Soundcheck

Elizabeth Ziman, who performs as Elizabeth and the Catapult, is a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn. Over the past twenty years, she and a slowly rotating cast of musical friends have released six LPs, full of songs that offer a neat, often unexpected blend of the witty and the vulnerable. Her latest release is called Responsible Friend, "about slowing down in a world that keeps accelerating. It’s a commitment to friends, family, and self, at a time when everyone seems to be carrying more than they can reasonably hold" (Bandcamp). Elizabeth and the Catapult play in our studio. 

Set list: 1. 50/50 2. When the Doctor Needs A Doctor 3. I Love You Still

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On this episode of Soundcheck, revisit a special live performance and interview from our archives, recorded in 2019. Multi-instrumentalist, composer, host of the podcast Aria Code, and MacArthur Fellow Rhiannon Giddens collaborated with Italian pianist and percussionist, Francesco Turrisi on there is no Other: twelve songs that explore the connections between European, Arabic, African-American, and Mediterranean sounds with an opposition to "othering" and “a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience” (Nonesuch Records).

The duo’s artistic cross-pollinations and discoveries draw from Italy, Ireland, Iran, Africa, and Brazil, among other places, and reflect the history of the movement of both people and instruments (with particular attention paid to both the trans-Saharan and the trans-Atlantic slave trade). Giddens and Turrisi have mentioned in interviews that audiences probably won’t be thinking about how cultures meet, collide, and create new forms. But perhaps as the players weave their magic, the result might also be that the music will start deep and productive conversations about migrations. Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi, along with bassist Jason Sypher, join us in-studio to perform some of these songs. – Caryn Havlik

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The London-based art rock band, Mary in the Junkyard, is getting ready to release their debut album after four years of trying to make sense of strange things in life through music. “I think that life is very surreal,” says the vocalist of the group, Clari Freeman-Taylor, as she explains why she enjoys “writing about things that may be a little bit unsettling”. Nothing about the order of life is rehearsed, so why should their music be? Their practice relies heavily on their songwriting and arranging rituals where they carefully piece each layer of sound together. But preparations for live performances are enforced with a spirit of spontaneity, which, as the viola and bass player Saya Barbaglia points out, is a big part of their sound. 

The duo blurred the rigid lines of classical music together as they grew into their teenage years with rock music. They traded hours of sight-reading for jam sessions that led to endless scraps of ideas. Those ideas would eventually become fully fleshed-out songs with the addition of drummer David Addison to the band. 

Mary in the Junkyard’s upcoming LP, Role Model Hermit, carries hints of Freeman-Taylor and Barbaglia’s classical music background, as dense string arrangements pop up every now and then. But in our studio, the trio reveals the core of each song they perform: raw, skeletal, dark, and light, all at the same time. (- Sırma Munyar)

Setlist: 1. New Muscles 2. Myrtle 3. Blood

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Bassoonist Joy Guidry is a versatile improviser, performance artist, and composer of experimental ambient electronic music, who has founded her own record label, Jaid Records. While she is classically-trained, she has also listened deeply to some of the spiritual jazz of Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Shabaka, and Nala Sinephro, and collaborates widely, most recently at the Park Avenue Armory in New York with Jessie Cox, Tcheser Holmes, and Scott Li. Her latest album Five Prayers, is a collection of works for bassoon with electronics, in which the Houston-born musician and sound architect takes inspiration from the spirit of the Black church and atmospheric sounds of ambient music. Joy Guidry performs in-studio. 

Set list: 1. Georges 2. Dear June 3. You've Done What You Can

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Imagine the tropical grooves of Colombia and Mexico in an avant-garde setting. That’s the ethos of Ruido Tovar; the new collaborative project between Eblis Alvarez of Meridian Brothers and Camilo Lara of the Mexican Institute of Sound. 

Before releasing their debut self-titled record together, both Alvarez and Lara were known to experiment with electronics, fusing modern sounds with music styles that are typically considered traditional. Alvarez put a spin on cumbia and salsa with his band Meridian Brothers, while Lara pushed the electronica movement in Mexico forward with his project, the Mexican Institute of Sound. 

Coming together as Ruido Tovar, the duo joins the Soundcheck host, John Schaefer, with their pocket-sized effects pedals and compact synthesizers to perform some new songs from their new record and discuss their journey in music thus far.  (- Sırma Munyar)

Setlist: 1. El Campeon 2. Concorde 3. Ritmo Babilonia

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