Soundcheck

40 million Youtube viewers can’t be wrong, can they? Well, they can; but in this case, they’re not. Classical music’s foremost comedy team, Igudesman & Joo, number Billy Joel, John Malkovich, and Terry Jones of Monty Python among their many fans. Violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-Ki Joo are bona fide virtuoso players – but they also have a keen sense of slapstick and a wide-ranging appetite for music that borders on the ridiculous. So whether you’re a fan of disco, film music, classic rock, or those other classics, you’re likely to find something ridiculously funny when Igudesman & Joo return to our studio. We’ll hear excerpts from their new show, called (misleadingly, we’re betting) And Now Mozart.  It comes to the NYU Skirball Center on March 25 and 26, but you can hear a preview clicking the player above. 

When Quilt last visited our studio in 2014, we remarked on the psychedelic influences in their music of the Summer of Love and Haight-Ashbury. Their new album Plaza mines the same sepia-toned 60s sounds, and throws in a little Revolver-era Beatles garnish, but the band never strays into cheap cover territory — this is no derivative act. Plaza boasts three voices — Anna Rochinski, guitarist Shane Butler, and bassist Keven Lareau — giving it a warm, patchwork or prismatic quality, which the band will recreate live in the Soundcheck studio today. Click the player above to hear the band perform at 2pm ET. 

The new, self-titled album by the Seattle band Hey Marseilles is a kind of statement of intent: after two records of folk- and chamber-music-inflected rock, the group has committed itself to a bigger, more cinematic pop sound. The result is an album full of hook-laden art/pop, built around Matt Bishop’s expressive voice and a palette of sounds that ranges from whomping drums to elegant cellos. 

The jazz drummer Jaimeo Brown formed his trio Transcendence back in 2013 – their first album, also called Transcendence, was built around samples of old southern singing married to an inventive mix of blues, jazz, and distant echoes of hip hop. Now Jaimeo Brown’s Transcendence has just released Work Songs, which takes more sampled sounds from America’s past and uses them as the template for a new series of songs. Actually, the samples extend well beyond the States this time, but the song “For Mama Lucy” has a clearly American sound: it’s built around a 1959 recording of an inmate at the Parchman Farm Prison in Mississippi, surrounded by some classic blues guitar from trio member Chris Sholar (Grammy-winning producer of Kanye West, Jay Z, and many others). It's a creative re-appropriation of a complicated cultural back-catalog, and the group stops by the SC studio for a taste of its insightful historical remixing.

TEEN is the performing moniker of "Teeny" Lieberson, her two sisters Katherine and Lizzie on drums and keys, and Boshra Al-Saadi holding down the bass. Take a tour of TEEN's music on your favorite streaming service, and you'll hear the radical evolution of the band's sound over just a few short years. From lo-fi beginnings in 2010 to the first flourishing of full-on pop in 2012's In Limbo, the band has continued to absorb stylistic influences and complicate the narratives of their oblique love songs. Listen to selections performed live on Soundcheck. 

Place has always been an important, even formative part of John Luther Adams’ music. One of his earliest works, “Night Peace,” uses soft choral singing and gently rustling percussion to evoke a night in Okeefenokee Swamp. Many of his best-known pieces, like “Earth And The Great Weather,” “In The White Silence,” and “Inuksuit,” grow out of his years living in Alaska and are as much about the environment and the landscape of the Arctic as they are about the actual sounds. Even his Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, “Become Ocean,” offers an expansive sense of place – one that encompasses our entire world.

But his new piece, “Soundwalk 9:09,” is much more specific: it was commissioned by MetLiveArts to celebrate the opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s new Met Breuer on 75th St and Madison Avenue this month, and is based on the sounds you might hear while walking the eight blocks between the Met and the Met Breuer. Last summer, Q2 Music (New York Public Radio’s online contemporary music stream) collaborated with the Met by asking listeners to collect sounds for the piece. Adams writes that “Soundwalk 9:09” is "an invitation to listen more deeply to the music of the city," adding that he "sculpted and filtered these street sounds to reveal resonances that lie hidden around us all the time."

Click the player above to hear John Schaefer interview Adams about the piece. You can also read Adams's short introduction to the piece, "To The Listener."

Download the uptown and downtown versions of “Soundwalk 9:09” by John Luther Adams for free via the Metropolitan Museum’s website, q2music.org, and the WQXR app.

In a standout moment from Chicago-born songwriter Ezra Furman's excellent 2015 album Perpetual Motion People, the singer wails "I have got a lousy connection!" But it's a sentiment belied by Furman's loyal audience following; he does appear to be connecting quite thoroughly, whether because of his smart, funny, and driving paeans to 1950's and 60's rock and roll, or because of his often outspoken advocacy for weirdos, outcasts, and nonconformists. Click the player above to hear Ezra Furman and The Boy-Friends play "Lousy Connection" and talk about what it takes to connect.

Bonus: Listen to Ezra Furman's cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom" 

Watch Ezra Furman & The Boyfriends play "Lousy Connection" in the Soundcheck studio:

M. Ward returns next week with his latest solo record, called More Rain, but "solo" in eponym only: he's equally famous for his collaborations with everyone from Jim James and Conor Oberst (Monsters of Folk) to Zoe Deschanel (She & Him). And on his latest offering, you'll hear appearances from Peter Buck of R.E.M., K.D. Lang, Neko Case, and others. Today, M. Ward pays another visit to the Soundcheck studio to talk about his love of doo-wop records, what he learned from John Fahey, the energy of collaboration, and why he rips his songs from the front pages of newspapers. Click the player above to hear him play solo standouts from More Rain, including "Girl From Conejo Valley," "Confession," and "Temptation."

Listen to previous M. Ward studio appearances here and here.
 

Watch: "Confession," Live on Soundcheck

Watch: "Girl from Conejo Valley," Live on Soundcheck

Our Check Ahead album stream for Trixie Whitley's 2013 debut Fourth Corner nearly broke the internet; we heard from a huge number of Soundcheck listeners who were enthralled by the singer's potent sound. And we can prettymuch guarantee they'll like what they hear today: Whitley returns to our studio to perform songs from her just-released new album, Porta Bohemica. In one way a continuation of the blues-drenched Americana of that first record, Bohemica also expands on Fourth Corner's more experimental and genre-hopping tendencies, stretching into breaks of electro-pop and R&B sulk. As Whitley herself sings on "Salt," "I'm never satisfied." Click the player above to listen to Trixie play songs from the new album and talk about its long gestation.

Johnny Gallagher has just released his debut record of roots-inspired rock'n'roll, and he's performing songs here and there. But it's hardly his first taste of the stage. If you've been to see a Broadway musical lately you may have seen the name John Gallagher, Jr., in your Playbill: he's had starring roles in Duncan Sheik's Broadway hit Spring Awakening (for which he won a Tony Award), the Green Day inspired musical American Idiot, and others. And! Johnny had a lead role as the novice TV producer Jim Harper in Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom. Despite a nonstop stage and screen schedule, Johnny's just released his album Six Day Hurricane, and he stops by to play some of it in our studio. Click the link above to hear Johnny perform live.