Soundcheck

Gary Brooker of the iconic band Procol Harum visits the studio to reflect on orchestrating "Conquistador," Paul Winter, "prog rock", and the "Summer of Love." 

Golden Suits, aka Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist Fred Nicolaus, lets the joy in by serving up dreamy ballads, upbeat dancey numbers, and angry ragers in the Soundcheck Studio. 

The film Little Sister follows a young woman named Colleen, who is both a literal sister to her wounded Iraq vet brother and a very different kind of sister in that she’s becoming a nun. But when circumstances require Colleen to return to the family home (involving Ally Sheedy as a grown-up "basketcase,") the movie, and the music, take a turn for the unexpected as she is seduced back to the goth side with a little help from Halloween, pot cupcakes and GWAR. Zack Clark is the writer and director of Little Sister, who joins John Schaefer to talk about the film.      

Pavo Pavo ("peacock peacock" in Latin) performs their unusual space-age futuristic dream pop live in the studio. 

The relentless and prolific Brooklyn-based songwriter Kevin Devine offers up his storytelling indie power-pop in the studio. 

From 1967 to 1982, you could not be a rock fan without coming across the work of Hipgnosis. This design team, founded by Aubrey “Po” Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson, created some of the most famous album covers ever made.  In the age of the Rock Star, Po and Storm were rock stars of the graphic design world. The prism on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon?  Their work. The naked children climbing up the Irish rock formation known as Giant’s Causeway on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy? Also Hipgnosis...  Although there’s a bit of a back story to that one.  Turns out, there’s a bit of a story behind many of those now-iconic album covers.  And Aubrey Powell is just the man to share them. His new book, Hipgnosis Portraits, goes behind the making of album art done for Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, AC/DC, the Alan Parsons Project, 10CC, Elton John, and dozens of others. In an extended conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Powell recalls the golden age of the album cover, talks about the moment when he realized his niche in the musical world was coming to an end; and responds to our Soundcheck audience’s answers to the question: What's your favorite album cover? Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon Aubrey Powell, Hipgnosis: We went to have a meeting with the band and all of them said, “Oh no not one of your old surreal ideas again.” Richard Wright, the keyboard player said, “Why can’t we have something very simple for a change. Something a bit like a chocolate box, like black magic.” It wasn't our style at all. Storm sketched it out on the back of a serviette and I said that looks fantastic. It had the lights of the light show, plus it had this single triangular image and it has become iconic. Sometimes simple is best. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here AP: When Pink Floyd approached us, we heard the music and listened to the lyrics and it’s all about the dishonesty of the music business basically. We needed to come up with a symbol to go with that. Our idea was -- in business one man's dishonest, one man is honest. One man is getting burned, so okay, let’s set him on fire.   Pink Floyd, Saucerful Of Secrets  AP: At that time, the Pink Floyd’s said we don’t want our picture on the front we basically want something in terms of thinking about what’s going on right now. Well everything was going on, Marvel Comics were happening, alchemy was happening, people were dropping acid, people were doing all sorts of stuff. So we decided to create a montage, a collage of all that sort of atmosphere and it was all done in a darkroom. But of course the band said maybe we should have a little picture somewhere.  So we took a picture of the band in infrared, and put that on the front. If you look there’s a  tiny little picture of them amongst that melange of images. But it was all the sort of time when people were reading the I Ching and it was a very cosmic period. So that album cover reflects that cosmic time. Pink Floyd, Ummagumma AP: Nothing’s new, everything is plagiarized but it's how you plagiarize and how you use it. We actually got that image from a cocoa can from the 1850’s which was called Droste Cocoa which was a Dutch company. On that image there’s a woman holding a tray with a woman holding a tray…it goes into infinity. So we decided to try to recreate that just as an image on the wall. If you look at that cover there’s all sorts of things in there. There’s a Gigi cover on the floor. We changed the band round in the order and as soon as we had done that everybody said, “What does this mean?” To be frank, the Gigi album was there to hold space. We rearranged the band because they were all slightly jealous of each being better lo...

North Carolina-based band Mount Moriah is at the crossroads of classic country, Southern indie rock, American folk ballads, and indie-punk & psych metal roots. On their latest, How to Dance (Merge Records) exquisite guitar lines from Jenks Miller meet pedal steel, soulful horns and rootsy violin, complete with the soaring voice of singer and songwriter Heather McEntire, who could easily weather comparisons to Dolly. In a band named for the biblical mountain where Abraham was supposed to sacrifice his son, the spirituality runs deep, yet is necessarily inclusive. In addition to the band’s multi-instrumentalist Casey Toll on bass & keys, the record features some guest backing vocals by none other than Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, indie pop music beacon Mirah, and Asheville, NC-based singer/songstress Angel Olsen.   

