Curtis Stewart is a violinist, composer and arranger, and the current Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra. He is also the son of two professional jazz musicians, and when, at some point, he was offered the choice between composition and improvisation, he said “yes please” and took both. So on his own and with the improvising string quartet known as PubliQuartet, along with The Mighty Third Rail, Curtis Stewart plays a huge variety of music. Stewart and several musical friends: (Aaron Diehl, Eleanor Oppenheim, students from the Kaufman Music Center, Special Music School, and PubliQuartet) give just a hint of his range, performing in-studio. (-John Schaefer)
Set list:
Trad.: "Thalassaki Mou"
Stewart: "Call, Response" with PubliQuartet
Trad.: "Deep River", with PubliQuartet, with Eleanor Oppenheim, students from the Kaufman Music Center, Special Music School
This is the Kit is the alias of British singer and guitarist Kate Stables, as well as the band she fronts. Her early albums were rooted in the long British folk/rock tradition, with later work perhaps more under the influence of indie rock. In June, she releases a new album called Careful of Your Keepers produced by Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), full of big ideas and big arrangements, but it’s also a very intimate, honest, and introspective set of songs. Kate plays some of them in a solo performance, in-studio. - John Schaefer
Set list: “More Change”, “Stuck in a Room”, “Inside Outside”
Watch “More Change”:
Watch “Stuck in a Room”:
Watch “Inside Outside”:
The Heavy is a band from Bath, England – an unlikely place for a group whose sound has been rooted in the kind of swampy, sweaty mix of gospel, R&B, funk and rock that we associate with the American south. Their latest, Amen, is "an exhilarating maelstrom of ‘60s R&B riffs, horns, and gospel harmonies" (Bandcamp), which "writhes with seditious blues drama, soul and gospel passion, the crunch of prime hip-hop and garage punk’s visceral electricity", (ShoreFire.) The full band joins us in-studio on a rare day off on their American tour.
Set list: "Hurricane Coming", "I Feel the Love", "Feels Like Rain", "Bad Muthafucker"
Watch: "Hurricane Coming":
Watch "I Feel the Love":
Watch "Feels Like Rain":
Watch "Bad Muthafucker":
Gotopo is a Venezuelan singer and musician currently based in Berlin. Her music explores her own Afro-Indigenous roots through a mix of ancient folkloric sounds and modern electronic dance music. She is a "digger", and has thrown herself into researching source material, as in an Afro-Venezuelan hymn intended for slaves to give a spiritual farewell to their relatives who died at the hands of the enslaver which informed her song, "Malembe". Her debut release, called Sacudete, comes out on May 19, and Gotopo performs her indigenous and ancestral futurism, in-studio.
Set list: "Piña Pa La Niña", "Cucu", "Sacudete"
Watch "Piña Pa La Niña":
Watch "Cucu":
Watch "Sacudete":
Serbian quartet EYOT draws on traditional Balkan folk music, jazz, classical piano, punk, and art-rock, and fits neatly into none of these categories. Their music - partly composed, and partly improvised - never loses its groove, even as it frequently makes use of the odd rhythm patterns (5/8, 7/8, 9/8) that are part of the turbulent history of the region. EYOT celebrates their 15th anniversary of making music together by playing some of the tunes from their most recent album, 557799, (yep, because of said odd meters contained therein), in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: "557799", "Linen", "Horizon"
Watch "557799":
Watch "Linen":
Watch "Horizon":
This year marks the centennial of legendary North Carolina folk musician Doc Watson, one of the giants of the folk revival of the 50s and 60s. There’s a new album paying homage to pays homage to Watson's lasting legacy and influence on American music, which features a stellar cast of contemporary musicians playing some of the songs Watson had championed; it’s called I Am A Pilgrim – Doc Watson at 100. The producer of the collection is Grammy Award winning guitarist, songwriter, and producer Matthew Stevens, who gathered a few of the album’s featured musicians and collaborators - singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Valerie June, Brooklyn-born teen banjo wunderkind Nora Brown, fiddler Stephanie Coleman, and musician James Shipp - to play some of these songs in-studio. Plus, hear a bonus original tune, "Man Done Wrong", by Valerie June. -Caryn Havlik
Watch Valerie June and Matthew Stevens play "Handsome Molly":
Watch Nora Brown, Stephanie Coleman, James Shipp: "Am I Born to Die":
Watch Nora Brown, Stephanie Coleman, James Shipp: "Your Long Journey":
Watch Matthew Stevens play "Alberta":
Watch Valerie June play "Man Done Wrong":
Catalan folk duo Tarta Relena's vocal-based music limns centuries and borders, ranges from the sacred to the secular, and often uses electronics. Their body of work so far reimagines Mediterranean folk, Georgian laments, and the 12th century mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Then, there's their setting of verse from Afghan Pashto women singing about “controversial subjects such as envy, broken hearts, hatred or lust”, and adapted sacred music (they met as members of a religious music choir), (Songlines, 2022). Singing in Catalan, Spanish, Greek, Latin, English and Ladino, they treat each language as a tool, a color to bring up an emotion.
Tarta Relena’s arrangements and performances traffic in the intense spirituality and human connection of the music, which lands with joy and poignancy, enhanced by dramatic use of electronics: percussion, drone, some bass synth, and vocal effects. For this edition of the Soundcheck Podcast, Tarta Relena sings a cappella, just like they started the duo back in 2016. They perform on location from the 2023 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. - Caryn Havlik
P.S. “Tarta relena” means “stuffed pie” in Spanish.
Set list: "Esta Montagne d’enfrente", "Tuta Pulchra"
Watch "Esta Montagne d’enfrente":
Watch "Tuta Pulchra":
Louisiana-based Lost Bayou Ramblers are a swinging punkass party band who mix Cajun melodies on fiddle, accordion, guitars, and some electric sounds. They've won a regional roots Grammy for their record, Kalenda, but they’ve also done an original score for ROUS, a film about Nutria Rats and Louisiana’s coastal land loss, and contributed to the score for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Fresh off the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans, the Lost Bayou Ramblers join us in the studio (from the Archives, 2018.)
The Atlanta-born quartet Algiers mixes post-punk guitars, gospel vocal harmonies, hip hop sampling, chopped and screwed production techniques, and pointed social commentary in a revolutionary way that is dark, urgent, angry, and utterly exhilarating. Their most recent record, Shook, has Algiers’ signature fury and weight, features a multiplicity of voices, and is the result of the creative energy released into the space and time generated by the enforced pause on touring. As Frankie Fisher says in a Bandcamp interview, "Algiers’s ethos, philosophy, and politics are about inclusivity and people generally on the margins", and in keeping with that, multiple guest artists from within the community contributed to this rich and complex sound, and the collaborative conversation even took on a new New York feel after the Shook stems were shared and manipulated into a separate companion soundworld. Algiers plays music from Shook, as a trio, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Irreversible Damage”, “Bite Back”, “Green Iris”
Watch “Irreversible Damage”:
Watch “Bite Back":
Watch “Green Iris”:
The London quintet known as Ezra Collective looks like a jazz band, with their dueling horns, keys, bass and drums. But their music reflects the lively artistic ferment happening now in South London, where the sounds of Caribbean music, hip hop, and especially the Nigerian style known as Afrobeat have all become part of the scene. Ezra Collective’s drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso studied with the late, great Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and with his brother TJ on bass, the two Koleosos form a propulsive rhythm section, but one that’s full of surprises. Add in keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, and tenor saxophonist James Mollison, and the quintet brings audiences a hybrid jazz with killah beats for dancing. - John Schaefer
Set list: "Ego Killah", "No Confusion", "Belonging"
Watch "Ego Killah":
Watch "No Confusion":
Watch "Belonging":
Harpist, collaborator, bandleader, educator, and improviser, Brandee Younger, has mastered the language of Debussy, Ravel, Alice Coltrane, R&B, hip hop, mid 20th century pop, funk, reggae, the blues, and hymns, to name merely a few genres. In her work, she weaves in ALL the sounds of the day- and is not locked into any one genre, just like the great pioneering harpist Dorothy Ashby – who was “way ahead of her time”. Younger’s latest effort, Brand New Life, covers and re-imagines some of Dorothy Ashby’s unreleased music, recruiting players like bassist/vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello, singer/songwriter/MC Mumu Fresh, guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Makaya McCraven, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and the great hip hop producer Pete Rock.
