The 40th Annual Seattle International Film Festival is upon us, and this year's SIFF is probably the best one for fans of the KEXP-sponsored Face The Music series. Seriously, if you’ve found the festival has been a little light on the music movies before, this year will change your head. In the off…
For a two piece group, Solids never ceases to thrash around. The Montréal based band, comprised of Xavier Germain Poitras on guitar and Louis Guillemette on drums, already has quite a following. In 2010, Solids released an EP, Generic Dogs, and would later disseminate two 7"s, one titled Fog Friend…
Often touted in 2013 as one of the bands you should know, KINS are quickly becoming one of the bands you do know. The Brighton-based band's well-received debut was several years in the making, starting from the original demos Australian transplant Thomas Savage brought with him from Melbourne, and …
Dude York, the power trio from Seattle, play music that rocks, music that makes you move, music you've never quite heard before. They are an amalgamation of musical inspirations and this has never been more evident than on their new record, Dehumanize. KEXP caught up with drummer Andrew Hall to tal…
The first month of 2014 is closing out with another strong batch of releases, including the third album from L.A. band Dum Dum Girls, which KEXP Music Director Don Yates calls, "a darker, more ‘80s-influenced take on the band’s psych-tinged pop-rock, featuring a more spacious, atmospheric sound pro…
The guys in Iska Dhaaf are overachievers. Not only do they write and record music together with a meticulous eye for detail, but they both maintain separate projects besides. Seattleites will recognize guitarist/vocalist Nathan Quiroga from his word slinging antics as Buffalo Madonna from Mad Rad a…
If you were to define a sub-genre for Julianna Barwick's ambient music, it might be something like "polar pastoralism" as the young church-raised singer and composer evokes both the southern straw dust farmland of her youth and the glacial fields that surrounded the recording of her latest release.…
Sunny, scuzzy, moody and melodic - somehow Crocodiles's music encompasses it all. The indie rock duo of Brandon Welchez and Charles Rowell worked with a master of a similar darkly seductive sound, Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes, to create an update on their punk and New Wave influences like Ec…
Seattle's Beat Connection seem to evolve with grace. As is the case with most young bands, they've had plenty of that evolution in the last three years. Their journey from the early house-driven days of 2010's Surf Noir to the vast, green sound of their 2012 debut LP Palace Garden and even through …
On September 10, The Clash will release a huge box set called Sound System. According to guitarist Mick Jones this will be "the greatest box set ever." The set will include all five LPs, three disks of singles, a DVD of the band's music videos, and SO MUCH more. As if this wasn't cool enough, the…
LA band Milo Greene play what they have dubbed "cinematic-pop". Theirs is an expansive sound, that has the ability to transport you and envelop you like good film music does -- but they also hang on to a pop sensibility that allows the film-less music to stand on its own (again, as good film music…
Ah, it's time for another dip into the "Bands Levi Really Should Have Been Paying Attention to at the Time" file. I can't tell you how many Red Lorry Yellow Lorry records I flipped past in my teenaged record-store-digging days, and I'm sure I heard them on one of our fine local college radio statio…
My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James has announced a collection of covers called Tribute To 2. James released a solo EP Tribute To in 2009 which was a handful of acoustic George Harrison covers following Harrison's death. For Tribute To 2 James is covering a variety of different artists such as El…
Wo' Pop host Darek Mazzone had a chance to spend some time in China this year and dug deep into the country's amazing indie music scene: "I was blown away by the complexity, range, and fervor of what I found. I feel that China could be one of the next hotbeds of music and culture - it's just …
Greg Vandy reaffirms the inherent greatness and depth of American music with 15 tracks from today's song makers of cosmic Americana, psych pickers, hill country blues, low-down soul, folk ramblin', and plain hard country, proving that this generation often looks back to go forward. 1. Daniel …
Variety Mix host Mel is back to curate the most recent Music That Matters weekly podcast. This particular mix leans heavy on guitars with the latest feedback drenched songs from the legendary Swervedriver, San Francisco's Thee Oh Sees, and Fuzz, which is one of Ty Segall's many projects.…
Audioasis host DJ Sharlese continues the two-part 2014 Pacific Northwest Roundup. Featuring more local sounds from 2014 by Secret School, Shabazz Palaces, Jen Wood and many more! 1. Wimps - Couches 2. Childbirth - I Only Fucked You as a Joke 3. The Murder City Devils - Cruelty Abounds 4. King Du…
Barboza, the intimate venue underneath Neumos, feels cut off from the rest of the world, with no sight or sound of the rest of the world. In some ways, it's the perfect venue for a band like Hælos, whose particular brand of UK club R&B feels wholly detached from the rest of the world, cinematic…
The best collaboration projects seem to happen effortlessly. When two masters of their craft come together, both bringing all their respective elements to the table and begin mixing them, oftentimes, they end up with a heterogenous mixture, swinging unevenly between two opposing poles. Some pieces …
It's funny to say it, but in the last half decade of Kele's work, Bloc Party's comeback LP Four is an outlier amongst an otherwise continuous show of strength in another direction. Sure, Four gave Bloc Party fans another great record to rotate out in their stash, but since the band's electronic-hea…
