Though her first band, brother-sister duo The Fiery Furnaces, caught a lot of well-deserved internet buzz, Eleanor Friedberger has truly found her voice alone. Over two albums - Last Summer, 2011's acclaimed solo debut, and the recent Personal Record, sure to be a favorite on critics' year-end list…
DARKSIDE, a brilliant pairing of electronic producer Nicolas Jaar and guitarist Dave Harrington, is getting a ton of buzz on the internet lately and in fact yesterday earned a "Best New Music" rating of 9.0 on Pitchfork. Our Music Director, Don Yates, describes their debut album, Psychic, as "a moo…
Every once in a while, I post an album from a band that's been so minimally documented on the Internet that I feel I'm adding significantly to the body of public knowledge about them with one little blog post. This is dangerous because usually I know next to nothing about these bands. Take Ism, for…
She may be young (she just turned 22 in March), but New York's Frankie Cosmos (real name: Greta Kline) literally has too many albums to count, in that, I tried, and I got tired of counting. With album titles like the landlord LOVES restaurants! (2011) and Collaborative Farting (2011), and song titl…
Decked out in polychromatic tees, unabashedly hip San Francisco band Painted Palms lit up KEXP with a vibrant live set back in July. The band, brainchild of Louisiana-born cousins Christopher Prudhomme and Reese Donohue, released their new album, Forever, on Polyvinyl Records earlier this year. The…
Howe Gelb is a goddamn institution. Over the past three decades he has released 25 albums with the mercurial outfit Giant Sand (originally known as Giant Sandworm, most lately known as Giant Giant Sand), and almost as many albums under his own name (#20, Dust Bowl, is available right now). His care…
After hours of overcast weather, the sun finally came out for Hozier's afternoon set at Sasquatch, which is ironic, considering that the musician also known as Andrew Hozier-Byrne is from Ireland, a country hardly known for its sunshine. But by the end of his set, it might have seemed that the sun'…
From last week's Spud War, we continue our tuberous theme with Tater Totz, which you might think would be even more contentious than Devo's synth-heavy fifth album, but which seems to have been more well received at KCMU. What is the deal with Tater Totz? I think just attempting to explain this pro…
We've finally got a release date to announce for the new Run the Jewels! The highly-anticipated RTJ3 hits the internet as a free download on January 13th, with physical copies to follow, same day in North America and January 20th everywhere else. Special guests include Kamasi Washington (who, inci…
Every so often (OK, fairly regularly) I pull out a record with a name that seems vaguely familiar only to realize that I am way out of my depth. Peter Hammill has a long, storied, and critically acclaimed career that is pretty much the reason they invented things like Wikipedia and Allmusic.com. I …
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 …
It’s time again for Friday on My Mind. Our weekly blog post where we look at videos centered around one common theme. This is a collaborative effort between KEXP and King 5 News. While doing some internet surfing this week, I learned that tomorrow marks 25 years since A-ha hit #1 on the top 40 char…
Since breaking out of their native Wales in late 2010, The Joy Formidable have straddled a line that few bands in a post-Internet world have been able to. They're not quite artsy enough to be fully embraced by the Pitchfork crowd, and they don't have the commercial-baiting hooks that both televisio…
Another week, another band the Internet knows almost nothing about. If the KCMU DJs circa 1987 are to be believed, Leatherface Gets Religion is not the first release by this mysterious band. Discogs seems to back that up, reporting that most of these tracks come from a pair of 12"s, 1984's 'Gator B…
From the second Claire Boucher steps on the main stage at Sasquatch! Music Festival, it seems as if there are two versions of Grimes present during her shows. One, perhaps more reflective of the artist than her art, is the sincere, enthusiastic, slightly awkward person that speaks on the mic in bet…
A good way to see how far a band has come is to look at where they began. Case in point, one of 2013's more enjoyable internet moments was when someone unearthed an old image of Radiohead during their college days. Thom Yorke and co. look goofy, amiable, and exactly the sort of people that would ha…
This week's installment of Review Revue -- as is often the case -- finds me learning about all sorts of things I never knew existed, most of which are listed in the title of this very post. Bill Nelson and Daryl Runswick? Never heard of either. Scala? Brond? No idea. And yet due to the technologica…
Take it from the crackpot behind the annual Big Gay Podcast and the 4AD 4VR blowout—YOU make it incredibly fun to program themed programs and podcasts on KEXP. Did you hear John’s hour-long set of songs about rain on Wednesday? My favorite part was your emails pouring into the DJ booth. They teemed…
Despite the innumerable sources of praise and worship from every corner of the earth, David Bowie somehow finds a way to face a sort of misrepresentation in the modern world, where every new album is slated as a comeback. Each forthcoming effort from the aging rock legend has some sort of Lazarus e…
If any weekend were to officially signal the start of the Spring/Summer Concert Festival season in the Northwest it has to be Sasquatch Music Festival weekend! Running from Friday thru Monday, Sasquatch is sure to have some surprises in store with a fantastic lineup this year. Of course, KEXP will …