Brandee Younger brings the killer bass lines, hang time, wide expressive range, and the delicate chords, trills, and sweeps - and demonstrates different extended harp techniques (pedal slide, prepared harp, playing near the board) - playing solo, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, “Essence of Ruby”, “Unrest I”
Watch "Lift Every Voice and Sing":
Watch "Essence of Ruby":
Watch "Unrest I":
Fenne Lily is an English singer, guitarist and songwriter now based here in New York. The songs on her new album, Big Picture, were written as some kind of way to bring order to some of the most vulnerable points of 2020. She explores her ever-changing view of love as a process, brightly framing worry, doubt, closeness, and letting go. Fenne Lily and her band play in-studio.
Set list: "Pick", "Lights Light Up", "Dawncolored Horse"
Watch "Pick":
Watch "Lights Light Up":
Watch "Dawncolored Horse":
Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer, and bandleader Kalia Vandever weaves beautifully layered musical tapestries using layers of her horn, electronics, and occasional wordless vocals, creating works that sound dramatically different from the music she plays with her jazz quartet, or the work she’s done with Harry Stiles, Lizzo, indie rock’s Japanese Breakfast, and many others. Kalia Vandever's latest, We Fell In Turn, is inspired by Hawaiian mythology, dreamscapes, and ancestry. She plays some of these compositions for solo trombone and electronics, in-studio.
Set list: "Held In / Stillness In Hand", "Recollections From Shore"
Watch "Held In / Stillness In Hand":
Watch "Recollections From Shore":
Alexandra Stréliski is a French-Canadian pianist who creates minimalist and cinematic music in the vein of composers Frédéric Chopin and Erik Satie as well as film music composers like Zimmer, Glass and Nyman - heavy on romance and with enough space to linger on the emotions in her work. Stréliski’s music was heard in HBO’s Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies Season 2 round-table, and in the Jean-Marc Vallée’s film Dallas Buyers Club (2013). Her latest release, Néo-Romance, conjures longing and hope, dream and imagination - inspired by the great themes of the romantic era, nostalgia, nature and spontaneity. Alexandra Stréliski performs some of these melancholic and beautiful tunes, in-studio.
Set list: "In the Air / The Hills", "The Breach", "Borders"
Watch "In the Air / The Hills":
Watch "The Breach":
Watch "Borders":
The New Pornographers reliably bring the power pop; one can always count on big hooks, anthemic choruses, and impeccably arranged orchestrations. Then there are the sweet vocal harmonies, a few additional beats to make things far from simple, and unexpected lyrical twists like a plan for “a long fade out,” "we burst through the Overton window”, and "You made this hell yourself?/Well, it's real nice". Songwriter & vocalist Carl Newman has never settled for a simple narrative or a beautiful landscape in song lyrics that seem halfway in the real world, but not quite right; or sometimes in images that are non-representational, maybe like modern art.
From glittering arpeggiators to a well-placed sampled yelp, along with saxophones and meaty synths, the songs seem to be born of a playful approach – “trying out ideas as if no one is listening”, describes Newman, and perhaps hinting that he also uses another delicate method in his songcraft of ‘mess around and find out’. Some of the members of The New Pornographers play stripped-down arrangements of songs from their latest, Continue as a Guest, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Really Really Light”, “Angelcover”, “Firework in the Falling Snow”
Watch "Really Really Light":
Watch "Angelcover":
Watch "Firework in the Falling Snow":
Mary Halvorson has established herself as one of the finest guitarists of her generation; Robbie Lee has established himself as a versatile flutist, sax player, and keyboardist. Their 2018 album together sports such oddities as a 19th-century harp guitar with 18 strings, the world’s smallest saxophone, and a Renaissance reed instrument called the chalumeau. The music of edited improvisations covers a lot of sonic ground, floating between folk and jazz and world music. Robbie Lee and Mary Halvorson are in the studio for an improvised set of "mutant chamber jazz" (via @robbielee.) [From the Archives, 2018.]
Pianist, collaborator, and mentor Eunbi Kim presents sonic memoirs and meditations on life experiences through her latest batch of collaborative commissioned works. The dreamy soundworld features new pieces by living composers, plus electronics, strings, taped voices and found sounds. Eunbi Kim plays works by Pauchi Sasaki, Angélica Negrón, and Sophia Jani, in-studio.
Set list: "Mother's Hand, Healing Hand (엄마손은 약손)" by Pauchi Sasaki (2021), "Saturn Years" by Sophia Jani (2021), "Disco giratorio de palabras" (Rotating Record of Words) by Angélica Negrón (2020)
Kim holds a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she also held a fellowship in the institution’s Center for Music Entrepreneurship. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for New York Foundation for the Arts and is co-founder of bespoken, a mentorship program for women in music.
Watch "Mother's Hand, Healing Hand (엄마손은 약손)" by Pauchi Sasaki:
Watch "Saturn Years" by Sophia Jani:
Watch "Disco giratorio de palabras" by Angélica Negrón:
Composer and sound artist Nyokabi Kariuki makes music that somehow draws on experimental electronics, contemporary classical music, pop, and sound art without settling into any one of them. She divides her time between New York, Maryland and Nairobi, Kenya and works with piano, voice, electronics, and several instruments from the African continent, including the kalimba and djembe, and sometimes arranges her work for strings, and/or percussion. Her new LP is called Feeling Body, and it sort of tells the story of Kariuki’s experience living with long COVID, although not in a conventional narrative way. Nyokabi Kariũki performs music from both her EP peace places: kenyan memories and the LP, Feeling Body, in-studio.
Set list: “Folds”, “Galu”, “Nazama”
Watch "Folds":
Watch "Galu":
Watch "Nazama":
New York-based composer, pianist, and coder Dan Tepfer, who has previously improvised a companion to the J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, has returned to using the animating idea in music by Bach as a starting point for his riffing, on his latest album, called Inventions/Reinventions. On this record, Tepfer takes Bach's 15 Two-Part Inventions as written (which he describes as “something deep happening under this simple surface”), and taps into what J.S. Bach was most famous for – his improvising genius, but in music that sounds like Dan Tepfer, in the remaining 9 keys of the complete cycle.
Tepfer feels that the idea of joy is omnipresent in Bach’s music, and in his own play as he riffs on Bach, he finds a visceral joy in creation. In doing so, Tepfer tells his own story - his love of Bach from childhood, his appreciation of Brazilian music, his admiration of Lee Konitz, - and not only improvises within a framework, but also creates an entirely new structure for the frame. He also sings what he plays to make sure that he means it, which brings to mind another improviser, American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. Dan Tepfer performs both J.S. Bach’s Two-Part Inventions, and his own unique reinventions, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “J.S. Bach: Invention in C major / Tepfer: Improvisation in Db major”, “J.S. Bach: Invention in Eb major / Tepfer: Improvisation in Eb minor”, “J.S. Bach: Invention in A minor / Tepfer: Improvisation in Bb minor”
Watch “J.S. Bach: Invention in A minor / Tepfer: Improvisation in Bb minor”:
Taking as a starting point Renaissance and Medieval music, Lisel (aka Eliza Bagg – a member of vocal group Roomful of Teeth), creates hybrid music that blends her classical vocal training with electronic production techniques found in hyperpop (like the ‘bass drop’ and frequent use of Auto-Tune.) Lisel has absorbed the capabilities of technology into her own music through experiments with Ableton, adding ambient electric sounds and aesthetics, and goes for maximalist sound on Patterns for Auto-Tuned Voices and Delay. Running Ableton, and a Novation Launch Pad for the processing effects, Eliza Bagg, as Lisel, performs some of these studio creations, live on New Sounds. - Caryn Havlik
Hear new music for silent film by composer David Cieri with his music for Carl Th. Dreyer’s 1928 silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Joan of Arc is said to have heard voices – strange, unearthly voices. So Cieri’s score, by turns visceral and transcendent, includes Sardinian vocal quartet Tenores de Aterúe in the ensemble of musicians. Best known for his music for various Ken Burns films, among his many film scores, Cieri recently completed a major new work for carillon bells. The podcast was recorded remotely at Brookfield Place in early 2023.
