WNYC's Soundcheck

The cinematic Minnesota band Cloud Cult is a creative collective who continually celebrates life and love, and catharsis through music and multimedia performances, usually involving painting from stage, and lately, film. Cloud Cult’s emotive, melodic, orchestral indie rock is perfectly suited to the movies. Singer/instrumentalist Craig Minowa and his crew have scored shorts and documentary films, The Seeker, The Great Alone, and lately, Minowa has been working on a score for a National Geographic documentary on wolves (Pop Matters .)

They’re also independent musicians who are greening the music industry with environmentally-sound packaging, a geothermal-powered studio, and touring with net zero greenhouse gases. The studio is located on an organic farm. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch creates playful and carefully balanced works containing both space and riffs. There might be as much listening going on as there is playing, which points to a spiritual focus, trust, and discipline that comes from Bärtsch's avid practice of the Japanese martial art Aikido. In his electric group, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin (after the freelance Japanese warriors who served no master), there is slow-building, ever-shifting, sensual groove reductionism .

With newfound freedom and flexibility, Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin, now a quartet, meditates on repeating patterns, or “Moduls” as he dubs his works, in what he describes as “Zen-funk” and “ritual groove.” Those repeating patterns have also earned the label “minimalist”, but the quartet wanders freely between funk, jazz, new music, or Japanese ritual music. Pianist Bärtsch, reedsman Sha, bassist Thomy Jordi, and drummer Kaspar Rast play at all kinds of accents and subtle syncopations, shifting downbeats, interlocking rhythms, and hypnotic motifs which slowly evolve and build to dramatic effect.

Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin perform music from their latest, Awase (a term from Aikido which means “moving together, coming together”), in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Arthur Moon is the moniker of composer/singer/multi-instrumentalist Lora-Faye Åshuvud. As Arthur Moon, she is the anchor who has gathered collaborators- including Cale Hawkins (Quincy Jones, Bilal, Wyclef Jean) and Martin D. Fowler (a composer for This American Life ) and other folks. They trade demos and build on musical perspectives, which she then arranges and composes by way of experimentation and improvisation. The result is dazzling music that feels beautiful, affecting, and strange.

Arthur Moon’s electronic experimental pop takes advantage of all available sonic space, teasing around all kinds of textures and timbres: here a fat-bottomed synth bass, there some minimal sampled percussion, perhaps a sneaky guitar effect to connect them, all dancing around swooping vocal lines, combined with vocoder action – in something of a multi-layered collaborative musical collage. Yet, the grand thing is that this assemblage of electronic pop never feels heavy, or over-crowded, or falls into any traps of formulaic synth pop, rather – it’s what Åshuvud calls “incorrect music” and it as perplexing as it is marvelous. Arthur Moon - Lora-Faye Åshuvud and her collaborators - join us in-studio to play some of these new tunes. - Caryn Havlik

In the mid-20th century, pianist Oscar Levant (1906 –1972) was a pre-digital version of a social media star – a ubiquitous, witty presence on American TV and radio, and films. He was also a bestselling author, radio game show panelist, and a talk show host. As a concert pianist, his Gershwin performances, especially a 1945 version of the “Rhapsody in Blue”, were the best-selling classical records in America. But, Levant was a troubled figure off-camera and out of the limelight. He’s the subject of a mammoth eight-volume box set called Rhapsody in Blue: The Extraordinary Life of Oscar Levant , which features never-before-heard recordings and an essay by Michael Feinstein, perhaps our leading curator of the American songbook.

Michael Feinstein joins John Schaefer to present “hors d’oeuvres” from both his personal archives and the box set, everything from Gershwin, to J.S. Bach, to Levant’s own compositions and trippy songs with subversive dissonances. Feinstein also tells tales from Oscar Levant’s career, full of admiration for his acerbic wit and his many fascination with the way he could be taken seriously as both a classical pianist and a film star. Despite debilitating eccentricities and addictions, and the loss of coordination in his hands, Levant was able to regularly appear as a game show panelist on TV shows, publish as an author and host a talk show. Feinstein concludes by saying that there is likely five or six more hours of these never-before-heard recordings of acerbic comedian and real-life piano prodigy Oscar Levant. -Caryn Havlik

Newark-born composer, multi-instrumentalist, collaborator, and 2017 MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey, is also the Assistant Professor of Composition and Creative Music at Wesleyan University.

