Soundcheck

Born in Guatemala but active in Mexico City’s bustling music scene, cellist, electronic music producer, and singer Mabe Fratti has been making music for several years that could lean toward the experimental and the avant-garde on the one hand, and what seems to be a flair for pop melodies on the other.  She writes songs that encompass chamber music, electronic music, soundscapes, and hard rock, -perhaps with jazz overtones- without ever settling into any one of them. Fratti and her collaborators have such talent for risk-taking, for playfulness with sound and its manipulation, and for endless riffs - whether cello (amplified and with pedals) or vocal processors, and artfully using feedback, field recordings, and loops. Her latest album is called Sentir que no Sabes, or Feel like you don’t know. Mabe Fratti and her trio play some of these songs in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: 1. Quieras o No 2. Kravitz 3. Oidos

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The Midwest band Cloud Cult is more than a band – it’s a creative collective who continually celebrates life and love, and catharsis through music and multimedia performances (CloudCult.com.) They’re also known for their ecofriendly ways of making and touring their music. Recently in 2022, their orchestral-folk-rock sound was expanded as they were playing and recording with the Minnesota Orchestra. Over the years, the band has embraced joy as an act of resilience, and their latest, Alchemy Creek was written, recorded and produced by front man Craig Minowa in the solitude of a tiny cabin on wheels and named for the nearby creek in the middle of the Wisconsin woods. The band plays some of these new songs, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: 1. The Universe Woke Up As You 2. One Human Being 3. Different Kind Of Day

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Nashville-based artist Conner Youngblood is a singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer; his new record, called Cascades, Cascading, Cascadingly, is full of richly textured songs – in multiple languages (Spanish, Japanese, and Danish, in addition to his native English.) The music employs a wide array of effects without ever losing that organic, intimate feel; think of "sad Phil Spector meets shoegaze," (Schaefer). Conner plays some of these spacious, dreamy, and quietly curious maximalist bedroom-pop songs, in-studio.

Set list: 1. From an Ocean, to a Lake 2. Solo yo y Tú 3. Blue Gatorade

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Vocalist and composer Meredith Monk is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose work involves music, dance, film, theatre, and now: biology meets anthropology. In her 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. [From the Archives, 2018.] -Caryn Havlik

Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble perform "Indra's Net" at the Park Avenue Armory, Sept. 23-Oct. 6

Watch the session via YouTube:

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The New York band Crumb creates playful and brooding swirls of sounds, somewhere at a crossroads of psychedelia, pop, jazz, and rock. Their latest album AMAMA (Grandmother) [self-released via their own label Crumb Records], experiments with textures and synthscapes: glitchy pitch-shifted vocals, cell phone recordings, nautical blips, sax mouthpiece solos, blasted drum samples, and piano strings dampened with Silly Putty. With lyrics whose meaning may emerge later, Crumb’s haunting music winds up being far from gentle or ‘chill’ and explores fraught encounters and transience, while striving to be carefree and searching for connection. Crumb plays a live set, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: 1. The Bug 2. Side by Side 3. Genie

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American classical pianist and educator Christopher O’Riley has spent his career gleefully ignoring musical boundaries and playing whatever turned him on. In addition to playing Beethoven, Busoni, Ravel, Scriabin, and Liszt, he’s also arranged music by Nick Drake, Nirvana, Elliot Smith, and Radiohead; he leads masterclasses covering nearly every aspect of piano playing and repertoire from 1600 to 2020. Christopher O’Riley’s latest album is of J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, done in a distinctly personal, even idiosyncratic style. He presents his years-long study of the Preludes & Fugues by Bach and a recent arrangement of a classic popular song, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Bach: Prelude & Fugue #1 in C major, BWV 846 2. Bach: Prelude & Fugue #4 in C# minor, BWV 849 3."Over the Rainbow"

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Mehrnam Rastegari is a New York-based master of the traditional Persian spike fiddle, the kamancheh.  She is also a composer, writing film scores and ensemble works that draw on both Eastern and Western musical traditions.  She moved here from Iran in 2022 and formed the Mehrnam Rastegari Traditional Persian Band, a group of New York locals which features traditional Iranian instruments kamancheh, qanoun, daf, and vocals.  Rastegari leads that band in music she’s written, along with traditional Persian, Arabic, and Kurdish music. The Mehrnam Rastegari Traditional Persian Band plays in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: 1. Velveleh 2. Khosha Howraman 3. Show charay

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Guitarist, composer, and teacher Benjamin Verdery seems to know everybody who’s ever picked up the instrument. Ben is a classical guitarist himself, but his musical friends include Andy Summers of the Police, the fingerpicking virtuoso Leo Kottke, flamenco legend Paco Pena, guitarist Bryce Dessner of the indie rock band The National – the list goes on and on. Lots of contemporary composers have written works for him, and Ben himself has written a wide range of works. He’s filled a 40 year career with a wild assortment of collaborations and collaborators. Recently, Ben emailed to say he was retiring next year, so it seemed high time that we invite him back here before he jets off to Hawaii. Benjamin Verdery plays some of his own pieces from his collection called Some Towns and Cities, and yes, at least one of those towns is in Hawaii. 

Set list: 1. Capitola, CA 2. Keanae, HI 3. Milwaukee, WI

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Christopher Rountree is probably best known as the conductor of the LA-based new music ensemble known as Wild Up. Over the last 14 years he and that band have played with Bjork, done live film scores to movie screenings, and embarked on a multiyear recording project of the long forgotten and now rediscovered music of Julius Eastman. But Christopher Rountree is also a composer, and his latest work is called 3 BPM. It seems like it might be his reply to the rise of AI in music, because he describes the piece as “a musical framework for being together.” In an open score that could be part map, and part game, the ensemble performs the entirety of 3 BPM in-studio. 

Watch "3BPM":

The ensemble for this New York in-studio includes: 

Christopher Rountree, voice / synthCatherine Brookman, voice / synth  Nadia Sirota, viola  Adam Tendler, pianoPhong Tran, electronicsTaylor Levine, electric guitarRachel Beetz, flute

3 BPM by Christopher Rountree with Wild Up | HOCKET | Nadia Sirota

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Brooklyn native Bette Smith reconnects with her Memphis and Mississippi roots on her latest, "Goodthing", full of songs that show off her voice -rich and raspy- and her band’s vintage soul and blues-rock sound. But the album also speaks to Smith’s spiritual side, embracing the gospel music she heard in church and around the house every weekend – like Mahalia Jackson and Reverend James Cleveland. Bette Smith and her band play up that southern rock/soul sound, inspire determination, and offer a prayer, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Whup 'Em Good 2. Darkest Hour 3. Eternal Blessings

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