The singer, guitarist, and songwriter Ruthie Foster recently released her ninth studio album, called Healing Time, and it is a rich musical stew with flavors from gospel, soul, folk, and of course, the blues. Growing up in Texas, Foster was surrounded by southern blues and gospel, and she also grooves toward Motown-influenced soul and R&B, as she continues to avoid categorization, despite having earned multiple Blues Awards. “You can’t put me in a box, and I think that says a lot about not just who I am, but who we all are,” as she was quoted on Bluegrass Situation. She's also been an enthusiastic collaborator with the Allman Brothers, the Blind Boys of Alabama, pedal steel master Robert Randolph, and others. Ruthie Foster and her longtime bandmates play some of their feel-good and hopeful blues in-studio.
Set list: "Healing Time", "Feels Like Freedom", "Phenomenal Woman"
Watch "Healing Time":
Watch "Feels Like Freedom":
Watch "Phenomenal Woman":
English singer and songwriter Charlie Cunningham makes music that references earlier English singers like Nick Drake, as well as classic jazz, and even flamenco, which he studied in Spain. He has written a body of intimate, largely acoustic songs, quiet and melodic, which carve out space in time. Add in his intricate finger-picked guitar, and the results are arresting. Cunningham plays in-studio.
Set list: “Downpour”, “Bird’s Eye View”, “Don’t Go Far”
Watch “Downpour”:
Watch “Bird’s Eye View”:
Watch “Don’t Go Far”:
When Yasmin Williams plays guitar, it looks like she’s trying to play something else. With the instrument laying on her lap, she attacks it from above with both hands, producing a kaleidoscopic array of sounds. Williams is also a fan of Earth Wind & Fire, and inspired by them she’s added the kalimba, or thumb piano, to her music. By taping the kalimba to the body of her guitar, she’s able to play both instruments at once; her distinct style also leaves her tap shoe-wearing feet available for her to make beats. Yasmin Williams performs her new soundtrack to Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Kid remotely, for the Soundcheck Podcast, from Brookfield Place.
Pearla (Brooklyn-based artist Nicole Rodriguez) makes off-kilter folk-pop that mixes reality and the surreal; in her songs, she builds a sound world through play and exploration. She's written a record about noticing things in the world and questioning her place in it, turning to music to attempt to figure it out. She and her band play new music from their strange and lovely record, 'Oh Glistening Onion, the Nighttime Is Coming', in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Ming the Clam", "Unglow The", "Effort"
Watch "Ming the Clam":
Watch "Unglow The":
Watch "Effort":
Grammy-winning trumpeter, composer, collaborator, and producer Nabaté Isles seeks to bring the groove and movement back to jazz, in order to get people to dance, just like at a block party. Isles, who was born and raised in New York City (Queens), takes an eclectic approach in his music which might incorporate funk, disco, Latin, and R&B, but also reflects the sounds he grew up with: new jack swing, hip hop, and Caribbean music - all in sophisticated arrangements and with improvisation. Nabaté Isles plays new music from his latest record, En Motion, in-studio, with a sweet nod to his talented young person.
Additionally, Nabaté Isles is also a producer and sports talk show host who has coveted sports trivia titles to his credit. Follow @NabateIslesSMTA. (Dear Citi Field, it would be magic to have Nabaté Isles play "Narco," as the relief pitcher Edwin Díaz walks on the field for the Mets in the late innings.)
Set list: "The Jump Off", "Perfect Cadence", "Harlem Shake"
Watch "The Jump Off":
Watch "Perfect Cadence":
Watch "Harlem Shake":
En Motion on Bandcamp:
The contemporary silent film, Electric Appalachia, is a surprising, and surprisingly poignant look at how the coming of electricity changed Tennessee. Using archival footage, the film was put together by Eric Dawson, the director at TAMIS (the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound) and offers “a meditation on electricity and modernity in East Tennessee”. This silent film was created with two musicians in mind – guitarist William Tyler and harpist and synthesist Mary Lattimore, who add a moving, occasionally cosmic score. Listen to selections from their collaborative live soundtrack to Electric Appalachia, recorded at Brookfield Place.
Somebody that we used to know, Wally de Backer, Belgian-born Australian multi-instrumentalist, self-admitted “tinkerer,” and singer-songwriter (aka GOTYE), digs unusual instruments – like the rare French electronic musical instrument, the ondioline (invented in 1941.) He’ll perform tunes from the 1960's ondioline repertoire, created by the late Jean-Jacques Perrey, the instrument’s first and only virtuoso.
Brooklyn-based via San Juan band Balún came from DIY electrified bedroom pop that embraced punk on the island of Puerto Rico. Now, with an even wider range of influences, (please see their ethnomusicological, technological, punk, hardcore, and New York Philharmonic credentials) their "dreambow" tropical electronica harnesses Caribbean rhythms, grime/jungle/IDM, Puerto Rican folk music, shoegaze and is a playfully-informed take on global pop music. Balún joins us in the studio to play music from their 2018 record, Prisma Tropical. (From the Archives.)
Balún contributed music to the first season of La Brega, and to the new season of La Brega.
Watch the individual songs below:
Watch the full session here:
The Irish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Anna Mieke spent much of her youth traveling the world – from Spain to Bangladesh, Bulgaria to New Zealand. Her songs can conjure an expansive sense of place, and of moving through those places - touching on change, age, death, dreaming, memory, family, and perhaps an alternate reality on her latest album Theatre.
Anna Mieke’s enveloping acoustic chamber-folk can start with her borrowed 1936 Epiphone guitar, and may also involve improvisation with her core band. She’s also a bouzouki player, pianist, and a cellist who played with HEX, a Cork-based experimental outfit, and was a vocalist with the singing group, Rufous Nightjar. She’s collaborated with Irish artists Crash Ensemble, Adrian Crowley, and Linda Buckley and with New York-based artists Charlotte Greve, Grey McMurray, and Anna Roberts Gevalt; in March, Mieke will play shows with Iron & Wine.
Anna Mieke and her band stopped by on their current tour to play these recent songs, in-studio.
Set list: “Seraphim”, “Twin”, “Coralline”
Watch “Seraphim”:
Watch “Twin”:
Watch “Coralline”:
The Sudanese-American rapper Oddisee – born Amir Elkhalifa – has been making socially conscious hip hop since 2008, and in live performance he’s known for playing not with a DJ or recorded samples but with a live band, called Good Company. Oddisee has just released the 2023 album called To What End, tackling big ideas of home, race, family, and human ambition. Oddisee, and the high-caliber musicians of the band Good Company, play these tunes in-studio.
Set list: “Race”, “Already Knew”, “How Far”
Watch "Race":
Watch "Already Knew":
Watch "How Far":
New York -based UNI and The Urchins was started by “bassist/director/engineer/probably wizard” Charlotte Kemp Muhl (Bust Magazine), and in lead singer Jack James Busa, they have an androgynous alien who brings a glorious glam rock sensibility to the band’s mix of psychedelia and post punk. The band has just released their debut LP, called Simulator, full of catchy, dance-y, sometimes cheeky songs about a world made dizzy by media and technology.
The conversation ranges from using AI – a neural network to generate lyrics, a love of David Bowie, their favorite Japanese food (the sticky, slimy kind), high school Latin, ASMR, waiting rooms, observations about the disappearing middle class, the New York music scene, growing up in the South, to tuba sound effects and more. Also, the band plays live in-studio. They play at Elsewhere in New York on March 3, and will be in Austin at South by Southwest.
