With one more day of paradise ahead of them, Pickathon attendees spend the day diversifying their interests. Sure, there is plenty of incredible music to take part in later on, but throughout the experience, it's the culture of Pickathon that dominates, winning over those who don't regularly partic…
If there were baseball cards for Sub Pop bands, Toronto hardcore band METZ would be the 1.0 benchmark for live performance batting average. They just don't make 'em like METZ every day. No matter where they play, whether it be a massive festival stage (like Sub Pop's own Silver Jubilee several year…
There are few better ways to ring in the new year than staying up until 2am dancing incessantly to furious house music. Thankfully for us, John MacLean and Marcus Marr agree with us, and this week's The Juan MacLean show at the Nectar Lounge was a pretty fantastic way to kick off another year of li…
Master filmmaker and composer John Carpenter just doesn't know when to slow down. With almost 4 decades now separating him from seminal films and soundtracks like Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, Halloween, and The Fog, Carpenter is looking to expand his repertoire. 2015 mar…
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…
Last year's Six Degrees honoree Robyn Hitchcock releases his 21st album this Spring. Check out the first single below, titled "I Want To Tell You About What I Want." In an interview with NPR, Hitchcock explains, "The original title of the song was 'My Vision Of World Empathy.' Either we will event…
It's been a year since the release of David Bowie's Blackstar, the #1 Album of 2016, as voted on by KEXP listeners. And to mark what would have been his 70th birthday, an EP has been released featuring some of the last songs this musical icon recorded, including “No Plan”, “Killing a Little Time”,…
Across the last few years, Neko Case has been more active on her Twitter feed than in the studio. That's not a dig - Case remains a prolific and fascinating online personality - but nearly 43,000 tweets later, she (impressively) hasn't revealed much about herself on the social network beyond a hand…
Back to school, back to work, back to record shopping. This post-Labor Day week, it's time to get off your duffs and get back out into the world. To get you motivated is a handful of fantastic new releases, many of which you'll find getting major spins on the KEXP airwaves. Among them, is the lates…
It's funny to say it, but in the last half decade of Kele's work, Bloc Party's comeback LP Four is an outlier amongst an otherwise continuous show of strength in another direction. Sure, Four gave Bloc Party fans another great record to rotate out in their stash, but since the band's electronic-hea…
This Wednesday, November 16th, Brooklyn is stepping out to pay tribute to the Beastie Boys’ 1989 masterpiece Paul’s Boutique, an album that KEXP dissected last year. The event is being organized by the Hip Hop Loves Foundation, a non-profit based in New York with a worldwide reach, and a mission to…
It's been three years since the last record from The Drums, and a lot has changed for frontman Jonny Pierce. In that time, Jonny moved across the country twice, split up with his husband, and found himself without a bandmate as founding member Jacob Graham left the band to pursue other interests. J…
UK trio alt-J stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in support of their upcoming release, Relaxer. Watch them perform the track "In Cold Blood" with house band The Roots helping out. Relaxer is out June 2nd via Canvasback. alt-J will be LIVE on KEXP on Sunday, April 23rd; catch them li…
From heartbreak to the end of the world: that's how DJ Troy Nelson describes the trajectory of albums from singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler. "I think this is album seven or something? I don't know," she says with a smile and a shake of her head. Over the past 16 years, this ethereal singer/songwrit…
Currently based in Los Angeles, San Diego native and emerging electronic producer Rafa Lavarez (a.k.a. Different Sleep) has been steadily evolving his underground style over the past 5 years, adding upon his early lush downtempo aesthetic to incorporate a more physical and abstract sound that adven…
Usually, you'd want to hustle the riff raff out, but when it comes to the New Orleans band Hurray for the Riff Raff, you want them to stick around. That's why we featured them three times this year: in our studio, at our SXSW showcase at Mellow Johnny's, and during our broadcast over Labor Day week…
It's hard to believe, but we've literally watched Jessica Lea Mayfield grow up before our very eyes. She's been on our airwaves since she was a teenager, starting with her 2008 debut, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. Over the years, we've been lucky to have h…
There's another all-brother southern rock band who might not be filling big stadiums and singing about sex on fire but could tear the roof off any coliseum with their arena-sized riffs. Hailing from rural Virginia, the Carney brothers — Van, Jennings and Lain — have produced something like ten well…
"I'm glad the tour is going pretty good," Stevie Zoom said to Swedish punk quartet, Holograms. "Pretty good?" challenged bassist/vocalist Andreas Lagerström, "I think it's going great!" It's that youthful energy and defiance that has propelled the young band through their short, but already fruitfu…
