Soundcheck

Listen to music from South African-born, UK-based cellist and vocalist Abel Selaocoe; Hot Psychedelic Gnawa Blues By French-Moroccan band Bab L’ Bluz; guitarist, producer, bandleader Adrian Quesada of Black Pumas and his dramatic Latin pop 'Boleros Psicodélicos', featuring Grammy-winning Puerto Rican singer-songwriter iLe. Plus, composer and harpist Brandee Younger and her trio; and the Dublin-bas...

Hear music by Portuguese fado singer Carminho; Grammy-winning classical quartet Third Coast Percussion performing music written for them by the late Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain; and Ethiopian-born singer and bandleader Meklit’s blend of jazz, pop, and soul. Also, music from Chicago-formed, New York-based American rock band Horsegirl; and the quartet Les Égarés, who are Ballaké Sissoko (kora...

New York-based drummer and educator Matt Wilson has performed with and/or played on many recordings by other musicians - Joe Lovano, John Scofield, Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, among others - and leads ensembles of his own, but at this time of year, the thing he might be best known for is his Christmas Tree-O. And yes, he went there – putting a pun right in the band’s name. The trio, featuring multi...

Saxophonist and composer Donny McCaslin has been playing with jazz luminaries like Maria Schneider and Dave Douglas, and leading his own band, for a couple of decades. But he’s best known for his work with David Bowie, who basically hired Donny’s whole ensemble to be the band on his final album Blackstar . His latest, Lullaby for the Lost , is a  guitar-driven, rock-influenced, groove-laden beast...

New York-based classically trained composer and musician Kelly Moran’s music draws on everything from classical to dance to metal, but ends up sounding like none of those. She has become known for her music for prepared piano – a regular piano whose strings have things like metal or wood placed on the strings to alter the sound. Moran has also worked with electronic keyboards, and has recorded mus...

The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse. The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night. The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings. The Besnard Lakes are a rock band from Montreal with a knack for intriguing album titles. Their latest is The Besnard Lakes Are The Ghostly Nation , a collection of arty, often psychedelic songs about a society in crisis. The Besnard Lakes play live in o...

The Brooklyn band called Momma revolves around the singing and songwriting team of Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten who combine gauzy vocal harmonies with walls of roaring guitars. Their 2022 album Household Name was a critical favorite, and their 2025 album, Welcome To My Blue Sky, builds on that success with songs about longing, infidelity, leaving people behind, and unknown futures. Etta an...

The Icelandic keyboardist and composer Eydís Evensen has released three albums of music that blends classical lyricism with the repeating patterns of post-minimalist music. "Her compositions, guided by emotion, are intimate explorations of mourning, hope, reflection, and renewal—creating a world that invites listeners to feel their way through the music" ( Lincoln Center event program ). On her la...

The L.A-based, Brooklyn-born band called Boyish is built around the songwriting of India Shore and Claire Altendahl, and while they’ve been releasing music since 2018, they’ve just put out their debut album, called  Gun.  The album presents a series of scenes and character studies from a fictional American town called Gun, which seems to be haunted – by memories and dreams for sure, but also possi...

English singer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Wolf built his sizable reputation on a blend of Baroque pop and arty, classically-informed folk-rock. But a series of setbacks kept him from the music scene for a decade, before he returned with an EP in 2023, and in June of 2025, his latest LP called Crying The Neck. Patrick Wolf joins us at the piano, to play new songs, in-studio.  Set list: 1. En...

Both old and new, Austin-based band Black Pumas is centered around guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada and 27-year-old songwriter Eric Burton. Grammy Award-winning Quesada has played in Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, and accompanied artists from Prince to Daniel Johnston. Burton grew up in church and then got heavily involved in musical theater. He arrived in Austin in 2015 after busking his way a...

Listen to music from American musicians, the harpist Ashley Jackson and the Oklahoma-based Cherokee singer and songwriter Ken Pomeroy. Both sets come from our Soundcheck series of live performances and interviews, available as a twice-weekly podcast, wherever you get podcasts.  With her clever guitar playing and powerful stories, Oklahoma-based Cherokee singer and songwriter Ken Pomeroy draws on b...