Set list: “Subhuman Suburbia”, “Popstar Supernova”, “Simulator”
Watch "Subhuman Suburbia":
Watch "Simulator":
The 8-piece multicultural gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello is based here in New York, but its founder, the vocalist, songwriter and all-around ringleader Eugene Hutz, was born in Ukraine. At the best of times, Gogol Bordello wants you to dance, and party, but also to think. Now, for Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora, these are not the best of times, so Gogol Bordello still wants you to dance and party and think, but also to act. Hutz and company have done several benefit shows, and he even did a secret show for the troops at the front line last summer. Members of Gogol Bordello play scaled-down punk from their most recent LP Solidaritine, in-studio. - John Schaefer
Set list: "Focus Coin", "My Companjera", "Fire on Ice Floe"
Watch "Focus Coin":
Watch "My Companjera":
Watch "Fire on Ice Floe":
New Zealand pop star Kimbra plays within the confines of pop music, bending and skewing and tone painting, according to her needs. Now based here in New York, Kimbra first made waves in 2011 when she teamed up with Gotye on his international hit “Somebody That I Used to Know.” We know her now as a Grammy winning creator of arty and experimental pop, unafraid to take risks and address macro issues from the world around, as well as more introspective internal reckonings.
On how she crafts this skewed pop, Kimbra says that “Improvisation is crucial to my process. It keeps me on the ledge. If I feel danger, if I feel a sense of the possible stumble, there’s something really powerful in that. Then watching yourself triumph.” Using her voice and a voice modulator, Kimbra wrestles with her inner demons over piano lines and carefully-chosen chords, as she plays some new songs from 'A Reckoning', in intimate arrangements, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Save Me", "Foolish Thinking", "The Way We Were"
Watch "Save Me":
Watch "Foolish Thinking":
Watch "The Way We Were":
Meridian Brothers, founded by musician Eblis Álvarez, fuses a love of classic salsa with cumbia, vallenato, spacey psychedelia, and wacky samples for a playful dance party. With a body of songs containing some poignant social commentary about our obsession with technology, fear of war, police brutality, and other issues, the music hearkens to the salsa dura era (think Fania All-Stars); even the legendary Ansonia label took note and invited Meridian Brothers to be their first new signing in more than 30 years. With an interplay of sax, guitar, plenty of percussion, spoken/sung cartoon vocals (pitch-shifted and processed), and sound effects, Meridian Brothers plays their fantasy salsa-cumbia fusion, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Salsa Caliente” “Puya Del Emprasario”, “Metamorfosis”
Watch "Salsa Caliente":
Watch "Puya Del Emprasari":
Watch "Metamorfosis":
The duo of Rachael & Vilray courtesy of Rachael Price, lead singer of the popular band Lake Street Dive, and the New York-based singer and guitarist Vilray may sound like classic guitar jazz right out of the 1920s-1940s; Vilray’s guitar chops dip into the style of the great “gypsy-jazz” guitarist Django Reinhardt; and Rachael Price croons into an old RCA ribbon mic, up close, warm and intimate, with no reverb. Rachael & Vilray’s new originals are equal helpings of literate and populist, with cutting observations and character studies that might be operatic and humorous, allowing for the way that people contain multitudes. Their latest record, I Love A Love Song, continues to draw on, and in their own sly way, extends the tradition of the Great American Songbook. The duo joins us in-studio to play some of their new, old-sounding songs (with one even featuring a lyric about narwhals.) - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Is A Good Man Real?” “Hate Is The Basis (of Love)” “Join Me In A Dream”
Watch “Is A Good Man Real?”:
Watch “Hate Is The Basis (of Love)”:
Watch “Join Me In A Dream”:
The band called Ranky Tanky won the Grammy for best Regional Roots Album back in 2020. The group is based in Charleston, SC, and their regional roots are in the Gullah music of the coastal southeastern states, the Sea Island music; their name comes from a Gullah phrase for “get funky”. Gullah culture comes from the descendants of Africans captured along Africa’s rice coast [in West Africa], and while Gullah people today speak English, traditionally they’ve also spoken an African-American creole also called Gullah.
Ranky Tanky’s music is a kind of creole – a mix of jazz, American gospel, and soul, all with the through line of the original Gullah rhythms, game songs, praise songs, ring shouts, and songs of gratitude kept alive from slavery into the present day. Ranky Tanky has been nominated for another Grammy for their latest album, Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. They play in-studio for us, with all the joy they can bring.
Set list: "Down in my Heart", "Beat 'Em Down", "Lift Me Up"
Watch "Down in my Heart":
Watch "Beat 'Em Down":
Watch "Lift Me Up":
Sax player Marcus Strickland has worked with many notable jazzers, including Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner, Wynton Marsalis, Jeff "Tain" Watts, Dave Douglas, and Keyon Harrold. He also leads his own band Twi-Life, which inhabits an Afro-futuristic space at the crossroads of Hip Hop, Soul, and Jazz. Twi-Life's album, The Universe's Wildest Dream, conceptualized into being during the lockdown times, urges an awareness of how precious and miraculous and random and delicate our existence is here on Planet Earth, the vast universe, (and everything.)
On the album, Marcus Strickland & Charles Haynes stretch out into beat-makers and producers, fleshing out layered studio creations with found sound, guest artists, overdubs and electronics, and ultimately extend the Afro-Futurist tradition to far-out places. Strickland and Twi-Life bring a Hammond B-3 organ with hypnotic Leslie speakers into the studio to play some of the tunes, ahead of the record release, and shows in New York at the Blue Note on Jan. 17 & 18.
Set list: “Dust Ball Fantasy” “Bird Call” “You and I, an Anomaly”
Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever blends 60's Cambodian pop and psychedelic rock with danceable grooves and ghostly noir romanticism. Cambodian Chhom Nimol fronts the band and sings mostly in her native language, she's basically from "a family best considered as a Cambodia pop music dynasty-- a not unlike a Cambodian version of the Jacksons", (Bandcamp.) She's backed by American rockers who play guitar, farfisa (a small, Italian-made organ), bass, drums, and saxophone. Dengue Fever joins us remotely, as they are about to play globalFest 2023 on Jan. 15 at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.
Set list: “Silver Fish”, “Uku”, ”One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula”
Hear unpredictable and graceful melodic lines traded by sax and strings, as tenor sax superstar Joshua Redman and string quartet Brooklyn Rider, along with all-star rhythm section of Scott Colley (bass) and Satoshi Takeishi (percussion) take over the studio. It's chamber music with swoops, dives, groove and bite in original and newly-arranged music with one foot in the jazz world where sharps are optional. (This session is from the Archives, 2018.) -Caryn Havlik
Watch the full session here:
Turkish-German singer and composer Alev Lenz, who splits time between London and Germany, has had something of a hit tune with “Fall Into Me”, a song used in the series Black Mirror. That song has had a few versions, including one recorded by vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, and another as a work called “Splendid Soldiers.” Her dark (only sometimes) and thoughtful compositions and collaborations are often finding their places in films and limited series, as in the films Im Nachtlicht and Downhill, and the series Dark.
Alev Lenz has been something of a serial collaborator, working with sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar, Lisel (Eliza Bagg), Sand Dunes, synthesist and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, French-Cuban vocal duo Ibeyi, and the aforementioned Roomful of Teeth, to name a few. During the interview, Lenz describes her creative process, and when the words might come in, and shares her experiences in the world of “sync”, when composers license their music to film and streaming series. Plus, hear Alev Lenz and pianist Vana Gierig, recorded in the studio.
