Guitarist Gary Lucas has played with Captain Beefheart, written hit songs with Jeff Buckley and Joan Osborne, and covered everything from 1930s Chinese pop to classical music. He even played with the Yale Symphony Orchestra for the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass in 1973. Lucas has just released The Essential Gary Lucas (Knitting Factory), a 40-year retrospective of his career of writing, arranging, performing and exploring music: blues and classical, psychedelic and world music, jazz, folk, pop, and rock, klezmer and avant-garde. Lucas joins us remotely to play some key highlights - from trippy pedal-assisted electric guitar freakouts to 1930’s songs from Shanghai film industry using Delta blues tunings on acoustic guitar.  
Watch "Rise Up To Be":
Watch "Will o' the Wisp": 
Watch Janacek's "On An Overgrown Path":
Watch "Shanghai Medley":

The Many Musical Paths of Guitarist Gary Lucas

WNYC, New York Public Radio, brings you Soundcheck, the arts and culture program hosted by John Schaefer, who engages guests and listeners in lively, inquisitive conversations with established and rising figures in New York City's creative arts scene. Guests come from all disciplines, including pop, indie rock, jazz, urban, world and classical music, technology, cultural affairs, TV and film. Recent episodes have included features on Michael Jackson,Crosby Stills & Nash, the Assad Brothers, Rackett, The Replacements, and James Brown.

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Brooklyn-born rapper, producer & founding member of Flatbush Zombies, Erick the Architect released his debut solo LP, I’ve Never Been Here Before, in February. While it’s full of trenchant social commentary, it’s also focused on dealing with loss and finding freedom in vulnerability. The tracks draw from funk, gospel, soul, reggae and jazz, with throughlines to musical greats like John Coltrane and George Clinton (who contributed to the album). Erick the Architect and his touring trio bring their elastic funk basslines, character studies, killer beats, and spacey sound effects to perform in-studio.
Set list: 1. Ezekiel's Wheel 2. Beef Patty 3. Liberate



I've Never Been Here Before by Erick the Architect

Producer and Rapper Erick the Architect Smiles Through It

Deerlady is the name of the band led by singer and bassist Mali Obomsawin and guitarist and singer Magdalena Abrego. Mali was part of the folk rock trio called Lula Wiles; then she released her album of Indigenous jazz called Sweet Tooth in 2022, drawing heavily on her Abenaki heritage. Magdalena, a Chicago-born guitarist whose parents migrated from Mexico and Puerto Rico, has played with the minimalism-meets-jazz collective known as Numinous, as well as the improvising sax player Allison Burik. In January, the two of them released their first album together, with the cheeky title Greatest Hits, “a collection of songs about intimacy under colonialism by Mali Obomsawin" (Bandcamp), and it sees the two of them turning the amps to 11 and pairing softly sung vocals with roaring guitars. Deerlady plays their shoegazey headbangers, in stripped-down arrangements, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
1. Masterpieces 2. Believer 3. There There



Greatest Hits by Deerlady, Mali Obomsawin, Magdalena Abrego,

Indie Fuzz-Rock Duo Deerlady's Shoegaze With Bite

London vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Cosmo Sheldrake creates songs and sound worlds out of people, places, creatures, plants, fungi, and collected sounds. With his combination of traditional instrumentation and electronic production, field recordings, and both human and more-than-human voices (birdsong and insect choruses), Sheldrake pursues adventures in song, capturing the childlike wonder of a curious tea party, and staying connected to the natural world throughout. Cosmo Sheldrake juxtaposes these orchestrated natural sounds with his racks of gear to share his marvelous sound world in some songs from his latest, Eye to the Ear, in-studio.
Set list: 1. Stop the Music 2. I Did and I Don't and I Do 3. Does the Swallow Dream of Flying?



Eye To The Ear by Cosmo Sheldrake

London-Based Naturalist Cosmo Sheldrake's Marvelous Sound World

Honduran-American artist Lorely Rodriguez, known professionally as Empress Of, is a singer, songwriter, musician and record producer based in Los Angeles, California. Her albums are full of bright, indie pop that mixes dance music, electronica, trap, and on her most recent album, Latin music. Empress Of’s new album, her fourth, is called For Your Consideration, and it’s a mischievous exploration of heartbreak, affairs, regaining your sexiness, and pursuing lust and control. Empress Of plays some stripped down versions of some of the new songs, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik
Set list: 1.Lorelei 2. Kiss Me 3. What's Love

Empress Of Explores Yin/Yang of Romance and Plays Intimate Songs, In-Studio

Welsh musician and songwriter Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals, the pop outfit known for their catchy songs and weird videos) poetically harnesses both the gritty and the trippy in his own music. But he’s also a composer, producer, filmmaker and author. His latest release, the 25th album of his career (individually, collaboratively and as a member of various bands), is a solo album called Sadness Sets Me Free, sung in English, and left open to chance. Rhys and his bandmates play some of these new songs, in-studio.
Set list: 1. Bad Friend 2. Sadness Sets Me Free 3. Celestial Candyfloss



Sadness Sets Me Free by Gruff Rhys

The Many Musical Paths of Guitarist Gary Lucas

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