after last week's budget-busting list of new releases, but we can't wait for you to hear the killer albums out this week. Topping the list are four albums already in KEXP's heavy rotation, including the anticipated debut LP …
Father John Misty continues to roll out new music from his forthcoming full-length Pure Comedy, out April 7th via Sub Pop/Bella Union. (Check out the title track on the KEXP Blog here.) Today, he shares a video for the single "Two Wildly Different Perspective" -- again directed by Matthew Daniel S…
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…
Today, legendary singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen celebrates his 82nd birthday, and we're the ones who get a present. Check out the title track from his upcoming release, You Want It Darker, out October 21st via Sony. A press release explains, "Cohen created this hypnotic groove with the addition o…
Metric frontwoman and Broken Social Scene collaborator Emily Haines is releasing the first Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton album in over a decade on September 15 via Last Gang/eOne. Entitled Choir of the Mind, it follows 2006's Knives Don't Have Your Back, which reached number 28 on the Canadi…
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…
When Molly Sides takes the stage fronting her band Thunderpussy, it'd be easy to mistake her for a cybernetically enhanced superhuman. How else could anyone prowl the stage and howl so ferociously? Amazingly, Sides is human like the rest of us. However, in director/writer Robert McGinley's new film…
I feel like it's been a while since we featured some album-cover reviews with a solid dose of healthy disagreement and debate. And it may be a while yet, because honestly, while there was plenty of disagreement at KCMU circa 1990 around the Manchester band Inspiral Carpets' LP Life, it wasn't parti…
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…
Nobody does wistful like Nada Surf. The veteran NYC band have long made longing a thing, crafting some of the most loveably poignant pop melodies you're likely to hear. (Even their "Happy Kid" ain't so happy.) Thankfully, age hasn't settled them, and two decades after their debut, they return with …
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. …
You know, it's bad enough when there's a band that I'm vaguely familiar with, that I know I should really check out, but have never quite gotten around to (we see a lot of those in this column). But when there's a band that I totally think "yeah, I know that band! I like them," only to realize that…
The thrill is gone. Yesterday, B.B. King passed away at age 89. Born Riley B. King in 1925 in Itta Bena, Mississippi, the legendary guitarist and songwriter became known worldwide for his distinctive voice and nimble finger picking, particularly on his constant companion, the Gibson guitar he named…
While we consider all our Bumbershoot Music Lounge sessions "special," there's something undeniably extra-special about this one. When main songwriter Alex Chilton passed away in 2010, followed shortly by the passing of founding bassist Andy Hummel the same year, most assumed we'd never hear from t…