Set list: "Cigarettes and Blow", "Fall Into Me", "Ivory Tower"
Watch "Ivory Tower":
Watch "Fall Into Me":
Listen to more highlights from this off-again-on-again year of live performances from the Soundcheck Podcast. These bright spots come by way of Mexican singer-songwriter and arranger Silvana Estrada, London-based tuba player Theon Cross, and the psychedelic cumbia of Combo Chimbita, recorded live at Brooklyn Bowl. Also, listen to music by Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa and sax player Peter Apfelbaum, of the band Quarteto Americanos. Plus, playful and surreal British musician and songwriter Robyn Hitchcock riffs on an unrealized Raymond Chandler title.
ARTIST: Theon Cross
WORK: We Go Again [5:49]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Mar. 2022
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: A version appears on Theon Cross’ album, Intra I
ARTIST: Omar Sosa and Peter Apfelbaum
WORK: umbo kondo [5:47]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Sept. 2022
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://omarsosa.com/
ARTIST: Robyn Hitchcock
WORK: The Man Who Loves the Rain [3:58]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Nov. 2022
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The song appears on his 2022 record, Shufflemania!
ARTIST: Silvana Estrada
WORK: Marchita [4:35]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Jan. 2022
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The tune appears on her 2022 album, Marchita
ARTIST: Combo Chimbita
WORK: La Perla [4:35]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, Sept. 2022
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: The song appears on the 2022 release, Ire.
Montréal’s Black Ox Orkestar has been making 'music of the Jewish diaspora not tied to any state' since the early 2000’s. Orkestar is a name you’ll see a lot in Balkan music; it’s simply Serbo-Croatian for orchestra or ensemble. But the musicians were also in much-admired post-rock bands like Silver Mt Zion, and Godspeed You Black Emperor, so after a while they went their separate ways, but came back together in 2021.
Their new album, called Everything Returns, "connects key current issues—from refugees forced to leave their homes, to the return of fascism and exclusionary nationalism—with the legacy of modernist Yiddish poetry and song", (Bandcamp liner notes.) The songs are a melancholic twist on traditional Jewish klezmer music, with vocals mainly sung in Yiddish – with piano, violin, upright bass, clarinet and cymbalom (a stringed instrument of the dulcimer family) – taking on hues of indie rock, experimental folk and avant-jazz. Black Ox Orkestar plays both traditional and original songs for us, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Tish Nign” “Body Keeps the Score”, “Mizrakh Mi Ma’arav”
Watch "Tish Nign":
Watch "Body Keeps the Score":
Watch “Mizrakh Mi Ma’arav”:
One of the marks of a dedicated and accomplished artist is that they continue to level up, testing their own limits and working to break out of habits and patterns. New York-based guitarist, singer/songwriter, and collaborator Steve Gunn is such a one; he can tap into Indian classical modes, inhabit the drone of minimalist founding father La Monte Young, pick like fingerstyle players Jack Rose and John Fahey, and coax the reclusive Japanese folk legend, guitarist and songwriter Sachiko Kanenobu, back to playing (NY Times.)
In Gunn’s songs -which float between the worlds of Philadelphia soul, British folk, DC punk, and the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra with ease- one finds unexpected chromatic lyricism, and keen lyric observations. He’s also done several challenging collaborations with a head-spinningly wide range of musical colleagues (Mary Lattimore, John Trusinski, Bridget St John, Mdou Moctar, Bing &Ruth, Kim Gordon, Kurt Vile) and continues to step outside of music into the worlds of film, line drawings, sculpture, or podcasts, in order to prevent tunnel vision (gathered from ToneGlow.substack.com.)
The ace guitarist and fingerstyle folk rocker Steve Gunn plays recent songs from Other You and its companion EP, Nakama, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Fulton”, “Morning River”, “On the Way”
Watch "Fulton":
Watch "Morning River":
Watch "On The Way":
The four members of Combo Chimbita are from Colombia. But they met and formed their band here in New York. From their home base in Queens, Combo Chimbita plays a kind of tropical futurist pop that combines elements of Afro-Colombian spirituality, razor-sharp social commentary, and booty-shaking dance rhythms. Hear their set, live from the New Sounds 40th Anniversary Party from Brooklyn Bowl, and an interview with bass/synth player Prince of Queens.
Set list:
- Candela
- Esto Es Real
- Babalawo
The Brazilian singer and guitarist named Rogê made his mark playing his own brand of samba and samba funk in the clubs of Rio de Janeiro. [Samba in Brazil is rather like the Blues in America, a statement and sound born of the forced migration of Africans, and in both styles, these musical roots grew up and out into many more kinds of popular music.] Now, L.A.-based, Rogê is preparing to release his first album outside Brazil in early 2023, in partnership with producer/guitarist Thomas Brenneck (Menahan Street Band, producer/guitarist for Charles Bradley, Sharon Jones and The Budos Band.) It’ll be called Curyman, (his given name is Roger José Cury), and even though the record has a big, almost orchestral sound at time, thanks to string arrangements by fellow Brazilian Arthur Verocai, it all starts with the voice and guitar. Samba star Rogê performs these new tunes with percussionist Stephane San Juan, in-studio.
Set list: “A Voz Que Não Se Cala”- (by Stephane San Juan), “Existe Uma Voz”, “Pra Vida”
Watch “A Voz Que Não Se Cala” - (by Stephane San Juan):
Watch “Existe Uma Voz":
Watch "Pra Vida":
Nashville-based Appalachian Road Show are veterans of the bluegrass, folk, and roots music scenes who polish the raw emotion in tunes inspired by the Civil War and America’s barn dance eras. The American roots music supergroup features Todd Phillips (bass, bowed bass, vibraslap, vocals), Zeb Snyder (guitars, slide guitar, vocals), Jim VanCleve (fiddle, vocals) and Darrell Webb (mandolin, octave mandolin, banjo, vocals.) They play for us remotely from Blackbird Studios in Nashville, and banjo player, vocalist, and whistler Barry Abernathy chats about their spirit-lifting 2022 release, Jubilation.
Set list: Gallows Pole, The Ballad of Kidder Cole
Watch "Gallows Pole":
Watch "The Ballad of Kidder Cole":
Songwriter Jesse Harris has been a standout musical figure since the 1990s in New York, as a singer and guitarist, and lately as a producer. When his friend Norah Jones swept up all the Grammys back in 2003, it was for an album featuring five of Jesse’s songs, including his Grammy winning song of the year “Don’t Know Why”; other interpreters of his songs include Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, and Emmylou Harris. Jesse Harris and percussionist/producer Kenny Wolleson have just birthed an unusual collection of songs called Silver Balloon, where they aimed to experiment with (and subvert) song form, play with an imaginative sound world, and maybe bend time to suit their play as they embrace unexpected chaos.
Jesse Harris and percussionist Kenny Wolleson, along with the band, play some of these new songs in-studio, and tease the forthcoming instrumental record, Cosmo, of songs without words.
Set list: “The Hanged Man” “Hummingbird” “New Year’s Day”
Watch "The Hanged Man":
Watch "Hummingbird":
Watch "New Year's Day":
Thee Sacred Souls is a group of 20-somethings who blend the sounds of Chicano soul with its Philadelphia, Memphis, and even Panama counterparts. Their debut self-titled LP, on Daptone Records, is a smooth and sultry type of timeless soul, featuring Josh Lane’s effortless crooning vocals. Their 'retro' sound is inspired by everything from trailblazing East LA Chicano band Thee Midniters to Italian library music. The band plays in-studio.
Set list: "Future Lover", "Easier Said Than Done", "Can I Call You Rose"
New York singer/songwriter Nick Hakim has been producing records of gently psychedelic soul here for almost a decade. Occasionally, he drops the gentle psychedelia in favor of something more obviously trippy – it happens several times on his newest album, Cometa. (The title is Spanish for “kite,” although the American-born Hakim sings in English.) He is one of those singers whose voice rarely seems to rise above a whisper – and though he’s probably sick of being compared to the ill-starred but still-mythic English folkie Nick Drake, Hakim’s songs can sound a little like Nick Drake fronting a psychedelic soul band from the early 70s. Nick Hakim and his band perform these songs in-studio. (-John Schaefer)
Set list: Vertigo, Happen, Feeling Myself
Violinist and composer Layale Chaker has done something exquisite in her music with the Ensemble Sarafand from the record, Inner Rhyme: she has gone about capturing the “shape and essence of epic testimonials on life, death, war and love that make the heart of Arabic poetry,” (Layale Chaker.) It’s an alchemical wedding of music derived from the form, rhythm and structure of Arabic sung poetry using chamber music instruments: her violin, along with piano, cello, double-bass, and hand percussion. Chaker and Sarafand perform some of these Arabic-poetry inspired, jazz-embracing chamber music works, in-studio. (From the Archives, 2019.)
