Australian singer Grace Cummings is the kind of songwriter who believes in the spontaneity of the creative process. “I’m a loner. I talk to myself a lot,” she says, and amid those int...

Blackstar was David Bowie’s last record, a musical farewell, and it featured the sax player Donny McCaslin. In fact, Bowie ended up using Donny McCaslin’s whole band for that album. T...

Wendy Eisenberg is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, improviser, and songwriter who uses guitar, pedals, the tenor banjo, the computer, the synthesizer and the voice. They are also a profes...

The artist known as Everlast was the lead rapper in the group House of Pain, whose single “Jump Around” remains one of hip hop’s most familiar songs. But in the 1990s he began adding ...

It’s common for songwriting artists to process their emotions through composing music. LA-based folk singer Annahstasia spent many years crafting her debut album, Tether, doing just t...

Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche defines himself as a “chord progression artist”: “You establish a pattern, and then of course, you have to break it,” he says. This line of t...

Indie rock band led by multi-instrumentalist and ornithologist Jonathan Meiburg returns to Soundcheck for a live performance and interview, joined by avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson.

Folk music is known to be the music of the people, but it can sound vastly different from region to region. There are also songs that take inspiration from folk music but fall under a...

Saul Williams is many things. A poet, a musician, an actor, and a writer, embodying multiple forms of art in his existence. He’s the preacher in the Oscar-winning 2025 film, Sinners. ...