Best Scheffer Podcasts (2025)

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Boyish Brings Walls of Guitars to the 'Gun' Show, In-Studio 34:27

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10h ago34:27

34:27

The L.A-based, Brooklyn-born band called Boyish is built around the songwriting of India Shore and Claire Altendahl, and while they’ve been releasing music since 2018, they’ve just put out their debut album, called Gun. The album presents a series of scenes and character studies from a fictional American town called Gun, which seems to be haunted –…

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English Singer Patrick Wolf Plays Artful Baroque Pop, In-Studio 40:52

3d ago40:52

40:52

English singer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Wolf built his sizable reputation on a blend of Baroque pop and arty, classically-informed folk-rock. But a series of setbacks kept him from the music scene for a decade, before he returned with an EP in 2023, and in June of 2025, his latest LP called Crying The Neck. Patrick Wolf joins us at the pia…

1
Dusty Psych-Soul and Fiery Groove From Black Pumas (Archives) 32:20

7d ago32:20

32:20

Both old and new, Austin-based band Black Pumas is centered around guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada and 27-year-old songwriter Eric Burton. Grammy Award-winning Quesada has played in Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, and accompanied artists from Prince to Daniel Johnston. Burton grew up in church and then got heavily involved in musical theater. He…

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Soundcheck Special - American Musicians Ashley Jackson and Ken Pomeroy 57:44

8d ago57:44

57:44

Listen to music from American musicians, the harpist Ashley Jackson and the Oklahoma-based Cherokee singer and songwriter Ken Pomeroy. Both sets come from our Soundcheck series of live performances and interviews, available as a twice-weekly podcast, wherever you get podcasts. With her clever guitar playing and powerful stories, Oklahoma-based Cher…

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Irish Folk Duo Ye Vagabonds Go Backwards to Look Forwards 38:07

11d ago38:07

38:07

Ye Vagabonds are brothers Brían and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn. They grew up in rural Carlow but moved to Dublin in 2012 and became known on the traditional Irish, blues and folk scenes in the city, playing folk songs as well as their own original material, (Bandcamp). They’re part a wave of bands who’ve remade or extended the folk tradition; they’ve also…

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Indigenous Latin-Jazz-Ambient-Soul From Cochemea, In-Studio 37:23

15d ago37:23

37:23

Cochemea is a sax player, composer and arranger who spent some years playing vintage-style soul with Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, as well as stints with Amy Winehouse, David Byrne, hip hop duo Run The Jewels and dozens more. Born Cochemea Gastelum into an Indigenous Yaqui family in California, he’s found time over the past few years to release thr…

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Polish Pianist and Composer Hania Rani Expands Her Sonic Palette with 'Non Fiction' 34:38

18d ago34:38

34:38

The now London-based Polish pianist and composer Hania Rani quickly attracted fans with her 2019 album of solo piano works in the post-classical style, a blend of classical lyricism and minimalist patterns. Her later albums expanded to include electronics, and her voice; she is equally versed in the music of composers like Philip Glass and bands li…

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Master Violinist, Vocalist, and Composer L. Shankar, In-Studio 34:47

22d ago34:47

34:47

Master violinist/vocalist/composer L. Shankar (aka Shenkar) has spent the past four decades developing a personal style that ranges from strict Indian classical music to Western instrumental pop although usually he lands somewhere in the middle. Since playing his first solo concert at the age of seven, he has gone on to accompany many of South Indi…

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Tommy Emmanuel, C.G.P., Chases the Ecstatic Via Guitar Instrumentals, In-Studio 37:06

25d ago37:06

37:06

The Australian-born musician and songwriter Tommy Emmanuel is a virtuoso guitarist and Grammy winner who has played with everyone from the legendary Chet Atkins to younger guitarists like Jason Isbell and Billy Strings. Long based in Nashville, he’s been releasing solo albums pretty regularly since 1979. His new record is called Living In The Light…

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Guitarist and Songwriter Brad Barr Stretches Out In a Trio, In-Studio 43:01

29d ago43:01

43:01

The Barr Brothers, the indie-folk-rock band from Montreal, have just released their first album in eight years called Let It Hiss. Brad Barr, the band’s singer, guitarist and songwriter is a versatile collaborator and risk-taker who revels in making unusual sounds. The latest songs can be folk-leaning, or may draw from the blues and American songwr…

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Portuguese Singer Carminho Distills the Fatal Romanticism of Fado 31:31

