Soundcheck

Guitarist and singer Becca Steven's resume includes stints with the adventurous jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding, electrifying trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, and hip-hop inflected jazz vocalist José James. She’s part of New York’s new music scene, and has contributed to a compilation of Laura Nyro covers. So you might guess that The Becca Stevens Band would not be your typical indie rock group. And you’d be right.

The band’s 2015 debut record is called Perfect Animal, and it’s full of shimmering, strangely augmented chords; angular melodic swoops and dives; and rhythms that catch the ear but don’t settle where you expect. There are also breathtaking forays into pop and even R&B, including covers of songs by Frank Ocean and Usher. The result is a pulsing, personal experience, guided by Stevens' singular voice and vision, that is the most exciting entry on her resume yet. Becca Stevens and her band perform in-studio. (From the Archives, 2015.)

The late American pianist, composer, and “Legend of Jazz,” Randy Weston, stretched across history to forge connections to an African past, as he had done for decades.

On his 2017 recording, The African Nubian Suite, Weston took as his subject matter the very origins of humanity – the fossilized skeletal remains of “Ardi,” a hominid who lived around 4.5 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. This "planetary music," as Weston called it stretches across millennia, looking to the Nubian empire (now northern Sudan/southern Egypt), African folk traditions, Sufi music, blues, and jazz. Randy Weston joined us in-studio in 2017. (From the Archives.) 

Genius Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain, is one of the world’s exceptional percussionists. The son of Ustad Alla Rahka, Zakir is also a composer, improviser, and a great communicator in Persian, Gujarati, German, English, as well as in jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Nigerian talking drums, or Indonesian gamelan. One of the most exciting ways that Zakir Hussain shares this deep and vast knowledge in performance is by way of the Masters of Percussion Tour – which is exactly as stunning as a music fan (especially a drum nerd) might ever imagine.

For the 2019 tour (in the before times), the ensemble included the sitar virtuoso and instrument inventor Niladri Kumar, and the extraordinary jazzer Eric Harland (Charles Lloyd, Dave Holland's Prism) on Western drums.

Zakir Hussain, Niladri Kumar, and Eric Harland join us in-studio for a sample of this astounding musical magic. - (NSAPA and drum nerd Caryn Havlik)

Watch the session here: 

Pom Pom Squad is more than a punk band. Led by singer and songwriter Mia Berrin, their music is a romp through many musical styles: a seemingly disparate collection of punk and grunge, Motown, crooner jazz, and wall-of-sound 60’s pop all built on feelings - heartbreak and injustice and intimacy, and navigating the way through treacherous waters. Their 2021 album Death of a Cheerleader takes a knowing, ironic look at pop culture through a queer lens, focusing on the romance and glamour of 20th century film stars, and the iconic figure of the cheerleader from teen movies past, especially the 1999 film, But I'm a Cheerleader. The full lineup of Pom Pom Squad (Mari Alé Figeman, Bass: Shelby Keller, Drums and Percussion, Alex Mercuri, Lead Guitar, and Mia Berrin) plays remotely.

Berrin is working on "re-training the muscle" of playing live shows for when the band is scheduled to go on tour later in the fall.

Set list: "Lux," "Drunk Voicemail"

Watch "Lux":

Watch "Drunk Voicemail":

Since his 2007 breakthrough album, Spiderman Of The Rings, Dan Deacon has assumed numerous roles. He’s a staple of Baltimore's Wham City art collective - and a classically-trained composer and film scorer. On stage, he’s a mad scientist tinkering with colorful electronics - and a ringleader encouraging his wild fans in absurdist dance-offs. Likewise, his music delivers both exquisite bliss and full-on beat-heavy cacophony. But no matter the setting, Deacon's unfettered sense of humor and his masterful ear for sonic textures unify his various music sides in endlessly exciting ways.

Now, after several records written for larger ensembles, Deacon has gone solo with his 2015 album, Gliss Riffer. In some ways, it's a return to what he’s best known for: exuberant and densely-stuffed electronic dance music. And while singing has always played some part Deacon's songs, Gliss Riffer showcases his voice more fully. You can hear that immediately in the lead single, "Feel The Lightning," and in "Learning To Relax" - where Deacon changes the pitch or timbre of his voice to sometimes sound female - like a duet with himself. It's a big pop-infused sound that will easily get fans flailing with awkward abandon on the dance floor.

Deacon plays those two new songs -- plus a completely improvised piece -- and talks about his writing process and more for this in-studio session.

Dan Deacon, on why Gliss RIffer showcases more of his voice:

I think the reason I focused on the voice is because I permanently destroyed it. There [was] a venue in New York called 285 Kent. I was sick. I had a sore throat and I did the show anyway. I didn’t warm up and people were smoking inside. It was the perfect storm for a terrible worsening of the throat. I went to a throat doctor and was like, "Well, you didn’t do permanent, permanent damage, but you have to realize you can’t treat your voice like your shoes. You have to treat it well and you have to know how to use it." I was like, "What?!? I have no idea how to use my voice! That’s insane!" I’m not going to have the same voice in 2040, 2020. I kept thinking that I should utilize this expiring instrument before it's expired.

