NPR

Leveret Will Lift Your Soul With Squeezeboxes : NPR

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In the close-knit world of English folk music, Leveret boasts an impressive pedigree. The trio’s Andy Cutting is renowned for his mastery of the melodeon, a type of accordion with a push-pull mechanism for intonation that imbues it with a wheezy kick.

The band’s fiddler is Sam Sweeney, of the flamboyant nu-folk band Bellowhead, and its concertina player is Rob Harbron — both are deft and expressive musicians in their own right. (The concertina is yet another variety of squeezebox, a small hexagonal specimen with a pure, invigorating honk.)

Within its respective milieu, Leveret might be considered a supergroup were the term not anathema to the band’s entire ethos: introspective, understated, minimalist.That’s not to say that Leveret’s music lacks spunk [ . . . ]

Read more at: Leveret Will Lift Your Soul With Squeezeboxes : NPR

Billy Bragg On Skiffle, The Movement That Brought Guitar To British Radio : NPR

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The singer describes skiffle as “a bunch of British school boys in the mid ’50s playing Lead Belly’s repertoire … on acoustic guitars.” Bragg’s new book is Roots, Radicals And Rockers.

Listen to Billy Bragg’s interview with Terry Gross: Billy Bragg On Skiffle, The Movement That Brought Guitar To British Radio : NPR

World Cafe Next: Kate Tempest

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Hear two scarily contemporary tracks from the extraordinary British spoken-word artist.

The extraordinary British spoken-word artist Kate Tempest incorporates hip-hop and performance poetry into the scarily contemporary work on her new album, Let Them Eat Chaos. The album features the stories of seven London characters, each inhabiting song snapshots that take place simultaneously. As a whole, it’s a devastating picture of contemporary London.