1M ago31:31

31:31

The Portuguese singer and songwriter Carminho is one of the leading singers in the style known as fado – the deeply soulful, melancholy music that is somewhat akin to Spanish flamenco or American blues. She has collaborated with the iconic Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso, performed for the late Pope Francis, recorded with Steve Albini, and made a…

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Mexican Songwriter and Producer Silvana Estrada Shares Her Heart And Finds Joyful Melodies 35:02

1M ago35:02

35:02

The Mexican singer Silvana Estrada made an immediate impression with her debut LP Marchita back in 2022. Quickly hailed as a unique voice in Latin music for her blend of jazz, chamber music, and traditional folk, Estrada took her time making her follow-up album, and it appears to have been time well-spent: Vendrán Suaves Lluvias, or “there will com…

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Singer-Songwriter Meklit Embeds Ethiopian Traditions and Connects Cultures, In-Studio 38:01

1M ago38:01

38:01

The singer Meklit, born Meklit Hadero in Ethiopia, is based in the Bay Area, where she has released a number of albums that blend jazz, pop, and soul with the echoes of Ethiopian pop. Her latest album, A Piece of Infinity, finds Meklit singing mostly in Amharic, and looking back to what is sometimes called the Golden Age of Ethiopian music – the ti…

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Canadian Singer and Composer Patrick Watson Features Other Voices, While Recovering His Own 42:54

1M ago42:54

42:54

Canadian singer and composer Patrick Watson has been making records for almost a quarter century – with a cinematic blend of indie rock, cabaret pop, and chamber music that has made him a favorite of film directors and music supervisors. His latest record, Uh Oh, is the result of a pretty big uh-oh moment for a singer: Watson lost his voice. He tho…

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The Antlers Consider Nature Under Siege in New Song Cycle, In-Studio 33:59

2M ago33:59

33:59

American indie rock band The Antlers began almost 20 years ago as a solo project from singer and songwriter Peter Silberman. While the previous album, Green To Gold, was a pastoral, almost folky affair, the new album, Blight, is almost like a classical song cycle, and is a musical warning about nature under siege. “The consequences of accelerating …

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Bell Jazz Award Winner Sullivan Fortner's Joyful Piano Adventures, In-Studio 42:48

2M ago42:48

42:48

GRAMMY-winning musical omnivore Sullivan Fortner merges New Orleans grit and spice with invention (and not just J.S. Bach), for an alchemical jazz that is wise, feisty, mischievous, and dynamic. His exposure to R&B, soul, and gospel at home; his time at Oberlin and the influence of various teachers in jazz and classical disciplines; and his longtim…

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Spanish-born Pablopablo, Bending Latin Music Traditions 32:09

2M ago32:09

32:09

The Spanish-born singer, songwriter and producer Pablopablo recently released his debut LP, but he’d already built up an impressive array of writing and producing credits, winning Latin Grammys back in 2022 under his given name, Pablo Drexler. Those awards were for his work on a collaboration between his father, the popular Uruguayan-born musician …

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The Sensational Blues Guitarist Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, At Last, In-Studio 31:38

2M ago31:38

31:38

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram has been steeped in the Blues since he was eight years old, when he visited the Delta Blues Museum as a student in Clarksdale, Mississippi (Jackson Advocate). He played drums, bass, and GUITAR and was recognized at a young age for his exceptional musical talent with his debut album Kingfish, in 2019 on Alligator Records.…

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47SOUL Brings the Shamstep Party With a Message (Archives) 32:39

2M ago32:39

32:39

“Shamstep” band, 47SOUL, take their name from the Arabic name for the Levant region – Bilad al-Sham, with members from Jordan, Washington DC, and Israel - spanning the divides of the Palestinian Diaspora. The music is a mix of dubstep, hip-hop and electro-Arabic dabke with lyrics in both Arabic and English, which are intensely political in their ca…

1
Revisiting The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (From the Archives, 2019) 30:05

2M ago30:05

30:05

The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble is a musically free-ranging band of brothers from the south side of Chicago. Their music draws from funk, funky jazz, Afrobeat, hip hop, rock, reggae, and R&B, and they’ve performed with Tony Allen, Wu Tang Clan, De La Soul, Prince, Femi Kuti, Gorillaz, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), and the B52's, to name a few. Growing up, …

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Rumbo Tumba Crafts Argentinian Electro-Traditional Music, In-Studio 33:35