A recent Instagram post (Sept. 2018) of the day’s listening ranges from Nigerian King Sunny Adé and a record by legendary drummer Tony Allen to Frank Zappa with Joseph Jarman (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Art Ensemble of Chicago), Steve Reich, and Karlheinz Stockhausen in between. One might conclude that he is informed by all kinds of music in his work, which often combines composition and improvisation. His latest record, Pillars (Firehouse 12 Records), is about time, and on it, “Sorey thinks of the large-scale, and deeper, means of how music defines and describes time itself”, (George Grella, Brooklyn Rail ). The music that comes from this personal exploration continues to stretch boundaries and defies casual listening.

Sorey heads a newly-formed ensemble that incorporates turntablism, electronics, and spontaneous composition. Tyshawn Sorey and collaborators Graham Haynes (trumpet), Val-Inc (electronics, percussion, and turntables), and Brandon Ross (guitar) join us in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

Richard Reed Parry is perhaps best known as the really tall, really redheaded guy playing half a dozen instruments in the Grammy-winning band Arcade Fire. But he’s also a founder of the instrumental group Bell Orchestre, and a composer of contemporary classical music. His latest project is called Quiet River of Dust , and it was at least partly inspired by the psychedelic folk/rock scene in Britain in the late 1960's. He and Quiet River of Dust perform some of the musical meditations live in-studio.

Watch the session here :

Jorma Kaukonen is a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, co-founder of Hot Tuna, a teacher, and a top-notch guitarist. But though he will always be associated with the rock music of the 1960's, he’s had a much longer and more enduring relationship with American blues and folk music, as anyone who’s heard his duo Hot Tuna or his own solo performances will know. Together with his wife, Vanessa, he owns and operates Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp, a center in Ohio for studying guitar and other instruments. His latest project is a memoir called Been So Long: My Life and Music . Jorma Kaukonen joins us in-studio.

The composer, singer, and tinkerer, Matthew Dear, is a DJ, dance-music producer, experimental pop artist, and bandleader. He keeps four music-making aliases and has released five albums and two dozen EPs, along with multiple commissioned remixes. On this latest record, Bunny, his weird, wild, gothic, body-shaking, bouncy electronica seems sinister, yet soft; a mix of charming villain and heroic basement nerd. Matthew Dear displays his enhanced baritone as he performs some of this new music, in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session HERE:

Denver-born songwriter, guitarist, singer, activist, and performer Jill Sobule, is possibly best-known because of her breakthrough hit of “I Kissed a Girl” (pre-dating Katy Perry by more a decade), and “Supermodel,” the anthem from the film Clueless . In her over seven albums, troubadour Jill has "mused on topics such as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence and the Christian right." She has also written music for TV and theater, been active in numerous social and political causes, and been a pioneer in the art of crowdfunding.

On her new record, Nostalgia Kills , released on her own Pinko Records, the songwriter/composer tackles adult topics, and looks back without sentimentality to “exorcise some junior high school demons.” Jill Sobule and her band join us to perform some of these songs in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session HERE:

Vocalist and composer Meredith Monk is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose work involves music, dance, film, theatre, and now: biology meets anthropology. In her most recent large-scale work, Cellular Songs , musical forms evoke biological processes as layering, replication, division, and mutation in a “deeply affecting meditation on the nature of the biological cell as a metaphor for human society” (Financial Times). Through this work, Monk takes the microscopic unit of the cell, then projects and expands it as a proposal for “an alternative possibility of human behavior, where the values are cooperation, interdependence and kindness,” (much like how a cell functions, minus the kindness part.) Using their voices-as-instruments, Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble perform some of these Cellular Songs , along with violin, piano and keyboard, in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble perform 'Cellular Songs' at Le Poisson Rouge, Oct. 14-16

