Music

October 5, 2022 - 4:01am

Read full article: Susana Baca: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Tiny Desk is celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with an El Tiny takeover, featuring Jessie Reyez, Girl Ultra and more musicians from all corners of Latinidad.

At the Babel library and bookstore in Lima, Peru, Susana Baca is surrounded by books, wine and...

Billy Strings & Terry Barber, 'Long Journey Home'

October 4, 2022 - 1:25pm

Bluegrass is music that's passed from hand to hand, from kitchens to hotel rooms to the jovial, competitive song circles at music festivals. For a century in these settings, young upstarts have attentively followed the fingerwork of their older mentors, learning classic tunes by touch as they memorize lyrics by...

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, the most interesting man in music?

October 4, 2022 - 11:32am

Maybe you're familiar with the old beer ad campaign for "The Most Interesting Man in the World," boasting of his deeds, sharing random factoids. If music has an equivalent, you could make a very strong case for my guest, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. The narration for the ad would read, "He's...

Loretta Lynn, country music icon, has died at 90

October 4, 2022 - 10:36am

Loretta Lynn, the country music icon who brought unparalleled candor about the domestic realities of working-class women to country songwriting — and taught those who came after her to speak their minds, too – died today at her home in Tennessee. She was 90 years old.

"Our precious...

Ashley McBryde's 'Lindeville' is a glorious detour into downhome character studies

October 4, 2022 - 9:37am

On the recent September morning when the Country Music Association announced its latest round of award nominees, Ashley McBryde awoke to texts from her team. She'd racked up five nods, one for female vocalist of the year and the rest for a chart-topping collaboration with a fellow star,...

Paramore, 'This Is Why'

October 4, 2022 - 9:13am

It takes time to shake off stasis. If you spent the last couple years watching the world's unstable state with constant horror, everything and everyone can feel fraught and uncaring. So when "This Is Why" takes 15 seconds to adjust as a synth punctuates a snare hit and a guitar...

Milwaukee group's new album, Elevated cuisine

October 4, 2022 - 7:00am

First, Milwaukee musical group SistaStrings discusses their latest album “Love Is The Only Thing." Then, we hear from a Milwaukee chef about his farm-to-table take on Mexican cuisine.

SistaStrings say ‘Love Is the Only Thing’

October 4, 2022 - 7:00am

Milwaukee’s original SistaStrings released a new album this year titled “Love Is The Only Thing” in partnership with Peter Mulvey. During their national tour with Brandi Carlie, the two classically trained musicians talk about melding gospel, R&B and classical music.

Unreleased for decades, Joyce Moreno's 'Natureza' is a snapshot of newfound freedom

October 4, 2022 - 4:01am

At her home in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce Moreno waxes philosophical about an album that sat unreleased for upwards of 45 years. "A vida tem sempre razão," she says over video chat, quoting fellow Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes (himself famous for writing the words to "Girl...

The Syrian Cassette Archive, preserving a disappearing history

October 3, 2022 - 3:05pm

When Yamen Mekdad was a teenager in Damascus, Syria, there was one place he'd go almost every day: his friend's cassette shop.

"So I'd just sit with him, hang out with him, smoke cigarettes and just listen to the new music," Mekdad tells All Things Considered. "Punk music, or...

Mexico's Son Rompe Pera bang the marimba at the crossroads of cumbia and punk

October 3, 2022 - 4:00am

In celebration of Latinx Heritage Month, NPR Music is spotlighting a series of artists across Latin America who are engaging with their musical heritage in unique ways. From reworking conservative genres for new eras, to teasing out modern sounds from old-school instruments, these artists represent the wide range of experimentation...

Without these Latino composers, Hollywood wouldn't sound the same

October 2, 2022 - 4:00am

Since the early days of Hollywood, Latin American composers have created theme songs and soundtracks for some of the most classic movies and TV shows.

A century ago, Maria Grever was a maverick in the male-dominated film world. She had studied with French composer Claude Debussy before returning...

Follow The Flute

October 1, 2022 - 9:00am

Flutes, after the human voice, are the earliest identifiable musical instruments, as paleolithic examples with hand-bored holes. Several flutes dating from about 43,000 to 35,000 years ago were discovered in Slovenia. Wisconsin and First Nation - Indigenous people have a long historical relationship with the flute.

🌍 #1475 October 1, 2022 Broadcast

October 1, 2022 - 8:00am

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With '$oul $old $eparately,' Freddie Gibbs cashes in on his cachet

October 1, 2022 - 6:32am

The new Freddie Gibbs album, $oul $old $eparately, arrives with the prestige and buzz of an artist's Big Moment. Only Gibbs has cycled through a handful of these moments already — and delivered with aplomb. Now 40, he's dispatched an emotionally nuanced record, one that's neither a self-indulgent victory lap,...

What's making us happy: A guide to your weekend reading, listening and viewing

September 30, 2022 - 4:13pm

This week, Iceland threw baby puffins off cliffs, we mark one year of Sesame Street having its first full-time Black female puppeteer, and we remember hip-hop icon Coolio.

Here's what the NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should...

LCD Soundsystem, 'new body rhumba'

September 30, 2022 - 1:36pm

Band breakups don't actually exist — never say never, even though they always do. But it's also true that you can never go home; more often than not, reunited bands return diminished, a little wan. (Mission of Burma was a surprising exception to this tendency.) There's a lot of...

Jessie Reyez: Tiny Desk Concert

September 30, 2022 - 11:00am

From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Tiny Desk is celebrating Latinx Heritage Month with an "El Tiny" takeover, featuring Jessie Reyez, Susana Baca and more musicians from all corners of Latinidad.

Beer cans and hair brushes may not be typical percussive tools, but typical is as irrelevant as tradition...

Listening through the history of recording technology

September 30, 2022 - 8:00am

UW-Madison’s Mills Music Library has an archive of recordings dating more than a century. We talk to the curator of a sampling of recordings from the past 160 years about what’s in the library’s collection and how recording technology influences the art.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Cool It Down' is an exhilarating yet unhurried return

September 30, 2022 - 4:00am

The audacity, to be an artist who waits nearly a decade to release a project — to sit out the conversation that long. The news cycles that whirr by, the social feeds left to rot on the vine. The refusal to chase the currency of constant, insistent relevance. It's jarring...

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Susana Baca: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Billy Strings & Terry Barber, 'Long Journey Home'

Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter, the most interesting man in music?

Loretta Lynn, country music icon, has died at 90

Ashley McBryde's 'Lindeville' is a glorious detour into downhome character studies

Paramore, 'This Is Why'

Milwaukee group's new album, Elevated cuisine

SistaStrings say ‘Love Is the Only Thing’

Unreleased for decades, Joyce Moreno's 'Natureza' is a snapshot of newfound freedom

The Syrian Cassette Archive, preserving a disappearing history

Mexico's Son Rompe Pera bang the marimba at the crossroads of cumbia and punk

Without these Latino composers, Hollywood wouldn't sound the same

Follow The Flute

🌍 #1475 October 1, 2022 Broadcast

With '$oul $old $eparately,' Freddie Gibbs cashes in on his cachet

What's making us happy: A guide to your weekend reading, listening and viewing

LCD Soundsystem, 'new body rhumba'

Jessie Reyez: Tiny Desk Concert

Listening through the history of recording technology

Yeah Yeah Yeahs' 'Cool It Down' is an exhilarating yet unhurried return

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