Watch the session here:
Who wants to know what The Shuffle Man knows? The playful and surreal British musician and songwriter Robyn Hitchcock does. His latest batch of songs, 'Shufflemania!', is primed for the sub-personalities within - feathery serpent god, the shuffle man, vampire, scorpio tv detective. Robyn’s love of trams and Raymond Chandler are steady, as is his ability to balance the inane and the poignant in lyrics musing about inner lives, vegan casserole, crawling fish, hemlock-drinking, and the inevitability of death. Robyn Hitchcock plays songs from his latest, and a tune from his vast back catalogue, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set: "The Shuffle Man", "Noirer than Noir", "The Man Who Loves the Rain", "Glass Hotel"
Watch "The Shuffle Man":
Watch "Noirer Then Noir":
Watch "The Man Who Loves the Rain":
Watch "Glass Hotel":
British singer and songwriter Beth Orton has found distinctive ways to blend her folky acoustic guitar-playing with the sounds of the electronic music world. But her latest record, Weather Alive, settles in a distinctly personal space where genres don’t so much collide as fade away, and the basis for the album wasn't guitar, but tracks she recorded on a beat-up, questionably-tuned upright piano she bought at a street market. Orton also says that she got to collaborate with herself - as she produced the record - and with that old piano, which "really spoke to me," (Pitchfork.) Additionally, in keeping with her wide ranging musical circle (she's worked with Chemical Brothers, William Orbit, Nick Cave, Emmylou Harris, Four Tet, to drop a few names), she collaborated remotely on Weather Alive with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, the Smile drummer Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet), and guitarist Grey McMurray, and other folks during lockdown.
Beth Orton and her band play some of these tunes in-studio.
Set list: "Friday Night", "Fractals", "Arms Around a Memory"
The three singers who lead the group Say She She all like different things: 70s style New York dance music, classic soul and R&B, the swirling psychedelia of Turkish pop or Hindi film music. The resulting global pop is something close to ‘discodelic soul’ and revolves around the sweet harmonies of the three singers. Say She She has just put out a debut album called Prism, a post-disco confection built around the eclectic and thrilling harmonies of their three singers, Piya Malik, Nya Gazelle Brown, and Sabrina Cunningham. The full 7-piece band plays in-studio.
Set list: "Fortune Teller", "Blow My Mind", "Prism", "Forget Me Not"
Bonus Dance Moves in this operatic song, "Forget Me Not":
Black Feminist Punk trio Big Joanie formed in London, but are now based over various cities in the U.K. Their sound is “punk” and… also looks to Riot Grrrl jaggedness and DIY sensibilities, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and girl group harmonies. Their 2022 album, Back Home, sees the band ruminating on the ideas of home, whether that’s in the U.K., back in Africa or the Caribbean, and considering how second and third generation communities of Black & Brown folks define themselves as British people.
Borne of guitarist/vocalist Stephanie Phillips’s desire for a space “where I could be Black and be into punk and it wouldn’t be seen as a conflict”, Big Joanie began as a post on social media, (Kerry Cardoza, Bandcamp), and is named for Phillips’ mom. Stephanie Phillips of Big Joanie talks DIY and making one’s own culture, and the band plays remotely from their London recording studio.
On a literary note, Phillips is also a writer and journalist, whose own book Why Solange Matters is out now, via University of Texas Press. Drummer/vocalist Chardine Taylor-Stone’s book, Sold Out: How Black Feminism Lost Its Soul, via Cassava Republic Press, is due out in late November of 2022. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Your Words”, “Cactus Tree”, “Today”
Watch "Your Words":
As a solo artist, Grammy-winning Puerto Rican singer-songwriter iLe (Ileana Cabra) has explored the rich history of classic Latin American pop music, and she contributed vocals in the popular hip hop band, Calle13, with her brothers. Her new 2022 album, Nacarile sees her mixing boleros and ballads with reggaeton and synth pop for a collection of politically- and socially-conscious art-rock tinged with some psychedelia, whose intent is to sound more like the present, despite looking to the classic styles. There are also some unusual sounds on Nacarile: the eerie and expressive theremin; the all-female Mariachi band Flor de Toloache, and other collaborators like Natalia Lafourcade and Mon Laferte, as well as background vocal arrangements with textures that are lush and airy.
The material takes on the elections in Puerto Rico as well as in the U.S., as well as that colonial legacy and its abuse of power. Also, there is a focus on the strength and power in femininity, especially in response to the patriarchy. The pioneering reggaeton star Ivy Queen makes an appearance on a protest song that speaks to the loss of women’s reproductive rights worldwide. In an interview with NPR, iLe says: “Something pretty for me is that we have our own rights, and that we should be treated respectfully and that no one can say anything about what we can or can't do with our own bodies.”
iLe and her band play some of these tunes, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Donde Nadie Más Respira”, “(Escapándome) De Mí”, “Traguito”
Oregon-based songwriter Laura Veirs re-discovers her “self-sovereignty” as she calls it, on a new record, Found Light. For this album, Veirs made her first foray into producing on her own, making choices about out-of-sync guitars to create waves, adding saxophone, or calling on friends to be guest artists, and co-produce with her. Mostly, it's about keeping choices mostly simple and direct, and harnessing the power of her dad’s nylon string guitar to sublimate her raw emotions from personal upheaval. She plays these intimate songs of artistic independence, remotely. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Ring Song”, “Naked Hymn”, “Sword Song”, “Time Will Show You”
Watch "Ring Song":
"Naked Hymn":
"Sword Song":
"Time Will Show You":
The four members of Combo Chimbita are from Colombia. But they met and formed their band here in New York. From their home base in Queens, Combo Chimbita plays a kind of tropical futurist pop that combines elements of Afro-Colombian spirituality, razor-sharp social commentary, and booty-shaking dance rhythms. Hear their set, live from the New Sounds 40th Anniversary Party from Brooklyn Bowl, and an interview with bass/synth player Prince of Queens.
Set list: "El Camino", "Testigo", "La Perla", "Sin Tiempo", "Ahomale", "Oya"
Guitarist, composer, ethnomusicologist, and instrument builder Paolo Angeli plays a custom prepared Sardinian guitar, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument that looks like a guitar crossed with a cello. Angeli’s build has been fitted cross-wise and lengthwise with additional strings: cello strings and drone strings, and has numerous other inventions attached to it, including hammers, pedals, bicycle cables, and some propellers at variable speed. Then, there’s his array of electronics and treatments...
Paolo Angeli demonstrates some of these sounds, which include percussion, organ, kora, sitar, slide guitar, cello, hammered dulcimer, fretless bass, and drone (and teases a new custom prototype in the works!) He also performs music from his latest release – a concept album about the wider Mediterranean - Rade, on his custom instrument, complete with plastic bag percussion, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Baklawa", "Mare Lungo", "Rade"
Watch "Baklawa":
Watch: "Mare Lungo":
Watch "Rade":
Watch the entire session:
Banjo player, fiddler, singer, and scholar Jake Blount’s latest feat is an Afro-futurist concept album called The New Faith, where instead of shiny interstellar travel, man-made climate crises reach their logical end points, and a small community survives, staying lifted by the sacred songs of the past. Blount presents the music of this imagined community as a religious service in three sections, captured as a future field recording - one with a direct through-line to folk, gospel, the blues, and spirituals. The tie-in with Octavia Butler’s visionary 1993 work of climate/science fiction, Parable of the Sower, is explicit, says Blount, as this album may well be the first musical Afro-futurist cautionary tale (some might say dystopia, but that would imply that there was a utopia to begin with.)
