"Oh London moon, help me stumble home, help me lose myself along the way." So begins the return of Broken Bells, the all-too-perfect team up between now legendary producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and the genius songwriter who gave us the Shins, James Mercer. After The Disco is the soundtrack to…
"Stick with the old stuff, Win." That's the advice that Butler gets from Carl the roadie (Rainn Wilson) after playing a bloated, belligerent rendition of Funeral cut "Wake Up" during the fictitious Arcade Fire performance in the Reflektor accompaniment film Here Comes The Night Time. Here, Butler i…
Next on the roster for day two of Iceland Airwaves Music Festival live from Kex Hostel were the incredible young polish duo Coals. Hailing from the coal-mining region of Silesia, Poland, an area known for its coal mines, Coals are Katarzyna Kowalczyk and Łukasz Rozmysłowski. Formed in 2014, Coals h…
Only a year or two after establishing itself as the first NYC music festival to actually pull off an event with the caliber and scope fitting of the city, The Governors Ball Music Festival is at a crossroads. Stereogum's Michael Nelson does an excellent job explaining it in depth, but due to the em…
Master filmmaker and composer John Carpenter just doesn't know when to slow down. With almost 4 decades now separating him from seminal films and soundtracks like Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from New York, Halloween, and The Fog, Carpenter is looking to expand his repertoire. 2015 mar…
For a moment there, it looked like The National's headlining set at Sasquatch – one of the band's biggest shows to date – was going to be underwhelming. For the first twenty minutes, the band felt too mellow, and frontman Matt Berninger, disinterested. And then, after "Don't Swallow The Cap", a swi…
At nearly every day of any festival, there's an artist who's set time becomes a casualty to equipment changeover delays, and on Friday, that artist was Phosphorescent. But maybe it was a blessing in disguise, because those who waited through the nearly 20-minute delay at Sasquatch were rewarded wit…
Though it's the first album released solely under his own name, there is a strong argument to be made that Everyday Robots is not the official solo debut of English legend Damon Albarn. That could be the soundtrack to the 1999 film Ravenous, which was the first music outside of his then-main band B…
I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp is exactly the succulently-written, shit-talking, salty dog memoir you’d want from the man who dreamed and ignited punk. Richard Hell was a fun-loving little Kentucky cowboy as a kid, loving TV, growing up with peak period 60s Stones and Dylan LPs, dreaming of tak…
The album cover for Minnesota rapper Brother Ali's 2012 LP, Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color, features the Muslim artist praying towards Mecca and kneeling on an American flag as his prayer rug. The image encapsulates much of the spirit which Brother Ali has staked his career on. Brother…
Since 2012, Freakout Records has taken over venues in the Ballard neighborhood for multiple nights of blaring, sweaty, and all around thrilling local music with their namesake Freakout! festival. Now entering its fifth iteration on November 17th and 18th, Freakout! is stepping up with one of their …
I don't know about you, but I feel like it's been a long time coming for Phantogram. Maybe that's just because the New York two piece has found a way to write songs that stick with you and make a deeper, lasting impact on the heart and mind than their counterparts. Or, maybe they've just spent thei…
Donald Glover has done a lot of thinking in the past two years. “That Camp was a million years ago, sing me a different song” he raps on the closer of his new record Because the Internet. The referenced 2011 studio album debut does feel like forever ago now. After self-releasing three albums and th…
Decibel Festival is really just getting started. On Monday, you could catch the pop up art show - with posters designed by some of Seattle's finest - and on Wednesday there was the awesome kick off party at the Chiluly Garden, the glorious Space Needle presiding over the holy event. Though almost t…
KEXP can’t get enough of today’s first act, Samaris. They’ve been featured as song of the day, highlighted on several Music that Matters podcasts and yearly top-10 lists, and even played at the station’s New Home Opening in Seattle earlier this year. Today we have the pleasure of having them open d…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unrealeased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the …
His new album Pure Comedy may be in stores now, but Father John Misty hasn't stopped sharing new music. FJM (real name: Josh Tillman) covers the Velvet Underground classic "Who Loves the Sun" off their 1970 LP Loaded for the Mondo Boys score to Shangri-La Suite, a feature-length film from Los Ange…
