WNYC's Soundcheck

Buke and Gase is an experimental pop duo that’s collaborated with everyone from The National to the Blue Man Group. The band is named after two of the instruments they’ve invented, a baritone ukulele and hybrid guitar-bass. Their songs are tasty slices of angular melodies and problem-solving off-kilter percussion that are creatively stacked like a magical, warped, and playful sandwich of aural goodness. And on their new album, Scholars , Buke and Gase offers a sound more rooted in electronics – especially in a device called the ARX that they also developed. The band of two musical Aarons with different spellings joins us to showcase their unique creations. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Dancey and dreamy, Brooklyn-based Rubblebucket makes psychedelic and jazz-conscious pop swimming in a strange and lovely mix of celebration and melancholy. Their latest record, Sun Machine , is a celebration of the connection between trumpeter Alex Toth, and saxophone player Kalmia Traver, The two have survived momentous life-challenges like cancer and alcoholism, and their romantic uncoupling, and still managed to transform their musical partnership in a positive way. The expanded version of Rubblebucket performs these latest songs in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here (Set list: "Fruity", "Lemonade", "What Life Is"):

Grammy-winning singer/songwriter/producer India.Arie has returned to spread love and joy through music and words. Her latest album, due out in February, is a collection of enchanting and soulful electro-acoustic pop songs, full of smart observations, sensuality, spirituality, and yes, empowerment. On one tune, “That Magic,” she lovingly describes the connection between two people that we can all hope for. Her latest single, “What If,” begins with the memorable lines, “what if Martin didn’t stand up/what if Rosa didn’t sit down.” The title track, “Worthy,” is a mostly acoustic, yet powerful assurance, that every one of us is worthy of love, life, and “saying no when something don’t feel right”. Wordsmith and songstress India.Arie joins us to play songs from her forthcoming record, Worthy . – Caryn Havlik

Set List:

What If
In Good Trouble
Worthy

Meet RaaDie , which is the latest musical project of Vienna-based trumpeter Lorenz Raab (Volksoper Vienna, XY-Band, Bleu) and the composer, bassoonist, and zither player Christof Dienz (Die Knoedel, Quadrat:sch, XY-Band). With a balance of composition and improvisation, the duo crafts music using trumpet and e-zither with electronic effects and looping station, at times spacey, funky, contemplative, and eerie.

Besides Prokofiev, Ravel and Schubert, Dienz also names Prince, AC/DC, Björk and Xenakis as sources of inspiration, while Raab cites the Beatles, U2 and Queen, also lists Bach, diverse jazzers and Led Zeppelin as his influences. Ahead of their free concert on Friday, Jan. 18 at the Austrian Cultural Forum , RaaDie joins us premiere song-like compositions from their new record, Vast Potential (Traumton Records), in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Mexican-American rock musician, songwriter, and singer Alejandro Escovedo draws from DIY punk, Tex-Mex country, and Americana rock for his latest record, The Crossing , a growly and crunchy guitar-filled, instrumentally cinematic, and in-your-face loud search for the American dream. In a cool twist, Escovedo has co-written the album with an Italian instrumental band, Don Antonio, and uses avatars, a young boy from southern Italy named Salvo, and a young boy from Mexico named Diego, who meet in South Texas. The record tells of their journey across the American Southwest by way of punk rock, beat poetry, and immigration and the immigrant experience. Alejandro Escovedo joins us in-studio to play some of these new and perhaps, timely, songs. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

London-based quintet Ezra Collective makes music with an irresistible blend of groove that includes Afrobeat, hip-hop, grime, reggae, and jazz. Led by drummer Femi Koleoso, and anchored by his brother TJ Koleoso on bass with keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, and featuring what looks like a hard bop frontline of Dylan Jones on trumpet and James Mollison on tenor sax , the group’s members are all skilled improvisers who can easily incite packed crowds into a sweaty dance party with their infectious rhythms. They’ve arranged Saturn-born Sun Ra’s “Space is the Place” on their EP, Juan Pablo: The Philosopher , as well as Herbie Hancock and Fela Kuti tunes at their live shows, and take inspiration from classic and more recent bangers like Patrice Rushen’s “Forget Me Nots” or The Internet’s “Roll (Burbank Funk)“ (with thanks to musicismysanctuary.com ). They’re here in town for the annual Winter Jazzfest and join us in-studio to play some of their originals. -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Coming from jangle-pop garage rock origins in the 1990’s in the Boston area, the band Guster is a group of talented songwriters, down to the last harmony. With electronic augmentation beyond just guitar amps, Guster long ago dropped its acoustic guitars and bongos in favor of arena rock with electrified-pysch-pop leanings. Their live shows are known for their quirky humor and legions of devoted fans singing along, and their latest batch of sing-along anthems from their record, Look Alive , is an insidiously hook-laden collection of polished pop. Guster joins us in-studio to play some of these new songs. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the live session here:

