The Music Show

John Luther Adams describes himself, tentatively, as an “elemental extremist”. New Yorker music critic Alex Ross describes him as “one of the most original musical thinkers of the 20th century”. Deeply attuned to the natural world, particularly his adopted home of Alaska, Adams’ music has confronted the climate change, anger, and grief since the 1970s. He might be best known for his trio of Become works, one of which, Become Ocean, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2014. Despite his love of extremes, he’s found himself residing in Canberra where Andy spoke to him about his career, his landscapes, and what’s brought him to our nation’s fair capital. 

“Chicago is a case study”, says one of the witnesses to the birth of House music in the new film, Move Ya Body. In the 1980s Chicago was in the throes of segregation and violence, and its warehouses became the site of a new kind of dancefloor as the disco era faded away. At the epicentre was music producer Vince Lawrence, who joins Andy with Move Ya Body director Elegance Bratton to describe the creation and the Utopian aspirations of House. Move Ya Body: The Birth of House is at Sydney Film Festival 8th and 10th of JuneHolly Laessig and Jess Wolfe are the dual lead singers of the band Lucius. Between them, they have three voices: Holly’s, Jess’s, and a third voice, a sort of Holly-and-Jess chimera that rises up out of their voices together. Their self-titled album Lucius has just been released, and Holly and Jess tell Andy about why it was time to return to a familiar sound, and to finally name an album after the band. 

Jenny Mitchell recorded her fourth and latest album at a sprawling rural property in Wairarapa, a town in Aotearoa’s North Island. Forest House captures the sounds (figurative and literal) of the landscape, along with the playfulness and musicality of her band. Jenny is currently on tour with Kasey Chambers, before launching her own album in July. She joins Andy to reflect on a decade in music (she released her first album at 15) and how she builds her lush songs that meander from folk to country and beyond.Trombonist, composer and bandleader Elliot Lamb’s new album In My Own Little World captures small and joyful moments of gender euphoria—tracks like 5 O’Clock Shadow describe shaving for the first time, and Alone... is about finding their trans and non-binary community. Elliot is on The Music Show to talk about the palette available to them when writing for an octet, and how their other musical projects - a trio and a big orchestra - stretch their musical chops in different ways.

Bush Gothic are “unafraid of Australian songs”. From colonial-era folk songs to the Divinyls, their latest album What Pop People Folk This Popular is a showcase of what the band does best: dreamy, detailed, genre-bending music in conversation with Australian musical history. Jenny M Thomas and Dan Witton join Andy. Netia Jones is an English opera director and she’s in Sydney to take on Henry Purcell’s odd but beautiful “Restoration Spectacular” The Fairy Queen for Pinchgut Opera. Under rain on a tin roof of the rehearsal room, she and Andy sit to talk about the peculiarities of the piece, and of English language opera. 

Jazz pianist and composer Matt McMahon joins to share insights about the legendary Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett. He recounts the unexpected conditions Jarrett faced, including a broken piano and fatigue, which only added to the performance's unpredictability. McMahon discusses the innovative harmonic techniques—like unusual chord progressions—Jarrett employed. They dive into how the audience's dynamic interaction and spontaneous sounds enriched the improvisation, turning a challenging night into a landmark in jazz history.

Tangerine Dream were founded in West Berlin in 1967 by Edgar Froese, the band has had scores of lineup changes but is still going strong under the helm of Thorsten Quaeschning, who joined in 2005 - despite being younger than the band itself. Thorsten chats to Andy ahead of the band’s return to Australia about embracing old and new technologies, how their music puts “order into chaos”, and building setlists when they have 60 years of material to draw upon.Jonathon Crompton is a saxophonist, composer, and scholar. His new album, Cantata No. 1: An Island Seen and Felt, is a single extended work for his sax with guitar, two sopranos and a string quartet. Jon joins Andy from New York, where he’s now based, to talk about how he brought together influences from Bach, Renaissance counterpoint, and jazz to describe the Australian coastline.

Ellen Stekert, who is about to turn 90, has spent a lifetime in folk music. She got her first guitar at 13 (to assist with her rehab after contracting polio) and soon after high school she became enmeshed in the Greenwich Village folk scene, crossing paths with the likes of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. Ellen released four albums of traditional songs in the 1950s and then focused her career on academia, teaching English, American and folklore studies.There’s been a resurgence of interest in Ellen’s life and music, thanks in large part to singer songwriter Ross Wylde. Ross has been helping Ellen to remaster her old recordings, leading to her first release in over 60 years: Go Around Songs Vol. 1. Both musicians are guests on The Music Show to talk about their deep love of folk music, their intergenerational friendship and how a Bob Dylan photograph for sale on eBay first brought them together.

Tenor saxophonist, composer and bandleader Kamasi Washington makes music that appeals to even the most avowed jazz haters. His latest album Fearless Movement puts rhythm front and centre and includes the voices of rappers alongside his signature sounds of choirs, double drum kits and pulsing horns. He speaks to Andrew ahead of his tour here next month about how fatherhood has made him hear the world differently and what drives his continual exploration across musical genres. Gregory Day is a musician and writer. His latest volume of poetry, Southsightedness, spans twenty years and draws on familiar themes of place (specifically the west coast of Victoria), and culture. He joins us to talk about his music and the sound of his poetry.

Credited with “making riverboat chic cool again”, Pokey LaFarge brings his band in live to the Music Show studio. Pokey talks to Andy about how old Black gospel, his Christian faith and working on a farm have all influenced him on his latest album, Rhumba Country. Oľga Smetanová joins Andy to remember the composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who has died at the age of 93. Gubaidulina’s music has been described as “holy modernism”, which was a powerful provocation in the Soviet Union of her early career. The theological and musicological throughlines of her composition paint a dramatic picture, which Ol’ga reflects on with her knowledge of the woman herself.

Seraphim Trio have been making chamber music together for over twenty years. Pianist Anna Goldsworthy joins Andy to talk about her relationship with violinist Helen Ayres and cellist Tim Nankervis, as well as the women composers – famous and lesser known – they have recorded as part of their new album Radiante.Originating in rural southwest Louisiana, Zydeco music is a blend of Cajun & Creole music, gospel and the blues. Dom Turner, one of Australia’s finest blues guitarists, explores the deep relationship between Zydeco and blues in a new collaboration with New Orleans accordion and harmonica player Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes. Sunpie is also the Big Chief of the Northside Skull & Bone Gang—a parade group that kicks off every Mardi Gras season by dressing as skeletons and waking people with song and dance, a New Orleans tradition that’s over 200 years old. And we remember Alan Lamb, the Perth-based composer, sound artist and GP, who has died at the age of 81. Lamb’s exploratory music included recordings of ‘singing’ telegraph wires on his outback property, an instrument he dubbed the Faraway Wind Organ. Hear Lamb talking to Andrew Ford about this work from the 2001 Classic FM/Radio National series Dots on the Landscape.