Before a closing performance from Twenty One Pilots, MGMT played a packed set at Sasquatch Music Festival's Main Stage, playing tracks from each of their past records, including several to be featured on the forthcoming Little Dark Age. As evidenced by past live performances, MGMT are unafraid of s…
The Replacements may have broken up 25 years ago (and then gotten back together, and broken up again), but their influence grows larger every year. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy once declared that everything his band does is based on The Replacements. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day calls them his favorite…
Now on their seventh album, The Thermals show no sign of fading away, despite the title of their latest We Disappear, out now on Saddle Creek. With beloved producer Chris Walla behind the boards for the fourth time, the Portland punk trio continue to incite riots with their anthemic, fist-pumping s…
For the better part of a year, Thunderpussy has been going through a list of local Seattle clubs and conquering them one by one. For their second Sasquatch consecutive appearance (they explosively opened the small Yeti stage at last year's fest), the quartet roared the main stage open on Monday aft…
Anticipation for physical copies of the new album by Car Seat Headrest will have to last a bit longer. The CDs and LPs of Teens Of Denial, originally due in stores on May 20, were recalled due to a misunderstanding, of sorts. The track "Just What I Needed / Not Just What I Needed", containing parts…
Record Store Day is monumental in Seattle in a way that isn't seen in the rest of the country: we crawl out of whatever grunge holes we live in and slither over to the nearest record stores and start feeding on vinyl, eating 45s, and rubbing the sleeves all over our bodies, happily rolling around i…
Seattle's silver-haired soul singer and her backing band, Grace Love & The True Loves stopped by KEXP to perform a few tracks off of their eponymous debut album, and the nine of them filled our live room to beautiful capacity. Their performance was pure vintage - her rich baritone echoing the i…
"Voodoo in my blood is living" - that's how Young Fathers kick off the third track on Massive Attack's return to the scene after nearly six years away. And after all that time, Young Fathers aren't lying - the voodoo is still strong. Last time we saw them was 2010's fantastic Heligoland, their firs…
Brooklyn-via-Alabama singer/songwriter Katie Crutchfield, better known as Waxahatchee, shares a lovely new video for the track "La Loose," a single from her recent Merge Records release, Ivy Tripp. The clip was directed by Naomi Yang (Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi) who says in a statement: "I wan…
In a move we can only hope was inspired by KEXP's Six Degrees Day, Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli has covered a song by Sharon Van Etten! Stream his version of "A Crime" below, featuring guest vocals from none other than Ani DiFranco, to add another link to the chain. You can download the track …
“Change of coast, change of heart”. Last time we heard from Neon Indian, he was changing time zones on the Grand Theft Auto soundtrack. Turns out, now two years later, he wasn’t kidding. The only thing I can think of to make Alan Palomo’s bizzare, eclectic electronic productions any more mind-bendi…
Donning a red jump suit, Olivia Merilahti, vocalist of The Dø, looked as if she took the spacey ambiance of the KEXP studio to heart and, based on the sonic transformation The Dø's sound undertook in the creation of their third album, it was a fitting sentiment. Leaving acoustic instruments behind,…
Although they hit you immediately, the depth of Unknown Mortal Orchestra's songs belies their urgency. Underneath a pulsating rhythm or Ruban Nielsen's expressive vocals is always a subtle, just-as-infectious keyboard melody or a texture that alters Nielsen's voice. On the Portland group's latest a…
There were two generations of Polaris fans at KEXP this day. There were those of us who remember the band from the '90s Nickelodeon TV show The Adventures Of Pete And Pete: the band composed the soundtrack for the now cult-classic series and even appeared on the show's opening credits. And, then th…
Who could forget that impassioned performance from Future Islands on the Late Show with David Letterman last year? (Watch it again here.) Letterman was so wow'ed, he brought the guys back last night where they performed their single "The Chase," just released the other week for Record Store Day. A…
Sometimes a record excites you so much that you lose your critical and verbal faculties, and all you can do is jump up and down and shout "Woooooo-hooooo!" - or perhaps control your muscles just enough to write "Wooooooo-hooooo!" on a little sticker and slap it on said record. Executive Slacks' Nau…
Aussie sweetheart Courtney Barnett has shared another track from her upcoming full-length debut, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. Check out the lovely, lilting ballad "Depreston" below, along with its accompanying video of many front lawns. When Courtney was in town last Octobe…
Twelve years ago, a New York band called Interpol released a song called "NYC". The third track on the band's debut LP Turn on the Bright Lights and the song that makes reference of the album's title within, it's the first of many emotional high points on the record. But more importantly, it's a di…
It’s time to blast off to 1992... in 2015! Cairo’s EXPO 92 mini-festival takes place this Thursday through Saturday at the Capitol Hill all-ages venue and vintage store, showcasing exciting and vital local talent. Now in its seventh year, EXPO’s three day lineup is as much an opportunity to let you…
He's never lived so far away, yet he's never sounded so much like himself. After a move to London, former Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore reclaimed his place as a ranking don of noise-rock while reassembling his band with some true ringers, namely former SY bandmate Steve Shelley on drums and D…