A New York–born Haitian-American living in New Orleans, the multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla draws from traditional Creole, Cajun, and Haitian music, as well as American jazz and folk. McCalla is a former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but her latest record, Capitalist Blues , contains very little of her signature instrument, the cello. While the tunes range from blues to calypso, and folk with some Haitian Creole, she explores connections between New Orleans and Haiti and tries to make sense of the current political "pressure cooker" in which the country finds itself. McCalla and her band perform some of these songs in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Brooklyn band Dollshot crafts experimental dream pop that is a crazy-quilt of electro-art-rock, cabaret music of Schoenberg, chamber music by Poulenc, and futuristic noir soundscapes. They offer an unusual and often unsettling combination of sounds, with breathy, featherlight vocals floating over wailing saxes and pounding drums. Their new album called Lalande comes out on January 25 and today they’ll play a few songs from it, in-studio.

Watch the session here:

Not many people can front a rock band, sing Górecki’s Third Symphony, deliver heavy works on themes of social justice for youth chorus, and compose pop songs for marching band, back-to-back. But Shara Nova of My Brightest Diamond can. The classically-trained vocalist, composer, and self-taught multi-instrumentalist has continued to reinvent herself on her journey through the worlds of chamber music, art-pop, rock, and new music. Her latest record, A Million And One , marries symphonic-leaning pop songs with electronic sounds that are dance-floor ready. My Brightest Diamond performs some of these works, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

This is "It's Me on the Dance Floor":

New York/Canada-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and poet Vera Sola, aka Danielle Aykroyd, crafts twangy-gothic-folk that might stem from horror punk as much as Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee. With a little wry and dark humor, a streak of seriousness, a few eloquent barbs, and a whole lot of vulnerability, Vera Sola channels the sounds in her head ("something like a demon’s orchestra", as she puts it) on her debut album, Shades . She and her band join us in-studio to play some of these songs, and perhaps discuss her EP of Misfits' covers. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

From the live in-studio performance series, here's part two of our favorite sessions from 2018. H ear everything from a Cuban orchestra to a famous South African choir, along with music from My Brightest Diamond that came from our live performance series, The Soundcheck Podcast.

The big band collective Orquesta Akokán channels the spirit of dance orchestras of the 1940’s and 1950’s of Havana and plays original Cuban Mambo music. Then, tenor sax superstar Joshua Redman and string quartet Brooklyn Rider , along with all-star rhythm section of Scott Colley and Satoshi Takeishi perform "chamber jazz" with swoops, dives, groove and bite.

Hear a song by the great South African a cappella choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo , with their uplifting vocal harmonies and signature dance moves. There’s also a performance by My Brightest Diamond , aka the classically-trained vocalist, composer, and self-taught multi-instrumentalist Shara Nova, who has continued to reinvent herself on her journey through the worlds of chamber music, art-pop, rock, and new music. Plus, Ben Dickey, Ethan Hawke, and Charlie Sexton perform “Clay Pigeons” by little-known outlaw country legend, Texas singer/songwriter Blaze Foley.

The once-bearded Jewish-American roots-reggae vocalist and beatboxer Matisyahu found success in both the Hasidic spiritual community and beyond, back in the mid-2000’s. He has continued to reflect on seeking the divine, despite the surprise of shaving off his trademark beard, and started bringing a little more stretch and even more groove into his newer music.

Matisyahu and his top-notch band - original Stubbs guitarist and longtime staple of the downtown New York improv scene Aaron Dugan, Dub Trio bassist and long-time Matisyahu collaborator Stu Brooks, percussionist and Cyro Baptista go-to-drummer Tim Keiper, and Addison Groove Project founder Rob Marscher. – take mystical, improvisational journeys both on record and in live performance. Together, they’ll collaboratively summit the jam and play tunes from their latest record, Undercurrent , in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

From the live in-studio performance series, we’ll be recapping our favorite sessions from 2018. Part 1 features the Norwegian band Wardruna , Chicago-based duo OHMME , the dance-jazz band Sons of Kemet , porch and mountain music duo Anna & Elizabeth , and the qawwali devotional collaborative music by Junun .

