On Sprinter, the latest album by TORRES, Mackenzie Scott does not run away from the big issues. The 24-year old Brooklyn-based artist has clearly grown from her Southern Baptist upbringing, outpacing the usual "country girl meets big city" timeline but not so quickly that she dodges heavy themes of identity, mortality, religion and dissolution. While Sprinter is hardly a clean break from the myopia of youth, the journey, richly complicated by producer Rob Ellis (PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Marianne Faithfull), is a rewarding one for all. On their trek to Seattle, the band somewhat fittingly encountered a hurdle, causing them to miss their scheduled session, but fortunately we were able to reroute and reset them for this winning performance.
As DJ Cheryl Waters points out, Surfer Blood may not be the same "pen of puppies" they were in 2009, but on their newest release, 1000 Palms, they go back to their DIY roots. No longer with a major label looking over their shoulder and now with years of touring experience under their belt, the Flor…
When we asked our old friend Elvis Perkins to play a few songs live in-studio at KEXP, he obeyed, or rather, he aubade. The New York singer-songwriter's third album, I Aubade, is filled with love songs for the morning, or any time, with melodies steeped in '60s soul and rich ambient folk that gentl…
