Soundcheck

Malian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor Fatoumata Diawara is a multiple Grammy Award nominee, currently living in Paris. "Fatou" Diawara has become an enthusiastic collaborator - with musicians from other African countries - Cheikh Lô, AfroCubism, and Orchestra Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - as well as rock stars like Damon Albarn and Flea and traditional players from Cuba and Brittany. She has also worked as a social activist, campaigning against the trafficking and sale of black migrants in Libyan slave markets.

On her most recent, Fenfo (“Something to Say”), electric guitar riffs combine with the strings of the kora and kamel ngoni and drum kit combines with the timeless rhythms of traditional percussion. The record was co-produced by French auteur Matthieu Chedid aka M, who plays guitar and organ, and the versatile cellist Vincent Segal is a guest on a few tracks. Fatoumata Diawara shares the fruits of her latest musical adventures, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

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Dutch pianist and composer Joep Beving records for the world’s most prestigious classical music label, but his streaming numbers are more like a pop star. He creates introspective and often filmic instrumental piano compositions, representing a quest for essence and beauty. Beving plays one piece from each of his mostly solo piano records on a down-tuned piano (A=432), in-studio.  - Caryn Havlik

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Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar – is better known as iLe - but for a long time she was known as PG-13, in the Puerto Rican hip-hop group Calle 13. Her 2016 solo debut, iLevitable, was a masterful survey of traditional Latin forms - boleros, ballads, boogaloo, and mambo. Now, with her latest, Almadura (the title means “strong soul” and is a play on words of the Spanish word for "armor" ("armadura") - thanks, Wikipedia) she draws from traditional musical genres like bomba and boogaloo, and continues to learn from her own roots, serenading her native Puerto Rico and calling for political action. iLe and her band play some of these tunes, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

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Pianist Omar Sosa grew up in the Afro-Cuban tradition, studied jazz in America, and now lives in Barcelona. Yilian loves to go back to her Cuban roots but refuses to be locked into stereotypes. Together, these two Cuban artists living outside their homeland blend Afro-Cuban roots, jazz, and Western Classical music in work inspired by the important influences of water – and called AGUAS Trio. Omar Sosa and Yilian Cañizares (Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles) play live in our studio.

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Bonny Light Horseman is a new trio consisting of Anais Mitchell, the songwriter behind the all-conquering Broadway musical Hadestown; Eric D Johnson, who leads the band Fruit Bats; and Josh Kaufman, who’s played with The National, Craig Finn, and many others. Together they are taking a new look at old folk songs from both sides of the Atlantic. The band name is actually from an old Napoleonic folk song about a handsome soldier who may or may not ever come home (here's their version.) With intimate harmonies and heartbreaking choruses, the trio Bonny Light Horseman plays music from their shimmering, chill-inducing self-titled debut, in-studio. 

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The 12-piece plus Afrobeat orchestra known as Antibalas (Spanish for "bulletproof") first made its reputation with hard-hitting, politically charged music in the style of the Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti. In the more than 20 years that they've been playing together, the Brooklyn collective served as the house band and musical directors for the Broadway show Fela!, in addition to being the house band at Carnegie Hall at tribute shows performing the music of Paul Simon (2014), David Byrne and Talking Heads (2015) and Aretha Franklin (2017).

The music of Antibalas comes from an adventurous place where one might find horn-heavy funk, Afro-Cuban music, the loping rhythms of Ethiogroove, Caribbean dance, punk rock, and extra-planetary cosmic jazz all sharing the same playground. For their latest record, Fu Chronicles, Duke Amayo (lead singer, percussionist and composer) and Antibalas founder/baritone saxophonist Martín Perna look back to pre-gentrified Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when Antibalas and Daptone Records "spawned out of Amayo’s kung fu dojo.” (Amayo is a senior master of the Jow Ga Kung Fu School of martial arts. -Bandcamp) Antibalas joins us in-studio to play some of the new tunes. - Caryn Havlik

Fu Chronicles by Antibalas

Brooklyn-born folk-rock outfit The Lone Bellow blends passionate, acoustic-based blues, country, and roots music into acoustic Americana with three-part vocal harmonies. That sound can be a very comforting one, but the trio has responded to our turbulent times with their most expansive album yet. With a big sonic palette that acknowledges the darkness but also offers reassurance and togetherness, their brand new album called Half Moon Light might be just what we need right now. The Lone Bellow joins plays songs built around warm, twangy guitar riffs, in-studio. 

New York grown, Nashville-based couple Alyssa and Doug Graham lead the roots-rock band The Grahams. With their 2013 debut record, they hit the Americana scene, continuing with their 2015  followup, influenced by the couple’s train adventure all over America. And now comes Kids Like Us, written during a wild motorcycle ride along Route 66, at the height of the 2016 election season. The Grahams and their band play guitar-led songs about the desert, heartbreak, rust, and nostalgia, from Kids Like Us, in-studio.

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The Norwegian bass player Sigurd Hole is generally thought of as a jazz musician, and for good reason – he’s played with many of the top players like Tord Gustavsen trio/quartet, Karl Seglem, and Helge Lien on Norway’s thriving jazz scene. But he’s also a composer, and his most recent project is at once both intimate and ambitious. It’s a double LP set called Lys/Mørke, which means Light/Darkness, and it’s essentially a solo bass album. But it was recorded on an Arctic island and those sounds are part of the project as well. Sigurd Hole joins us in-studio to play some of these pieces. 

Mackenzie Scott has made ever-evolving pop throughout the 2010’s as TORRES. Raised in Bible-belt Georgia, she learned to sing and play the guitar in front of the residents of a senior citizens center. Building on her 2015 self-described “space cowboy record,” her latest, Silver Tongue, is an album about being in love, and one where she embraces both her love of Gregorian chant and country music (and her inner "redneck alien" - Vinyl Me Please.) The silver-tongued guitarist, songwriter and producer Torres plays some of these new songs, in-studio.

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