Soundcheck

Indianapolis-based group 81355 (pronounced ‘bless’) is a collaboration between the rapper/singers Oreo Jones and Sirius Blvck, and the lyricist/producer Sedcairn, and while they’re clearly rooted in hip hop, they’re not bound by it. On their impressive new album Bad Dogs, the band races through electropop, future soul, grunge, and avant-garde boom-bap, all the while designing a hazy and heavy Afrofuturist take on a live band augmented by electronics - supported by members of their "Naptown" underground music community. They play music from their latest, 'Bad Dogs', in-studio for the #SoundcheckPodcast. Set list: 1. Heart of Stone 2. Guitar 3. Capstone

In 2000 the Bad Plus helped usher in the new century with what looked like a 20th century jazz piano trio, with music ranging from groove-based originals to covers of Black Sabbath and Igor Stravinsky. Over the past quarter century they’ve repeatedly surprised listeners. Lately founding members Reid Anderson (bass) & Dave King (drums) with no piano at all have formed a quartet with reedist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder. The Bad Plus’s latest album is called Complex Emotions and they play some of these compositions in-studio. Set List: 1. Casa Ben 2. French Horns 3. Carrier

Cautious Clay is the stage name of singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Josh Karpeh. He burst out of the gate with his song “Cold War” in 2017, a song that was later sampled by Taylor Swift in her track “London Boy”. Cautious Clay’s music blends R&B, neo-soul, jazz, and more, and his subsequent output includes cowriting with John Legend and of course his own records, the most recent of which is called The Hours: Morning. Cautious Clay and his band play new music, in-studio. Set list: 1. Fade Blue 2. Tokyo Lift (5am) 3. Art Museum The Hours: Morning by Cautious Clay

Bandleader, educator, and improviser Brandee Younger plays the harp. But while she has classical training and knows her way around Ravel and Debussy, she has long been fascinated by harpists like Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, Black women who created new spaces for the harp in the worlds of jazz and pop. Brandee Younger’s new album is called Gadabout Season, and on it, she plays her own compositions, and plays them on Alice Coltrane’s own harp. She and her trio play in-studio. Set list: 1. Gadabout Season 2. New Pinnacle 3. BBL

Larry & Joe is a duo that blends the traditional folk music of Venezuela and Appalachia. The duo consists of Larry Bellorin, who has mastered the folk harp of Venezuela, and Joe Troop, who led the Latin-tinged bluegrass band Che Apalache. Larry, a legend of Llanera music, came to America in 2016 as an asylum seeker and describes his current immigration status as “limbo.” Joe Troop is a banjo, fiddle and guitar player who has written songs about migration, and works with asylum seekers; he relocated to North Carolina to be in this duo with Larry. Together, they’ve blended their musical inheritances and traditions performing on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, and upright bass. Their latest is called Manos Panamericanos, and they’re on a mission to show that music has no borders. Larry & Joe play in-studio. Set list: 1. Golpe de Garza 2. Silver Lining 3. The Dreamer

American singer-songwriter Laura Stevenson has found a musical home in the area between indie rock and confessional singer/songwriter folk. Her new album, Late Great, runs the gamut of feelings: one moment pulsating with a shoegaze-influenced dreamscape of sparkling guitars and in another, there’s tender, acoustic reflection with elusive, poetic lyrics. Armed with a new career path, she processes heartbreak on this “document of loss”, reconnecting with her healing relationship to music (Rough Trade Records). Laura Stevenson plays intimate arrangements of these new tunes, in-studio. Set list: 1. Honey 2. Domino 3. Not Us

John Butler has been one of Australia’s most successful independent musicians over the past quarter century. Much of that time he’s led the platinum selling John Butler Trio, three of whose albums hit number one on the Australian charts. Lately, he has been celebrating going solo, using his signature blend of rock, pop, folk, blues, and roots music. Butler’s new album, Prism, the third in his four album project, in which he continues to explore "what it is to be human: love, death, politics, inner and outer turmoil and redemption", (Billboard), comes out on September 5. John Butler and his band play a couple of the singles from the album, as well as on old fave, in-studio. Set list: 1. Trippin On You 2. So Sorry 3. Zebra

The band Buscabulla began here in New York over a decade ago, when singer Raquel Berrios and multi-instrumentalist Luis Del Valle began making their sophisticated, electronically-tinged Latin pop together. The name Buscabulla loosely translates as “troublemaker,” though the only trouble they’ve caused is to people who’ve tried to pin down their music. Their songs have a dreamy pop atmosphere but often ride along on sturdy Caribbean rhythms. Elements of funk and experimental electronic music are also part of the mix. Now, Buscabulla is based in Puerto Rico, where they’ve collaborated with Bad Bunny and released two LPs, the latest one called Se Amaba Asi. They play some of these new tunes, in-studio.

New York indie-pop group Wet, sometimes melancholic, sometimes bright, and always soulful, has just released Two Lives, a memoir-ish bittersweet reflection on life’s major transitions, featuring some of vocalist Kelly Zutrau’s most accomplished songwriting yet. With deconstructed R&B elements, dreamy textures, and a lot of vulnerability, Wet plays some of their “their signature slow-burning electro-pop” (Chicago Reader) in the studio. Set list: 1. Shut My Eyes 2. Double 3. Coffee In The Morning / Soon To Be Moon

Cheikh Ibra Fam is a singer and songwriter from the West African nation of Senegal; he toured the world singing with Senegal’s famous dance band, Orchestra Baobob, for six years. In 2022, he released his first solo record, Peace in Africa, and in October he’ll release his new album, Adouna, or Life, which draws from Afro-Cuban rhythms and classic soul. Cheikh Ibra Fam and his band preview these new songs of hope and resilience, in-studio.

New York group La Banda Chuska combines the psychedelic takes on the sounds of 1970’s Peru and Colombia and brings them to the beach party resulting in an irresistible cumbia-surf mixture. They play in-studio. In Peru and Colombia in the early 70s, young musicians who’d grown up with South American folk sounds began picking up electric guitars and playing their own psychedelic take on the rhythms and styles of the region. Fifty years later and one hemisphere to the north, the New York group called La Banda Chuska takes those sounds and adds elements of 60s surf guitar and 80s dance rock to create a fun, international sort of party music. La Banda Chuska plays some songs from their 2025 album Basic Bichos. Set list: 1. Ratas y Mapaches 2. Barba Azul 3. La Selva Me Salvó

When we last heard from Rachika Nayar, she was creating warped textures from her guitar and the software program called Ableton. Our introduction to Nina Keith came from her 2019 album Maranasati 19111, an eerie album of electroacoustic chamber music. After fan-girling each other’s music online, the two composer/musicians have now joined forces for a new project called Disiniblud. Their fantastical wordless conversations graze freely from post-rock, glitchy indie electronica, neo-classical, and pop – “all resulting in a work that suggests sweeping transformation can come from embracing old wounds with childlike wonder”, (album liner notes on Bandcamp.) Disiniblud plays new music from their 2025 self-titled debut album, in-studio.

The Philadelphia-via-Vegas artist, singer, and songwriter Shamir has had a decade long career as a musical shapeshifter. Shamir has marked his ten year career with his tenth album, and perhaps not surprisingly, it’s called Ten. What is surprising is that it features songs that Shamir didn’t write, but that were written by his friends and colleagues - in essence, a love letter to the community of people who shaped Shamir’s life. And the most surprising thing about Ten is that Shamir says it's his final album as a solo artist. He plays intimate arrangements of these songs, in-studio. Set list: 1.I love my friends 2. Neverwannago 3. 29

Listen to a Juneteenth edition of the Soundcheck Podcast, with music celebrating African-American culture and history. Juneteenth marks the day that the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas learned that they were legally free - June 19, 1865. Hear music from Igmar Thomas' Revive Big Band – a blend of jazz, neo-soul, funk, blues, and hip hop – which showcases the deep roots of Black American Music; composer and electronic artist Jlin; the slide blues guitar of Jontavious Willis; American roots artist Valerie June; hip-hop production meets contemporary classical in music by W4RP Trio; and the country-soul of The War and Treaty.

Guitarist Marc Ribot has established himself as one of the most versatile , distinctive, in-demand guitarists anywhere. He’s played with Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Elvis Costello, and dozens, maybe hundreds of others, and led his own bands that have touched on jazz, Cuban music, no wave, and more. But now, with his new album, "Map of a Blue City", we get another side of Marc Ribot: he sings. The album incorporates recordings made over nearly half of Ribot’s life. Some of the songs were decades in the making, going from demos and home recordings in the 1990s to at one point in 2014 recording with his friend, the legendary producer Hal Willner, who died in 2020. Ribot had shelved the project several times, but the songs just wouldn’t leave him alone. Finally working with producer and guitarist Ben Greenberg, they found was a way to reconcile the intimate recordings and previous choices – adding overdubs and taking things away. Ultimately, Ribot says “There are some hard truths and cold observations in these songs. I wanted the room to be small enough so that we couldn’t turn away: but warm enough to feel like you’re hearing it from a friend.” Ribot plays some of these tunes in-studio. Set list: 1. Elizabeth 2. Death of a Narcissist 3. Bella Ciao

The melodic power pop band OK Go, as much a visual art ensemble as they are a rock band, has just released its first new album in over a decade. It’s called And The Adjacent Possible, and it’s full of relatively small songs with some really big ideas. It also means there are some new entries into the catalog of how-did-they-do-that videos that OK Go has become famous for. The band plays new songs and an oldie in-studio for the Soundcheck Podcast - sans treadmills. Set list: 1. A Stone Only Rolls Downhill 2.This Too Shall Pass 3.Love

The string quartet known as Brooklyn Rider features the usual two violins, viola and cello. And that’s about all that’s usual with this band. Over the past two decades they have played with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Mexican singer Magos Herrera, Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, and banjo wiz Bela Fleck. They’ve commissioned a bunch of new pieces, and now, to celebrate their 20th anniversary, they’ve released a new record called The Four Elements - a wide range of music from the past and the present which is representative of, or directly inspired by Earth, Air, Fire, Water. And in parallel, the record is also designed to raise the alarm and bring “attention to the powerful forces of climate change which represent the single greatest challenge of our time”, (Bandcamp). Brooklyn Rider plays new works and an older piece, in-studio. Set list: 1. Colin Jacobsen - A Short While To Be Here... - I. Whoa, Mule! 2-3 Colin Jacobsen - A Short While To Be Here... - IV.- The Old Cow Died-V. Little Birdie," 4.Osvaldo Golijov: Tenebrae

Kentucky-based singer and songwriter S. G. Goodman blends a deeply-rooted Americana sound with indie rock and sharply observed tales of life, love and loss. Her songs acknowledge the poverty, violence, and homophobia of the region while celebrating its beauty and the strength to be found in family, friends, and storytelling. Her new album, Planting By The Signs, (due out June 20), is named for an ancient farming tradition that still exists in parts of the South, where the position of the moon as it moves through the signs of the zodiac determines when it’s a good time to plant crops. Goodman previews some of these new songs, in-studio. Set list: 1. I'm in Love 2. Fire Sign 3. Heat Lightning

The brass and dhol-led party band Red Baraat began as a Punjabi wedding band here in New York, but for the past 15 years they’ve brought their raucous energetic dance sound to everyone through a series of well-received albums and their memorable live shows. Drummer and bandleader Sunny Jain, infused the band with the sounds of his upbringing: music of the South Asian diaspora (Bollywood soundtracks, Jain Bhajans (devotional songs), and Bhangra ) injected with go-go, jazz, and rock. Red Baraat plays in-studio to celebrate their 15 year anniversary and the release of their new album, Bhangra Rangeela. Set list: 1. Bhangra Rangeela 2. Thums Up 3. Zindabad

Denver-born songwriter, guitarist, singer, activist, and performer Jill Sobule, is possibly best-known because of her breakthrough hit of “I Kissed a Girl” (pre-dating Katy Perry by more a decade), and “Supermodel,” the anthem from the film Clueless. In her over seven albums, the troubadour has "mused on topics such as the death penalty, anorexia, shoplifting, reproduction, the French resistance movement, adolescence and the Christian right." She has also written music for TV and theater, been active in numerous social and political causes, and been a pioneer in the art of crowdfunding. On her 2018 album, Nostalgia Kills, released on her own Pinko Records, the songwriter/composer tackles adult topics, and looks back without sentimentality to “exorcise some junior high school demons.” The late Jill Sobule and her band joined us to perform some of these songs in-studio in 2018. (From the Archives.) - Caryn Havlik Set list: 1. Where Do I Begin 2. Island of Lost Things 3. I Don’t Wanna Wake Up