Watch the session HERE:

Chicago-based duo OHMME serves up fuzz and melodies, along with vocal hockets and harmonies, oh - and lots of time and feel changes . Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, the songwriters and multi-instrumentalists of Ohmme, are both trained classical pianists with ties to the collaborative Chicago improvising scene. They made a decision to stretch their comfort levels and go with the guitar for their noise-making, and have composed a hard-to-categorize batch of songs that lean toward the experimental without losing that rockenroll bite.

On their latest record Parts, they’ve enlisted improvising cellist Tomeka Reid, Tortoise’s Doug McCombs, and composer/sax player Ken Vandermark, a jazzer and improviser, while drawing from influences like the vocal adventures of Kate Bush, the sonic playfulness of Dirty Projectors, and Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets. Complemented by the highly inventive percussion of drummer Matt Carroll. Ohmme joins us in-studio to play songs from Parts. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

The Mercury Prize-nominated quartet Sons of Kemet is a super-group led by London-based Barbados-born saxophonist and composer Shabaka Hutchings , and propelled by tuba player Theon Cross, and two drummers - Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick. (Kemet - the black land, is one of the ancient Egyptian names for Egypt.) The music is a dance party which may or may not touch upon techno, hip hop, grime, psychedelia, Caribbean music, and social commentary using jazz vocabulary. Their latest album, Your Queen Is A Reptile , is a seething thinkpiece of a record , in which Hutchings suggests some black women across history who were worthy of the title of queen – queens who were made, not born. They perform some of these tunes live. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Mountain Man, the Appalachian a cappella trio, features the timeless sound of three voices singing in harmony, with an occasional strum of the guitar. They released an album in 2010, a trio of college friends who’d gotten used to singing together, but then went their separate ways after college. All three of them toured for a long time as Feist’s backup singers, and lately Amelia Meath, one third of the trio, has been keeping busy as half of Sylvan Esso. Meath, along with Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Molly Sarle are back, with their first album in eight years, Magic Ship.

As our colleague Justin Sergi writes, "their immaculate precision of timing and tuning and phrasing, comes from love and friendship and the elemental, historic 'fun' of singing three-part harmony with your friends." "It is a precision that can, perhaps, only be born from family. Which is what they are: family." The family of Mountain Man joins us to perform songs, chat about community in North Carolina, the internet, peace and joy, and Molly's cat, Magic Ship.

They play in Brooklyn on Oct. 25 at Music Hall of Williamsburg .

Set list:

Boat
Underwear
AGT

Watch "AGT":

Sax player and bandleader Donny McCaslin, who collaborated with David Bowie on Blackstar , freely mixes pop, jazz, electronica, and art-rock on his striking new album, Blow. , which sees the band moving into sonic terrain that shows even more of Bowie’s impact. It’s some daring sax-led badassery - a blast of concentrated, powerful, and wonderful pop that rocks, with jazz tendencies - with lyrics and guest vocalists. He and his band play some of the new tunes in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the full session here :

Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and his trio, featuring new bassist Sigurd Hole and long-time collaborator, drummer Jarle Vespestad, combine together folk influences and church music for unhurried embraces of melody. Expressive and reflective, Gustavsen’s ‘Nordic blues’ slowly unfurls passages of delicate lyricism, with enough space for contemplation, and only the notes that are needed from all players in the trio.