The collected and re-cast songs on The New Faith have been deeply researched (just as they were on his excellent 2020 record, Spider Tales) and show profound respect invoking and honoring the ancestors: Bessie Jones of the Sea Island Singers, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, bluesman Skip James, and the legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. There’s a full-throated electric guitar on “Didn’t It Rain” summoning guitar hero Sister Rosetta Tharpe; songs sourced from fingerstyle and Delta blues players Blind Willie McTell and Skip James, respectively; and a pervasive bass thump throughout extending from the Gullah-Geechee Ring Shout tradition of groove-keeping. Together with cleverly deployed fiddle and banjo, (please see his explainer on the banjo, and Black String Band history(!)), lots of hand claps, and call and response vocals, gospel choruses, and rapped verse from Demeanor, Blount seamlessly and instructively links up past, present, and potential future, in ways that will undoubtedly resonate. Jake Blount and his band play some of these tunes, in-studio. – Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Once There Was No Sun" "City Called Heaven" "Didn't It Rain"
Watch "Once There Was No Sun":
Watch "City Called Heaven":
Watch "Didn't It Rain":
Classically-trained Belgian-Egyptian singer/songwriter Tamino has a voice that covers three octaves; his sultry croon and rich falsetto envelop a listener and draw inevitable comparisons to Thom Yorke and Jeff Buckley. Tamino's vocal lines and riffs sometimes incorporate Arabic quarter notes, and he now writes on the Arab oud, not unlike his grandfather, the Egyptian singer and movie star Muharram Fouad. His latest album, Sahar, “just before dawn” – suggests an in-between time, full of reflection and moments of mystery. He performs these latest baroque pop / Arab-gothic* songs, in-studio. (*Thanks, GQ Middle East for the hybrid term.) - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “A Drop of Blood” “The Longing” “The First Disciple”
With eight members, London-based caroline looks like a combination rock band and chamber music ensemble with their violins, cello, flute, guitars, bass, percussion, and drums. Their songs are a study in the balance of restraint and release, as they journey through what could sound like Appalachian folk, Midwestern emo, minimalist classical, electronic music, and post rock music. caroline writes their songs improvisationally, as a core trio, then they develop them further as the full 8-piece band. Phrases are chanted, intermittently, drones are established and then carefully moved, as the songs stretch out to suites. In live performance the band has a tendency to play in the round, as if in the middle of some private ceremony – the better to play off of one another. caroline plays in-studio. - John Schaefer/Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Dark Blue", "Skydiving onto the library roof", "BRJ"
Cover of claire rousay's "Peak Chroma":peak chroma by caroline
The singer/songwriter Denitia first attracted notice here in New York as a kind of alternative R&B singer. Her songs, either as half of Denitia & Sene or as a solo artist, often had subtle, but expansive production. But her new album, Highways, takes a turn to a more intimate, largely acoustic sound, with songs that draw on folk and even country music. Now based in the Hudson Valley, Denitia has traveled down to our studio to do some solo versions of these new songs.
Set list: "Highways", "My Weakness", "All the Sweet Tea"
Watch: "All the Sweet Tea":
The Heavy Heavy is a band out of Brighton, England – but they sound like a band that’s been time-shifted straight out of 1975. The couple at the heart of the band, Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, decided on their name after hearing an interview with David Bowie. They describe their sunny, trippy sound as “primal, yet extra,” and enjoy an expanse of sound with reverb and layered vocals, along with organ and guitars. The Heavy Heavy plays some of their psychedelic pop remotely.
Set list: “Miles and Miles”, “Go Down River”, “All My Dreams”
Watch Set list: “Go Down River”:
The party band, Red Baraat, is from Brooklyn, but their music grows out of the hard-partying tradition of Punjabi wedding bands. They're a big band full of brass instruments and drums, rock guitar, jazzy improvisations, occasionally some rap, (both the dhol and drumset keep the groove going), who bring the festivities with them wherever they go.
Hear their set, live from the New Sounds 40th Anniversary Party from Brooklyn Bowl, and an interview with drummer and composer Sunny Jain, who leads the band on dhol, the double-sided drum, one which is definitely an “outside” instrument. Hear Jain play his new, bigger, responsive Sufi dhol from Lahore, Pakistan, which suffered a strap malfunction during their set, and the band barely missed a beat. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: “Chaal Baby” “Kala Mukra” “Zindabad” “Gaadi of Truth” “Shruggy Ji” “Ishq Tera Tadpave” “Thumbs Up”
Portland, Oregon-based Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. From spacious melancholic laments to transcendent minimalism, Anderson is coming from a place between country, blues, and drone. On her 2018 record, Cloud Corner, she touches on Tuareg scales from "desert blues," the finger-style picking of so-called “American Primitive,” and chiming sad cowboy chords, while continuously moving and traveling on her guitar. She joins us in-studio.
Marisa Anderson's new 2022 record is Still, Here:
Still, Here by Marisa Anderson
Watch the individual songs below:
Lebanese-born Paris-based trumpet superstar Ibrahim Maalouf plays a custom four-valve trumpet that can not only play western music, but also accesses the quarter tones in Arab classical music. He’s played jazz, worked with rappers, global pop stars, and has collaborated with everyone from Angelique Kidjo to Wynton Marsalis, New Orleans’ Tank and the Bangas, Cuban funk-rapper Cimafunk, and actress Sharon Stone. On his latest record, called Capacity to Love, due Nov. 4, he has opened the doors to and between all kinds of music: classical Arab music, Western classical music, sacred music, rap, jazz, and pop music. He and his band play an intimate acoustic set in-studio ahead of a North American tour (Sept. 29-Oct. 6). -Caryn Havlik
Set list: "Feeling Good", "True Sorry", "Right Time"
Cuban-born pianist Omar Sosa has made beautiful records with musicians from West Africa, from all over East Africa, from Spain, where he's lived for many years, and now, with American friends, including sax player Peter Apfelbaum, whom we've heard over the years playing with the Kamikaze Ground Crew, the Millennial Territory Orchestra, and the Hieroglyphics Ensemble, among others. They play duo versions of music from the Quarteto Americanos project, including recorded sounds fired from a sampler pad, that Sosa has put together, in-studio.
Set list: "umbo kondo", "Move in D", "Mis Tres Notas"
From the 2022 New York Guitar Festival at The Greene Space, listen to cosmic inventions from guitarist and composer Vernon Reid together with Laraaji on zither and electronics.
Adept at metal, funk and jazz, Vernon Reid gained fame as the main songwriter for the rock band Living Colour, and as a founder of the Black Rock Coalition. Crashing this year’s guitar festival to join Vernon is the innovative ambient zither player and electronic musician Laraaji, who was also part of Brian Eno’s groundbreaking Ambient Music series back in 1981. Vernon Reid and Laraaji, together with an arsenal of electronics, in addition to their instruments, with occasional vocalizing, improvise a breathtaking longform set (perhaps taking inspiration from the Oblique Strategies card Ghost Echoes).
Watch their improvisations here:
Lean Year is Virginia-based singer Emilie Rex and filmmaker/musician Rick Alverson, along with Erik Hall, who lives in rural Michigan, where he records and co-produces the band’s records with Alverson. The band’s latest, Sides, is heavy on dreamlike and beautiful melodies, yet the material is also meditation on grief and the processing of personal tragedy. Using mellotron, keyboards of many colors, guitar, and a tapestry of synth pads of sampled woodwinds, together with Rex’s distinctive voice, the music is “a balancing act between pathos and pop” (Bandcamp), which feels haunted and cinematic, while celebrating memories and embracing calm amidst the sorrow. Lean Year plays in-studio.
