Latest Cheff Podcast Episodes
Mountain Man Looks for Peace and Joy Through Vocal Harmonies (Archives)
Soundcheck - November 23, 2023 17:00 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsMountain Man, the Appalachian a cappella trio, features the timeless sound of three voices singing in harmony, with an occasional strum of the guitar. They released an album in 2010, a trio of college friends who’d gotten used to singing together, but then went their separate ways after college....
Storyteller, Songwriter, and Scholar No-No Boy Finds Place
Soundcheck - November 20, 2023 21:31 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe musician known as No-No Boy is a Vietnamese-American singer and songwriter, real name Julian Saporiti, whose music incorporates the sounds of American folk but adds various Asian instruments and scales, as well as field recordings and found sound. Saporiti took the name No-No Boy from a post...
Migration, Movement, and Joyous Swing in 'Rivers In Our Veins' by Allison Miller
Soundcheck - November 16, 2023 17:00 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsNew York-based drummer, composer, and educator Allison Miller has played with singer/songwriters like Brandi Carlile, Ani DiFranco, or Natalie Merchant, but she’s best known for her own bands, and her own music, which is usually labeled jazz, but you’ll hear elements of rock, funk and folk in th...
Singer Laufey Honors Roots of Jazz In Modern Torch Songs
Soundcheck - November 13, 2023 17:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsIcelandic singer and songwriter Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir, known by the mononym Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay), is having a breakout year. Now based in L.A., the young singer with the timeless-sounding voice crafts songs which look to the great American songbook and the jazz-inflected pop of the mid-20...
Songwriter and Producer Raia Was Makes Lustrous and Cathartic Alt-Pop
Soundcheck - November 09, 2023 17:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe songwriter, pianist, vocalist, and producer Raia Was has become known for her dark art- and alt-pop. She was raised here in New York, and some of the city’s darkness, risk-taking, and energy flow through her songs which may oscillate between brooding intensity and cathartic euphoria. [“You A...
Speedy Ortiz Delivers Pop Stingers For the Times (Archives)
Soundcheck - November 06, 2023 17:00 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe 2018 release from American pop band Speedy Ortiz, Twerp Verse, speaks smartly to political and social situations of the present from a feminist perspective of truth-telling and is designed, on purpose, to make us uncomfortable lyrically and musically. With songs that airdrop aggressive, unpr...
Cumbia Punks Son Rompe Pera Do Not Play Their Dad's Marimba Music
Soundcheck - November 02, 2023 16:00 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsSon Rompe Pera started as a street band in Mexico City, but the marimba-playing cumbia punks have spent the past six years honing an electrifying and buzzy mix of modern cumbia, tropical dance beats, hard-hitting punk, psychedelic guitars, traditional Mexican and Colombian rhythms, horns, and a ...
Writer, Rapper, Singer Dessa Defies Expectations and Offers Deeply Human Insights
Soundcheck - October 30, 2023 16:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsSinger, rapper, and writer Dessa is a member of the long-running hip hop collective known as Doomtree, though hip hop is just one part of what she does. She has also performed concerts of her songs with the Minnesota Orchestra, published well-received books of essays and audio plays, and hosts t...
Pascal Le Boeuf's New Music and Jazz Hybrid Plays With Tension and Release
Soundcheck - October 26, 2023 06:53 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsPianist Pascal Le Boeuf’s background is in both jazz and electronic music, and he has established himself as a sought-after composer of contemporary classical music. His work communicates tension and release, leaves space for improvisation, and explores the limits of a continuous high-energy wor...
Pachyman's 'Switched On' Honors His Puerto Rican Roots
Soundcheck - October 23, 2023 16:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsPachyman is a one-man dub band; that one man is Pachy Garcia, and though he’s based in LA, he grew up in Puerto Rico, at a time when Jamaican music – especially dub reggae - was having a big impact on the island’s music scene. Pachyman’s new album is called Switched On, and is an homage to the e...