On the latest record, The Other Side, the trio effortlessly injects old Norwegian lullabies and dance forms into original works, and develops haunting and riveting responses to both Scandinavian hymns and Bach Chorales. The Tord Gustavsen Trio joins us to play some of these compositions in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list:

The Tunnel
O Traurigkeit
Schlafes Bruder

Watch the session here:

Boston-based Marissa Nadler writes intimate, sweeping dreamy and eerie songs, that shimmer with gothic melancholy. On her latest record, For My Crimes , she’s enlisted accomplished musicians: harpist Mary Lattimore, drummer Patty Schemel (Hole), experimental multi-instrumentalist Janel Leppin, and Eva Gardner plays additional bass. Guest vocals come from Angel Olsen, Kristin Kontrol (Dum Dum Girls), and Sharon Van Etten, and there is but one non-female collaborator - saxophonist Dana Colley (Morphine). These bittersweet and sharp slow burning tunes have a piercing intensity, driven home by Nadler’s gripping voice. Marissa Nadler performs some of these songs in their stripped-down form, in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Havana pianist, composer and bandleader Harold López-Nussa delivers a range of drama and the irresistible rhythms of Cuban music, fully integrating his conservatory training and love of the jazz continuum with his Cuban roots and soul.

His wide mastery of styles includes a jazz album and documentary film with David Sánchez, Christian Scott and Stefon Harris, an album of compositions by revered Cuban classical guitarist, composer and conductor Leo Brouwer, and three years spent in the touring band of singer Omara Portuondo. Harold holds dual citizenship in both Cuba and France, but will spend some of September touring the United States, which brings Harold López-Nussa and his trio play music from the new record, Un Día Cualquiera , in the studio.

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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. But if they’re not careful, they could wind up being known as the weird instrument team, because their new 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.)

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British singer, songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson OBE was part of the groundbreaking folk rock band Fairport Convention in the 1960's, made records with his then-wife, Linda Thompson, and has many fan-favourite solo records as well. Rolling Stone lists him as one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time and the LA Times called him the greatest living songwriter after Bob Dylan. His new album is called 13 Rivers and it is largely an electric, band record. The folk-shredder and troubadour Richard Thompson joins us today to play some acoustic solo versions of these songs.

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The Texas singer/songwriter/poet Blaze Foley never hit it big, although his song “If I Could Only Fly,” would later be covered by the great Merle Haggard. Actually, several of his songs have been covered by John Prine, Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith, Lyle Lovett, and others. But if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry – the new film called Blaze will change that. The film recounts Foley’s stormy career – a career that ended when he was shot and killed in Austin at the age of 39. The film was directed and co-written by Ethan Hawke, and stars a cast full of musicians. Ben Dickey, who plays Blaze Foley, and Charlie Sexton, who plays the songwriter Townes Van Zandt, join us in the studio along with Ethan Hawke to talk more about the film and play a few songs.

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German producer & multi-instrumentalist Aukai, aka Markus Sieber, grew up in the former East Germany, but his travels have taken him through Latin America, and he is now based in Colorado. "Aukai" is a Hawaiian term for a seafaring traveler, and on his second record, Branches of Sun , he has captured a certain nomadic wanderlust which might connect a listener to a certain peace of being in nature, high in the mountains.

With an ensemble that centers on the South American ronroco, a kind of mandolin-like lute, (“the bigger brother of the charango”), harp, violin, percussion and electronics, Aukai and Ensemble perform some of his electro-acoustic creations, in the studio.

Watch the complete live session :

Canadian electronic outfit Bob Moses is actually two guys: Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance, who are originally from Vancouver, British Columbia. Named after master builder and urban planner Robert Moses, their thinking went something like - choose a New York icon because the aim was to be kings of the New York club scene, but keep it a bit irreverent, with “Bob.” The guys also think that it might be the gloomy northwest climate they grew up in that keeps their dance-floor ready yet moody pop songs on the dark side.

The latest record from Bob Moses is Battle Lines , and it takes on how and why struggles occur both without and within and looks to identify the cause of the suffering - all the while offering grooves for dancing as catharsis. Interestingly, the duo brings us these fiery, dark, and video game-ready songs in unexpectedly direct and unplugged arrangements, in-studio.