2M ago33:35

33:35

Rumbo Tumba is the project of the Argentine musician Facundo Salgado, who uses a looping station and a battery of handmade, traditional South American instruments to create brilliant musical conversations between South American traditions and modern technology. Rumbo Tumba can make an improbable amount of sound, live and alone, constructing sounds …

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Bill Frisell & Skúli Sverrisson Live at the 2025 New York Guitar Festival 40:08

2M ago40:08

40:08

From the 2025 New York Guitar Festival, hear music from legendary American jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and Icelandic bass player Skúli Sverrisson, who were about to go into the studio and record their second album as a duo. Part of the New Sounds Live concerts, the music was recorded at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, and wa…

1
Homegrown Brooklyn Bluegrass From Cole Quest & The City Pickers 30:21

2M ago30:21

30:21

Cole Quest & The City Pickers are a bluegrass band from Brooklyn, and if that surprises you, well, the fact is New York City has had a long, strong bluegrass scene going back to the 1950’s. Cole Quest draws on that tradition, and his own family tradition - he’s the grandson of the folk icon Woody Guthrie – in originals and updated versions of Guthr…

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Soundcheck Special – “Blues Is the Roots” 57:52

3M ago57:52

57:52

The Soundcheck Podcast series offers up music from recent sessions, all revolving around The Blues –at the root of so much popular music, and where the roots have grown into other fruits worldwide. Listen to French-Moroccan band Bab L' Bluz and their hot psychedelic blues spiked with the Gnawa trance rhythms of northern Africa's Maghreb. There’s th…

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Wry and Lyrical Balladeer Ron Sexsmith, Solo, In-Studio 38:10

3M ago38:10

38:10

Canada’s Ron Sexsmith is a songwriter whose fans include Elvis Costello, Elton John, Paul McCartney, and a few other folks who know a thing or two about that mysterious process. Sexsmith is now forty years into his career, with 18 albums, three of Canada’s Juno Awards, and a novel to show for it. His latest album is called Hangover Terrace, and it …

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Songwriter Cass McCombs Addresses the Mundane and the Mythic 29:16

3M ago29:16

29:16

Distinctive songwriter Cass McCombs takes a broad view of the American experience – from the mundane to the mythic. His new songs from a wide-ranging double album - Interior Live Oak contain “specific detail amid strange painterly settings” (The Guardian) and remain hopeful despite the feeling of listening to someone who has lived the extreme aspec…

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Omar Sosa Trio Goes Outside the Box, In-Studio 41:50

3M ago41:50

41:50

Pianist and composer Omar Sosa draws on his own Afro-Cuban heritage, American jazz, and spiritual and meditative practices from around the world to create music that defies categorization. He’s traveled widely, especially in Africa, recording the sounds of the people, the animals, and the instruments of those places and sometimes incorporating them…

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Plainspoken Texas Troubadour Rodney Crowell Lives for the Moment 37:26

3M ago37:26

37:26

“Failed bull-rider turned seminal songwriter” (Red Light Management), native Texan Rodney Crowell is considered to be one of the chief architects of Americana music, and a songwriter admired by good songwriters. Crowell has had an eventful career in his half century of writing songs, making records and helping create the style that’s come to be kno…

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Guitarist Mary Halvorson and Drummer Tomas Fujiwara, From the 2025 New York Guitar Festival 31:48

3M ago31:48

31:48

From the 2025 New York Guitar Festival, listen to a live set by the adventurous guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson along with drummer/composer Tomas Fujiwara, playing their original works. This show was recorded at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn, as part of the New Sounds Live concert series, and was also a co-presentation of…

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A Kind of Nordic Blues From Tord Gustavsen Trio (Archives) 34:05

3M ago34:05

34:05

Norwegian pianist Tord Gustavsen and his trio, featuring new bassist Sigurd Hole and long-time collaborator, drummer Jarle Vespestad, combine together folk influences and church music for unhurried embraces of melody. Expressive and reflective, Gustavsen’s ‘Nordic blues’ slowly unfurls passages of delicate lyricism, with enough space for contemplat…

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Adrian Quesada Revives Dramatic Vintage Latin Pop, With Guest Vocalists 33:51

3M ago33:51

33:51

Adrian Quesada is probably best known as one of the two co-founders of the psychedelic soul band Black Pumas, but the guitarist and producer has also been part of Grupo Fantasma, Brownout and Ocote Soul Sounds. Lately, he’s also been pursuing another musical project called Boleros Psicodélicos, an homage to the phenomenon of balada music that bloss…

