Soundcheck

The Reverend Osagyefo Sekou draws from a deep well of American music on his new album, called In Times Like These. Blues and gospel traditions, but specifically also "North Mississippi Hill Country Music, Arkansas Delta Blues, 1960s Rock and Roll, Memphis Soul, Chuck Berry St Louis vibes, and Pentecostal steel guitar." Now if you’re thinking that those are musical holdovers from another time, the activist, author, documentary filmmaker and theologian Reverend Sekou wants you to know that that music has become powerful and relevant again, in times like these. The album features Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars, and Rev Sekou toured with them back in 2017. He and The Sealbreakers play some of the tunes, in-studio. (Archives, 2017.)  

There’s something about the band name Into It. Over It. that seems perfect for the digital age, when we rush to crown the Next Big Thing one week and abandon it for the new Next Big Thing a week later. But Chicago singer and songwriter Evan Thomas Weiss has managed to keep an even keel through nearly a decade and several full-length albums, keeping Into It. Over It. as both a touring band and as an occasional solo project. The band’s 2016 album was called Standards (no, he doesn’t sing Gershwin or Cole Porter), and Evan Weiss joined us to perform a live solo set. 

Brooklyn's Sharkmuffin met cute on July 4, 2012 at a beach house that was later destroyed by Hurricane Sandy - a possible reason why the band's music is visceral, explosive, sharp and a little dangerous. Tarra Thiessen (guitar, vocals, theremin, pocket piano) and Natalie Kirch (bass, vocals, claps) make up the core of the band, with frequently-rotating drummers. Hear them perform their short slap-in-the-face songs live in-studio. (From the Archives, 2015.)

For longtime indie rock fans, it's kinda hard to believe that Mac McCaughan has been making music for more than 25 years. Soon after leaving Columbia University in 1987, the Durham, North Carolina native both formed Superchunk and co-founded Merge Records - alongside bassist and savvy financial manager Laura Ballance - in 1989. And since then, Superchunk has released ten albums and countless singles -- and several more records with his on-again/off-again project Portastatic. And Merge has grown to become one of the most respected independent labels, with bands like Arcade Fire, Mountain Goats, and Magnetic Fields among the names on its impressive roster. With 2015's Non-Believers, the songwriter and guitarist eschewed his trademark punk-ed up pop and blistering guitar lines, and debuted an electro-rock and synth-infused sound that's more minimalist than Superchunk, yet more polished than Portistatic. That said, McCaughan's fearless ambition remains intact. His songs are still built around that same boyish-turned-gravelly voice and those same biting, smartly-crafted lyrics. On Non-Believers, McCaughan's music sounds more personal, intimately reflecting on his life as a husband and father. Yet no matter the setting, McCaughan proves he's got a way with hook, and a simple, yet affecting turn of phrase. (From the Archives, 2015.) Set List: "Lost Again" "Come Upstairs" "Hello Hawk"

Torres, aka singer and guitarist Mackenzie Scott, unleashes the exuberant energy of a post-plague celebration with her latest album, Thirstier. She writes about passion and desire and “bringing my girlfriend lunch so she can keep painting.” Adding to these romantic sentiments are the overt power pop crunch of muscular and hooky guitars, Moog-enhanced melodies and Torres’ expressive voice, which goes from hug to howl. Torres and her band declare their arena rock intentions live in The Greene Space. - Caryn Havlik Set List: "Don't Go Puttin Wishes In My Head," "Hug from a Dinosaur," "Thirstier" Watch "Don't Go Puttin Wishes In My Head": Watch "Hug From a Dinosaur": Watch "Thirstier": 

Little May is an Australian trio whose signature sounds include dark and poetic lyrics, urgent guitar strumming and, above all, beautiful 3-part vocal harmonies. Their 2015 album, For The Company, was produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner and may have a bit of New York in its musical DNA. The band has toured with Mumford and Sons, Alabama Shakes, and others, and in 2015, they stopped by our studio for a live set. (Archives.)

Efterklang is a Danish band consisting of the 3 childhood friends Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen & Rasmus Stolberg, although the band often expands when playing live. For over twenty years, they have been collaborating and experimenting to arrive at a sound that evades easy labeling, so we’ll call it art-rock-indie-folk-chamber-pop. They play new songs from their latest, "Windflowers," remotely for the Soundcheck Podcast.

Poet, sax player, electronic music producer, storyteller, and composer JJJJJerome Ellis is a stutterer. On his 2021 album The Clearing, he takes speech disfluency and considers how it affects one’s experience of time. JJJJJerome Ellis offers live performances of works from his new album and shares how to say “I stutter” in Portuguese. 

The guitarist, composer, ethnomusicologist, and instrument builder Paolo Angeli is associated with traditional Sardinian music and has co-organized an international arts festival in Palau since 1996. He has collaborated with Pat Metheny (who uses Angeli's guitar in Orchestrion), Fred Frith, Hamid Drake, Iva Bittova, Zeena Parkins, and Derek Gripper. Paolo Angeli plays the prepared Sardinian guitar, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument that looks like a guitar crossed with a cello, and has virtually orchestral capabilities. Angeli’s custom creation 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, and some propellers at variable speed. Then there’s his array of effects, controlled by both his feet and hands. These custom modifications enable him to become a crazy-awesome one-man band, as he draws on Sardinian folk music, jazz, flamenco, Arabic suggestions, post-folk and contemporary classical music in his compositions.  Paolo Angeli strums, bows, and hammers the instrument, and adds traditional Sardinian vocalizing, in a stunning performance of music from his latest, JAR’A, for this remote session, filmed on the island’s northern shore. - Caryn Havlik Watch Paolo Angeli on the Sardinian shore:

Multiple Grammy-winner and longtime UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Angélique Kidjo pulls together multiple generations, collaborating with global pop stars Burna Boy and Yemi Alade among others, in addition to focusing on our connection to the natural world for her latest album, Mother Nature. Through a signature combination of West African music, jazz, and funk, and using her incredible voice as instrument, Kidjo asks us to honor Mother Nature, and hopes that one lesson that people might learn from the pandemic is how to better care for one another. As she and host John Schaefer chat, Kidjo gives props to her collaborators, many of them from younger generations, and also speaks to being the vocalist in Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 12, (Lodger) based on David Bowie’s album. Even with no audience, Angélique Kidjo’s larger-than-life stage presence captivates as she talks about having the luxury of living out her passion. She performs live with her band, from The Greene Space in advance of a Mother Nature concert event at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Nov. 5. - Caryn Havlik Watch "Africa -One of a Kind”: Watch "Take It Or Leave It": Watch "Mother Nature":

Brooklyn trio Upper Wilds features Dan Friel (ex-Parts & Labor) on guitar, vocals, and effects, bassist Jason Binnick, and drummer Jeff Ottenbacher and is really exceptional at making fuzzy-noisy songs with big pop riffs, usually concealed within explosive sonic textures.  They’ve now released the third in a series of albums about the planets, Venus, and the band is continuing their way further out as they go, planning to release a seven inch when they get to Pluto. Friel confides that he’s still learning how to be a singer-songwriter after starting with interesting and possibly noisy textures. He prefers using the open tunings of Glenn Branca, tremolo picking, and effects that can ring and chime forever. Friel says that the lyrics just write themselves, themed around the planet named for the god of love, which also happens to be a “backwards-spinning hellscape that melts every camera we send there…” Hear through the noise to the melodies as Upper Wilds plays very fast love songs from Venus, remotely from their practice space. - Caryn Havlik Set List: “Love Song #5,” “Love Song #3,” “Love Song #1” Watch "Love Song #5": Watch "Love Song #3": Watch "Love Song #1":

Guitar innovator and part-time sound technician Guy Buttery discusses the spontaneous recording session with two master musicians, Mohd. Amjad Khan (tabla) & Mudassir Khan (sarangi), called One Morning In Gurgaon. He plays Indian classical music-inspired tunes remotely from South Africa on a custom baritone guitar and improvises on Raag Yaman playing the surbahar (bass sitar). Watch "Kya Baat": Watch "Surbahar the Mule": 

Austin-based guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist Carl “Buffalo” Nichols wants to remind folks of the value of the blues as a cultural art form. “Listening to this record, I want more Black people to hear themselves in this music that is truly theirs.” The self-described music nerd considers Delta blues, Chicago blues, West African Malian guitar rhythms, and the African ancestry of the clawhammer banjo in his sonic experimentation and ongoing study of chords and riffs. Nichols, who lived in Milwaukee for most of his life save for his overseas travels, is Fat Possum Records’ first blues signing in nearly 20 years and “is grateful to be part of the label’s legacy of blues music that also includes Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside,” (Austin Monthly). For his remote performances, Buffalo Nichols wields both a hollow body Fender guitar and a resonator-style guitar, as he plays tunes from his self-titled record. - Caryn Havlik  Set list: “These Things”, “How to Love,” “Lost and Lonesome”   “These Things”:  “How to Love”: “Lost and Lonesome”:

Puerto Rican composer/performer/educator Angélica Negrón, who writes tiny and big sounds for chamber ensembles, orchestras, films, plants, robots and drag queens, joins us for the Soundcheck Podcast. Angélica takes us into her sensory world, and explains how her overlapping creative adventures feed into each other – say writing for the Dallas Symphony or for drag queens, or for the dreambow band, Balún. She offers a live performance - triggering sounds via plant art, programmed surface poppers, and hidden computers into a sonic dreamscape. 

Musical ghosts haunt the Memphis band Lucero. The late Warren Zevon is evoked in one song, and the spirit of the late Alex Chilton’s groundbreaking Memphis group Big Star can be felt throughout the record. (Their 2015 album title, All A Man Should Do, is a line from a Big Star song.) Songwriter Ben Nichols uses a stirring blend of classic rock and Memphis soul, but maintains a distinctive voice. Lucero plays songs from All A Man Should Do, in-studio. (From the Archives, 2015.)