Randy Weston, who died today at 92, was a jazz pianist. There, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me tell you why he was so much more than a "jazz pianist." Well before World Music became a trend, and then a marketing term, Weston was creating a personal, deeply spiritual style of music that assimilated West African, Moroccan, and later Egyptian and East Asian elements. Although he was a Brooklyn boy through and through, he did live in Morocco for a few formative years and over the course of his career would frequently perform with that country’s Gnawa musicians. (The Gnawa are the traditional music healers of Morocco, famous for playing trance-inducing rhythms that can run all night.)

In his later years, at a time when many musicians are either retired or retrenched (or dead, as was the case with most of Weston's generation of jazz legends), he was exploring new sonic avenues, incorporating instruments like the Chinese pipa, or lute. He also continued to play live right up to this spring, when he did a series of birthday concerts in New York that showed the range of his interests, with different ensembles each night.

I looked up to Randy Weston. Most people did, unless they were NBA stars. He was tall enough to be a basketball player himself ("I didn’t like practicing," he once told me when I asked why he didn’t go that route). But it’s hard to look at his body of work, from his piano standard "Hi-Fly" to his work with Morocco’s master musicians, created and sustained over a career of almost 70 years, and not be impressed. He was also a genuine, gracious man with a ready laugh, which helped make him a regular welcome guest in our studios over the years, and this show was his final appearance. With his birthday approaching, we took the opportunity to look back as well as ahead. (Added September 1, 2018 )

The American pianist, composer, innovator, and "Legend of Jazz," Randy Weston, joins us to play some of his solo piano works - many of which border on ritual blues with a dash of Ellington stride here and there a crashing note cluster of Thelonious Monk in mind. His latest recording is a two-album set called Sound , which contains many of his own compositions, recorded when he was 75 years old, back in 2001. In advance of his 92nd birthday, he honors our studio once again.

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Singer-songwriter, pianist, and composer Gabriel Kahane writes music between classical art song and pop song. His best-known work is probably Craigslistlieder (2006) – a song cycle of personal ads set to music -which made it clear that this songwriter could make music from the most unlikely of source material.

The day after the 2016 Presidential election, he unplugged from the internet and slowed down time; he spent two weeks traveling the country on Amtrak. He logged 8980 miles and lots of conversations across America in the dining car (and elsewhere), seated next to nuclear engineers, schoolteachers, farm equipment saleswomen, nurses, and long haul truck drivers, among others.

His latest record, Book of Travelers, is a ten-song musical travelogue - a sort of loose diary of that time spent with strangers, while on the train. Kahane joins us to perform some of these tunes in the studio.

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The trio The Devil Makes Three has always had a punk rock approach to string band music with their two guitars and upright bass and narrative-driven tunes. Musically, they draw from the deep roots of Delta blues, folk, and rock, along with slow metal, experimental music and drone. (Their list of influences ranges from The Reverend Gary Davis to Django Reinhardt and Steve Earle, as well as from the heavy side- Iron Maiden and Sleep.) They got a little crazy on their latest record, Chains Are Broken , and added a drummer for the first time. However, it's the drummer-less version of The Devil Makes Three who will join us in the studio to get a little rowdy with their punchy Americana to play songs from the new record.

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Having made their way through Eastern European gypsy cabaret leanings, mariachi horns, and Bollywood string stylings, the multi-instrumentalist band DeVotchKa— Nick Urata (vocals, guitars, Theremin, trumpet, piano), Jeanie Schroder (acoustic bass, sousaphone), Shawn King (drums, percussion, trumpet), and Tom Hagerman (violin, viola, accordion, piano)— returns with grand, pop-leaning, cinematic indie rock, full of swells and turns. Their new record, the first in seven years -This Night Falls Forever - is the culmination of lyrical and poetic sparks igniting a slow burn of catharsis. DeVotchKa joins us to play some of these new songs, which “straddle the line between the epic and the intimate.” (DeVotchKa press ) - by Caryn Havlik

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Prolific Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi has been commissioned by prestigious orchestras and festivals, scored music for films and TV, and headlined festivals alongside Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga. He has also done collaborations with Malian kora virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko, Armenian duduk master Djivan Gasparijan (the duduk sounds like an oboe, and is made of apricot wood), and with the brothers Lippok as a post-rock trio called Whitetree.