Set list: "Nitetime", "Marriage of Heaven and Hell", "Trouble with Being Warm"
Watch "Nitetime":
Watch "Marriage of Heaven and Hell":
Watch "Trouble with Being Warm":
Mafer Bandola, aka Maria Fernanda González, is originally from Venezuela, and is one of the few women who plays bandola and electric bandola professionally. The Bandola is a traditional 4-stringed instrument found in both Colombia and Venezuela; it is avacado-shaped, and related to the bandurria and mandolin (thanks, Wikipedia.)
In her music, she is constantly stretching and innovating within her tradition by incorporating jazz, blues, Brazilian influences, as she experiments with genres, sounds, and cross-cultural collaboration. González is also an educator, self-taught composer, journalist, and a co-founder of LADAMA, a multinational band of four women from four countries. She joins us remotely to perform original works, ahead of her appearance at Flushing Town Hall on Sept. 18 at 1PM.
Set list: “Zumba que Zumba”, “Agreste”, “Pajarillo”
Watch "Zumba que Zumba":
Watch “Agreste”:
Watch "“Pajarillo”:
Wikipedia says Bill Frisell “is an American jazz guitarist.” Well they got “American” and “guitarist” right. Frisell has indeed played jazz, but also country, rock, folk, West African, classical, and lots of less easily defined styles of music. Widely considered to be one of the great guitarists of our time, he is the subject of a new biography called Bill Frisell: Beautiful Dreamer. He plays solo acoustic in The Greene Space as part of the 2022 New York Guitar Festival. - John Schaefer
Set list: Look Out for Hope, Blues from Before, Strange Meeting, Waltz For Hal Willner
Watch the set:
Colleen is the alias of French multi-instrumentalist Cécile Schott, who has been living and working in Spain for the past few years. Her musical ax of choice was a Baroque instrument - the viola da gamba (as well as modified music boxes, melodica, classical guitar, clarinet, toy gamelan frame drum, piano, and wind chimes) electronically looped and layered; on later records, she added her voice. But on her 2017 release, she’s completely put away the viola da gamba in favor of electronic devices like the Pocket Piano and the Moogerfooger. In fact, this album, A flame my love, a frequency, is her first fully electronics-based record - 100% electronics and voice. Colleen and her synth armada are here in the studio to play these unconventional avant-pop creations in their live versions today. (From the Archives, 2017.)
From his beginnings in his father’s band, Terry Riley and The All Stars, Gyan Riley has branched out into classical music (both his own and that of composers like John Zorn), spacey electric guitar excursions, and Eastern-influenced collaborations with a wide range of artists, including recent Grammy winner Arooj Aftab. Gyan Riley plays and improvises original pieces. From the 2022 New York Guitar Festival at The Greene Space, hear guitarist and composer Gyan Riley's post-minimalist jazz-limning new music. - John Schaefer
Set list: And then… (improvisation), Sparkling Pines, Sometimes You Go Back for More, Toucher les Nuages/Appa-tango
Watch "And then... (improvisation)":
Watch "Sparkling Pines":
Watch "Sometimes You Go Back for More":
Watch "Toucher les Nuages/Appa-tango":
Watch the entire show from Night 2 of the 2022 New York Guitar Festival:
Hear the eerie, arresting, co-composed electro-orchestral pop from Minneapolis electro band POLIÇA and Berlin new-music outfit stargaze, led by conductor André de Ridder. The two groups have worked together since the 2015-2016 season, in a “virtual residence,” commissioned by Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music series. They have arranged and adapted Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood as well as co-creating their latest, a long-form work inspired by ideas and themes in James Kunstler's book The Long Emergency.
On their 2018 record Music For the Long Emergency, sweeps of strings, French horn, flute and oboe, along with synth bass, industrial electro-percussion, and jarring electronic textures are arrayed in support of often electronically-altered vocal lines. Hear some of this music, in-studio, which Poliça frontwoman Channy Leaneagh describes in National Sawdust Log as “not a pill to swallow that calms us down.” (From the Archives, 2018.)
Read more about the long-distance collaborative romance via this interview in the National Sawdust Log.
Watch the 2018 session:
Although he has a background in rock and experimental music, fingerstyle guitarist Glenn Jones is best known as a keeper of the flame of “American Primitive,” the folk-based style associated with the 20th century guitarist John Fahey. With a variety of tunings, capos, and even specially-made half-capos, Jones’s country-blues music is full of unexpected textures. He plays new works from his 2022 record, Vade Mecum, in The Greene Space for the 2022 New York Guitar Festival. - John Schaefer
Set list: Vade Mecum, Black & White and Gray, Each Crystal Pane of Glass, Ruthie's Farewell, John Jackson of Fairfax, Virginia
Watch "Vade Mecum":
Watch "Black & White and Gray":
Watch "Each Crystal Pane of Glass":
Watch "Ruthie's Farewell":
Watch "John Jackson of Fairfax, Virginia"
Watch the whole show from Night 1 of the New York Guitar Festival:
The Austin-based minimalist instrumental ensemble Balmorhea uses acoustic instruments to create atmospheric soundscapes. Comparisons to Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You! Black Emperor might not be too far off, but where those bands tend to build, swell and fade, Balmorhea maintains a “relaxed, clear-eyed sense of reflection” throughout their 2017 album, Clear Language.
With strings, keyboards, guitars, vibraphone, & the occasional muted trumpet, the multi-instrumentalist core of Balmorhea has crafted a record of expansive layered spacious music, painting in broad brush strokes a feeling of wide-open Americana. Balmorhea joins us in their six-piece formation to play songs from 2017's Clear Language.
RIYL: Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, This Will Destroy Us, Friday Night Lights.
From the 2022 New York Guitar Festival, listen to the space-Americana and pastoral country stylings of guitarist William Tyler, whose music pulls in folk, country, indie, and electronic music. His latest record is Lost Futures (2021), with the experimental guitarist Marisa Anderson for Thrill Jockey, and he’s collaborated with electric harpist Mary Lattimore, pedal steel guitarist Luke Schneider, and the ambient drone project Six Organs of Admittance. He plays solo in The Greene Space for the Soundcheck Podcast.
Set list: "Waltz of the Circassian Beauties", "Missionary Ridge", "Gone Clear", "Not In Our Stars", "We Can’t Go Home Again"
Watch "Waltz of the Circassian Beauties":
Watch "Missionary Ridge":
Watch "Gone Clear":
Watch "Not in Our Stars":
Watch: "We Can't Go Home Again":
Watch the whole show from night 4 of the 2022 New York Guitar Festival:
Somewhere on the spectrum of art music and prog rock, is the band Palm. Underneath airy vocal melodies, they build out an architecturally precise combination of guitars and percussion, plus extra electronic triggered effects like steel drums, backwards samples, and other hard-to-identify noises. With strange and unusual combinations of ever-shifting meter (fives, thirteens, threes, and many other grooves that are really hard to dance to), the Bard-College born, Philadelphia-based outfit trips gaily through fun, smart, and weird pop experiments. They perform music from 2018's Rock Island in-studio. Their 2022 record, Nicks and Grazes, comes out in October.
Set list:
- "Parly"
- "Composite"
- "Dog Milk"
The guitarra Portuguesa, or Portuguese guitar, looks a bit like a mandolin on steroids, and has a long history of great performers – all of them men. Until Marta Pereira da Costa showed up. She plays the double six-stringed, teardrop-shaped instrument in its traditional setting – Portuguese fado music – but has also written her own music and collaborated with artists like Iranian singer Tara Tiba and Cameroonian bass player Richard Bona.
Hear works by master player of the guitarra Portuguesa, Marta Pereira da Costa, together with pianist Alexandre Diniz, performed live in The Greene Space, for the 2022 New York Guitar Festival. - John Schaefer
Watch "Terra":
Watch "Verde Anos/Summertime":
Watch "Encontro":
Watch "Minha Alma":
Watch "Meditando /Fado Lopes" :
Watch "Alfonsina y el Mar”, “Dia de Feira":
Watch the entire concert from Night 4 of 2022's New York Guitar Festival from The Greene Space:
