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, the members of HBE were raised with music as a constant, as they are the sons of the late jazz trumpeter Phil Cohran (Earth, Wind, and Fire, Sun Ra Arkestra). Now based between Brooklyn and Chicago, the full party of Hypnotic Brass Ensemble plays some tunes in-studio. (Archives, 2019)

Set list: 1. Menage 2. War 3. ACF

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 and atmospheres that transport listeners to the purest places in nature. Hear his live in-studio set for us and his explanation of how he makes all this music live. Rumbo Tumba plays in New York at Public Records on October 10.

Set list: 1. Monte 2. Barro 3. Huguaju

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 was a co-presentation of World Music Institute.

Set list: 1. Sverrisson: Her Room 2. Sverrisson: Draumfari 3. Frisell: Baby 4. Sverrisson: Afternoon Variant

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 Guthrie tunes. Cole Quest & The City Pickers shred with high-spirited energy and that high lonesome sound, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Where I'm From 2. Early Morning Dew 3. I Ain't

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 ranges from aching ballads to the tongue-in-cheek advice for living. Ron Sexsmith plays solo, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Cigarette and Cocktail 2. Rose Town 3. Gold In Them Hills

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 aspects of modern life. Cass McCombs plays a stripped-down set, in-studio.

Set List: 1. Missionary Bell 2. Home At Last 3. Peace

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 into his own works. Sosa, along with the Cuban-born, New York-based sax player Yosvany Terry, and drummer Julian Miltenberger, play new music, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Bola 2. My Three Notes (Mis Tres Notas) 3. Muevete en D