Soundcheck

Los Angeles-born, Virginia-based singer-songwriter Angelica Garcia harnesses some country-blues twang, playing songs from her debut full-length, "Medicine for Birds," live, with her full band, in the studio. She taps into the magnolia trees, starry skies, and the ghosts of gothic Americana, written in her newfound isolation of a dusty old parish house in Accomac, Virginia.

Sam Lee is much more than a musician - he's a storyteller. In "Blackbird," from his album The Fade In Time, his deep croons and intricate vocals breathe life into forgotten stories, drawing you into a colorful and heart-wrenching world. The album title is appropriate, since he collects traditional English songs and repurposes them for a new place and time. 

Not many traditional English folk singers came from North London, studied at Chelsea School of Art and worked as a forager and wilderness expert during the day and burlesque dancer by night. Lee however is not in the majority - his charisma and talents spurred an apprenticeship with the great Scottish Traveller singer Stanley Robertson along with a Mercury Prize nomination. Lee has blazed a trail for burgeoning song collectors and inspired a new generation to tap into the storytelling of present and past minstrels. He performs in-studio in this 2015 session from the Archives. 

Lou Reed. Dr. John. Bruce Springsteen. John Cale. Levon Helm. Garland Jeffreys has collaborated with all of them, and his gravelly voice, roots-rock DNA, and trenchant writing has always channeled the best bits of each of them. 

A recording artist since the 1960s, Brooklyn native Jeffreys has had more career ups (and downs) than most artists can dream of today, but he's riding yet another wave of creativity and energy. His loose and rollicking 2013 album Truth Serum was lauded by critics and fans. He was a 2015 inductee into the New York Blues Hall of Fame, recognizing just one facet of his kaleidoscopic musical persona. All the late-period vigor and recognition has him revisiting one of his earliest successes, 1977's Ghost Writer. A frothing cauldron of, yes, blues, but also soul, funk, Exile-era Stones rock—and an inspired dose of reggae—Ghost Writer revealed a burgeoning, observant poet of the streets as well as a sharp-eared pop chameleon. 

Garland Jeffreys visits the studio to talk to host John Schaefer about the NYC that inspired Ghost Writer, and to play a handful of the album's standout tracks.

London-based dance music artist, classically trained pianist/composer, and Chicago native Kate Simko, along with the London Electronic Orchestra, combine harp, violin, cello & laptop, live in the studio. Layers of clubby electronics and keyboards support delicate harp, violin and cello melodies. Altogether, the result is a buoyant, airy, and uplifting hybrid dance music - something like a film score for a documentary about a days-long party in Ibiza. (From the Archives, 2017.)

Singer, guitarist, songwriter, and label owner, Jennifer O’Connor has gone from acoustic guitar to plugged-in rockenroll band and now to crafting nostalgic-sounding Logic-based songs in her 20-year career. Her latest album is the perhaps misleadingly-titled Born at the Disco, recorded in large part by O’Connor herself at home, upending her usual process by using drum machines and synths to play and create, with touchstones like the Jesus and Mary Chain and maybe the Swedish pop artist, Robyn. Jennifer O'Connor plays her emotional and intimate indie pop songs remotely from her home. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: "Born at the Disco," "Less and Less," "Who Can You Kiss"

Watch "Less and Less":

Watch "Who Can You Kiss":

Since forming back around the turn of this century, the New Pornographers have consistently been one of indie rock’s top attractions - reliable purveyors of big hooks, anthemic choruses, and Technicolor orchestrations. The band is a supergroup of sorts, with a mutable lineup of singers and instrumentalists, but the first among equals has always been vocalist and songwriter Carl Newman. He joins John Schaefer to talk about the band’s 2017 album, called Whiteout Conditions. AND, some of the band plays live in this session from the Archives. 

The Reverend Osagyefo Sekou draws from a deep well of American music on his new album, called In Times Like These. Blues and gospel traditions, but specifically also "North Mississippi Hill Country Music, Arkansas Delta Blues, 1960s Rock and Roll, Memphis Soul, Chuck Berry St Louis vibes, and Pentecostal steel guitar." Now if you’re thinking that those are musical holdovers from another time, the activist, author, documentary filmmaker and theologian Reverend Sekou wants you to know that that music has become powerful and relevant again, in times like these. The album features Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars, and Rev Sekou toured with them back in 2017. He and The Sealbreakers play some of the tunes, in-studio. (Archives, 2017.)

There’s something about the band name Into It. Over It. that seems perfect for the digital age, when we rush to crown the Next Big Thing one week and abandon it for the new Next Big Thing a week later. But Chicago singer and songwriter Evan Thomas Weiss has managed to keep an even keel through nearly a decade and several full-length albums, keeping Into It. Over It. as both a touring band and as an occasional solo project. The band’s 2016 album was called Standards (no, he doesn’t sing Gershwin or Cole Porter), and Evan Weiss joined us to perform a live solo set. 

Brooklyn's Sharkmuffin met cute on July 4, 2012 at a beach house that was later destroyed by Hurricane Sandy - a possible reason why the band's music is visceral, explosive, sharp and a little dangerous. Tarra Thiessen (guitar, vocals, theremin, pocket piano) and Natalie Kirch (bass, vocals, claps) make up the core of the band, with frequently-rotating drummers. Hear them perform their short slap-in-the-face songs live in-studio. (From the Archives, 2015.)

For longtime indie rock fans, it's kinda hard to believe that Mac McCaughan has been making music for more than 25 years. Soon after leaving Columbia University in 1987, the Durham, North Carolina native both formed Superchunk and co-founded Merge Records - alongside bassist and savvy financial manager Laura Ballance - in 1989. And since then, Superchunk has released ten albums and countless singles -- and several more records with his on-again/off-again project Portastatic. And Merge has grown to become one of the most respected independent labels, with bands like Arcade Fire, Mountain Goats, and Magnetic Fields among the names on its impressive roster.

With 2015's Non-Believers, the songwriter and guitarist eschewed his trademark punk-ed up pop and blistering guitar lines, and debuted an electro-rock and synth-infused sound that's more minimalist than Superchunk, yet more polished than Portistatic. That said, McCaughan's fearless ambition remains intact. His songs are still built around that same boyish-turned-gravelly voice and those same biting, smartly-crafted lyrics. On Non-Believers, McCaughan's music sounds more personal, intimately reflecting on his life as a husband and father. Yet no matter the setting, McCaughan proves he's got a way with hook, and a simple, yet affecting turn of phrase. (From the Archives, 2015.)