The Music Show

Harnessing looping pedals, percussion and vocal manipulation, Tune-Yards make a very big sound for a core membership of two people. It's been ten years since the experimental pop project released their third album Nikki Nack and creepy hit Water Fountain. Songwriter and singer Merrill Garbus is on The Music Show to talk about the duo's complex rhythms, vocal athleticism, and how to play with words.Omar Musa is an author, artist, poet, and woodcutter making music and art from Borneo to Brooklyn. His third album. The Fullness, touches on the environment, culture, religious identity, and mortality. He creates poetry from a spoken-word background, melding hip-hop, jazz, and electronic sounds with earnest lyricism. 

Jon Burlingame, a Los Angeles-based journalist and author of "Music for Prime Time," shares insights into the captivating world of television music. He dives into the evolution of TV themes, from the impact of library music to original compositions by legends like Henry Mancini. Burlingame discusses how theme songs shape character narratives, the legacy of composers like David Schwartz, and contrasts modern innovations in shows like 'Game of Thrones' and 'The White Lotus.' A journey through nostalgia and the future of TV sound awaits!

In 2024 Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson undertook an international tour that saw him playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations almost a hundred times, including his first ever performances in Australia. He joins Andy in the studio, in front of the piano, to talk about finding infinite variety in those Variations.Angélique Kidjo shares the story behind her 2018 album Remain In Light, a track-for-track re-imagining of the Talking Heads’ classic, highlighting the African influences across the record.

Live from WOMADelaide 2024, an hour with two Irish living legends, singer songwriter Lisa O’Neill and concertina master Cormac Begley. Both stalwarts of the Irish traditional music scene, they united for an intense, wailing version of All the Tired Horses which was used in the final moment of Peaky Blinders.They play live and talk to Andy about what tradition means, how new writing can sing alongside the old songs, and the highs (piccolo) and lows (bass) of having a concertina collection.

Though best known as a musicologist - the author of 16 books - Lawrence Kramer's other life as a composer shines through all his writings. He says he has become increasingly aware that music is made of sound, a fact that in Kramer's view has perhaps been 'too obvious for its own good'. Accordingly, he has turned his attention to writing about the nature of sound and ways in which we perceive it, first in The Hum of the World and now in Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being. We welcome him back to The Music Show to discuss everything from Martian winds to Bing Crosby singing 'White Christmas'.

At 13 years old Janis Ian wrote one of the most iconic American songs of 1960s, Society's Child. Ten years later At Seventeen spoke to millions of women and girls around the world and made her even more of a household name. Janis' extraordinary life is told in a new documentary by filmmaker Varda Bar-Kar, who follows the highs (GRAMMY awards, multi-platinum albums) as well as the lows (homophobia, misogyny and heartbreak) that follow Janis throughout her career. The director is on to celebrate this living songwriting legend.And we hear Janis Ian from The Music Show archives: in 1994 following the release of her album 'Breaking Silence', and in 2005 in front of an adoring crowd at Port Fairy Folk Festival. Janis Ian: Breaking Silence is screening as part of the Jewish International Film Festival which is currently on in Perth, WA.

Sam Lee spends a lot of time walking in, thinking about, and singing of the UK's wild places. The singer, folk song collector, pilgrim and activist released his fourth studio album songdreaming earlier this year. Traditional songs are brought into the 21st century with lush arrangements, lyrics addressing contemporary issues, and the inclusion of Trans Voices, a London-based choir. Andrew Ford catches up with Sam before he heads our way for the Woodford Folk Festival.Carla Blackwood is one of Australia’s finest horn players and surely the most versatile. She plays the modern French horn in her trio Quercus and the natural horn with groups such as the Australian Haydn Ensemble and Pinchgut Opera. With the latter, she’s just finished a season of Handel’s Julius Caesar and she brings her baroque horn into the studio for a demo.

Forty years on, to the day, from when Do They Know It's Christmas? stormed the UK charts and remained at number #1 for five weeks, Bob Geldof is a guest on The Music Show to talk about the song's complicated legacy, how he looks back on Live Aid, and why he thinks pop music doesn't unite us like it used to.Sydney soul artist CINTA has lived a life of performing and sharing, over-sharing she says, on the streets as an itinerant young busker, touring in the giant 27-piece funk collective The Regime, and now with her own band. Drawing on the best of classic soul and modern groove, her deeply resonant voice rings out on songs of love and betrayal on second album WORTH CONTROL, and she discusses it with producer Niall on this week’s Music Show.

We’re used to seeing him with a guitar strapped to his chest or playing keyboards on stage with Midnight Oil, but Jim Moginie returns to the Music Show to sit at the grand piano this time. He’s joined by drummer Hamish Stuart to play songs from his latest solo album Everything’s Gonna Be Fine. He’ll reveal the importance of optimism, irony, and telling personal - not just political - stories.A life spent in hip hop has culminated in Kultar Ahluwalia’s most recent show and EP The Mixed-Race Tape. The rapper, singer, producer, poet, husband, father, occupational therapist, music educator and writer has drawn upon all of these things, as well as his Pubjabi/Sikh heritage, to create his most personal work to date. And he'll perform live from our Adelaide studio.

Paul Kelly’s 29th (!) album Fever Longing Still is a modern twist on the contemporary Paul Kelly formula. An “attempt to present all kinds of love songs into one forty minute album”, it features his devoted band, vividly drawn characters, and a mature sort of melancholy. Paul performs live in The Music Show studio and talks to Andy about the album, his community of great and often young collaborators, and the How To Make Gravy film.Amanda Brown is the recipient of this year’s Don Banks Music Award, one of the highest honours for composers in Australia. She’s in to give the lie of the land for composers and working musicians who are facing threats from AI, pitiful streaming royalties and an uncertain future for Australian screen content quotas.