Born in Turin, Einaudi trained at the Conservatory in Milan, and studied under Luciano Berio, celebrated for his experimental and electronic works. Einaudi's style of melodic stillness is part American-style minimalism, a bit of European romantic lyricism, and may lean towards ambient music while dominating contemporary classical charts. He has also championed the environment, creating a video for Greenpeace to bring awareness to climate change.

The musical alchemist Ludovico Einaudi performs his music on our piano, in-studio.

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New York-based band Spanglish Fly are part band and part celebration with their brasstastic mix of Latin dance-funk and soul in homage to Boogaloo - that fusion of soul music, Rhythm & Blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms that was born in New York City in the 1960s. [See this excellent article from The Guardian for more history, and a bit of background on the documentary in which Spanglish Fly appears.] On their latest record, Ay Que Boogaloo! , Spanglish Fly both tips a cap to boogaloo and takes that style in unexpected directions, incorporating bolero, New Orleans funk, swing jazz, Arabic chant, and other new sounds. The band brings their irresistible groove to be our in-studio dance party.

Watch the live session here :

Brazilian musician Ava Rocha has quickly become a leading figure in Brazil’s post-Tropicalia movement and is blazing ahead making inventive Brazilian pop. Her new album Trança means Braid, and it weaves together strands of rock, funk, post-punk abrasiveness, fuzzy and playful electronica, Afro and Amazonian grooves, and Brazilian styles like percussion-heavy samba, smooth bossa nova, and tropicália. She and her husband, the Brazilian guitarist and songwriter Negro Leo, often write and play together, and today they’re playing a few stripped down songs for us.

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Watch the individual songs below :

Hear the Belgian-born guitarist/songwriter Trixie Whitley, from the 2017 New York Guitar Festival, presented in The Greene Space. Her songs draw from her favorite styles – punk, electronica, R & B, and feel something like quietly watching the sun rise after a long, adventure-filled night. She was joined onstage by Marc Ribot for many of these tunes. -Caryn Havlik

Set list:

"Oh the Joy"

"Fear for Permanence"

"Long Time Coming"

"Fourth Corner"

"Hotter | Burn"

Self-described “lifelong hustler,” Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, is better known by his stage name Fantastic Negrito, and makes “black roots music for everyone” - blues with a giant undercurrent of punkass. Fantastic Negrito’s songs tell of a hard life with some complete do-overs and a few near-death experiences. Coming from a crossroads with optional deals, his music might be informed just as much by California funk-punk (Bad Brains and Fishbone), hip hop, thrash metal, punk, Prince and his self-taught ways - specifically Dirty Mind (according to this Guardian interview ) and the blues records he’d heard as a kid, visiting family in southern Virginia.

Lately, his tunes have been placed and licensed for TV and film series (Empire , Hand of God , and in the case of his song “Working Poor,” Bernie Sanders’ political campaign.) But back in the early 2000's he had co-founded a record label, which grew into Oakland-based multimedia creative collective, the Blackball Universe cooperative, fed and financed with the publishing royalties of his own musical alter egos Chocolate Butterfly, Me and This Japanese Guy and Blood Sugar X.

Fantastic Negrito's latest record, Please Don’t Be Dead, references his own near-fatal car crash, and is driven in part by political and social issues in these broken and fractured times. The record is full of heavy riffs, cheeky songwriting, playful musicianship, and a whole lot of surviving. It brings Fantastic Negrito to the studio to play some of these tunes. -by Caryn Havlik

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English singer-songwriter and folk-rocker Mike Rosenberg, formerly of the band Passenger, might be best known for his song “Let Her Go.” Originally from Brighton & Hove, Rosenberg busked his way through England and Australia in the early 2000’s and worked with a five-piece band until 2009, when he decided to continue under that name as a solo artist. He’s played giant stages and summer festivals in Europe, opening for old friend Ed Sheeran. Mike Rosenberg, aka Passenger, joins us to play new songs from his forthcoming record, Runaway, in-studio.

