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 three albums of his own music, the latest being Vol. III: Ancestros Futuros. These albums don’t attempt to untangle the knot of Indigenous, Spanish, and American cultural interactions over the centuries, instead using them as musical source material. With a lightly processed alto sax sound and lots of percussion, Cochemea and his band create songs that usually don’t have words, although wordless vocals, chanted or sung, are part of the sonic tapestry. The result is music that is not only beyond category, it almost seems beyond time, as the album title suggests. Cochemea and his band have filled our studio, mostly with percussion instruments to play a live set. (-John Schaefer)

Set list: 1. Otros Mundos 2. Ancestros Futuros 3. Omeyocan

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 like Radiohead. But her new record is something different – a four part piano concerto with orchestra, called Non Fiction, which is a reflection on the human cost of war. The work was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, with a 45-piece orchestra and experimental instrumentalists Rakhi Singh (Manchester Collective), Jack Wylie (Portico Quartet), and percussionist/composer Valentina Magaletti. Hania Rani performs the piano part of the opening movement of the piece Non Fiction, and other original works, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Non-Fiction I - Sonore 2. Nostalgia 3. F Major

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 India’s leading vocalists and become a major soloist. Schooled in voice, violin, and the drums, he has composed new ragas and folk songs, and played with countless other master musicians. In the 1970s, with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Vikku Vinayakram, and Ramnad Raghavan, he co-founded the legendary Indo-jazz group Shakti. In the 1980s, he introduced a custom-made 10-string double violin capable of covering the whole range of the orchestra’s string section from violin to double bass. He has collaborated with Frank Zappa and Peter Gabriel and has continued to expand the international audience for Indian music, often combining North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) styles, (Robert Browning Associates program notes, 2022). L. Shankar performs original works, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Ananda Nadamadum Tillaj Sankara 2. Ganapathiye Varuvaai 3. Shamudu

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, and fuses his pop, jazz, classical, and roots influences into a daring collection of intimate and cinematic storytelling. Tommy Emmanuel, Certified Guitar Player, plays and tells tales, rough edges and all, in our studio.

Set list: 1. Black and White To Color 2. Little Georgia 3. Drowning Heart

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 songwriting; they represent a reckoning with vulnerability, truth, with helpings of gratitude and humility. And while Andrew couldn’t be here for this session, Brad Barr, along with Stuart Bogie on sax and clarinet and Shahzad Ismaily on bass play (and improvise a bit) on some songs from the new album, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Naturally 2. Another Tangerine 3. Run Right Into It

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 special appearance in the film Poor Things, by Yorgos Lanthimos, where she sings from a balcony accompanying herself on the teardrop-shaped Portuguese guitar. Carminho has a new album called Eu Vou Morrer de Amor ou Resistir – I’ll die of love, or I’ll resist. Accompanied by classical guitar, Portuguese guitar, and acoustic bass guitar, she performs in-studio.

Set list: 1. Canção à ausente 2. Saber 3. Lá vai Lisboa

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 come soft rains,” is a heartfelt, elegant, quietly melodic album full of songs about love, lost love, and what it takes to just keep on keeping on. Silvana Estrada performs some of these latest songs in intimate arrangements on cuatro, accompanied by musician Joe Grass on guitar and pedal steel, in-studio.

Set list: 1. Dime 2. No Te Vayas Sin Saber 3. Good Luck, Good Night

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 time in the early 70s when Latin music, American funk, and traditional Ethiopian scales and rhythms all came together. Meklit and her band perform some of these new songs, in-studio.

1. Ambassel 2. Tizita 3. Geefata