Soundcheck

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Mary Chapin Carpenter re-imagined and rearranged songs from her 30-year catalog, along with the brand-new title track, for her most recent record, Sometimes Just the Sky. That title comes from a speech given by Patti Smith, where she "touched on both hard and beautiful aspects of life." The country music prize-winning Carpenter, who is now based deep in the Virginia countryside has spent her musical career “exploring depths of language and emotion,” using “compelling chordal voicings and finger-picking that produces unique sounds.” (Peter Cooper, Artist Notes) Mary Chapin Carpenter joins us to perform a few of these songs in-studio.

Watch the session live below:

The New York-based band Innov Gnawa performs the traditional healing music of Morocco: Gnawa - a trancey, rhythmic music that is played on an array of unique instruments — from the lute-like gimbri (sintir), to the metal qarqaba (castinets) with which the kouyos (chorus) keep time and pound out clattering, hypnotic rhythms. One of Innov Gnawa's innovations is to collaborate with modern electronic acts like Bonobo, but they've just released a new record, Aicha, and they'll be performing at the 10th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival this weekend. Innov Gnawa performs in-studio. 

Watch the full session here:

Toronto-based Charlotte Day Wilson is a singer, multi-instrumentalist (she plays piano, saxophone, bass, and guitar), and producer who draws on her classical background to make bedroom-intimate, yet intensely emotional tunes that are influenced by everything from R&B to electro, to jazz revival. She joins us in the studio to perform songs from her self-released records and hopefully will talk about how she aims to change the entire studio production industry to help younger songwriters and support women.

Watch the full session here:

The big band jazz and hot swing revivalists Squirrel Nut Zippers from Chapel Hill, North Carolina have always been a guaranteed good time since they broke through in the late 1990’s,with their platinum album Hot. Although they stopped recording around the turn of this century, they have returned to form with a brand new album, Beasts of Burgundy. It’s crammed full of the same swinging hot jazz of the roaring 1920's brass, banjo, explosions of fun! The Squirrel Nut Zippers play some of these new tunes in the studio.  

Watch the session live below (in two parts, due to unforeseen technical difficulties):

Coming from a rock and funk place, Dominican singer-songwriter Vicente García has become something of a folk pop revivalist, incorporating his love of Afro-Caribbean rhythms, from acoustic bachata to reggae on his latest record, A La Mar. Formerly the lead singer of the band Calor Urbano, the winner of Best New Artist at this year’s Latin Grammys has been digging into Dominican folklore, despite his having relocated to Bogotá, Colombia. (He was also up for Best Tropical Song for "Bachata In Kingston," according to alt.latino.) Vicente García joins us for an acoustic set to play some of these eclectic love songs.

Watch live here or on the New Sounds Facebook page.

Set list:

The great South African a cappella choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo are a global phenomenon. With their uplifting vocal harmonies and signature dance moves, they’ve been anointed “cultural ambassadors to the world” by no less than Nelson Mandela. (Some listeners might recall them appearing on Paul Simon’s Graceland album back in 1986.) The group was formed in 1960 by Joseph Shabalala, has recorded more than 50 albums, and won five Grammys. Joseph Shabalala is now retired, but his sons and other family members carry on the tradition. As they’re on another world tour, Ladysmith Black Mambazo returns to perform songs in our studio.

Watch the entire live session here:

Formed in Texas, the sibling duo The Oh Hellos have embarked on making music for folks wherever the winds carry them. Seriously - their latest  string of EPs are named after one of the four Greek mythological wind deities that bring the seasons. With fiddles, banjo, accordion, and cheerful melodies, the duo expands their musical forces when on tour to an entire ecstatic folk-rock community party. The Oh Hellos and their reinforcements perform their autumnal songs in-studio.

Set list: 

Watch live here or on the New Sounds Facebook page.

Feminist icon and Mexican folklorist Lila Downs’ most recent album Salón, Lágrimas y Deseo (Dancehall, Tears, and Desire), is dedicated to strong women everywhere. Her lyrics, inviting all “dangerous” women to join her, often highlight issues relating to social justice, while spanning blues to cumbia, folk and ranchera music. Inspired by Frida Kahlo, Downs says in an interview with Remezcla that she finds being Mexican has “a lot of value, even if the world that surrounds one doesn’t believe it.” She’s joined by her band, and special guest Chilean emcee Ana Tijoux, in-studio.

Watch live here or on the New Sounds Facebook page.

The rapper and producer Black Milk is based in LA these days, but he’ll always be associated with Detroit... with Detroit producers like the late J Dilla, and Detroit rappers like Danny Brown. Black Milk (Detroit-born and bred rapper, composer and producer Curtis Cross) seems to be able to make beats and build songs from some of the most unlikely sources, keeping full creative control from composition to mix and master. On his latest record, Fever, he tackles topics like the social media, injustice, religion, relationships, and he’s here to perform some of these songs, in-studio.

Watch the full session below:

Musician, actor and doctor (otolaryngologist) Jorge Drexler grew up in Uruguay, and now lives in Spain. Listeners may be familiar with Drexler’s music because his theme song for The Motorcycle Diaries won an Academy Award (presented to him by Prince.) His latest collection of songs, Salvavidas de Hielo, is guitar-based, but augmented by a wide sonic palette of effects – samples, loops and beats created by different parts of guitars, dobros, and banjos. There is a song that touches on the loss of the planet’s glaciers, there’s one about how people have been migrating throughout time to stay alive – “Movimiento”, and yet another celebrating the elegance of silence. Jorge Drexler and his band play arrangements of these songs in-studio. 

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