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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 brand-new record, Prisma Tropical .

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From the Democratic Republic of the Congo comes Jupiter & Okwess, percussion-driven socially-conscious funky guitar-buoyed dance music. Led by “Jupiter” Bokondji, the self-dubbed “rebel general”, incites partying but with positive messaging for the long-term, to work towards Congo’s recovery from the kleptocracy of previous generations, to respect and protect women, combat injustice, and embrace unity. The highly danceable tunes represent not only Congolese pop but also other regional and local traditions combined with American and British funk, R&B and rockenroll (NY Times ) - all delivered with irresistible and electrifying energy from a band who knows how to whoop it up on a dance floor. Jupiter & Okwess perform some of their latest tunes from the record, Kin Sonic, in-studio.

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Junun is a musical collaboration between India-based Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, a group of Indian musicians called The Rajasthan Express, and composer (and Radiohead’s guitarist) Jonny Greenwood. The music is in the ecstatic Sufi music style known as qawwali (made famous by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ), and it's devotional music—sometimes in Urdu, Hebrew, and Hindi, and is built on a percussion-dense and brass enriched groove with everything to love. The band has been opening for Radiohead on their current tour, but they join us to perform some of these ecstatic tunes in-studio.

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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 latest 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 the studio to play songs from Cloud Corner .

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Orquesta Akokán bursts and flows with the spirit of dance orchestras of the 1940’s and 1950’s of Havana on their debut record of nine tunes - all sparkling, blazing, soulful, and meticulously arranged and composed mambo originals. Together, singer José "Pepito" Gómez, producer Jacob Plasse, and arranger Michael Eckroth, along with Cuba’s finest players, young and old, recorded the record live to tape in a three-day session at the legendary and revered Estudios Areito in Cuba – where percussion and piano absolutely pop, and the brilliance of brass is magnified. The recording is the first Spanish-language venture for Daptone Records, (the folks who brought you Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Charles Bradley, and other timeless artists) whose old-school techniques and attention to sonic detail ensure a living, breathing warmth.

The big band collective Orquesta Akokán joins us to play some of these Cuban Mambo (and rumba, cha-cha and jazzy) tunes in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here :

Singer-songwriter and producer Ebony Bones is a powerhouse performer with seemingly no limits. She creates energetic and driving songs with twinges of pop, punk, afrobeat, and dance music, all wrapped up into a compelling display of raw emotion and stunning degree of detail and intricacy. She has already worked with Yoko Ono, CeeLo Green, the New London Children's Choir and more.

Her latest single, "Nephilim," is the title track of her upcoming album and features a dramatic performance from the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra. The work focuses on how the voices of women, especially women of color, have been silenced. Ebony Bones joins us to discuss these themes and play songs from the record in-studio.

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The now L.A.-based band La Luz recently moved to California from Seattle and their surf-noir refracts that weird golden paradise. Awash in reverb, the surf guitar and fuzzy vocal harmonies from singer/guitarist Shana Cleveland, drummer Marian Li Pino, keyboardist Alice Sandahl, and bassist Lena Simon are like a dreamy B movie, surreal, and kitschy, but definitely fun. The band joins us to play songs from their latest record, Floating Features, in-studio.

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Also, this video for their song, "Cicada," is spectacularly goofy. Wait for the band in the hospital room...

NYC-based art rock quintet Bodega (previously known as Bodega Bay) are the model of modern tongue-in-cheeky post-punk band. With politically-minded personal commentaries on masculinity, consumerism, the hustle of capitalism, and female pleasure, their staccato guitars and shouty gang vocals make for a potent delivery vehicle. Dance party with them as they play salty new tunes in-studio.

