Following up from her stunning debut, Toronto’s Cold Specks drops by the live room to give us a crucial shot of excitement by sharing a sprinkling of sultry and sincere tunes from her new sophomore longplay Neuroplasticity. Helping to embellish Al Spx's powerful and magnetic voice is her minimal but technically brilliant backing band, who enable her to really spread her wings vocally. Like always, Cold Specks delivers a truly engaging performance for the KEXP audience with tracks like "Living Signs" and the dynamic "Bodies at Bay", which swooping and fluttering as it does with such snowy ambivalence, it would be wise to check your ears for frostbite. What's cooler than being cool? Watch the full set and find out.
There are two main takeaways from Trampled By Turtles' KEXP in-studio session last October: that these guys have serious technical chops and that they've got the songs to put them to use. The Duluth, Minnesota, quintet's latest album, Wild Animals, features some of their most emotionally resonant s…
Talk about a storied past. The Jayhawks rose from the fertile era of Twin Cities rock that also produced such contemporaries as The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum and Prince. Though they often get tagged as "country rock revivalists" or "alt-country icons", the band's sound and personnel shif…
