Soundcheck

For the better part of two decades, the Tuscon-based desert-noir band Calexico has been making Mariachi- and Cumbia-laced expansive Americana. For their 2018 record, The Thread That Keeps Us, they explore the dual nature of anxiety and hope in these volatile times with some romance and gritty dread. The band joins us to play some of these songs in our studio. (From the Archives.) Their 2022 album, El Mirador, just out this past April, is "a hopeful, kaleidoscopic beacon of rock, bluesy ruminations and Latin American sounds" (YouTube.)

Set List:

African-American string band tradition meets Cajun/Creole and Appalachian music in a collaboration between singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, actor and MacArthur Fellow Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, a multi-instrumentalist, singer, arranger, songwriter, and actor himself. Together, with banjos and fiddles, they play each other's original songs, music that takes on the slave condition of pre-Civil War times, and chat about their recent project, songs tied to the Reconstruction era culture of the Wilmington, North Carolina Massacre of 1898. (From the Archives, 2018.)

Set list: 

For the guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader of the London-based Curse of Lono, Felix Bechtolsheimer, these past few years have been steeped with loss: his father, uncle, ex-partner, and his band – whose lineup was completely overhauled to the pandemic. The band’s name comes from Hunter S. Thompson’s 1983 book of the same name, and their cinematic southern gothic country songs land somewhere between The Rolling Stones, Wilco, Lou Reed, the Doors, Leonard Cohen and Lee Hazelwood. Bechtolsheimer’s baritone guitars and baritone vocals are “a key part of the Lono sound”, which might be good for “a late-night desert drive” (GuitarWorld.com).

Curse of Lono’s new record, People In Cars – an album named for a 2017 photo book by Mike Mandel – is introspective and at times steeped in memories of darkness and despair, and “is themed around the many roads he’s travelled and those who’ve shared the journey” (folkradio.co.uk). Curse of Lono performs some of these songs for us remotely. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: In Your Arms, London Rain, Way to Mars

Watch "In Your Arms":

Watch "London Rain": 

Watch "Way to Mars":

Dreamy slow-core folk duo Lean Year is Virginia-based singer Emilie Rex and filmmaker/musician Rick Alverson, along with contributions from Chicago musician/engineer Erik Hall and guest artists. Their musical palette is one of soft-spoken but direct vocals, a Telecaster guitar dredging through peaceful waters, baritone saxophone and clarinet parts, Rhodes, tape-warps, and waves of strings. Lean Year joins us in-studio to play some of these cutting and quiet minimalist folk tunes. (From the Archives, 2018.)

Since their inception over a decade ago, the string quintet Sybarite5 has built a global audience, from Lincoln Center to The Cutting Room and the Museum of Sex; from the Apple Store to the Library of Congress, and a music salon-like residency at NYC’s the cell, along with multiple international and national tours, residencies, and festivals.

The five players (Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney, violins; Angela Pickett, viola; Laura Metcalf, cello; and Louis Levitt, bass) have made it their quest to champion new music by American composers along with other tunes that excite them: arrangements of Radiohead, Taraf de Haidouks, Led Zeppelin, and Astor Piazzolla. Their 2018 record, OUTLIERS, is a collection of new works composed just for them. The quintet plays some of these tunes in-studio. (Archives, 2018.)

Set List:

Pow Wow singer Joe Rainey, of the Ojibwe community in Minneapolis, fuses traditional melodies and “vocables” (Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork) with the producer Andrew Broder in something of an avant-hip hop partnership, although in addition to beats, there are field recordings, industrial-sounding processed drums, string arrangements, and vocal processing. He describes his music as being on the same river, but a different boat from other pow wow singers and groups.

Rainey’s album Niineta—the title means “Just Me” in Ojibwe, and which he further explains is “my contribution to contemporary indigenous music” – was released on Justin Vernon and the Dessner brothers’ 37d03d label, to which Rainey is signed. The music is rooted in traditional drum and dance music, where for years Rainey always had a hand-held recorder or voice memo rolling, even recording calls from incarcerated family members singing. These field recordings became part of the whole album’s unique woven fabric of voice-as-instrument pieces, combined with samples and sometimes with altered by electronic processing, all layered with Rainey’s own singing, which can celebrate or console, and “conveys a clear message: We’re still here. We were here before you were, and we never left”, (Bandcamp.) Joe Rainey and Andrew Broder perform remotely. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Bezhigo”, “Can Key”, “No Chants”

Watch "Bezhigo":

Watch "Can Key":

Watch "No Chants":

Niineta by Joe Rainey:

Niineta by Joe Rainey

In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, during the 1960’s and ‘70s, the sounds of American jazz and James Brown-style funk rocketed through the clubs there, combining with Ethiopia’s own exotic scales to produce the golden age of Ethiopian pop. The New York-based 7-piece band Anbessa Orchestra draws from this era and aims to take the listener on a musical journey from Addis Ababa to Brooklyn, with the loping grooves, buoyant brass lines, moody organ, crisp guitars, and solid percussion. Their 2018 album is called Negastat, which means “Kings,” and it is full of Ethiopian-style, horn-heavy funk. And the Anbessa Orchestra is here to play some of it in-studio. (From the Archives, 2018.)

Watch "Gurage":

Watch an Ethiopian scales demo:

Watch "Yeleleu Hager Lidl" (Son of No Country):

As bands go, Anna & Elizabeth have quite the origin story. Anna & Elizabeth began thanks to a broke down car and a shared desire to explore the traditions of Appalachian roots music. The immersive, intimate combination of Elizabeth LaPrelle’s deep mountain voice (from Virginia), Anna Roberts-Gevalt’s modern one (from Vermont), their sweet harmonies, and minimalist arrangements is striking. The duo’s latest record, The Invisible Comes to Us, co-produced by Anna and Benjamin Lazar Davis (avant-pop outfit Cuddle Magic), draws on old-time traditions of home, porch, and kitchen music, and incorporates experimental pedal steel player Susan Alcorn and drummer Jim White (The Dirty Three), along with electronic elements. It brings Anna & Elizabeth to play some of these sparse, haunting ballads, stories, and lullabies for us, in-studio.

Watch "Black Eyed Susan":

Watch "Jeano" :

Watch "Odd Kimball":

Canadian indie-pop band Stars makes almost orchestral pop that has the bonus quality of being danceable. They’ve also got a knack for vividly descriptive storytelling, built around the dueling vocals of singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. Formed in the early 2000’s, Stars has been “remarkably stable” over the years; they enjoy making one another laugh, they've written a play, and even fiction about themselves. 

Their ninth studio album, From Capelton Hill, covers pandemic shock, explores memory – perhaps with a sepia tinge, and has a strong sense of place. Stars plays remotely for the Soundcheck Podcast.

Stars plays a Bandcamp Live-streaming set at 5PM on May 27.

Set list: “Build a Fire”, “Capelton Hill”, "Patterns"

Watch "Build a Fire":

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader Jose Conde (of the tropical Latin dance band Ola Fresca) draws on the musical melting pot of Miami for his latest solo effort, Souls Alive in the 305. With some music inspired by cicadas and frogs, and George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog,” he combines funk, breakbeat, disco rap, rock n roll, Cuban music and salsa into songs that sound like “the Miami musical landscape of my youth.” Jose Conde and his band perform remotely for the Soundcheck Podcast. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: “Fallen From Eternity”, “Poetry in Motion”

Watch "Fallen From Eternity":

Watch "Poetry In Motion":