Music
The artists.
126 artists played across the Balm Valley Authority radio show. Click through for liner notes.
1999 WRITE THE FUTURE
Hip-Hop Jazz88rising Music collective. MiNt cHoCoLaTe brings together BADBADNOTGOOD, Westside Gunn, and Conway the Machine.
47SOUL
ShamstepPalestinian liberation, borderless identity, every land is holy land
Abdallah Ag Oumbadougou
Tuareg Desert BluesTuareg resistance. Pioneer of Ishumar guitar style born from exile and rebellion.
Abel Lima
Funana/Cabo VerdeCabo Verdean musician. The cosmic sound of the islands finally revealed on Analog Africa.
Abner Jay
Outsider FolkOne-man band from Florida. Played a bone. Sang through a toilet paper tube. Mississippi Records.
Alberto Baldan Bembo
Library/SoundtrackItalian library music. Film scores for movies about mothers and friends and summer.
Algiers
Post-Punk SoulAtlanta post-punk band on Matador. A sound that refuses to sit down. Shook features Samuel T. Herring and Jae Matthews.
Alphaville
Synth-PopGerman synth-pop band. Forever Young has outlived every joke about its decade.
Amadou & Mariam
PerseveranceBlind couple from Mali who met at the Institute for the Young Blind. 'Sabali' means patience in Bambara.
Andres Landero y Su Conjunto
CumbiaKing of cumbia. African, Indigenous, Spanish roots.
Aziza Brahim
Saharan BluesSaharawi singer on Glitterbeat Records. Songs of exile and return from the refugee camps of Western Sahara.
Bargou 08
North African ElectronicRevival of Bargou trance music with electronic production
Bill Callahan
Indie FolkSongs that move at the speed of weather. Smog. Drag City. The voice that knows what it knows.
Bill Withers
SoulA working man's soul music. Questions asked quietly. Still in the Navy when he recorded his first album.
Black Merda!
Black PowerOne of the first all-Black rock bands. Renamed after 1967 Detroit Rebellion. Direct statement on police violence and systemic racism.
Bob Marley & The Wailers
ReggaeAnti-colonial anthem. Catch a fire.
Bobby Charles
Swamp Pop/SongwriterWrote See You Later Alligator at seventeen. The Band covered his songs. The swamp's best-kept secret.
Brad stank
Indie JazzMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Broken Social Scene
Indie RockCollective resistance through sound
Carlos Lamartine
Afro-LatinMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Chalino Sanchez
Norteno/CorridoThe king of the narcocorrido. Songs about men who knew how they would die. Musart-Balboa.
Charles Bradley
SoulThe Screaming Eagle of Soul. Late bloomer who spent decades as a James Brown impersonator before Daptone Records found him.
Childish Gambino
Psychedelic SoulBlack psychedelia and spiritual transcendence.
Clap! Clap!
Electronic/WorldItalian producer Cristiano Crisci. A Thousand Skies on Black Acre Records turns stars into rhythm.
Cortex
French Jazz-FunkMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Crooked Fingers
Indie FolkEric Bachmann. Merge Records. Songs worn down to their bones so only the necessary parts remain.
DAM
Palestinian Hip-HopFirst Palestinian hip-hop group. Direct resistance against occupation.
Damien Jurado
Indie FolkQuiet songs that land like a letter you didn't know you needed. Secretly Canadian.
Das Racist,Heems
Diaspora IdentityIndian-American identity, Flushing Queens culture, academic references layered over humor. Label Greedhead Music.
Dave Van Ronk
Folk/BluesThe Mayor of MacDougal Street. Taught Dylan how to be Dylan. Brecht and Weill sung by a man who knows exactly what every word costs.
David Bowie
Plastic SoulNixon-era disillusionment through Black American musical forms.
Dayme Arocena
Latin Jazz/SoulCuban singer on Brownswood Recordings. A voice that carries the island wherever it goes.
Debruit
Electronic TurkishFrench producer on ici. Debruit and Istanbul fuses Anatolian folk with electronic production.
Derrick Harriott
RocksteadyJamaican music legend. Singer, producer, label owner. Early dub pioneer. Received Jamaica's Order of Distinction.
Destroyer
Art RockDan Bejar. Vancouver art-rock that never stays in one place long enough to be named.
DOMi & JD BECK
Jazz FusionMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Donald Byrd
Jazz-FunkJazz legend. Existential political inquiry.
El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe
Dabke/FolkTraditional Palestinian dabke ensemble on DARNA. Dance as resistance, as memory, as survival.
Elizabeth Cotten
Folk/Piedmont BluesWrote Freight Train at eleven. Played a right-handed guitar upside down and backwards. Smithsonian Folkways.
