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PODCAST

Soundcheck

WNYC, New York Public Radio, brings you Soundcheck, the arts and culture program hosted by John Schaefer, who engages guests and listeners in lively, inquisitive conversations with established and rising figures in New York City"s creative arts scene. Guests come from all disciplines, including pop, indie rock, jazz, urban, world and classical music, technology, cultural affairs, TV and film. Recent episodes have included features on Michael Jackson,Crosby Stills & Nash, the Assad Brothers, Rackett,

arts performing arts

All Episodes

33:15

Singer Laufey Honors Roots of Jazz In Modern Torch Songs

Soundcheck ·

2023/11/13

Icelandic singer and songwriter Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir, known by the mononym Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay), is having a breakout year. Now based in L.A., the young singer with the timeless-sounding voice crafts songs which look to the great American songbook and the jazz-inflected pop of the mid-20th century. Her roots are in both classical music (she’s a trained cellist) and in jazz and her mission is connecting multiple generations, especially her own, to both jazz and classical music. She plays

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29:28

Songwriter and Producer Raia Was Makes Lustrous and...

Soundcheck ·

2023/11/09

The songwriter, pianist, vocalist, and producer Raia Was has become known for her dark art- and alt-pop. She was raised here in New York, and some of the city’s darkness, risk-taking, and energy flow through her songs which may oscillate between brooding intensity and cathartic euphoria. [“You Are" was featured in HBO’s Euphoria.] Raia Was has just released her second record, called Captain Obvious, on a new cooperative record label called Switch Hit Records, and it brings her and her dream band of

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28:46

Speedy Ortiz Delivers Pop Stingers For the Times...

Soundcheck ·

2023/11/06

The 2018 release from American pop band Speedy Ortiz, Twerp Verse, speaks smartly to political and social situations of the present from a feminist perspective of truth-telling and is designed, on purpose, to make us uncomfortable lyrically and musically. With songs that airdrop aggressive, unpredictable chord progressions and disorienting rhythms behind enemy lines, this record is music for popping out from the cover of safety, armed with teeth and claws. Speedy Ortiz plays some of these tunes,

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25:03

Cumbia Punks Son Rompe Pera Do Not Play Their Dad's...

Soundcheck ·

2023/11/02

Son Rompe Pera started as a street band in Mexico City, but the marimba-playing cumbia punks have spent the past six years honing an electrifying and buzzy mix of modern cumbia, tropical dance beats, hard-hitting punk, psychedelic guitars, traditional Mexican and Colombian rhythms, horns, and a pinch of dub and hip hop, (Kennedy Center program notes.) Their 2020 record Batuco, named after the band’s marimba player father, leaned more toward a folkloric, traditional sound by way of nine covers

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29:18

Writer, Rapper, Singer Dessa Defies Expectations and...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/30

Singer, rapper, and writer Dessa is a member of the long-running hip hop collective known as Doomtree, though hip hop is just one part of what she does. She has also performed concerts of her songs with the Minnesota Orchestra, published well-received books of essays and audio plays, and hosts the podcast Deeply Human. Dessa, along with harpist Aviva Jaye and saxophonist/keyboardist Joshua Holmgren, play new songs from her 2023 album, called Bury The Lede, in-studio. Set list: "Hurricane Party",

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37:52

Pascal Le Boeuf's New Music and Jazz Hybrid Plays...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/26

Pianist Pascal Le Boeuf’s background is in both jazz and electronic music, and he has established himself as a sought-after composer of contemporary classical music. His work communicates tension and release, leaves space for improvisation, and explores the limits of a continuous high-energy work lasting as long as possible. There’s also a lot of trust and collaboration built into the process. Le Boeuf performs in what might otherwise look like a classic jazz trio – piano, bass and drums – if it

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26:57

Pachyman's 'Switched On' Honors His Puerto Rican Roots

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/23

Pachyman is a one-man dub band; that one man is Pachy Garcia, and though he’s based in LA, he grew up in Puerto Rico, at a time when Jamaican music – especially dub reggae - was having a big impact on the island’s music scene. Pachyman’s new album is called Switched On, and is an homage to the era when musicians first began manipulating synthesizers to emit gloriously off-kilter bleeps, bloops, and whooshes - think Switched On Boleros and Switched On Bach. The new record brings Pachy and his

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40:25

Chanteuse Ute Lemper Merges Past and Present on 'Time...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/18

German singer and actress Ute Lemper’s career defies easy description. She’s a musical theater legend – starring in the original Paris production of Cabaret and adorning the sides of NYC buses when she starred in the Broadway run of Chicago. But she’s also a singer who has recreated the songs of Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, and Kurt Weill, and sung contemporary songs by Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, and Philip Glass. And in recent years, she’s been writing songs as well, taking inspiration from Hiatus

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43:04

Irish Songwriter CMAT Distills Deep Dives Into...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/16

CMAT might look like one of those specialized tests you have to take to get into a post-graduate program, but this stage name is actually the initials of Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, a Dublin pop singer whose cleverly-titled debut LP If My Wife New I’d Be Dead was a hit in Ireland last year. With cultural references that range from Belgian football manager Vincent Kompany to Gilmore Girls, (she also loves Patsy Cline), CMAT knows how to take a deep dive down a topical rabbit hole and make it into

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31:18

Singer and Guitarist Buffalo Nichols Envisions The...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/12

Milwaukee-based blues singer and guitarist Buffalo Nichols, on his self-titled 2021 debut, showed how timeless the blues can be, both musically and emotionally. On his latest album, called The Fatalist, Nichols uses contemporary 21st century sounds and techniques to remind us that the blues have been and are always with us, intimately tied to present-day 2023. Buffalo Nichols plays some of these new songs, in-studio. Set list; “Turn Another Stone”, “The Long Journey Home”, “The Difference”

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34:18

Two-Spirit Song Carrier Jeremy Dutcher Celebrates and...

