Soundcheck

The Icelandic duo Hugar is multi-instrumentalists Bergur Þórisson & Pétur Jónsson, who sculpt dreamlike layered soundscapes using keyboards, guitar, and electronics. Occasionally they’ll include other chamber players, including one Ólafur Arnalds. Sometimes the music is an attempt to “put our everyday experiences into sounds” – like “walking to school in a snow blizzard and riding your bike in the calm midnight sun” (Sony Masterworks). Their latest record is Varða, which translates to “cairn” in English. Hugar joins us in-studio to perform some of their music. - Caryn Havlik 

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Drummer and composer Marcus Gilmore looks to the creative openness of his drum elders – like his grandfather, Roy Haynes, tabla master Zakir Hussain, or renaissance man and drummer Milford Graves - and underscores the drum set as melodic instrument – exploiting all of the potential of the components – bending notes, playing with the natural vibrations, or augmenting his set up with Sunhouse Sensory Percussion. (With thanks to Modern Drummer Magazine’s June 2019 issue.) He joins us in-studio to amaze and delight with his percussive sorcery. – Caryn Havlik

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From pop and hiphop to love anthems, Grammy-nominated songwriter Skylar Grey has multiple hits to her credit. She's the co-writer on Eminem's 'Love The Way You Lie' featuring Rihanna, and featured artist on Diddy's 'Coming Home', and has written and recorded theme songs for TV and film. Lately,  Skylar Grey has embraced her folk rock roots in new songs from her upcoming project ‘Angel With Tattoos’. Fresh from an appearance at the Video Music Awards, she performs in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

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Singer, songwriter, award-winning flatpicking guitarist, and Colorado native Courtney Hartman has musical roots in the bluegrass world with her family band, The Hartmans. She recorded and toured with the Grammy-nominated group Della Mae for seven years, and has collaborated with Texan Robert Ellis on a record of tunes by American folk, country, and bluegrass composer and musician John Hartford. Her latest solo record, Ready Reckoner, co-produced with Shahzad Ismaily (a multi-instrumentalist known for his work with Lou Reed and Tom Waits) is a collection of hushed and intimate yet magnificently vast tunes rooted in improvisatory freedom and folk music. Courtney Hartman performs in-studio (ahead of her square dancing gig with Radiolab at The Bell House tonight.) - Caryn Havlik

Set list: "Belfry", "Hollow", "Won't Be Satisfied"

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Multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter Pete Yorn’s latest record of anthemic, lyrical jangle pop is called Caretakers. It’s also the first release on his own new label, Shelly Music. The New Jersey native joins us in-studio to play some of these tunes in a solo acoustic setting. - Caryn Havlik

Set list (Click to watch):

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Nashville singer, songwriter, fiddler and guitarist Lillie Mae’s sound has a bit of dark twang, some psychedelia, and the intimacy of front-porch singing. She started out in a countrified sibling band Jypsi and now has two solo records to her credit on Jack White’s Third Man Records. Lillie Mae’s latest is Other Girls, backed by members of her family and a few trusted collaborators. She’s been touring with White’s current band The Raconteurs, and is on the road in the fall as part of Robert Plant’s band. But she joins us with her own band to play some of her latest original songs, in-studio. – Caryn Havlik

Set list: 

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Other Girls by Lillie Mae

North Carolina singer and guitarist Alexandra Sauser-Monnig records under the name Daughter of Swords, in which she "combines the eerie sound of old Appalachian folk music with elegant guitar playing and touches of lo-fi pop." (John Schaefer) She’s also part of the alternative folk trio Mountain Man, a group of women whose precise harmonies offer songs of warmth, belonging, and community. Sauser-Monnig’s record, Dawnbreaker, a homespun country-pop offering of vulnerability, brings liberation to the "breakup record" and hope for the next phase of life. Daughter of Swords joins us to perform in-studio. - Caryn Havlik 

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Dawnbreaker by Daughter of Swords

The South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim (aka "Dollar Brand") has had a notable career, helped early on by Duke Ellington,and  acknowledged later by Nelson Mandela, who called Ibrahim “our Mozart.” In 2019, Abdullah Ibrahim became a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, and he’s recently released a new album, The Balance, (which is his 70th or 71st LP, and that's not including his work as a sideman, which might push the total album credits to over 100!) It's full of "lush horn lines, lilting melodies, and uplifting chord progressions, characteristic of Abdullah's own particular brand of Township Jazz." (Bandcamp) Abdullah Ibrahim performs some solo piano works in-studio. 

Set list

The Balance by Abdullah Ibrahim

London composer Cosmo Sheldrake is also a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. He’s got a knack for refreshingly playful and whimsical pop music that often incorporates natural sounds. On his latest record, The Much Much How How and I, the music gyres and gimbles like circus music meets forest-dwelling faeries in the wabe. There’s also a clever interplay of frolicking rhythms which perhaps reflects Sheldrake's work with young people. Cosmo Sheldrake performs some of his latest music in-studio. -Caryn Havlik

London-based Kate Tempest is a spoken word performer, poet, recording artist, novelist and playwright. Her visceral writing demands foreground-listening with its physicality of emotions, spoken-sung, delivered as incantation, slammed poetry, swaggering rap verse, a bit tent preacher and protest march. Her work was nominated for the Mercury Prize, her epic narrative poem “Brand New Ancients” was awarded the Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry and she won a Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in recent years. She's collaborated with The Comet Is Coming, Sinead O'Connor, Bastille, and her own band, the Sound of Rum. Next Generation Poet Kate Tempest performs some of the pieces from her latest album, The Book Of Traps And Lessons, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik

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