Erick Cosaque
Caribbean ResistanceGwo Ka drum music rooted in enslaved African communication and resistance. 45 years independently recording.
Exuma
Folk/CalypsoBahamian folk music channeling spirits. The Obeah Man himself. Mercury Records.
Father John Misty
Indie Folk/SatireJosh Tillman. Sub Pop. A wedding song about the impossibility of knowing anything for certain.
Fela Kuti
Afrobeat ResistanceYoruba proverb. Fela created Afrobeat as a political weapon. Arrested 200+ times. Mother killed by soldiers. Defining figure of musical resistance.
Frankie Reyes
Latin/BoleroBoleros y mas. Latin standards on a Wurlitzer. Stones Throw Records.
Gaming World
Video Game CoversMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Gene Sikora
Private PressPrivate press soul. One song, pressed in a basement, almost lost. Numero Group.
Gil Scott-Heron
Jazz PoetryBlack radical media critique. Library of Congress National Recording Registry.
Gilles Peterson's Havana Cultura Band
Latin Jazz/Afro-CubanBrownswood Recordings project exploring the sound of Havana across multiple albums.
Haruomi Hosono
Exotica/ElectronicYellow Magic Orchestra founder. Japanese Americana from a parallel timeline. Light In The Attic.
Herbie Hancock
Jazz-FunkJazz legend. Head Hunters on Columbia/Legacy. Watermelon Man: a standard reimagined as funk.
Hotel Eden
Indie PopIndie pop from a room you can never quite find again. Self-released and self-contained.
Hugh Masekela
South African JazzSpoken-word trumpet lament for exploited Black miners under apartheid. Spent 30 years in exile. Trumpet was a gift from Louis Armstrong.
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Folk/RockPuerto Rican-American singer from the Bronx on ATO Records. The Navigator. Songs that push forward.
Jake Xerxes Fussell
Folk/Field RecordingFolklorist interpreting traditional American songs from archival sources.
Jefferson Airplane
Ufo/CosmicSan Francisco psychedelic pioneers. Anti-war counterculture.
Jim Sullivan
Ufo/MysteryLA psych-folk singer who vanished in the New Mexico desert in 1975. His car found abandoned with wallet, guitar, unsold albums.
Juan Wauters
Latin IndieCross-cultural Latin American identity
Jungle
Neo-DiscoAcceleration as contemporary life metaphor.
Junior Parker
Memphis SoulMemphis soul and blues singer. Covered the Beatles before the Beatles were cool.
Kermit
MuppetsPure hope. The lovers, the dreamers, and me.
Killer Mike
Political Hip-HopCritique of Reaganomics and the prison-industrial complex.
Leon Bridges
SoulFort Worth soul revival. A voice that sounds like it was recorded in 1964 and somehow got here anyway.
Les McCann
UnitySoul jazz pioneer. 'Compared to What' is one of the great anti-war anthems: 'The president's got his war.'
Lily Chao
Chinese FolkFolk songs from mid-century Taiwan. Reissued by Akuphone.
Link Wray
Rock/InstrumentalThe man who invented the power chord. Shawnee ancestry. The FBI once banned Rumble for fear it would incite violence.
Los Kory Huayras
Andean FolkIndigenous Andean resistance music.
Mac DeMarco
Indie RockMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Matt Berry
Psychedelic/LibraryBritish actor and musician. Psychedelic library music with the menace of a 1970s public information film.
Max Graef
Electronic/HouseMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Mbongwana Star
Congolese/ExperimentalCongolese band from Kinshasa. Street music shot through with distortion and electricity on World Circuit.
Mdou Moctar
Tuareg Desert BluesTuareg guitar hero. Uranium exploitation, colonialism, Sahel struggle.
Michael Nau
Indie FolkMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Mild High Club
Psychedelic PopMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Mississippi John Hurt
Country BluesRecorded in 1928. Farmed for thirty-five years. Rediscovered in 1963. The gentlest revolutionary.
Mo Kolours
Electronic/SoulHalf-Mauritian, half-English percussionist and producer on We Release Jazz. Original Flow.
Molly Sarlé
Indie FolkMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Mulatu Astatke
Ethio-JazzFather of Ethio-jazz. Music survived the Derg regime's cultural suppression. First African student at Berklee.
Najat Al Saghira
Arabic ClassicalClassic Egyptian vocalist. A voice from Cairo's golden age of cinema and song.
Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
Pop/DuetIconic closing. Loss, love, the end of something.
Nicolas Jaar
Political ResistanceChilean-American. Album Sirens addresses Pinochet dictatorship and US imperialism. Father Alfredo Jaar created 'A Logo For America'.
Nina Simone
Jazz/Soul/ProtestHigh priestess of soul. Sang Langston Hughes. Sang the movement. Sang what everyone else was too afraid to say.
Nora Brown
Old-Time BanjoYoung banjo prodigy preserving Appalachian traditional music.
Parliament
AfrofuturismGeorge Clinton's Afrofuturist masterpiece. Black people in outer space as radical reclamation of future narratives.
Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir
Gospel-FunkMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Peter Cat Recording Co.
Psychedelic PopNew Delhi band that sounds like a wedding reception at the end of the world. Crooning through chaos.
Photay
ElectronicMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Propherts Of Da City
Hip-HopCape Town hip-hop crew from the 90s. Universal Souljaz on Ghetto Ruff.
Purple Mountains
Indie Folk/SongwriterDavid Berman's final project on Drag City. Songs written by a man who knew exactly what he was leaving.
Rafiq Bhatia
Experimental/JazzAvant-garde guitarist and composer on Rest Assured. Sam Cooke's anthem filtered through experimental guitar.
Residente
Latin Political Hip-HopRejects US hegemony over Latin America. Features Ibeyi.
Richard Swift
Indie RockLo-fi producer. Died 2018. Raw emotional honesty.
Robohands
Jazz/ElectronicLondon-based instrumentalist. Jazz-adjacent hip-hop instrumentals on KingUnderground.
Ruba Shamshoum
Alternative/ArabicPalestinian-Irish artist. Fuqaati (My Bubble) is a song about interior space in a world that will not leave you alone.
Saint Levant
Palestinian AlternativeBorn during Second Intifada. Gaza, exile, Palestinian identity.
Sam Amidon
FolkVermont-born singer and multi-instrumentalist on Nonesuch. Traditional songs reimagined.
Savages
Post-PunkFeminist fury, silencing and speaking out
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80'
AfrobeatFela's son. Global Black consciousness. Features Carlos Santana.
ShannonX
ElectronicMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Soul/FunkBlack soul revival of Woody Guthrie. Land belongs to everyone.
Simply Red
Soul/PopMick Hucknall. A song about his mother leaving. Blue-eyed soul that means it.
Songhoy Blues
Saharan BluesMalian desert blues band formed in exile after jihadist occupation drove them from northern Mali.
Songs: Ohia
Lo-Fi FolkJason Molina. John Henry as American labor mythology.
Sufjan Stevens
Chamber PopUFOs and Midwestern mysticism. The cosmic intruding on the mundane.
Super Guitar Bros
Video Game CoversMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Tears for Fears
New WaveCold War anxiety dressed as pop perfection.
Teebs
Electronic/Beat MusicBrainfeeder beatmaker and painter. His album Anicca is named for the Buddhist concept of impermanence.
Tennyson
Electronic/JazzGenre-defying sibling duo
Terry Allen
Americana/Art CountryTexas songwriter and visual artist. Songs and sculptures cut from the same cloth.
The Abyssinians
Roots ReggaeRastafarian anthem. Stand up for your rights.
The Barn Bats
Appalachian FolkloreLocal NC legend of ghostly orbs near Brown Mountain. Folk standard covered by Kingston Trio, Roy Orbison.
The Beach Boys
Psychedelic PopDennis Wilson. Fragile beauty and environmental undertones.
The Coup
Communist Hip-HopBoots Riley. Marxist revolutionary. Eat the rich.
The Doc Watson Family
Appalachian FolkThe music that came down the mountain. Blind since infancy, a guitarist who changed what American folk music could be.
The Melody Mates
60s Pop1960s harmony pop pulled from the Numero Group archives. A single, a b-side, then silence.
The Sweet Enoughs
Indie PopMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
The Weather Station
Art PopClimate grief, capitalism as theft
Timber Timbre
Folk NoirHaunted folk. Religious imagery, gothic Americana.
Timmy Thomas
Soul1972 anti-war classic. A plea for human unity.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Psychedelic RockHawaiian perspective on Cook's death as Indigenous self-defense. Tribute to Ruban Nielson's mother who hula-danced in the video.
Video Age
Indie PopMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Vieux Farka Touré,Khruangbin
Saharan Blues/PsychedelicMusic featured on Balm Valley Authority.
Volta Jazz
Afro-Latin/Voltaic1970s Bobo-Dioulasso dance band. West African highlife meeting Latin horns and funk rhythm.
Wilco
Alt-CountryAmerican existentialism, the cruelty beneath patriotism
WITCH
Zamrock1970s Zambian psychedelic rock pioneers.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poetry JazzPulitzer Prize-winning poet. Anodyne on Ropeadope sets his words to music by Mike Brown and David Cieri.
セキトオ・シゲオ
Japanese Jazz/ElectronicJapanese keyboardist and composer. Known for the 1975 album 'Special Sound Selection', a cult favorite among crate-diggers and library music collectors.