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/09

Jeremy Dutcher, the classically trained Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, is a Member of the Wolastoqiyik People of the Neqotkuk (formerly known as Tobique First Nation) in Eastern Canada. Dutcher burst upon the music scene in Canada in 2018, winning the prestigious Polaris Music Prize for their debut LP, where Dutcher performed with archival recordings of their Wolastoq ancestors. Dutcher has just released on October 6, called Motewolonuwok (People of great spiritual power), and it

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30:47

June McDoom's Homespun Blankets of Fancy DIY Sound

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/05

Growing up in a Jamaican family in Florida, June McDoom was surrounded by reggae; but she found herself drawn to the sounds of 1960's and 1970's folk. Now based in New York, she has released her debut EP, which surrounds those songs with touches of psychedelia, and arrangements that in their own homespun way seem to echo another sound of the 60s – Phil Spector’s so-called "wall of sound". In her intimate acoustic musings, June McDoom’s voice rarely rises above a breathy croon, following its own

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42:06

Rival Consoles' Warm Ambient Electronic Music, In-Studio

Soundcheck ·

2023/10/02

The London-based electronic music composer and producer Ryan Lee West records under the name Rival Consoles, and he’s always been concerned with creating an organic, living quality to his experimental electronic music. He draws on both the arena-sized grooves of EDM – electronic dance music – and the more intimate sounds of ambient music without ever settling on one or the other. Rival Consoles plays in-studio. Set list: “Pulses of Information”, “Articulation”, “Quiet Home”

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37:38

Time-Warp Ambient Groove of LANZ and Kris Allen

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/28

Ballard is the name of the new album credited to LANZ & Kris Allen. Lanz is Benjamin Lanz, the trombonist and composer who plays with The National and Beirut and numerous other bands. Kris Allen is a sax player, bandleader and educator. But when you put them together, it's like Brian Eno and Sun Ra went to a My Bloody Valentine show, through perhaps a krautrock or post-rock filter. The result is a trippy batch of instrumentals built from highly processed electroacoustic sounds, sometimes

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39:46

Cooking Pepper Soup with Michael Olatuja

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/25

Bass player and songwriter Michael Olatuja has a career that spans continents and styles. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, spent his teenage years playing on the London jazz scene, and has spent much of his career here in New York, playing with everyone from Diana Ross to Shakira to the band for the Broadway hit Frozen. His latest album, called Lagos Pepper Soup, is a tribute to those three cities, and his cinematic Afrobeat sound contains jazz roots of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen, but also perhaps a bit

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39:43

Grandbrothers, Messing With Pianos and Trying Out New...

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/21

The German-Swiss duo with the unlikely name of Grandbrothers draws on electronic dance music, ambient music, and minimalism. Their tag line is “messing around with grand pianos since 2012,” which captures the essence of their play: they use ALL parts of the piano to generate raw sounds –the notes of the keyboard but also striking the wooden case; or flossing, well, bowing the strings; and E-Bow-like contraptions that oscillate the strings – which are sampled, processed, and assembled in real time

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34:31

Composer and Pianist Carlos Simon: ‘You Never Know...

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/18

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Atlanta, Carlos Simon has become one of classical music’s most eloquent and visible chroniclers of the Black American experience. Although it’s not just classical music – Carlos draws on jazz, R&B, and especially gospel music, as Simon is the son of a preacher. Music is his pulpit, and he says he uses music as therapy and to make sense of it all. He's toured from the back of a flatbed truck, done street-busking, and played cocktail piano music in bars,

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33:30

Singer Nellie McKay Offers Fresh and Timeless...

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/14

Singer Nellie McKay’s songs hearken to pre-Elvis pop and maybe even Tin Pan Alley, and are offered with charm and intimacy. She has also released a whole album of Doris Day songs and a record of 60s covers, in addition to her 2004 splash debut, Get Away From Me and appearances in Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. And while she still sounds like a singer from another time, she’s back with an album of originals called Hey Guys, Watch This. Nellie McKay plays new songs on both piano and ukulele,

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40:41

The Dark and Heavy Sounds of Electronically-Enhanced...

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/11

Brooklyn-based Pathos Trio consists of percussionists Marcelina Suchocka and Felix Reyes with keyboardist/composer Will Healy- all of whom are equally capable of playing acoustic chamber music or darker-hued electronically-altered sounds. The trio’s new album is called Polarity, and it’s a collection of works specifically written for the Pathos Trio by several composers - drummer/composer Ian Chang of Son Lux; percussionist and member of the International Contemporary Ensemble Clara Warnaar; and

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36:16

Bill Frisell & Luke Bergman, From the 2023 New York...

Soundcheck ·

2023/09/07

Listen to a set from contemporary jazz guitar legend guitarist Bill Frisell, together with guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Luke Bergman. Frisell is a singular player in the jazz world, consistently sticking to his roots and American folk, while trying out any other thing that may move him. Bergman is, in Frisell’s words, “a master harmonizer, organizer, orchestrator, imaginator” (Program notes, Grace Cathedral). Together they swapped musical ideas remotely during the pandemic and composed a number

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310 results

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