On the vocal techniques in "Feel The Lightning":

This is the first record where I wanted to use a different technique to augment the pitch in my voice. I use an old Les Paul technique that The Beatles used a lot too called Varispeed: You change the speed of the music. And you sing regularly and then speed it up and slow it down and then it augments the sound of your voice.

After years of pitch shifting, I have a different way of thinking about it: I don’t hear sounds as gendered. I’m not doing a female voice, I’m just doing a higher pitched voice. Just like how the left hand on the piano isn’t a boy and the right hand on the piano isn’t a girl.

On his exploration of synthesizers:

After I made America, I was like, "Why aren’t I thinking about the orchestration of the synthesizer? Why don’t I try to realize these synth parts, not with soft synths but with hardware synths?" So when I was down for Moogfest, doing a demo for something we were making, I [thought] it would be really fun to come down here and record for a few days. And they gave us full access to their facilities. They let me use a new synth called the Sub 37 that wasn’t out yet; didn’t have a manual, it was still in beta testing. It felt really good, and it was exciting to use an instrument that hasn’t really existed yet. I’m often fascinated with the history of musical instruments and how people are like, "Electronic music, what is it?"

On the writing process:

When I’m writing anything, I wonder where it will it go. What it’s future will be? Will I play live? Will it be something that exists on an album? Will it be something that I play in a seated area, like in a concert hall, or in a venue? Would it be something I play to be paired to image, like for film or video? Once I sort of figure out where it’s going to go, it start to grow into that mold.

On the shift in music listening habits:

I also don’t like thinking of music as a commodity. It’s only existed as a commodity for like a 120 years max? I don’t know the exact date but it didn’t use to be something like, "You want to hear a song? Give me five dollars, I’ll sing it for you. And I’ll sing it for you whenever you see me." [laughs]

Any paradigm shift, there’s going to be a fall out and a quote-unquote Dark Age surrounding it. I just feel like, music is constantly changed. The way you heard it, the way you made it, the way it interacts with society, the way you interact with it, so I don’t think there are wrong turns.

Rachika Nayar is a composer and producer who uses her electric guitar as a sound source, creating rich layers of sound in real time. She then "mutilates" and "contorts" these sounds, processing them, arranging them into the finished pieces on her 2021 LP Our Hands Against The Dusk and its companion record, the 2021 EP Fragments, which could be considered as a collection of Etudes; none of the works on Fragments were translated into larger pieces.

Nayar's guitar playing is informed by math rock, post rock, jazz, EDM - "the 4AM warehouse rave", and lately – exploring open tunings. She talks us through and demonstrates her process, starting with solo electric guitar loops, which are processed, pulled apart, and rebuilt, shifted, stretched, and arranged with other electronic instruments.  Rachika Nayar improvises guitar loop-based pieces and transforms them for this remote session. - Caryn Havlik

Set list: "Memory as Miniatures," Untitled Guitar Piece

Watch "Memory as Miniatures":

Watch: Untitled Guitar Piece: 

It took Aoife O’Donovan a decade to record her debut as a solo artist, the 2013 album Fossils. But it’s not like she was sitting around twiddling her thumbs prior to that. She was busy playing with the high energy bluegrass band Crooked Still, or collaborating with Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, and other stars of the strings. O’Donovan’s gorgeous 2016 record In the Magic Hour ties together elements of pop, folk, and bluegrass in a cohesive, emotive package. She plays songs in-studio (from the Archives, 2016)

BONUS: You can also watch an archive of Aoife performing solo in our studio here.

Natalia Lafourcade had writer's block. Her 2009 album Hu Hu Hu had been a critical and commercial triumph, nominated for Grammy awards and hailed as one of the best records of the decade by tastemakers in the Latin music world. How to move forward? She returned to her roots to find inspiration, mining her home country of Mexico for fresh ideas and deep connections, and responding to Latin American songwriters like Simón Díaz and Caetano Veloso. In fact, she called the 2015 record Hasta la Raíz -- "Down to the Roots." The result? Grammy Awards and heaps more critical praise, not to mention, beautiful music. Natalia Lafourcade plays a special acoustic session in-studio, (from the Archives, 2016.)

"Warm and melodic" aren't exactly words the members of Publicist UK are used to hearing. Each of them has worked in some heavy, aggressive bands on the metal and hardcore scenes. But together, in this new underground supergroup, they have created urgent and moody music that revels in melody and massive, insistent choruses. And if it's not all warm and fuzzy, it is at least supportive: Publicist UK's debut album is called Forgive Yourself. 

The band began as a long-distance experiment by underground rock all-stars Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, ex-Burnt by the Sun, Discordance Axis, Melt-Banana), Zachary Lipez (ex-Freshkills), Brett Bamberger (Revocation, ex-East of the Wall), and David Obuchowski (Goes Cube, Distant Correspondent). The group started recording in their homes in Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Colorado then landed a record deal with Relapse Records, recording the full-length in New Hampshire. Hear the band perform a few of their new songs live in our studio.

Singer-songwriter Laura Stevenson documents the turbulent and heavy stuff of life with warmth and fierce intensity. The multi-instrumentalist offers an album, “written as a sort of purge and a prayer,” of dynamic contrasts, clasping hands with blistering rage and working out how to deal with fear and pain. Laura Stevenson plays tunes remotely with her band from her self-titled 2021 record.

Set list: “State,” “Don’t Think About Me,” “Sky Blue, Bad News”

Watch "State":