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Richmond-based musician Natalie Prass is a fighter. Her forthcoming record, The Future And The Past , has transformed resistance and personal heartache into defiant, groove-laden romantic anthems. With a little dash of disco, and a little bit of soul, this record might look to Janelle Monae & Prince but also further back to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye for its sound. That said, hear tender, big-hearted, shake-your-groove-thing songs by Natalie Prass, in-studio.

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On the face of it, Red Baraat is a dhol-driven big band full of brass instruments and drums (both the dhol and drumset keep the groove going), rooted in Bhangra music (Punjabi dance music), who bring a party with them wherever they go. On their latest record, Sound the People , they combine the sounds of South Asian diaspora, along with jazz, hip-hop, psychedelia, and a bit of Caribbean music, to draw attention to issues of migration, colonialism, and our current political climate. The record blends instruments, cultures, and offers an aural tribute to "the way diversity makes, and has always made, America great.” With a joyfully and defiantly disruptive ruckus for dancing, the band Red Baraat joins us in-studio to play some of these new tunes.

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The British guitarist and singer, Joan Armatrading, has had a long and award-winning relationship with the British folk scene, has had a strong jazz influence in a lot of her early hits, topped the American charts with a new wave song in 1980, and just a few years ago became the first British woman to debut at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. Joan Armatrading has just released her 21st album, called Not Too Far Away , and she’s here in the studio to play some of it for us.

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Meet the impressive R&B songstress Deva Mahal, who claims her parents as inspiration: blues legend Taj Mahal and dancer/artist/teacher Inshirah Mahal. Her latest record, Run Deep is collection of modern and seductive, rich and rocking tunes that make for a grand tour of soul, blues and classic rock. She and her band take us for a ride on powerhouse stompers and sumptuous ballads, in-studio.

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This Is The Kit is English singer and songwriter Kate Stables (lately based in Paris or Bristol) and whoever joins her. Under that nom de plume, she's been releasing since the 00's. Her latest album, called Moonshine Freeze , has been nominated for the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in the UK. This Is the Kit plays some of these songs which range from ghost stories, clapping music, sax solos and birdsong in-studio.

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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. Look for these pieces to appear on a forthcoming record due in fall 2018 via Nonesuch.

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Resisting gender-specific compliments in print since 2014 (and probably before), producer, songwriter, badass, and musician Neko Case is about to unleash her latest record, Hell-On, into the world. She’s written songs that traverse a lot of ground: folk ballads, radio pop, rock anthems, a little bit of goth moodiness, honky-tonk piano, and swagger of all kinds. Her exceptional and distinct voice, “like garotting wire,” delivers wordplay of the highest order on this gorgeous, daring, won't-be-a-supplicant-ever record. Neko Case brings her touring band to play some of these new tunes in-studio.

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Hear unraveling minimalist electronica with restrained ambient feels from Rival Consoles, aka London-based producer Ryan Lee West, whose music combines warm and human analogue-heavy synthesizers, along with acoustic and electric instruments. On his latest, Persona , which might have taken inspiration from the shoegaze band, Slowdive, West strikes a delicate balance between music for home listening and larger spaces. He’ll perform this shifting palette of drones, melodies, and effects, in-studio.

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Part book club, part composer collective, Oracle Hysterical’s works occupy the fluid space between classically-inclined song-cycle and art-rock concept album. The group’s songs take on great literary with text sources from Grimms’ Fairy Tales to Greek tragedy, and falsely-attributed Shakespeare, all in modern settings that might be chamber rock, baroque folk or (staff favorite:) “Alt-classical.” The chamber band’s latest is "Hecuba," a “savage story of revenge in which the disgraced queen of Troy, Hecuba, with her city razed and her children murdered, descends from nobility to primal violence.” (National Sawdust ) Oracle Hysterical plays songs from it in-studio.

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Watch the individual songs below: