Pickathon's live video stream concludes today... but don't worry. You still have until 2AM on Sunday night to watch and hear performances from X, Courtney Barnett, Foxygen, The Barr Brothers, The Men, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and many others. Check out the schedule above and watch the video stream …
One of the most exciting new releases of the week comes from Oakland artist Merrill Garbus, better known as tUnE-yArDs. KEXP Music Director Don Yates describes her third album as "an inventive set of visceral, rhythm-driven avant-pop with consistently strong, brightly melodic songs featuring a dens…
With their ridiculous number of side projects and other interests, it's amazing that songwriters and multi-instrumentalists Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV continue to make killer albums together as Pinback. As ever, on Information Retrieved, their fifth LP, the San Diego duo expertly craft…
With all due respect to their respective bands, Ultimate Painting are, well, the ultimate. The London-based duo of James Hoare and Jack Cooper formed after their other bands (Veronica Falls and Mazes) went on tour together. The two quickly found a shared love for '60s music, and began to collaborat…
Afternoon Show host Kevin Cole drops nothing but 100% cruelty free bonafide jams. No imitation, factory produced beats. Never. 1. Salad Boys - No Taste Bomber 2. Cold Beat - Am I Dust 3. Danny Newcomb & The Sugar Makers - Known World 4. Palehound - Molly 5. Shopping - Wind Up 6. Dung…
Part of Minneapolis' Doomtree collective, Dessa, the 7-member group's only female emcee, may also be their most well rounded. A degree in philosophy, a background in writing, particularly in creative non-fiction and spoken-word, and enough business acumen to run day-to-days of the label itself all …
As Kaoru Ishibashi himself admits, a year ago no one knew who he was. Now, with his musical project Kishi Bashi, he's selling out shows with his intricate and ecstatic performances. Inspired by as much by free jazz as bluegrass, hip-hop, and classical music, Kishi Bashi's baroque indie pop easily d…
Mutual Benefit's Jordan Lee has lived in various locations throughout the United States from Austin, Texas to Boston, Massachusetts. While traveling around America, Lee discovered and performed with many other musicians, eventually convincing them to join his music project. In fact, save for Lee, t…
No other group in Seattle has the reach of THEESatisfaction. In creating their unique psychedelic hip hop stylings, local duo Cat and Stas reach as high among the stars as low within the roots below, and place their feet years beyond as eons ago. In fact, critics can't help but describe their new a…
"High energy" barely begins to describe Rubblebucket. The seven-member Brooklyn-based band is actually pared down in size from when they originally met in the Northeast, but the core members keep the joyous spirit of Rubblebucket alive through their quirky multi-insturmental dance pop, which can ge…
When Passion Pit broke through at the end of the '00s, they were a band bristling with potential, but still discovering how to follow through as a live band. Although frontman Michael Angelakos' health struggles gave the touring cycle behind their sophomore effort Gossamer a rough start, by the end…
Seattle's Beat Connection play a wicked combination of live instruments, electronic beats, synths and samples. The guys who comprise the band met at the University of Washington and have stayed local and loyal to the Pacific Northwest as they grow more and more well-known. We had a chance to catch …
From the dance clubs of São Paulo to the Kent Avenue scene in Brooklyn, Montreal-native Thomas Arsenault, a.k.a. Mas Ysa, has found inspiration across the globe to create his rich, beat-driven songs. After discovering techno while in high school in Brazil, Arsenault went on to study Modern Composit…
Join Midday Show host Cheryl Waters on a musical Ævintýr (Icelandic for adventure) featuring tons of great new songs including many that have yet to be released. Dig in and enjoy! 1. Winnebago - Blinders 2. Other Lives - Reconfiguration 3. Sóley - Ævintýr 4. Sufjan Stevens - Should Have Known Be…
After taking time to do projects that allowed him to, in his own words, “take some time off from being Jens Lekman,” the Swedish musician has returned to his day job of being himself with his latest LP, the cleverly-titled Life Will See You Now. Returning to the KEXP Live Room with DJ Stevie Zoom…
Describing My Morning Jacket's live show is almost as difficult as describing their music. While tagging it with a reductive broad stroke isn't that hard ("rock music"), listing out the individual elements that play into the band's style can come off as too disparate to make it their music seem com…
Wolf Parade were always going to be a band that would age well. With all of the members having hands in other projects at any given time, it wasn't ever that farfetched of a concept to see them moving away from Wolf Parade, so when it happened in 2011, they did the opposite of what James Murphy did…
Everything I've ever thought about MØ is wrong. Well, maybe not all of it – I think she put together an incredible debut LP this year with No Mythologies To Follow, and I think that hard work has put her in league with the leaders of the new wave of indie pop like Grimes, Charli XCX, and others. Bu…
There are few moments in rock 'n' roll as iconic as the opening drum-and-breath line in "Time of the Season." Yet unlike many of their British Invasion co-horts (like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Moody Blues), The Zombies never reached the same level of success. Maybe it was tha…
