The MusicfestNW / Project Pabst teamup makes plenty of sense on paper - one had a great location on the Portland Waterfront last year, and one had a truly unique, interesting lineup - and at the end of day one of the newly-combined fests, it turns out it works in practice too. Despite being sold ou…
If there is one singular takeaway from 25 25, it's this: Factory Floor are done introducing themselves. A lot of young bands feel immense pressure coming into their first full-length record, and there's no doubt that the duo of Gabe Gurnsey and Nik Colk Void (then also joined by Dominic Butler) fel…
Throughout Band of Horses' intimate semi-acoustic set at the KEXP Gathering Space, frontman Ben Bridwell repeatedly mentioned that the group's origins were only a few blocks away in a rehearsal space. "This is one of the first songs I wrote for Band of Horses, and I wrote it right down the street i…
Like me, you may be nervous about the prospect of a new Crystal Castles album after the departure of Alice Glass in October of 2014. Alice’s departure came with an excellent statement: “My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for …
Wolf Parade were always going to be a band that would age well. With all of the members having hands in other projects at any given time, it wasn't ever that farfetched of a concept to see them moving away from Wolf Parade, so when it happened in 2011, they did the opposite of what James Murphy did…
Outside Lands offers more than just music // photo by Victoria Holt
Everyone says that Outside Lands is cold. Well, it turns out that everyone is right. Today temperatures peaked at 56 degrees, a difficult temperature to adjust to in early August. But Saturday’s crowd was out earlier and in fuller force than the previous day. The merch booth did a steady business s…
With one more day of paradise ahead of them, Pickathon attendees spend the day diversifying their interests. Sure, there is plenty of incredible music to take part in later on, but throughout the experience, it's the culture of Pickathon that dominates, winning over those who don't regularly partic…
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.
