Louisiana-based Lost Bayou Ramblers are a swinging punkass party band who mix Cajun melodies on fiddle, accordion, guitars, and some electric sounds. They've won a regional roots Grammy for their record, Kalenda, but they’ve also done an original score for ROUS, a film about Nutria Rats and Louisiana’s coastal land loss, and contributed to the score for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Fresh off the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans, the Lost Bayou Ramblers join us in the studio (from the Archives, 2018.)

The Atlanta-born quartet Algiers mixes post-punk guitars, gospel vocal harmonies, hip hop sampling, chopped and screwed production techniques, and pointed social commentary in a revolutionary way that is dark, urgent, angry, and utterly exhilarating. Their most recent record, Shook, has Algiers’ signature fury and weight, features a multiplicity of voices, and is the result of the creative energy released into the space and time generated by the enforced pause on touring. As Frankie Fisher says in a Bandcamp interview, "Algiers’s ethos, philosophy, and politics are about inclusivity and people generally on the margins", and in keeping with that, multiple guest artists from within the community contributed to this rich and complex sound, and the collaborative conversation even took on a new New York feel after the Shook stems were shared and manipulated into a separate companion soundworld. Algiers plays music from Shook, as a trio, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Irreversible Damage”, “Bite Back”, “Green Iris”

Watch “Irreversible Damage”:

Watch “Bite Back":

Watch “Green Iris”:

The London quintet known as Ezra Collective looks like a jazz band, with their dueling horns, keys, bass and drums.  But their music reflects the lively artistic ferment happening now in South London, where the sounds of Caribbean music, hip hop, and especially the Nigerian style known as Afrobeat have all become part of the scene. Ezra Collective’s drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso studied with the late, great Nigerian drummer Tony Allen, and with his brother TJ on bass, the two Koleosos form a propulsive rhythm section, but one that’s full of surprises. Add in keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, and tenor saxophonist James Mollison, and the quintet brings audiences a hybrid jazz with killah beats for dancing. - John Schaefer

Set list: "Ego Killah", "No Confusion", "Belonging"

Watch "Ego Killah":

Watch "No Confusion": 

Watch "Belonging":

Harpist, collaborator, bandleader, educator, and improviser, Brandee Younger, has mastered the language of Debussy, Ravel, Alice Coltrane, R&B, hip hop, mid 20th century pop, funk, reggae, the blues, and hymns, to name merely a few genres. In her work, she weaves in ALL the sounds of the day- and is not locked into any one genre, just like the great pioneering harpist Dorothy Ashby – who was “way ahead of her time”. Younger’s latest effort, Brand New Life, covers and re-imagines some of Dorothy Ashby’s unreleased music, recruiting players like bassist/vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello, singer/songwriter/MC Mumu Fresh, guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Makaya McCraven, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and the great hip hop producer Pete Rock.

Brandee Younger brings the killer bass lines, hang time, wide expressive range, and the delicate chords, trills, and sweeps - and demonstrates  different extended harp techniques (pedal slide, prepared harp, playing near the board) - playing solo, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, “Essence of Ruby”, “Unrest I”

Watch "Lift Every Voice and Sing":

Watch "Essence of Ruby":

Watch "Unrest I":

Fenne Lily is an English singer, guitarist and songwriter now based here in New York. The songs on her new album, Big Picture, were written as some kind of way to bring order to some of the most vulnerable points of 2020. She explores her ever-changing view of love as a process, brightly framing worry, doubt, closeness, and letting go. Fenne Lily and her band play in-studio.

Set list: "Pick", "Lights Light Up", "Dawncolored Horse"

Watch "Pick":

Watch "Lights Light Up":

Watch "Dawncolored Horse":

Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer, and bandleader Kalia Vandever weaves beautifully layered musical tapestries using layers of her horn, electronics, and occasional wordless vocals, creating works that sound dramatically different from the music she plays with her jazz quartet, or the work she’s done with Harry Stiles, Lizzo, indie rock’s Japanese Breakfast, and many others. Kalia Vandever's latest, We Fell In Turn, is inspired by Hawaiian mythology, dreamscapes, and ancestry. She plays some of these compositions for solo trombone and electronics, in-studio. 

