Saying goodbye is hardly ever easy. Seattle's been lucky enough to be home to surf-pop band Tangerine over the past few years, watching them grow from their jangly debut EP Pale Summer to last year's self-assured and vibrant Sugar Teeth. They've been easy to latch onto from the start, giving a ray …
In December 2013, Benjamin Curtis of School of Seven Bells passed away after a battle with T-cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. This February 2016, his bandmate Alejandra Deheza will release the album SVIIB, featuring parts Curtis recorded before his death. In a post on their website, Deheza writes, "Be…
From being 18-year-old kids playing house parties in Greenville, North Carolina, to last month's nationwide broadcast on The Late Show with David Letterman that made them internet superstars — throughout it all, Future Islands have always stayed true to themselves, and to their strong work ethic. A…
The Strokes have unveiled the video for their new single "All The Time". If you just barely follow the band then I bet you've heard how they are prone to long, random breaks. We had to wait five years for the 2011 album Angels, so it's no wonder fans are thrilled to have another collection just TW…
When you are hurting, there's only one place that really makes it feel like everything's alright: home. When all is lost and your judgment's on the brink, going home gives you perspective. You remember where you've come from, and furthermore, just how far you've come between the last chapter and th…
Dusty Henry takes us back to 1980 to pay homage to rap’s first superstar, Kurtis Blow, and his legendary hit “The Breaks.”
.
Seattle-based DJ and producer Reverend Dollars (aka Renee Jarreau Greene) is the founder and co-organizer of the Darqness queer and trans people of color arts collective and the organizer of Soul-Fi. Her work focuses on bringing together marginalized black, trans, queer, and people of color communi…
The New Pornographers have always had a knack for explosive, shining melodies, but after two relatively experimental, more mellow albums, they've returned to playing to their strengths – multi-part harmonies and agile, punchy performances – on their new album, Brill Bruisers. The Vancouver supergro…
Afrobeat, trance, indie rock: these are just some of the words tossed around when talking about Pollens, among the more composed acts doing the rounds in Seattle currently. And while those words do describe the band, to a degree, they fail to include the constant smiles, the deep dips in vocals, th…
Last month, we introduced you to a new group called Pinemen, whose late 2015 debut EP, Pleasant Pain, offered a much needed dose of jangly surf-rock psychedelia. More than just a taste, our featured Song of the Day, "That Certain Flavor", suggested a wider palate that the young Stockholm band might…
The roots of Owl John lie in the idea that to save something, sometimes you need to walk away from it. That's what caused Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchinson to take a break from the Scottish indie rock group and return to writing songs the way he did when he started the band a decade earli…
After pumping out five albums in seven years, The Hold Steady were due for a break. But during the time between albums, the Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis band just couldn't keep from working. While vocalist Craig Finn released and toured a solo album of his own, guitarist Tad Kubler got the guys togethe…
Most regular gig-goers will agree that the best place to see a band play is in a club. Rock clubs present an intimate setting, and since the audience and the band are essentially right on top of each other, each side can feed off the other's energy. When Queens of the Stone Age took the stage on a …
It's never in any band's plan to break up, but it's much less anticipated for a band to reemerge as a more mature version of their past selves. But to everyone's surprise -- even their own -- The Dismemberment Plan are back with a new record, Uncanney Valley, that not only recognizes that they've g…
This month, UK electronic act Factory Floor finally release a proper full-length record. This is the London band that started almost eight years ago, bouncing around styles to dial into the pure genius that they’ve come up with now. They released mini album Talking On Cliffs in 2009 and dropped the…
John in the Morning invades your "Dreams" and insists "You Would Have To Lose Your Mind" to "Poor the War Away" "In Another Century" which sends us back to "Primeval" times where it's a "Private Understanding" that one must "Bendover…
A mosh pit of all smiles is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Real mosh pits are great to start with. Not fake circle pits where following the leader dominates any true form of atomic self expression, but a real "I drank a little too much and don't mind being throw around by the couple people who re…
In our series about “breaking” artists on KEXP, Emily Fox talks to DJ Morgan about Altin Gün and then Eva Walker takes us down a “Walker Wormhole Wednesday.”
As part of our series about breaking musicians, Emily Fox talks to KEXP’s video manager Jim Beckmann about what Live on KEXP has done for bands.
"We could be in an igloo inside of a cave of ice," gasped a sweaty Dan Deacon. "And I would still be a puddle." To be fair, the KEXP studio's ventilation was only partially the reason why the Baltimore-based musician was drenched in sweat. The other reason was that he was two songs into a breakneck…
