Oh man, oh man. Last week, Sub Pop released the deluxe 10th anniversary edition of the full-length debut of Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary, on lush triple disc vinyl, pulling together all three of Wolf Parade's lead-up EPs and packaging it all in a glorious tri-fold of awesome. The same w…
Dan Deacon has one dynamic range: massive. Loud, soft, euphoric, cacophonous, it doesn't matter - what Dan Deacon does is at full blast, whatever the knob at hand may be. There are intimidating levels of passion and conviction in every second of his recordings, with or without any vocals attached. …
The ascent of electronic producers from the obscure underground scene to the fringes of pop mainstream is a path that is becoming more and more common these days, and few have done it as seamlessly and organically as San Francisco's Barrett Richards, best known to the music world as Kastle. With a …
Save for the jam band-heavy lineup of the festival's inaugural year – it's weird to think about now, but in the early 2000s, jam bands were as prominent at festivals as EDM is now – Sasquatch has long been an indie rock heavy festival, and even though this year's lineup is slightly less heavy on gu…
The Babies, Brooklyn indie rock collaboration between Kevin Morby of Woods and Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls, stopped by KEXP three weeks after the release of their new album Our House on the Hill to give us a taste of the live adaptation of the record. In case you haven't checked it out yet, Our H…
Music and beer are a perfect pair. Add Seattle as a backdrop, and it gets even better. At Elysian’s 20th Anniversary event this past Saturday, fans of all three came together for a celebratory day at Seattle Center’s Fisher Pavilion. Festival attendees sipped Elysian brews to sets by Ming City Rock…
Thomas Arsenault is not afraid of feeling. He did it in droves on his debut EP Worth, and he does it again on this week's full length effort Seraph. On song after song, Mas Ysa brings joy, pain, abandon, doubt, and suffering in quantities that most bands hope to capture once in their career. Meanwh…
Anyone still lamenting the demise of Sonic Youth has clearly not yet listened to Thurston Moore's new band, Chelsea Light Moving. While not to diminish the longtime contributions of Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley, et al, this new collective of Moore and his Ecstatic Peace! labelmates Samara…
We couldn't be more excited for Seattle electronic group Beat Connection, who've seen nothing but forward, progressive growth over the six years of their existence. From the nu-house leanings of their debut EP, Surf Noir, and the massive pop thresholds of Palace Garden, the band has reached a focal…
There's this interview reel with Rod Serling that plays over the intro of Flight Facilities opening dance number "Two Bodies" on their debut LP, Down To Earth. Here, the famous Twilight Zone narrator reconciles the ideas of commercialism and creativity as the house beat fades in and Emma Louise sin…
His new album Pure Comedy may be in stores now, but Father John Misty hasn't stopped sharing new music. FJM (real name: Josh Tillman) covers the Velvet Underground classic "Who Loves the Sun" off their 1970 LP Loaded for the Mondo Boys score to Shangri-La Suite, a feature-length film from Los Ange…
"Music can't be everything." Damn, that is not something you want to hear sung softly by the likes of UK bass pioneer and R&B crooner James Blake. And yet, this is how he closes out his third LP, as "Meet You In The Maze" fades out into oblivion, and the synthesized harmonies fizzle apart into …
As time goes by, it's harder than ever to determine what makes a good electronic show from a bad one. Mainstream EDM DJs can make insatiable amounts of money from a pre-mixed "just press play" setlist that they only have to half-heartedly interact with in order to pull off. And with top notch equip…
To look at Jonathan Wilson, you know where he's coming from, or more likely when. His long straight hair tied back, his well but not too neatly kept beard, the worn army green coat over a very well-worn low neck DIY band t-shirt, the beaded jewelry, the knit hat -- it all evokes a 70's hippy chic t…
Making a truly timeless record is really, really hard. Without the ability to look into the future and see what sounds and styles are going to fall out of fashion, artists often just have to take the gamble and see what happens. With all the knowledge and ability you have as an artist, you need to …
So deep is the pool of local talent these days, there was sparsely room for out-of-town acts on the KEXP Gathering Space stage this weekend. One worthwhile exception was shoegaze four-piece Froth, who traveled from Los Angeles to pay a visit to the crowd at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival…
If the Internet age is defined by one thing, it's probably disposability: the temporal state of everything we define ourselves by. We live in a world that is exponentially unsatisfied with singularity and smallness. Our good intentions for globalization and interconnectedness have gone by the waysi…
Now here's an interesting one. Ry Cuming dropped his first full length album back in 2010, top to bottom filled with coffee shop ready singer-songwriter wanderings, guest spots on the record going to Sarah Bareilles and Jesse Carmichael. Then in 2013, we got a complete reintroduction with the Austr…
Johnny Jewel makes music that calls upon the venue of cinema so regularly, that when he actually creates something meant to go along with film, it almost seems more meta than the imaginary films he's themed in other projects. Likewise, the whole of the Italians Do It Better catalog exists in this s…
Barboza, the intimate venue underneath Neumos, feels cut off from the rest of the world, with no sight or sound of the rest of the world. In some ways, it's the perfect venue for a band like Hælos, whose particular brand of UK club R&B feels wholly detached from the rest of the world, cinematic…