Set list: "Held In / Stillness In Hand", "Recollections From Shore"

Watch "Held In / Stillness In Hand":

Watch "Recollections From Shore":

We Fell In Turn by Kalia Vandever

Alexandra Stréliski is a French-Canadian pianist who creates minimalist and cinematic music in the vein of composers Frédéric Chopin and Erik Satie as well as film music composers like Zimmer, Glass and Nyman - heavy on romance and with enough space to linger on the emotions in her work. Stréliski’s music was heard in HBO’s Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies Season 2 round-table, and in the Jean-Marc Vallée’s film Dallas Buyers Club (2013). Her latest release, Néo-Romance, conjures longing and hope, dream and imagination - inspired by the great themes of the romantic era, nostalgia, nature and spontaneity. Alexandra Stréliski performs some of these melancholic and beautiful tunes, in-studio.

Set list: "In the Air / The Hills", "The Breach", "Borders"

Watch "In the Air / The Hills":

Watch "The Breach":

Watch "Borders":

The New Pornographers reliably bring the power pop; one can always count on big hooks, anthemic choruses, and impeccably arranged orchestrations. Then there are the sweet vocal harmonies, a few additional beats to make things far from simple, and unexpected lyrical twists like a plan for “a long fade out,” "we burst through the Overton window”, and "You made this hell yourself?/Well, it's real nice". Songwriter & vocalist Carl Newman has never settled for a simple narrative or a beautiful landscape in song lyrics that seem halfway in the real world, but not quite right; or sometimes in images that are non-representational, maybe like modern art.

From glittering arpeggiators to a well-placed sampled yelp, along with saxophones and meaty synths, the songs seem to be born of a playful approach – “trying out ideas as if no one is listening”, describes Newman, and perhaps hinting that he also uses another delicate method in his songcraft of ‘mess around and find out’. Some of the members of The New Pornographers play stripped-down arrangements of songs from their latest, Continue as a Guest, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Really Really Light”, “Angelcover”, “Firework in the Falling Snow”

Watch "Really Really Light":

Watch "Angelcover":

Watch "Firework in the Falling Snow":

Mary Halvorson has established herself as one of the finest guitarists of her generation; Robbie Lee has established himself as a versatile flutist, sax player, and keyboardist. Their 2018 album together sports such oddities as a 19th-century harp guitar with 18 strings, the world’s smallest saxophone, and a Renaissance reed instrument called the chalumeau. The music of edited improvisations covers a lot of sonic ground, floating between folk and jazz and world music. Robbie Lee and Mary Halvorson are in the studio for an improvised set of "mutant chamber jazz" (via @robbielee.) [From the Archives, 2018.]

Pianist, collaborator, and mentor Eunbi Kim presents sonic memoirs and meditations on life experiences through her latest batch of collaborative commissioned works. The dreamy soundworld features new pieces by living composers, plus electronics, strings, taped voices and found sounds. Eunbi Kim plays works by Pauchi Sasaki, Angélica Negrón, and Sophia Jani, in-studio.

Set list: "Mother's Hand, Healing Hand (엄마손은 약손)" by Pauchi Sasaki (2021), "Saturn Years" by Sophia Jani (2021), "Disco giratorio de palabras" (Rotating Record of Words) by Angélica Negrón (2020)

Kim holds a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where she also held a fellowship in the institution’s Center for Music Entrepreneurship. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for New York Foundation for the Arts and is co-founder of bespoken, a mentorship program for women in music.

Watch "Mother's Hand, Healing Hand (엄마손은 약손)" by Pauchi Sasaki:

Watch "Saturn Years" by Sophia Jani:

Watch "Disco giratorio de palabras" by Angélica Negrón: