Last year, Odd Future (a.k.a. OFWGKTA) really stepped up its game. Although it has always been more than the negative headlines that circulated around co-founder Tyler, the Creator, who nonetheless held critics' praise, the LA hip hop collective proved to be more than a gimmick with the huge succes…
Saqqara Dogs seems to be yet another band that absolutely delighted a certain subset of nerdy college radio DJs (and soon-to-be-incredibly-influential New York Times music critics - you've got to love any band that forces the Times to refer to someone as "Mr. 66"), but didn't seem to make much of a…
has previously revealed that he's working on a new solo album and today he's shared an interesting piece of music titled "Servings and Portions From My Boarding House Reach." The recording isn't exactly a proper single, but more of a collection sound bites and snippets from multiple different trac…
Something felt different in the Neumos basement last week as the crowd packed in to see Shy Girls. The Portland electronic act, led by Dan Vidmar, has been around for a couple years, dropping lush EPs including the lauded Timeshare, making earnest love songs for the introspective bedroom-ridden lis…
After six years away, New York-based singer-songwriter Julie Byrne returns with a new album, The Greater Wings.
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. Anyone who follows football or has been to The Clink for a Hawks game knows that hands down it is the loudest stadium in…
Born Otis Calvin III, OCnotes is an artist, musician, DJ, author, motivational speaker, and vibrant figure active within Seattle's music scene since the turn of the decade. A chameleonic artist who records as a solo entity, as one-half of Metal Chocolates, and through his countless collaborations, …
Philadelphia rockers The War On Drugs have been touring tirelessly on the wide success of their third album, 2014's Lost In The Dream. KEXP listeners voted it as their top album of the year, and with good reason. Singer and songwriter Adam Granduciel wrote the songs during a post-tour period of iso…
If Sharon Van Etten were a different person, her brutal honesty would be too much to bear. On her terrific new album, Are We There (read our review of it here), no painful moment, self-critique or regret is too deep to share... and there are real depths in her songs! But just as her songs never dwe…
Unknown Mortal Orchestra is a bit of a conundrum, at least when it comes to classifying them. Not really a "band," UMO is really the project of Ruban Nielson, who wrote and recorded songs in his bedroom and even posted the insanely catchy "Ffunny Ffrends" first online anonymously. Not really a loca…
Santa Barbara synthpop group Gardens & Villa have been on the road for nearly four months straight. Ever since their sophomore LP Dunes dropped on Secretly Canadian, they’ve been road-tripping around this county and others, showing off what a new batch of tunes and a refined live show have to o…
"We're here for a rock n roll good time", Ryan Devlin chuckles as Hounds of the Wild Hunt finish another total jam. He points to the Tractor Tavern door. "If you aren't here for a rock n roll good time, you best just turn right around." Tonight, the Hounds open up for the infamous Nashville rock ba…
UK post-punk legends Modern English have truly figured out the perfect way to retain their punk roots 35 years on from their biggest hit. What's the most punk way to fund a new album from the original lineup of the band that gave you timeless new wave classic "I Melt With You"? Probably go on tour …
September 11th is the start of the new year on the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Coptic calendars, so in honor of, KEXP DJ Gabriel Teodros connects with fellow Ethiopian-American musician, organizer, and DJ Munit Mesfin to bring us a sampling of some of the most exciting new music out of Ethiopia and the…
Madrid indie rock quartet Hinds made their full length debut on Mom + Pop at the turn of the new year with a fantastic album called Leave Me Alone. But, after seeing them live, it's hard not to interpret the title as being somewhat ironic, because there are few bands around that are as fun to be in…
Portland singer Charlie Hilton and her band Blouse have consistently found themselves in KEXP's watch list for rising talent. Blouse played Iceland Airwaves back in 2012 behind their first record, then toured extensively behind Imperium, their second, including a great stint with Dum Dum Girls. Thi…
Stephin Merritt likes to keep it clever with his long-running project The Magnetic Fields. From 1999's 3-CD set 69 Love Songs, to his recent A-Z tour (performing a song starting with each letter of the alphabet), and now a five CD set titled 50 Song Memoir scheduled for a March 3rd release on None…
It's Jehnny Beth's world, we just live in it. Or at least it was for fifty minutes, when Savages commanded the Bigfoot stage and the massive crowd in front of it. A post-punk band with an unapologetically austere aesthetic and ethos, anyone who thought the English quartet wouldn't seem like prime c…
