Lines We Trace opens up suddenly, with all kinds of ache laced through the echoes of a well-worn Andrew Bird album, cut beautifully with strains of Matt Bishop's unmistakable vocals. It's a powerful track ("Tides"), the line I would trade ten thousand days / for one more hour with you immediately vaulting the listener into […]
Here is some fantastic news to brighten any grey Seattle Fall day — our favorite garage-surf rockers the Tea Cozies are releasing a new EP on October 30! I don’t think I have stopped randomly breaking into “sha lalalala”-style choruses since their last album Hot Probs dropped. Their latest effort, titled Bang Up, is a […]
For their fifth full-length album, Moms, Portland’s Menomena underwent a significant lineup change: front man and multi-instrumentalist Brent Knopf left the group in January of 2011 to focus on his own project, Ramona Falls. Thankfully, the remaining members of the band — bassist and saxophonist Justin Harris and drummer Danny Seim — are not short […]
I never really *got* Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman till now, I don't think. Which is kind of bizarre, considering I've bought several of his many EPs and previous albums, and have seen him live. Also, there's the way that he's compared to the league of rogue cosmopolitan pop composers that I richly enjoy, such as […]
Ryan Monroe may be a member of Band of Horses, but his solo album A Painting of a Painting on Fire is decidedly not a BoH album. To strengthen that point, the album opens with a Rush-ish rocker so layered, so textured, so loaded that it's almost cluttered. Monroe comes charging out of the gate […]
.jpg "Wednesday's Children")
The first time I heard Tomten’s single, “Ta Ta Dana,” I was in the middle of an “anywhere but here” kind of day. The song opened up with a swelling organ that dropped me right into the 1960s – not the patchouli and weed ‘60s of my imaginary memory, or the psychedelic 60s of Austin […]
How does a Seattle boy deal with a debilitating dose of depression and then some newfound creative sparks in Los Angeles? (J./Joshua) Tillman {formerly of the Fleet Foxes} shows a gripping, glistening way how on his debut as Father John Misty, Fear Fun. It involves a lot of reading Beats and bards and bohemian travel […]
For an artist as prolific as David Gedge is, with nearly thirty years' recording history under his belt, it is a bit strange to think that the new Wedding Present album, Valentina, is only the band's eighth studio record. Of course, there are numerous singles, EPs, and live albums as well, not to mention the […]
djblesOne and Emecks are part of Seattle's LOVE FAMILY, internationally known shrewd vocalists and dancers and crowd-picadors who blend bubblegum skank pop, VICE Don'ts, Grand Royal Magazine B-boy spreads, jokes about serial killers set in noir satires, love for KEXP nerd punk girls in knee high boots, corndogs with firecrackers in the middle and deep-fried […]
Spoek Mathambo's Father Creeper may be the sleeper of the year. It is disguised as world stew glitch brew, but its album cover somehow perfectly captures both the sturdiness and destruction: A glistening facade of a corporate building reflecting a fire and sinister Nomadic tribe leaving an accident or attack. In the face of the […]
