“We carry it now as a badge of honor,” says Miguel Ramirez, percussionist of Los Angeles group La Santa Cecilia, “to say that we are immigrants or children of immigrants.” After the band had stopped by KEXP a few months earlier to perform live I reached out over the phone so we could talk a bit mor…
We could think of no better band to close out the live room at KEXP's Dexter and Denny studio than legendary shoegazers Ride. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of their landmark debut Nowhere, the UK quartet reunited for a worldwide tour. We captured a stunning acoustic session from founding f…
Car Seat Headrest came dressed for success to their first KEXP in-studio session. Adorned in suits and ties, the young Seattle band got down to business with a fantastic five-song set of lo-fi epic indie rock. Despite his relatively young age, frontman and songwriter Will Toledo (reportedly just 22…
There's a deceptive appeal to Hinds. At first listen to their buoyant jangle pop, and even at first glance at their fresh faces, the young Madrid garage rockers might be taken less seriously than they deserve. No doubt, they perform to have fun, but it's exactly their carefree attitude, slightly of…
Pickathon's 2015 Fall Season continues. Each week, the rustically set, Portland-area festival is running an ambitious program of four new episodes every week through February 2016. Through twelve individual channels of content, you can experience this one-of-a-kind festival in the most intimate of …
When Julia Holter sings "Can I feel you?" on "Feel You", it's more of a question of capability than one of permission, recalling a feeling of faint familiarity mixed with a lingering inquisitiveness. That gap between existing in a moment and fully grasping it is where the songs on Have You In My Wi…
Summing a two-song barrage in the KEXP studio by New Zealand's Salad Boys, DJ Kevin Cole exclaimed that they sound like "the best of The Feelies, Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo in one song". While they certainly make a lovable racket channeling those and other legendary bands from their hometow…
As Toronto-based teens, best buds Katie Monks and Liz Ball would sneak off to the park to play guitar. What started as a secret has now become broadcast around the world on KEXP: as Toronto quartet Dilly Dally, Monks and Ball channel their '90s influences into fierce, grunge-inspired pop, spotlight…
In 2018, KEXP celebrated the 30th anniversary of local record label Sub Pop with a four-month retrospective, "counting up" every catalog number in their vast discography of over 1,200 releases. Dig into the archives of our catalog coverage, featuring in-depth coverage on the history of their releases.