- Early versions of some of Lou Reed’s most beloved songs were recently unearthed and will be released in August. On All Songs Considered’s New Mix this week, hear a very early rendition of what would become a Velvet Underground classic, "I'm Waiting For The Man.”
- Singer-songwriter S. G. Goodman put out a stunning album last week called Teeth Marks, full of songs that are ”refined in a recalcitrant way, and put across with wiry but emotionally present resolve” as writer Jewly Hight puts it. Jewly spoke to the Kentucky artist about the roles small-town life and bottled trauma played on the making of this new record.
- On the List is a playlist from Jazz Night in America that features the team’s favorite new releases every month — from traditional tunes to avant-garde adventures to electronic experiments. This month’s update includes tracks from Jonathan Barber, DoomCannon, Nduduzo Makhathini and more.
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- A new opera called Omar tells the true story of an enslaved man taken from his home in what is now Senegal and trafficked to South Carolina. The opera, by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels, premiered recently at the Spoleto Festival USA, less than a mile down the road from where the man was sold and after which he spent five decades on plantations, including the one at which he wrote his autobiography.
- Dave Smith, a pioneer of the synthesizer, died last week at age 72. Smith revolutionized pop music with the creation of the Prophet-5 synthesizer, as well as the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, better known as MIDI, which allowed digital instruments to speak the same language for the first time.
- For five decades, the only way to hear the sprawling psychedelia of Japanese band Les Rallizes Dénudés was through live bootlegs. Now, with the release of a 50-year-old live recording called The OZ Tapes, an official chapter for the band begins.
- This week, our friends at WNXP shared a video of Allison Russell performing three songs live from the station’s Sonic Cathedral.
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The Tiny Desk’s celebration of Black Music Month continues this week with sets by British-Nigerian Afrobeat star Naira Marley and multidisciplinary artist FKA twigs, including a performance of a new song called “killer.”
Also this week: Folk singer and violinist Gaelynn Lea won the Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. Since then, she’s performed around the world, co-founded a coalition that amplifies disability culture in the music industry and recently wrote music for the production of Macbeth currently on Broadway that stars Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga. The Tiny Desk Contest team caught up with Lea to hear about her journey from the Tiny Desk to Broadway.
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| Listen to your local NPR station. |
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