Indianapolis-based group 81355 (pronounced ‘bless’) is a collaboration between the rapper/singers Oreo Jones and Sirius Blvck, and the lyricist/producer Sedcairn, and while they’re clearly rooted in hip hop, they’re not bound by it. On their impressive new album Bad Dogs, the band races through electropop, future soul, grunge, and avant-garde boom-bap, all the while designing a hazy and heavy Afrofuturist take on a live band augmented by electronics - supported by members of their "Naptown" underground music community. They play music from their latest, 'Bad Dogs', in-studio for the #SoundcheckPodcast.

Set list: 1. Heart of Stone 2. Guitar 3. Capstone

In 2000 the Bad Plus helped usher in the new century with what looked like a 20th century jazz piano trio, with music ranging from groove-based originals to covers of Black Sabbath and Igor Stravinsky. Over the past quarter century they’ve repeatedly surprised listeners. Lately founding members Reid Anderson (bass) & Dave King (drums) with no piano at all have formed a quartet with reedist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder. The Bad Plus’s latest album is called Complex Emotions and they play some of these compositions in-studio.

Set List: 1. Casa Ben 2. French Horns 3. Carrier

Cautious Clay is the stage name of singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Josh Karpeh. He burst out of the gate with his song “Cold War” in 2017, a song that was later sampled by Taylor Swift in her track “London Boy”.  Cautious Clay’s music blends R&B, neo-soul, jazz, and more, and his subsequent output includes cowriting with John Legend and of course his own records, the most recent of which is called The Hours: Morning.  Cautious Clay and his band play new music, in-studio. 

Set list: 1. Fade Blue 2. Tokyo Lift (5am) 3. Art Museum

The Hours: Morning by Cautious Clay

Bandleader, educator, and improviser Brandee Younger plays the harp. But while she has classical training and knows her way around Ravel and Debussy, she has long been fascinated by harpists like Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, Black women who created new spaces for the harp in the worlds of jazz and pop.  Brandee Younger’s new album is called Gadabout Season, and on it, she plays her own compositions, and plays them on Alice Coltrane’s own harp. She and her trio play in-studio.

Set list: 1. Gadabout Season 2. New Pinnacle 3. BBL

Larry & Joe is a duo that blends the traditional folk music of Venezuela and Appalachia. The duo consists of Larry Bellorin, who has mastered the folk harp of Venezuela, and Joe Troop, who led the Latin-tinged bluegrass band Che Apalache. Larry, a legend of Llanera music, came to America in 2016 as an asylum seeker and describes his current immigration status as “limbo.” Joe Troop is a banjo, fiddle and guitar player who has written songs about migration, and works with asylum seekers; he relocated to North Carolina to be in this duo with Larry. 

Together, they’ve blended their musical inheritances and traditions performing on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, and upright bass. Their latest is called Manos Panamericanos, and they’re on a mission to show that music has no borders. Larry & Joe play in-studio.

Set list: 1. Golpe de Garza 2. Silver Lining  3. The Dreamer

American singer-songwriter Laura Stevenson has found a musical home in the area between indie rock and confessional singer/songwriter folk. Her new album, Late Great, runs the gamut of feelings: one moment pulsating with a shoegaze-influenced dreamscape of sparkling guitars and in another, there’s tender, acoustic reflection with elusive, poetic lyrics. Armed with a new career path, she processes heartbreak on this “document of loss”, reconnecting with her healing relationship to music (Rough Trade Records). Laura Stevenson plays intimate arrangements of these new tunes, in-studio. 
Set list: 1. Honey 2. Domino 3. Not Us

John Butler has been one of Australia’s most successful independent musicians over the past quarter century.  Much of that time he’s led the platinum selling John Butler Trio, three of whose albums hit number one on the Australian charts. Lately, he has been celebrating going solo, using his signature blend of rock, pop, folk, blues, and roots music. Butler’s new album, Prism, the third in his four album project, in which he continues to explore "what it is to be human: love, death, politics, inner and outer turmoil and redemption", (Billboard), comes out on September 5. John Butler and his band play a couple of the singles from the album, as well as on old fave, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Trippin On You 2. So Sorry 3. Zebra

The band Buscabulla began here in New York over a decade ago, when singer Raquel Berrios and multi-instrumentalist Luis Del Valle began making their sophisticated, electronically-tinged Latin pop together. The name Buscabulla loosely translates as “troublemaker,” though the only trouble they’ve caused is to people who’ve tried to pin down their music. Their songs have a dreamy pop atmosphere but often ride along on sturdy Caribbean rhythms. Elements of funk and experimental electronic music are also part of the mix. Now, Buscabulla is based in Puerto Rico, where they’ve collaborated with Bad Bunny and released two LPs, the latest one called Se Amaba Asi. They play some of these new tunes, in-studio.

New York indie-pop group Wet, sometimes melancholic, sometimes bright, and always soulful, has just released Two Lives, a memoir-ish bittersweet reflection on life’s major transitions, featuring some of vocalist Kelly Zutrau’s most accomplished songwriting yet. With deconstructed R&B elements, dreamy textures, and a lot of vulnerability, Wet plays some of their “their signature slow-burning electro-pop” (Chicago Reader) in the studio. 

Set list: 1.  Shut My Eyes 2. Double  3. Coffee In The Morning / Soon To Be Moon

Cheikh Ibra Fam is a singer and songwriter from the West African nation of Senegal; he toured the world singing with Senegal’s famous dance band, Orchestra Baobob, for six years. In 2022, he released his first solo record, Peace in Africa, and in October he’ll release his new album, Adouna, or Life, which draws from Afro-Cuban rhythms and classic soul. Cheikh Ibra Fam and his band preview these new songs of hope and resilience, in-studio.