Dustin O’Halloran is probably best known for his theme music for the hit TV show “Transparent” but he is also half of the post rock band called A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and was part of the indie rock band Devics – from the early 90’s through 2008. Hauschka, real name Volker Bertelmann, is a German composer and pianist whose work ranges from electronics to a series of duets with renowned classical violinist Hilary Hahn, and sometimes features prepared piano.  The two composers joined forces to score the new film, "Lion," an arresting and elegant soundtrack that seems to speak to ideas of love, home, and family. “Lion” is based on the remarkable story of Saroo Brierley, who at the age of 5 was lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometers from home, grows up with an adoptive family in Australia, and as an adult finds an unlikely route back to his original family.   The film comes out November 25, but both Dustin and Hauschka join John in the studio to talk about collaborating on “Lion.”    

Violinist and Music Director of Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Joshua Bell, has worked with such a wide variety of musicians from singer/songwriter Regina Spektor to the late Ravi Shankar; from young American composer Jay Greenburg to the Cuban music group Tiempo Libre. He visits our studio close on the heels of a tour & collaborative record with world-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis, and their all-Brahms program, which included the Double Concerto, thought to be one of Johannes Brahms’ greatest late works. Joshua Bell also recounts the seance story behind Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto, as well as the torrid history behind Brahms' entanglement with Clara Schumann. 

South African guitar virtuoso Derek Gripper plays music originally meant for the 21 stringed lute-harp, the kora, on his 6-string Segovia-styled guitar in the studio. Listen to unbelievable arrangements of Malian kora greats, as well as original compositions in the flowing, cascading style of kora music, all translated for 6-string guitar.   Gripper's latest record, "Libraries on Fire," is titled after this quote: "In Africa, when an old man dies, it's a library burning," attributed to Amadou Hampate Ba. On this record, he continues to make the impossible happen, taking melodies from the Manding Music, even duets for kora (a total of 44 strings!) and arranging them for the six guitar strings.  See Derek Gripper with Trio Da Kali at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, on Saturday, Nov. 12. SETLIST1. Tita2. Tutu Jara3. Copenhagen Here's but a sample of guitarist Derek Gripper, performing as part of a New Sounds Live/New York Guitar Festival event from last spring in the Greene Space.    

Hailing from New Zealand’s Southern port town of Lyttelton, Aldous Harding digs deep into classic folk music with her acoustic-based brooding songs. Her music is utterly captivating, yet melancholy and bleak; the arrangements are delicate, simple, and elegant - with subtle harmonies, perhaps a touch of fiddle or keyboard, supporting acoustic guitar and Harding’s haunting voice.  Hear the New Zealand singer-songwriter perform fragile & intense songs in the studio.  Set List:  "Stop your Tears"'What If Birds Aren’t Singing, They’re Screaming""Horizon"  

The Oscar-nominated Berlin-based Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson visits the studio with the new music group ACME. Jóhannsson has just released his first solo record in more 6 years (not a film score of some kind), which is called Orphée, and explores the nature of that ancient Greek myth. Orphée is "A story about death and rebirth, the elusive nature of creation and art and the ephemeral nature of memory. It's an album about change, love and art – a reflection of our relationships." The music ranges from chamber experimental to the elegiac and dreamy to choral music on the “Orphic Hymn,” by Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices. Jóhannsson just finished a string of North American tour dates with ACME, and heads to Europe in December.   Set List:  "Song for Europa / A Deal with Chaos suite “A Sparrow Alighted Upon our Shoulder / Flight From the City"     

George Watsky first gained prominence via Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam, where he demonstrated his ability to combine thoughtful ideas at a wickedly fast clip. From there, it was on to a recording career that has seen both of his previous albums, 2013's Cardboard Castles and 2014's All You Can Do, reach stratospheric chart highs. He recently released a New York Times best-seller, an essay collection called How To Ruin Everything, and his newest record xInfinity dropped in August. A busy man, George Watsky somehow makes time to visit the Soundcheck studio and demonstrate his many wares.    

Hear the British trio Band of Skulls' massive riffs stripped to their...skeletal form, from an in-studio performance. 

Steve Aoki has followed an unusual career path on his way to becoming one of the most successful dance music producers on the planet.  Beginning in the hardcore music scene, starting a record label (Dim Mak Records), and then moving on to DJing, Aoki has been a one-man perpetual motion machine. He has collaborated with everyone from Lil Jon to Linkin Park, plus will.i.am, LMFAO, Iggy Azalea, and Diplo, and been a voice on Robot Chicken. He is also the subject of the new documentary film called I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, which charts the course of Steve Aoki's life and career, and introduces his late father, Rocky Aoki, the Benihana founder and wrestler.