Seattle's Wishbeard is one of those great bands that keeps the high hat and snare drum going. This is part of what makes them eminently danceable. With etherial guitars and vocal shouts like wolves howling into the night, the drum keeps a tight, pushing rhythm highlighted by the quickly hit snares …
There's lots to love in the record stores this Valentine's Day week, like the aptly titled Hotel Valentine, the first release in fifteen years from New York City duo Cibo Matto. If you're in a more somber mood, check out the album Benji from Sun Kil Moon aka Mark Kozelek (ex-Red House Painters), fe…
As DJ Cheryl Waters declared, “Let’s welcome one of the greatest bands to see live, Superchunk!” And boy, did their Bumbershoot Music Lounge performance live up to her introduction. The veteran indie rockers attacked their set with the energy and intensity of bands half their age, tearing through 2…
This morning, Decibel Festival founder, president and curator Sean Horton stopped by KEXP to preview the full lineup to the 10th Annual Decibel Festival taking over Seattle on September 25th through 29th. Today's announcement is the third wave, adding 46 additional artists and 25 new showcase annou…
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis made an appearance on The Colbert Report last night to play "Same Love" and also dish on various questions about their independent release of The Heist, the music biz, fame, and how hip-hop is evolving from its misogynistic and homophobic past. Colbert asks the poignant…
Like a kind of watershed moment, there are live show experiences before seeing Arcade Fire and live show experiences after seeing Arcade Fire. They're really a gauge for everything now. A religious experience whether you’re religious or not. A spiritual “Wake Up” call. A concerted church. An eideti…
This week Variety Mix host DJ El Toro compiles sixteen of his favorite new songs, a mix of the melancholy, moody, and melodramatic—plus a couple eleventh-hour barnstormers to make you tap your toes. The legendary chef Julia Child, who praised iceberg lettuce in her essential 1989 book The Way to C…
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Timely does not even begin to describe the new record from NYC rappers Heems and Riz MC, a.k.a. Swet Shop Boys. While it's depressing as hell, these two dudes seriously could not have picked a better week to drop an album about basic human rights being put up into contention. As the race towards Vo…
You won’t believe the golden light you wake up to crawling out of your tent at Pickathon. The tree-lined hills of the Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon make you feel like you are in an other-worldly paradise. Taking a light walk around the Back 40 to enjoy the surroundings, among the sleepy co…
As we waited at the Paramount Theatre for the Father John Misty show to begin, a fellow show-goer said to me, "Sometimes he walks around the crowd during the opener. He followed me on Twitter today and I literally died, so I'm gonna say hi to him if I can find him." I wondered in my head how this g…
Each Tuesday for the next two months, KEXP will present recordings we captured during the OFF Festival in Katowice, Poland. Our excursion there in the hot days of August - made possible by the festival and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's Don’t Panic! We’re from Poland! initiative - introduced us to…
If you call yourself an Arcade Fire fan and have seen the band at least once in the live setting, there's a good chance that you need absolutely no introduction to Will Butler. When Arcade Fire skyrocketed to the moon amongst the Reflektor hype of 2013, it was clear that the one facet of their musi…
It’s Friday again so it’s time for Friday on My Mind, our weekly blog post we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. With a sound more accessible than, but derived from metal and punk, grunge took the world by storm during the e…
Chromatics have had an unprecedented 2015. The world has been talking about their upcoming LP Dear Tommy since December. We've been listening to its singles since February when we got "Just Like You", quickly followed by "I Can Never Be Myself When You're Around". In April, we got the massive "In F…
"How is it," longtime readers of this series might wonder," that you've covered two David Sylvian solo albums, but not a single Japan album? Or even Rain Tree Crow!" You know, I have no good answer to that beyond the fact that this pulling-records-off-the-shelves game is a fickle one. Maybe I spent…
It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since beloved Northwest singer/songwriter Elliott Smith released his now-classic LP Either/Or. For its anniversary, Kill Rock Stars is releasing an expanded reissue with live tracks from the 1997 Yo Yo A Go Go Festival in Olympia, WA, as well as previously u…
Swedish rockers Peter Bjorn and John have been proselytizing their pro-60s pop prowess since 1999. The trio really took the indie world by storm back in 2006 with their dance-floor hit "Young Folks," and ten years later, they're still artfully writing their whistle-catchy songs like the title track…
We may never know what 1984 KCMU DJs thought of Joe Jackson's Body and Soul, the follow up to Night and Day (on which we have plenty of input from the contemporaneous DJs). It's pretty likely that many of those who loved his early stuff remained less than pleased with his doubling-down on the highl…
In its 21st year, Capitol Hill Block Party feels more like a party than ever. The first day alone proved that people were willing to forgo their post-work tiredness and rage in the streets to Run The Jewels, Wolf Parade, and Mura Masa. CHBP may have the budget to keep bringing in larger and larger …