Hear the ancient Norse ritual music of Norwegian band Wardruna , and their captivating combination of old and recreated Norse historical instruments. Their music has also scored episodes of the History channel's series Vikings. Then, revisit music by the Mercury Prize-nominated supergroup Sons of Kemet led by London-based Barbados-born saxophonist and composer Shabaka Hutchings . Theirs is a dance party which may or may not touch upon techno, hip hop, grime, psychedelia, Caribbean music, and social commentary using jazz vocabulary, honoring some black women across history who were worthy of the title of queen – queens who were made, not born.

Then, listen to music by the Chicago-based duo OHMME , who are classically-trained pianists who've opted to harness the growl and fuzz of guitars. Theirs is intriguing art-rock with vocal hockets and harmonies, oh - and lots of time and feel changes. Also, hear ecstatic Sufi devotional music by Junun , 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.

Plus, listen to a mountain music meets minimalism in a song from Anna & Elizabeth , who draw on lovingly researched old-time traditions of home, porch, and kitchen music. - Caryn Havlik

Michigan-born, Colorado-raised, but now Icelandic-based singer/songwriter John Grant crafts anguished, lush ballads and spacey electro-pop. He speaks five languages and is also a former member of The Czars, a Colorado-based band that split in the early 2000’s. After battling personal demons in New York, Grant returned to music and recorded with Texan folk rock group Midlake. He just got a publishing deal for his autobiography, and released his latest record, Love is Magic. It brings John Grant to treat us to intimate piano-and-a-microphone tunes, in-studio.

Watch the session here:

Larkin Poe is Rebecca & Megan Lovell -two singer/songwriters and multi-instrumentalist sisters who are originally from Atlanta, but are now Nashville-based. Combining guitar, lap steel, minimal percussion, and sibling harmonies, they make roots-infused southern heritage-steeped rockenroll, with a helping of both gut bucket and Delta blues.

Larkin Poe are acutely aware of the historicity of blues legends, touching on the imagery of the crossroads (Robert Johnson) and including a version of Skip James’ “Hard Times Killing Floor Blues” on their latest record, Venom and Faith. Fun Fact: the sisters are also descendants of Edgar Allan Poe. Larkin Poe joins us in the studio to play some of these latest unsettling, shiver-inducing, and powerful tunes. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Singer-songwriter and producer Laura Gibson was born and raised in the small Oregon logging town of Coquille but now splits her time between Oregon & NYC. She recently completed an MFA in fiction writing (Hunter College) and her sharp story-songs quietly and gracefully explore darkness on her latest, Goners. Gibson’s storytelling is both raw and bold in its exploration of the depths of grief and other hidden feelings; the music hearkens toward folk traditions with unexpected arrangements, with each containing an alluring hint of the experimental. Laura Gibson and her band join us to play some of these songs, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Algiers is a mesmerizing band of musicians born in Atlanta, Georgia and now splitting time between London and New York. Their urgent, genre-resistant, chill-inducing, and fist-shaking music taps into and channels the frustration of locally-informed global citizens in these dark times - with a soulful and compelling roar. Their live sets feel spiritual and cathartic, but also might be for dancing. Then again - they also put out a music/zine series of somewhat more experimental sounds.

1st November 1954 by Algiers

Frontman Franklin James Fisher is a multi-instrumentalist who might, at any point in their set, be stationed at the Rhodes, handling the samples. or wielding a guitar. (Read about his non-tour instrument on which he composes, Rhoda .) Ryan Mahan, ostensibly on bass, also handles drum programming, baritone guitar, and synthesizer. There’s also the multi-instrumentalist stylings of Lee Tesche, on guitar, prepared guitar, harmonium, saxophone, and prepared piano. The 2017 record, The Underside of Power , was the band's first to include drummer Matt Tong (ex-Bloc Party) on hybrid drum kit, chimes, and percussion. (NPR has published this excellent in-depth article on Algiers , by Ned Raggett.)

