"I felt a blue wave coming on." If there were any way to sum up the trying events that led up to the amalgamation of Dan Boeckner's latest project Operators, the album's title track does it pretty well. Dan Boeckner, responsible for Wolf Parade (alongside Spencer Krug) and Handsome Furs (alongside …
Okkervil River's 2005 masterpiece, Black Sheep Boy, is one of those records that grabs you wherever you're at. If you haven't gotten the divine pleasure of experiencing it yet, I promise you, it will grab you at some point soon. There's just something about the coming-of-age brilliance of its narra…
Sufjan Stevens is an artist who doesn't make many whimsical steps. Whether it be a proper record or a side project or a live tour or a Christmas album, each time Sufjan steps into the spotlight, you are almost guaranteed a proper glance at the current state of the artist. When we last saw Sufjan at…
If there's a band member sweating on stage during Philip Selway's sets, how is it not going to be the drummer? Selway's work with Radiohead through the late 90s, 2000s, and even the 2010s continuously reinvents how we see and hear the art of drumming in the modern rock and electronic atmosphere. Th…
Before the Fallon performance, FKA Twigs was a pervasive mystery – a voice and an image spun together in perfect unity to create something entirely other worldly that you felt both drawn to and intimidated by. Maybe it was fear, or maybe it was just mystery, but either way, FKA Twigs was impossible…
Mary Lambert, who sings the beautiful hook on the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ song about marriage equality, “Same Love”, recently released her solo EP, Welcome To the Age of My Body, on Capitol Records. KEXP caught up with Mary as she was in Los Angeles preparing for the Grammy Awards, where “Same L…
Domino don't have many missteps in their record of signees. Three years into their third decade, their roster only continues to shine more impressively with time. All of that rings especially true for the label's more recent American indie rock signings, of which tonight's sold out Vera Project spe…
"You're born naked and the rest is drag." That's one of several RuPaul quotes that Héloïse Letissier has written on her wall, and it encapsulates, in such fitting form, the spirit of her musical identity as Christine and the Queens. A stage identity apart from herself, Christine is a reflection of …
Brooklyn synth-pop duo Prince Rama ask their audience a simple question halfway through their new LP, Xtreme Now. "When was the last time you had fun?" On the record, it's supposed to be a question about belief, about conviction, and about our response to that in a positive and nourishing manner. I…