Chanteuse Ute Lemper Merges Past and Present on 'Time Traveler'
Soundcheck - October 18, 2023 15:59 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsGerman singer and actress Ute Lemper’s career defies easy description. She’s a musical theater legend – starring in the original Paris production of Cabaret and adorning the sides of NYC buses when she starred in the Broadway run of Chicago. But she’s also a singer who has recreated the songs of...
Irish Songwriter CMAT Distills Deep Dives Into Relatable Pop
Soundcheck - October 16, 2023 16:00 - 43 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsCMAT might look like one of those specialized tests you have to take to get into a post-graduate program, but this stage name is actually the initials of Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, a Dublin pop singer whose cleverly-titled debut LP If My Wife New I’d Be Dead was a hit in Ireland last year. With ...
Singer and Guitarist Buffalo Nichols Envisions The Blues for the Present
Soundcheck - October 12, 2023 16:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsMilwaukee-based blues singer and guitarist Buffalo Nichols, on his self-titled 2021 debut, showed how timeless the blues can be, both musically and emotionally. On his latest album, called The Fatalist, Nichols uses contemporary 21st century sounds and techniques to remind us that the blues have...
Two-Spirit Song Carrier Jeremy Dutcher Celebrates and Explores Their First Nations Roots
Soundcheck - October 09, 2023 16:00 - 34 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsJeremy Dutcher, the classically trained Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, is a Member of the Wolastoqiyik People of the Neqotkuk (formerly known as Tobique First Nation) in Eastern Canada. Dutcher burst upon the music scene in Canada in 2018, winning the prestigious Polaris Music Priz...
June McDoom's Homespun Blankets of Fancy DIY Sound
Soundcheck - October 05, 2023 16:00 - 30 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsGrowing up in a Jamaican family in Florida, June McDoom was surrounded by reggae; but she found herself drawn to the sounds of 1960's and 1970's folk. Now based in New York, she has released her debut EP, which surrounds those songs with touches of psychedelia, and arrangements that in their own...
Rival Consoles' Warm Ambient Electronic Music, In-Studio
Soundcheck - October 02, 2023 16:00 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe London-based electronic music composer and producer Ryan Lee West records under the name Rival Consoles, and he’s always been concerned with creating an organic, living quality to his experimental electronic music. He draws on both the arena-sized grooves of EDM – electronic dance music – an...
Time-Warp Ambient Groove of LANZ and Kris Allen
Soundcheck - September 28, 2023 16:00 - 37 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBallard is the name of the new album credited to LANZ & Kris Allen. Lanz is Benjamin Lanz, the trombonist and composer who plays with The National and Beirut and numerous other bands. Kris Allen is a sax player, bandleader and educator. But when you put them together, it's like Brian Eno and Sun...
Cooking Pepper Soup with Michael Olatuja
Soundcheck - September 25, 2023 16:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBass player and songwriter Michael Olatuja has a career that spans continents and styles. He grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, spent his teenage years playing on the London jazz scene, and has spent much of his career here in New York, playing with everyone from Diana Ross to Shakira to the band for th...
Grandbrothers, Messing With Pianos and Trying Out New Ideas
Soundcheck - September 21, 2023 16:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe German-Swiss duo with the unlikely name of Grandbrothers draws on electronic dance music, ambient music, and minimalism. Their tag line is “messing around with grand pianos since 2012,” which captures the essence of their play: they use ALL parts of the piano to generate raw sounds –the note...
Composer and Pianist Carlos Simon: ‘You Never Know Who’s Listening”
Soundcheck - September 18, 2023 22:06 - 34 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBorn in Washington, D.C., and raised in Atlanta, Carlos Simon has become one of classical music’s most eloquent and visible chroniclers of the Black American experience. Although it’s not just classical music – Carlos draws on jazz, R&B, and especially gospel music, as Simon is the son of a prea...
