KEXP's stellar lineup at Bumbershoot continues with festival heavy-hitter Michael Franti & Spearhead live on the Secret Stage. Franti has his fingers in many pots. He’s a poet, rapper, and singer-songwriter, who has been spreading positivity all over the world since 1994 with his current projec…
So, last night, Radiohead mysteriously disappeared from the internet... Their website is blank, and their Facebook fan page is an empty page with no avatar or banner. Over on Twitter, the main Radiohead account now reads "@radiohead hasn't tweeted yet," and frontman Thom Yorke's personal account h…
Thankfully, Failure never quite lived up to their name. Though in the 90's, they were never really allowed to sit at the cool table of grunge superstars, they found critical praise through their own inventive brand of heavy alt-rock. Record sales, unfortunately, never followed, and five years after…
Sylvan Esso was one of 2014's biggest and most unlikely sleeper successes, and now the left-turn electronic side project from two North Carolina folk veterans has entered 2015 as one of festival season's can't miss midcard staples, and it's clear to see why. Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn's spartan …
It's been an interesting year and a half for Sheffield indie rock duo Drenge. The band's rise to public awareness has taken a pretty incongruent path: being name checked by a member of Parliament upon resignation, dubbed "Derbyshire's Black Keys" by the Guardian UK, and getting commercial appeal fr…
We were already honored to have legendary musician John Doe of punk pioneers X joining us in the KEXP studio, so you can't imagine our surprise when he walked in with the also-legendary Mike McCready of Pearl Jam. Doe's musical partner Exene Cervenka caught a cold during the Seattle stop for the ba…
Known to many as the band who introduced the “post-dubstep” era, Mount Kimbie have always defied expectation. After meeting at college in London and bonding over a shared love of electronic music, the UK duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos explored the spaces around the popular dance music of 2008 …
Opening our final day of the KEXP broadcast live from KEX Hostel at Iceland Airwaves is singer-songwriter John Grant. Though he is currently based in Iceland, he is one of only two American acts featured on this year's broadcast. Grant first gained notoriety as the lead singer of Denver-based shoeg…
If current trends continue, Thurston Moore will evoke the true spirit of rock and roll musicianship and artistry until the day of his death. 35 years into his career, he and his band of extravagantly talented musicians in Chelsea Light Moving are making hard and heavy rock with just as edge and dem…
When every member of a band comes from other (and sometimes more commercially successful) bands, it's usually a sign that the members are either doing it as a lark or following a true passion. In the case of Portland, OR's Black Prairie, the five bandmates seem truly to be loving what they do. Comp…
After all the speculation last month about a Postal Service reunion, it looks like the whole thing has been confirmed by an update earlier today to the band's website which revealed simply the image above with the band name and year. Ben Gibbard has been very clear that there is no likelihood of a…
The music of Explosions in the Sky has always lived up to the expectations set by the band’s evocative name, and on their seventh studio album, The Wilderness, the Austin, Texas outfit continues to create singular, cathartic, and often breathtaking instrumental compositions. Joining host Troy Nelso…
Heads Up on the dance floor! LA band Warpaint sound the drums on their rhythmically driven third LP by infusing their typically broody post-punk with more hypnotic dub and funk grooves. The battle-ready four-piece charged the KEXP live room to perform their first single, "New Song", and three other…
Only in its second year, the 2017 Seagaze Festival continues to lift their heads to spotlight some of the Northwest's finest shoegaze, post punk, and psychrock bands this Thursday, April 20th through Sunday, April 23rd at the LoFi Performance Gallery.
It may be the shortest month, but February has had no shortage of great new releases. Highlights this week include the latest from Dirty Projectors. KEXP Music Director Don Yates notes, "the eighth album from the now LA-based solo project of band leader David Longstreth is a powerful set of avant e…
Formed after the disastrous 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Port-au-Prince band Lakou Misik combines the diverse talents of elder and younger musicians and of modern and traditional styles into a unified message of hope, strength, and pride for listeners at home and beyond. The 9-member multigenerational…
It's hard to imagine, in the social media age, a band who've managed to maintain complete anonymity. But, since 1969, that's exactly what The Residents have achieved. This influential, avant garde group has released over 60 albums, gone on world tours, and released numerous music videos, all withou…
