In what's easily become a summer tradition for many KEXP listeners, the 4th Annual Timber! Outdoor Music Festival kicks off tonight in beautiful Carnation, WA. It's more than just a music festival: it's a beautiful escape to Tolt-Macdonald Park with recreation tree climbing, swimming, kayaking, an…
“There’s so many kinds of music I’m interested in that I just never let into my own songwriting, so in a way with this record, it was kind just of like opening the curtains and letting stuff come in,” Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing says of Life of Pause. Continuing with his style of creating a new worl…
Indie rockers Ra Ra Riot will release their fourth studio album Need Your Light on February 19. Today, the band has shared the video for the album track "Water," which was directed by Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij. They have an extensive promotional tour planned for early next year, and on M…
Next on the live video broadcast from Kex Hostel at Iceland Airwaves Music Festival was popular Icelandic rap group Úlfur Úlfur. Comprised of rappers Arnar Freyr and Helgi Sæmundur with a rotating group of musicians, they combine hard rock, post rock, melodic choruses and hard rap. They debuted wit…
Longtime KEXP faves Low return with their 11th album, Ones and Sixes, on September 11th via Sub Pop. The latest from the pride of Duluth, MN was co-produced by the band themselves along with engineer BJ Burton at Justin Vernon’s April Base Studios in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Stream the full-length b…
Did you come to Iceland Airwaves to lose your mind? FM Belfast and their fans certainly did. Our fourth show of the day at Kex Hostel was Iceland's highest energy party act, as we once again featured the typically headlining band in this very intimate space during our broadcast. This electro pop ou…
If our recent in-studio session with Thurston Moore was too much of a tease, you can now stream his forthcoming full-length album, The Best Day, below. His fourth solo album finds the former Sonic Youth frontman backed by longtime drummer Steve Shelley, My Bloody Valentine bassist Deb Googe, and U…
Founding member Chris Walla has announced he's leaving Death Cab for Cutie. In a statement he shared with The Stranger, Walla says "Deciding to leave the band was not, and is not, easy. It’s really, really sad. I love my bandmates, and I’m proud of what we’ve done, and mercifully, those things don…
In an act of hometown pride, Aussie sweetheart Courtney Barnett performed INXS’ 1987 album Kick in its entirety. The performance was part of the “Summer Of Classic Albums” concert series initiated by Melbourne label Pure Pop Records. Watch the great stripped-down set below, and hear an exclusive K…
Did somebody say Jack Endino? Here's one of those Endino-produced classics I was talking about last week. If Mudhoney needed no introduction by the time they released their self-titled debut LP in 1989, at this point they should be, I don't know, playing on top of the Space Needle or something? Oh,…
More than any other day, Saturday at Bonnaroo was filled with things that could only really happen at the Farm, among them, Björk's jellyfish facemask thing, R. Kelly entering on a boom crane, a 5k at 9 in the morning (in 80 degree heat), and a moment where Jim James, R. Kelly, Billy Idol, and John…
Laura Marling has teamed up with directors Fred & Nick on a 20-minute long short film When Brave Bird Saved that features the four opening songs of her forthcoming LP Once I Was An Eagle. According to the directors the film is "directly inspired, informed, and narrated" by those first four son…
If you don't have any plans for this weekend, March 21st - 24th, (or even if you do) I highly recommend you hightail it to Idaho. Opening tomorrow in Boise Treefort Music Festival kicks off with quite the impressive lineup. The festival was started just last year with an impressive 137 bands, this …
In a marketing move as surprising as anything Radiohead has ever done, shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine have announced and released their new album in the same day... today! On their new website, also launched today, fans can purchase m b v immediately as a digital download, on CD or on vinyl.…
It’s not every night that you get to enjoy the sounds of two beautiful, local artists and donate to a good cause simultaneously. KEXP’s 19th Little Big Show at the Neptune Theatre was one such exception. The show, whose proceeds benefited Lambert House, a community center in Seattle for LGBTQ youth…
In the haze of the smoke machines and blue lighting at the Crocodile, as a packed in crowd at a sold out show danced relentlessly to the bass-heavy tracks booming from the stage, we collectively celebrate one thing: brilliant songwriting. If there's one commonality between the two acts on the bill …
Some haters will always hate, no matter what gold you throw at them, but Donald Glover sure silenced a multitude of them with last year's out of nowhere sophomore slinger Because the Internet. As Childish Gambino, Glover started a rap career with immediate pushback, with critics claiming that he wa…
If you call yourself an Arcade Fire fan and have seen the band at least once in the live setting, there's a good chance that you need absolutely no introduction to Will Butler. When Arcade Fire skyrocketed to the moon amongst the Reflektor hype of 2013, it was clear that the one facet of their musi…
Now that they've played a number of shows on their much-publicized reunion trek, it's fair to judge whether or not the Outkast festival tour is merely a opportunistic cash grab or an enthusiastic celebration of the Atlanta duo's massive legacy (during which they will inevitably get real paid). At f…
It's been five years since Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have toured America, and in the unique and never-predictable story of Nick Cave, five years is a long time. After the release of 2008's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, Nick has authored the screenplay for a major motion picture, published his second nove…