Singer Nellie McKay Offers Fresh and Timeless Perspectives, In-Studio
Soundcheck - September 14, 2023 16:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsSinger Nellie McKay’s songs hearken to pre-Elvis pop and maybe even Tin Pan Alley, and are offered with charm and intimacy. She has also released a whole album of Doris Day songs and a record of 60s covers, in addition to her 2004 splash debut, Get Away From Me and appearances in Broadway and O...
The Dark and Heavy Sounds of Electronically-Enhanced Chamber Music by Pathos Trio
Soundcheck - September 11, 2023 19:34 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBrooklyn-based Pathos Trio consists of percussionists Marcelina Suchocka and Felix Reyes with keyboardist/composer Will Healy- all of whom are equally capable of playing acoustic chamber music or darker-hued electronically-altered sounds. The trio’s new album is called Polarity, and it’s a colle...
Bill Frisell & Luke Bergman, From the 2023 New York Guitar Festival in The Greene Space
Soundcheck - September 07, 2023 16:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsListen to a set from contemporary jazz guitar legend guitarist Bill Frisell, together with guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Luke Bergman. Frisell is a singular player in the jazz world, consistently sticking to his roots and American folk, while trying out any other thing that may move him. Berg...
The Folk-Rock of Passenger, from Busking to 'Runaway" Hit-Maker
Soundcheck - September 04, 2023 16:00 - 28 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsEnglish singer-songwriter and folk-rocker Mike Rosenberg, formerly of the band Passenger, might be best known for his song “Let Her Go.” Originally from Brighton & Hove, Rosenberg busked his way through England and Australia in the early 2000’s and worked with a five-piece band until 2009, when ...
Songwriter Kendra Morris Breaks Out of Old Habits
Soundcheck - August 31, 2023 16:00 - 29 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBrooklyn singer-songwriter Kendra Morris draws on 60s pop, 70s funk, the indie rock of the 2000’s, and the timeless sounds of soul and R&B on her latest record I Am What I’m Waiting For. She’s also a visual artist who’s done videos for her own songs in the past as well as those by the hip hop s...
The Quiet Thrill and Expressive Song-Play of Sofía Rei and Jorge Roeder, In-Studio
Soundcheck - August 28, 2023 16:00 - 31 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsBassist Jorge Roeder is from Peru; vocalist Sofía Rei is originally from Argentina. Both of them are based here in New York, and have worked with a broad range of New York musicians (John Zorn, Bobby McFerrin, Julian Lage, and many others); and that experience is reflected in the ease with which...
The Transformative Sound-World of Cellist MIZU, (fka Issei Herr)
Soundcheck - August 24, 2023 16:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsCellist MIZU, (fka Issei Herr) classically trained at Juilliard, creates expansive waves of sound through the processing and layering of her instrument. Her debut record, Distant Intervals, includes ambient soundscapes that explore openness, vulnerability, and a sense of wonder, and is full of t...
The Transformative Sound-World of Cellist Issei Herr
Soundcheck - August 24, 2023 15:02 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsCellist Issei Herr, classically trained at Juilliard, creates expansive waves of sound through the processing and layering of her instrument. Her debut record, Distant Intervals, includes ambient soundscapes that explore openness, vulnerability, and a sense of wonder, and is full of titles that ...
Junun Featuring Shye Ben Tzur and The Rajasthan Express (Archives)
Soundcheck - August 21, 2023 16:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsJunun is a musical collaboration between India-based Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur, a group of Indian musicians called The Rajasthan Express, and composer (and Radiohead’s guitarist) Jonny Greenwood. The music is in the ecstatic Sufi music style known as qawwali (made famous by the late Nusrat ...
Too Sad For the Public's Elastic Take on American Roots Music
Soundcheck - August 17, 2023 17:31 - 34 minutes ★★★★★ - 128 ratingsThe sounds of American roots music – folk ballads, fiddle tunes, early blues, New Orleans second line grooves – may seem like they belong to another century. But the NY-based collective called Too Sad For The Public takes those old songs and remakes them, often in surprising ways. Too Sad For T...
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