Algiers, in their press materials, cite a great breadth and variety of influences - Big Black, Wendy Carlos, W.E.B. Dubois, John Carpenter, Cybotron, The Four Tops, Portishead, Public Image Limited, Steve Reich, Miles Davis, and Nina Simone - which may or may not inform their (I’m going for it here) their postpunk-gospel-kraut-y-motown-rocking ferocious crooning resistance music by this "American experimental band." We’re super-pumped to have them play in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Pianist, composer, engineer, and producer, Kelly Moran takes pride in trying to “obfuscate exactly what the piano sounds like. The whole point is to make it sound different.” (Tiny Mix Tapes ) Moran, on her latest record, Ultraviolet (Warp Records), has also found a delicate balance of improvisation and structure in her expansive compositions. It'd be a reductionist approach to label her work merely minimalist or ambient music because it's also melodic cascades of these studiously prepared acoustic sources combined with synth wizardry, all washing over the listener in hypnotic and fascinating waves. The music is mainly produced and engineered by Moran herself - with a little help on this latest record from a friend, one Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never .)

Kelly Moran has brought her baggies of screws and bolts, along with other tools, to expand the insides of our piano into a new sonic palette of thoughtful and provocative sounds - somewhere in the realm of a gamelan meets hammered dulcimer or qanun . She performs works mostly from Ultraviolet , in-studio AND plays an early show (12PM start) on Saturday, Dec. 8 as part of Hospital Fest at Knockdown Center . -Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Canadian conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the incoming Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, is taking over two years earlier than initially planned. In this interview with John Schaefer for the Soundcheck Podcast, he outlines his plans to welcome more folks to the opera and to make sure that routine does not become the norm.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s intensity is fueled by his boundless energy and his understanding of the legacy and the history of the Metropolitan Opera. He's the first new Music Director in 42 years and yet is optimistic that the Met can present itself as the generator of and ultimately a place for the creation of new operas, but understands that the large space does not lend itself to experimentation. Due to his unique placement as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as his new role with the Metropolitan Opera, Yannick hopes to be able to shepherd new productions to life. He also plans to go out of the theatre, in collaborations with BAM (in Brooklyn) and the Public Theatre with the aim of welcoming more folks to the Opera.

Pointing out that opera is itself a unique combination of drama and music with ballet, theatre projections, and modern dance, Yannick Nézet-Séguin is eager to see more folks able to immerse themselves, and be challenged and nourished with stories and ideas in opera. He’d also like to let people in on the behind-the-scenes aspects as well as invite them into the glamour and magic of a performance.

He's also an omnivorous listener himself - with singers as his main focus. Yannick (yah-NEEK) is currently listening to Janelle Monáe, Canadian singer/songwriter Daniel Caesar , Frank Ocean, and neo-soul of the early 2000’s when not at work. He also dips back into classic singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. - Caryn Havlik

Grammy-nominated chanteuse Emily King went into the family business via a different route, that of an R&B-influenced singer-songwriter. (She’s the daughter of New York jazz vocalists who has moved to the Catskills.) Her latest record, Scenery, due in February of 2019 (on ATO Records), promises to be a clever mix of R&B, pop, and perhaps a little retro disco. A bicoastal preview tour brings Emily King and her band to our studio to perform some of her brand-new “retro-cinematic” tunes (NPR Music ) before playing at the storied Apollo Theatre tonight. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session via Facebook here:

Or via Youtube :

With screaming and blistering guitars, power-chord-like vocal harmonies (both clean and processed through an array of guitar pedals), and a rock-solid pummeling of drums, Brooklyn trio Upper Wilds, [Dan Friel (Parts & Labor), Zach Lehroff (Ex Models) and Jeff Ottenbacher], exploits all kinds of sonic textures for a cathartic, electric explosion of melodic and riff-driven noise-fuzz-pop.

Expect distortion-filled, high-intensity songs with the “ raw hopeful energy of DIY spaces” (Thrill Jockey ) about being the first earthlings in deep space, getting struck by lightning, and colonizing Mars when Upper Wilds plays in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session here:

Mars by Upper Wilds

The band Pond hails from Perth, the Western Australian city referred to “as the most remote city on earth.” They blend blissful and mind-bending psychedelic rock, with subversive strains of funk, synth-pop, falsetto, somehow both of the moment, and informed by the past. To illustrate, in a recent video, the band went shopping at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, and showed off their haul: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Young Thug, Tokyo Psychedelic music of the 1990’s, Tom Waits, Neil Young, 1980’s dub from Scientist, “uplifting doom and gloom” from Spiritualzed, along with Yoko Ono and Plastic Ono Band, psychedelic soul from D’Angelo, Jean Michel Jarre, William Oneyeabor, Cocteau Twins, a Prince candle, and Wu Tang boxers.

With their latest record, The Weather , they have achieved a synth-pop/guitar-psych balance in their West Australian self-reflective songs. Pond joins us in-studio to play some of these songs. - Caryn Havlik

Watch the session live here:

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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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Watch the individual songs below: