Soundcheck

WNYC Studios
  • 4.5 (131)
  • PERFORMING ARTS
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY
Soundcheck

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.

  1. 2 DAYS AGO

    Loup Barrow's Otherworldly Music For Cristal Baschet, In-Studio

    The Cristal Baschet is a very unique, rare, and delicate otherworldly-sounding glass organ comprised of 56 chromatically-tuned glass rods . Only a handful of musicians on this planet play the instrument professionally; one of them is Loup Barrow, a French musician and composer. Barrow has been a committed instrumentalist since first taking violin lessons at age 5; he’s also focused on drums, Moroccan percussion, steel pan, and the glass harp. He features the Cristal Baschet, with piano and orchestra, on a striking album called Immineo, which might bring to mind Arvo Pärt or the 11th-century German composer, mystic, and abbess Hildegard Von Bingen. Loup Barrow has spent the past few hours here in our studio assembling this sound sculpture, which he plays, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik Set list: 1. Northern Lights 2. Passio

    35 min

  2. 6 DAYS AGO

    Scottish Composer Erland Cooper's Naturally-Aged Ambient Classical, In-Studio

    Scottish composer Erland Cooper writes ambient classical works that celebrate nature and create a strong sense of place. These days there are lots of musicians doing that sort of thing, but Cooper has gone all-in. His piece Carve The Runes and Be Content With Silence was composed and recorded in 2021, and then the only copy of the master tape was buried in the Scottish soil, to be recomposed, Cooper says, by the earth itself. There followed a kind of treasure hunt with Cooper leaving clues every solstice or equinox until a year and a half later the tape was discovered - and there’s a lot more to the story. Erland Cooper and his ensemble play excerpts from Carve The Runes And Be Content With Silence, in-studio. Set list: 1. With Silence Mvt 3, part 2 2. Music For Growing Flowers (radio edit) 3. Shalder

    41 min

  3. OCT 14

    Playful Trio Heavy MakeUp Makes Up Songs, In-Studio

    The trio Heavy MakeUp uses voice, synths, drum machines, and brass to improvise songs on the spot. Together, the band is singer and songwriter Edie Brickell and brass & electronic musicians CJ Camerieri and Trever Hagen, who have created music as side-people, songwriters, and producers. They bring all of those skills to bear and play, creating songs as a collective, somehow "beautifully constructing metaphorical stories with concrete sections", in the moment, (Camerieri, in a Relix interview). They freely and enthusiastically make up new songs, and play music from their album Here It Comes, in-studio. - Caryn Havlik Set list: 1. Here It Comes 2. So Emotional 3. 160 Varick 4. Song for John 5. Stay and Play

    36 min

  4. OCT 10

    Kaizers Orchestra's Unholy Punk Cabaret, Straight From Norway, No Chaser, Live

    The Norwegian sextet Kaizers Orchestra combines rock, opera, Balkan music, and a kind of punk  cabaret with character studies and heavy drinking to great effect. Many of their albums, and videos, are chapters in a Faust-like story, and though they sing in their local western dialect of Norwegian, somehow the sense of an unsettling narrative comes through. In 2013, they played at the Met Museum in what was billed as their first – and last- American performance. But this theatrical, indefinable band, are touring their live show in the US and they brought their car parts, concert trash barrels, pump organ, and hip flasks to play live in The Greene Space. Set list: 1. Aldri Vodka, Violeta 2. Bøn Fra Helvete 3. En For Orgelet, En For Meg

    34 min

  5. OCT 7

    My Brightest Diamond Fights For A Better Future In Song

    My Brightest Diamond is the project led by singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and composer Shara Nova (formerly Worden), who has continued to weave her own way through pop, experimental and classical worlds. Her latest, Fight The Real Terror, strips things down to just Shara and her guitar, and is full of the raw emotion that erupted from her upon learning about Sinéad O'Connor's passing in 2023. Shara Nova plays some of these new My Brightest Diamond songs, in-studio, and wields an autoharp besides. Set list: 1. Fight the Real Terror 2. Safe House 3. Have You Ever Seen An Angel

    42 min

  6. OCT 3

    Geordie Greep (of black midi) Shocks and Delights, In-Studio

    Geordie Greep was the lead singer and guitarist for the celebrated British rock band black midi. With that band on indefinite hiatus, Greep is now focused on his own songs, which range freely across the musical landscape, encompassing jazz-rock and blues, but also country and Brazilian music. Hold on tight, for there are "stop-starts, blasts and bangs, and whispered soliloquies as [the listener] is never quite sure when, or whether, [one is] supposed to be shocked; or laugh", (Rough Trade Records). Geordie Greep and his band play new music from his debut solo album called The New Sound, in-studio. Set list: 1. Holy, Holy 2. Terra 3. The New Sound

    44 min

  7. SEP 30

    Lollise Creates Danceable Afrofuturist Pop, In-Studio

    Lollise is a musician, fashion designer, and visual artist from Botswana in southern Africa, now based here in New York. After many years of recording and touring with Underground System and the FELA! band, Lollise steps forward with her own bold Afro-futurist pop, rich with layers of kinetic, danceable percussion and gentle waves of ambient noise. Drawing on Setswana folk song, the sounds of nature, and infectious dance beats, she plays some of the hybrid songs from her debut LP, I Hit The Water, in-studio. Set list: 1. Semang Mang 2. eDube 3. Mme Mma Ndi

    42 min

  8. SEP 26

    Brighton's Vintage-Pop Band The Heavy Heavy, In-Studio

    The Heavy Heavy is a band out of Brighton, England – but they sound like a band that’s been time-shifted straight out of 1975. Led by lifelong musicians Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, they breathe an incandescent new energy into sounds from decades ago, "transcending eras with a hypnotic ease" (Bandcamp.) Their sound might be a sweet and starry-eyed collision of psychedelia and blues, acid rock and sunshine pop all at once. The Heavy Heavy play in-studio. Set list: 1. One of a Kind 2. Lovestruck 3. Happiness One Of A Kind by The Heavy Heavy

    31 min
See All (81)

4.5
out of 5
131 Ratings

About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    WNYC Studios
  • Years Active
    2005 - 2024
  • Episodes
    81
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © WNYC Radio
  • Show Website
    Soundcheck

More From WNYC

You Might Also Like

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.
Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada