Soundcheck

Serbian quartet EYOT draws on traditional Balkan folk music, jazz, classical piano, punk, and art-rock, and fits neatly into none of these categories. Their music - partly composed, and partly improvised - never loses its groove, even as it frequently makes use of the odd rhythm patterns (5/8, 7/8, 9/8) that are part of the turbulent history of the region. EYOT celebrates their 15th anniversary of making music together by playing some of the tunes from their most recent album, 557799, (yep, because of said odd meters contained therein), in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: "557799", "Linen", "Horizon"

Watch "557799":

Watch "Linen":

Watch "Horizon":

This year marks the centennial of legendary North Carolina folk musician Doc Watson, one of the giants of the folk revival of the 50s and 60s. There’s a new album paying homage to Watson's lasting legacy and influence on American music, which features a stellar cast of contemporary musicians playing some of the songs Watson had championed; it’s called I Am A Pilgrim – Doc Watson at 100. The producer of the collection is Grammy Award winning guitarist, songwriter, and producer Matthew Stevens, who gathered a few of the album’s featured musicians and collaborators - singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Valerie June, Brooklyn-born teen banjo wunderkind Nora Brown, fiddler Stephanie Coleman, and musician James Shipp - to play some of these songs in-studio. Plus, hear a bonus original tune, "Man Done Wrong", by Valerie June. -Caryn Havlik

Watch Valerie June and Matthew Stevens play "Handsome Molly":

Watch Nora Brown, Stephanie Coleman, James Shipp: "Am I Born to Die":

Watch Nora Brown, Stephanie Coleman, James Shipp: "Your Long Journey": 

Watch Matthew Stevens play "Alberta":

Watch Valerie June play "Man Done Wrong":

Catalan folk duo Tarta Relena's vocal-based music limns centuries and borders, ranges from the sacred to the secular, and often uses electronics. Their body of work so far reimagines Mediterranean folk, Georgian laments, and the 12th century mystic Hildegard von Bingen. Then, there's their setting of verse from Afghan Pashto women singing about “controversial subjects such as envy, broken hearts, hatred or lust”, and adapted sacred music (they met as members of a religious music choir), (Songlines, 2022). Singing in Catalan, Spanish, Greek, Latin, English and Ladino, they treat each language as a tool, a color to bring up an emotion.

Tarta Relena’s arrangements and performances traffic in the intense spirituality and human connection of the music, which lands with joy and poignancy, enhanced by dramatic use of electronics: percussion, drone, some bass synth, and vocal effects. For this edition of the Soundcheck Podcast, Tarta Relena sings a cappella, just like they started the duo back in 2016. They perform on location from the 2023 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN. - Caryn Havlik

P.S. “Tarta relena” means “stuffed pie” in Spanish.

Set list: "Esta Montagne d’enfrente", "Tuta Pulchra"

Watch "Esta Montagne d’enfrente":

Watch "Tuta Pulchra":

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":