Easily one of this year's biggest breakouts, FKA twigs is no mere singer, songwriter, or dancer. She's all those things, actually, plus a director, a producer and much more. In fact, it's twigs' ability to combine all of those elements into a multi-sensory feast of performance art that has propelle…
It's shoegaze, not navelgaze. Oyama may have a strong My Bloody Valentine-streak, but the Icelandic five-piece have followed up their initial EP with an invigorated their sound on their debut LP, Coolboy, whose woozy, pitch-bending melodies range between airy dream pop and fuzzy psychedelia. We rec…
Sisters Kara and Johanna Söderberg embody the phrase "beyond their years". As Swedish duo First Aid Kit, they've managed to capture generations' worth of American country and folk while still in their teens, and on their reverential 2012 hit "Emmylou" sounded as if they could already hold their own…
Northern soul? How about arctic soul? That's yet to be a thing, but if young Icelandic singer-songwriter Júníus Meyvant has anything to do with it, you'll be hearing a lot more similarly soul-stirring melodies from way up north. Júníus Meyvant -- real name Unnar Gísli Sigurmundsson -- has yet to re…
The Donkeys are so So-Cal. "There's no getting around it," noted DJ Cheryl Waters, when the band stopped by KEXP this past summer and played songs from their recent album, Born with Stripes. The Donkeys sound brings to mind images of shimmery, hazy days. If you've never surfed San Diego, this is wh…
We are HAM! If you aren't yet, that's okay. HAM is legend. It took years of inactivity to become the rock icons they are today. Following the Icelandic doom metal band's prolific years, from 1988 to 1994, their legion of fans grew, until finally their members stepped aside from their other careers …
To call Mammút's live act "emotive" is a huge understatement. Frontwoman Kata Mogensen seems to enter a completely different state onstage, even covering herself in fake blood or painting her face ominously, while the rest of the band unleashes a colossal sound. We've been fortunate to watch the yo…
"It's not the average, kind of whiny divorce record... You can dance to half the record and cry your eyes out to the rest of it." That's how Sondre Lerche describes his seventh and newest album, Please. Despite the innate heaviness of the subject material, Lerche is eager to explore every facet of …
Not surprisingly, a country known for its epic landscapes like Iceland also produces similarly cinematic music, like that of Kiasmos. The breathtaking sound of this new duo, featuring composer Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen (also of Bloodgroup), was the perfect intro for the first day of KEXP's…
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.