Ye Vagabonds are brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn. They grew up in rural Carlow but moved to Dublin in 2012 and became known on the traditional Irish, blues and folk scenes in the city, playing folk songs as well as their own original material, ( Bandcamp ). They’re part a wave of bands who’ve remade or extended the folk tradition; they’ve also collaborated with members  of the Dublin new mu...

Cochemea is a sax player, composer and arranger who spent some years playing vintage-style soul with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, as well as stints with Amy Winehouse, David Byrne, hip hop duo Run The Jewels and dozens more. Born Cochemea Gastelum into an Indigenous Yaqui family in California, he’s found time over the past few years to release three albums of his own music, the latest being  Vol....

The now London-based Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani quickly attracted fans with her 2019 album of solo piano works in the post-classical style, a blend of classical lyricism and minimalist patterns. Her later albums expanded to include electronics, and her voice; she is equally versed in the music of composers like Philip Glass and bands like Radiohead. But her new record is something diff...

Master violinist/vocalist/composer L. Shankar (aka Shenkar) has spent the past four decades developing a personal style that ranges from strict Indian classical music to Western instrumental pop although usually he lands somewhere in the middle. Since playing his first solo concert at the age of seven, he has gone on to accompany many of South India’s leading vocalists and become a major soloist....

The Australian-born musician and songwriter Tommy Emmanuel is a virtuoso guitarist and Grammy winner who has played with everyone from the legendary Chet Atkins to younger guitarists like Jason Isbell and Billy Strings. Long based in Nashville, he’s been releasing solo albums pretty regularly since 1979.  His new record is called Living In The Light , and fuses his pop, jazz, classical, and roots...

The Barr Brothers, the indie-folk-rock band from Montreal, have just released their first album in eight years called Let It Hiss . Brad Barr, the band’s singer, guitarist and songwriter is a versatile collaborator and risk-taker who revels in making unusual sounds. The latest songs can be folk-leaning, or may draw from the blues and American songwriting; they represent a reckoning with vulnerabil...

The Portuguese singer and songwriter Carminho is one of the leading singers in the style known as fado – the deeply soulful, melancholy music that is somewhat akin to Spanish flamenco or American blues. She has collaborated with the iconic Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso, performed for the late Pope Francis, recorded with Steve Albini, and made a special appearance in the film Poor Things , by Y...

The Mexican singer  Silvana Estrada  made an immediate impression with her debut LP Marchita back in 2022. Quickly hailed as a unique voice in Latin music for her blend of jazz, chamber music, and traditional folk, Estrada took her time making her follow-up album, and it appears to have been time well-spent:  Vendrán Suaves Lluvias , or “there will come soft rains,” is a heartfelt, elegant, quietl...

The singer Meklit, born Meklit Hadero in Ethiopia, is based in the Bay Area, where she has released a number of albums that blend jazz, pop, and soul with the echoes of Ethiopian pop. Her latest album,  A Piece of Infinity , finds Meklit singing mostly in Amharic, and looking back to what is sometimes called the Golden Age of Ethiopian music – the time in the early 70s when Latin music, American f...

Canadian singer and composer Patrick Watson has been making records for almost a quarter century – with a cinematic blend of indie rock, cabaret pop, and chamber music that has made him a favorite of film directors and music supervisors.  His latest record, Uh Oh , is the result of a pretty big uh-oh moment for a singer: Watson lost his voice. He thought it was broken forever, and wrote a collecti...

American indie rock band The Antlers began almost 20 years ago as a solo project from singer and songwriter Peter Silberman. While the previous album, Green To Gold , was a pastoral, almost folky affair, the new album, Blight, is almost like a classical song cycle, and is a musical warning about nature under siege.  “The consequences of accelerating technology and environmental neglect feel immine...

GRAMMY-winning musical omnivore Sullivan Fortner merges New Orleans grit and spice with invention (and not just J.S. Bach), for an alchemical jazz that is wise, feisty, mischievous, and dynamic. His exposure to R&B, soul, and gospel at home; his time at Oberlin and the influence of various teachers in jazz and classical disciplines; and his longtime collaborator Cécile McLorin Salvant have all inf...

The Spanish-born singer, songwriter and producer Pablopablo recently released his debut LP, but he’d already built up an impressive array of writing and producing credits, winning Latin Grammys back in 2022 under his given name, Pablo Drexler. Those awards were for his work on a collaboration between his father, the popular Uruguayan-born musician Jorge Drexler, and the Spanish superstar C. Tangan...