What can I say about Slint that I didn't already say in my 2008 Spiderland post? I kept it short back then, but I pretty much covered the bases: they were an excellent band that has been very influential over the years and they were phenomenal live, even almost twenty years after anyone thought the…
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…
For New Order fans, it has been a long, bitter wait for Lost Sirens. In the almost eight years since the release of Waiting for the Siren's Call, much animosity has plagued the band's ability (or desire) to release any new material or tour together. And really, these are no trivial bickerings - for…
Seattle songwriter Raven Matthews goes by many names, from his birth name to RVN and now Raven Hollywood. With each new moniker, you can feel his progression as an artist. On his latest EP, IRL, the Raven Hollywood name aptly embodies the grand and murky folk noir visions. Following up last year's …
Tanner Ellison : Host, DJ, and Producer of Seek & Destroy, Saturday Nights at Midnight to 2AM
Tanner Ellison is a professional artist living and working in Seattle. He has been corrupted by metal since he was a little grub. He had an unlikely start in radio around the age of 12 or 13 when he h…
KEXP Charts, Top Charts, Rock, Hip-Hop, World Music
Well, it is the album that beat out Nevermind in Spin Magazine's Best Albums of 1991 list: Ben Gibbard has announced he'll be covering Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque in its entirety. "Bandwagonesque is my favorite record by my favorite band of all time," he said, via a press release. "It came al…
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…
These days, it's a lot easier to sell headlines than it is to sell records. If you write a great pop song, your best bets to sell are either to stack it so chock full of name-drops that you hardly see your own, or to dial the clickbait schtick meter up as high as it will go. But when presented with…
Junior Boys return this week with their first record in five years. Listening to it, it's hard to picture the space in between. Truly, the electronic scene to which the Ontario duo belong has seen a massive shift in that time period, largely towards a directive that Junior Boys initiated. For compa…
Working with friends is the best. That's essentially the mantra behind eccentric Halifax producer Ryan Hemsworth's project Secret Songs. With it, Ryan has worked hard to curate and collaborate with some incredibly talented individuals to release music in a concentric and life-giving way (plus, it's…
For years, Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace stood in center stage at raged away, sometimes at others, sometimes at herself. When she came out as transgender in 2012, that fury subsequently turned to a newfound onstage fire, transforming the flagging band from an increasingly cult concern to …
"Connection... correction." If you summed up UK dance veterans Hot Chip in an obscure two word phrase, I think this bridge from "Love Is The Future" would do quite nicely. It's between these two poles of connection and correction that Hot Chip have operated for over a decade. From "I Was The Boy Fr…
Some shows, I'm seriously surprised when I exit Neumos after the set's over and am not witnessing irreparable damage running up and down the walls. Tuesday night, label-mates Liturgy and Lightning Bolt played one of those types of sets. When there's one guy in the front row that doesn't have earplu…
Listening to St. Vincent's new self-titled LP, I find it harder and harder to market Annie Clark's music to friends by method of comparison. On her past efforts, including 2011's excellent Strange Mercy and her breakthrough 2009 record Actor, Clark has stood out on the forefront of a brave, new wav…
Detroit synth punk rockers ADULT. played third during day one of the 2013 Treasure Island Music Festival. Their industrial, crunching melodies blistered under the hot sun, as San Francisco’s infamous “Indian Summer” kept festival goers warm even in mid-October. Frontwoman Nicola Kuperos poked fun a…
Our live guests today, The Moondoggies, have one of this week's top new releases with their excellent third LP, Adios I'm a Ghost. The Seattle band has long been a KEXP favorite, and their fans certainly won't stop loving them after hearing their latest, which our Music Director, Don Yates, calls "…
