Fiery guitarist/songwriter Benjamin Booker's ecstatic, gritty, and soulful sounds channel punk rock & vintage soul, gospel and blues. He plays in-studio. (From the Archives, 2017.)

Guitarist/Singer Benjamin Booker's Potent Cocktail of Punk & Soul (Archives)

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, The Replacements, and James Brown.

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London vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Cosmo Sheldrake creates songs and sound worlds out of people, places, creatures, plants, fungi, and collected sounds. With his combination of traditional instrumentation and electronic production, field recordings, and both human and more-than-human voices (birdsong and insect choruses), Sheldrake pursues adventures in song, capturing the childlike wonder of a curious tea party, and staying connected to the natural world throughout. Cosmo Sheldrake juxtaposes these orchestrated natural sounds with his racks of gear to share his marvelous sound world in some songs from his latest, Eye to the Ear, in-studio.
Set list: 1. Stop the Music 2. I Did and I Don't and I Do 3. Does the Swallow Dream of Flying?



Eye To The Ear by Cosmo Sheldrake

Cosmo Sheldrake's Marvelous Sound World of Natural Song

Honduran-American artist Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, is a singer, songwriter, musician and record producer based in Los Angeles, California. Her albums are full of bright, indie pop that mixes dance music, electronica, trap, and on her most recent album, Latin music. Empress Of’s new album, her fourth, is called For Your Consideration, and it’s a mischievous exploration of heartbreak, affairs, regaining your sexiness, and pursuing lust and control. Empress Of plays some stripped down versions of some of the new songs, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: 1.Lorelei 2. Kiss Me 3. What's Love

Empress Of Explores Yin/Yang of Romance and Plays Intimate Songs, In-Studio

Welsh musician and songwriter Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals, the pop outfit known for their catchy songs and weird videos) poetically harnesses both the gritty and the trippy in his own music. But he’s also a composer, producer, filmmaker and author. His latest release, the 25th album of his career (individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands), is a solo album called Sadness Sets Me Free, sung in English, and left open to chance. Rhys and his bandmates play some of these new songs, in-studio.
Set list: 1. Bad Friend 2. Sadness Sets Me Free 3. Celestial Candyfloss



Sadness Sets Me Free by Gruff Rhys

Welsh Musician and Songwriter Gruff Rhys Coexists and Persists

Formed in North London, Bombay Bicycle Club is the sound of four best friends finding joy and savoring the connection in making music together and experimenting. They think of themselves as a genre-less band (The Independent), “not bound down by genre in a way that a lot of our contemporaries were”. With the 2023 release of My Big Day, and an EP called Fantasies, both of which feature a host of guest vocalists, it’s clear that they’re still freely mixing sounds and cover a lot of ground, sonically. Bombay Bicycle Club plays an unplugged set in-studio.   
Set list: 1. Turn The World On 2. Diving 3. Luna
 

Genre-Less British Rock Band Bombay Bicycle Club, In-Studio

The Japanese singer/composer/producer Hatis Noit, is originally from the northernmost island of Hokkaido. Her name, hatis noit ハチスノイト, means the stem of the lotus flower and is intended to serve as a connection between the living world (represented by the lotus flower) and the spirit world (the lotus root). Further, Hatis Noit feels that singing is not unlike Tai chi, and is a way to connect the physical world to the spiritual world and nature.
Now based in London and using vocal techniques she’s adapted from around the world, Hatis Noit makes music by using electronics to layer and occasionally process her voice. She sings in a pure, Renaissance vocal style, in the keening tradition of the Balkans, in the style of Japanese gagaku or court music, and in a classical operatic mode… sometimes all in the same song. The Japanese singer and electronic musician Hatis Noit creates these choirs of sound all by herself, using a looping station, live, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: 1. Aura 2. Himbrimi 3. Inori

Guitarist/Singer Benjamin Booker's Potent Cocktail of Punk & Soul (Archives)

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