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Anand Wilder's Sonic Adventures in Psych-Pop, In-Studio 40:19

3M ago40:19

40:19

The New York-based singer, songwriter, and producer Anand Wilder was a cofounder of the experimental indie band Yeasayer, and more recently has pursued a wide-ranging solo career. His 2022 solo debut, I Don’t Know My Words, was a genuine solo project, with Anand playing everything himself. Now, though, Anand Wilder has a new record called Psychic L…

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Inuk Singer-Songwriter Elisapie Transforms Her Heritage 40:47

4M ago40:47

40:47

The singer Elisapie is an Inuk musician, filmmaker, advocate, and writer who has become a nationally-celebrated figure in Canada – her portrait appears on a postage stamp in that country’s Indigenous leaders series. Her latest album, Inuktitut, is notable for a couple of reasons: first, it’s sung in the language called Inuktitut, and second, it is …

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Guitar-Oriented Rock Band We Are Scientists' Twist on Nostalgia, In-Studio 35:26

4M ago35:26

35:26

Named after being mis-identified while returning a uHaul, the pop’n’roll band We Are Scientists has been making melancholic, nostalgic, and melodic songs, familiar and fun, for some 20 years. Since their debut album With Love And Squalor, they’ve wandered into the worlds of comedy and English soccer while continuing their own spin on indie rock wit…

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Eleanor Friedberger Is (Goth) Dancing (Mostly) on Her Own (Archives) 28:16

4M ago28:16

28:16

Eleanor Friedberger, best known as one half of the indie rock duo The Fiery Furnaces, has recently shifted her musical landscape, swapping out live instruments in favor of drum programming and synths for a sound that she can create mostly on her own. (Part of her desire to be more self-reliant, in the wake of the 2016 election.) On her 2018 record,…

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Rachael & Vilray Serve New Old-Timey Songs With a Sly Wink, In-Studio 34:55

4M ago34:55

34:55

The duo of Rachael & Vilray turns the idea of "Everything old is new again" on its head – making new things that sound really old. Over the course of three albums they offer a contemporary take on tin pan alley, the great American songbook, and vintage small combo jazz. The duo’s latest album is West of Broadway and it brings Rachael & Vilray back …

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The Expansive Textured Ambient Songs of Vines, In-Studio 40:56

4M ago40:56

40:56

New York based composer Cassie Wieland first unveiled her ambient songwriting project she calls Vines in 2023. Now she’s released a full LP under the name Vines – that record, called I’ll be here, is full of atmospheric, textural washes of sound and processed vocals that suggest a story rather than actually telling you one. The live version of Vine…

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Afrofuturist Hip Hop From Indianapolis Supergroup 81355, In-Studio 34:03

4M ago34:03

34:03

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-…

1
The Bad Plus Keeps On Making Their Own Rules 41:10

4M ago41:10

41:10

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…

1
The Pop Precision of Cautious Clay, In-Studio 29:18

4M ago29:18

29:18

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…

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Adventurous Harpist Brandee Younger Finds Joy With Gadabout Season 36:32

4M ago36:32

36:32

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 Gad…

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Larry & Joe's Venezuelan and Appalachian Folk Music Has No Borders 33:43

5M ago33:43

33:43

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 immigra…

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Songwriter Laura Stevenson Rebuilds and Calls The Shots 37:30

5M ago37:30

37:30

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 ly…

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Australian-American Songwriter John Butler Soul-Searches and Sublimates 40:57

5M ago40:57

40:57

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…

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Puerto Rico's Buscabulla and Their Ever-Evolving Dreamy Pop 41:34

5M ago41:34

41:34

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 mus…

1
Brooklyn Band Wet, In-Studio 30:14

5M ago30:14

30:14

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 …

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Senegalese Singer Cheikh Ibra Fam's Music as a Force for Good 37:03

5M ago37:03

37:03

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 s…

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New York's La Banda Chuska Plays Cumbia-Surf, In-Studio 27:27

5M ago27:27

27:27

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 …

1
The Wonder of Disiniblud (Rachika Nayar & Nina Keith): Electronic Fantasies at Play 44:48

5M ago44:48

44:48

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…

1
Singular Artist Shamir's Last Solo Act: Celebrating Community 30:38

5M ago30:38

30:38

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…