All Songs Considered New Mix: Rafiq Bhatia, Beach House, More

[NPR]

By Bob Boilen

We open this week’s show with a look at our 2018 Tiny Desk Contest winner, Naia Izumi. He’s an artist based out of Los Angeles with a phenomenal voice and breathtaking technique on guitar. Naia is also incredibly charming with a profoundly moving personal story about how he came to music and what it has meant to him over the years. You can read more about him and watch his winning video here.

Also on this week’s show: Last year’s Tiny Desk Contest winner, Tank And The Bangas, has just released the band’s first new music since signing with Verve Forecast; another phenomenal guitarist, Rafiq Bhatia of the band Son Lux, has a mind-bending new solo album called Breaking English; the Arkansas native and rock guitarist who goes by the name Welles has powerful new elegy to lost youth called “Seventeen,” from his upcoming full-length debut Red Trees And White Trashes; guitarist and singer Stevie Wolf infuses his bluesy electro-rock with humor and heart, and the dream-pop group Beach House turns up the volume for its latest single, “Dark Spring.”

Rafiq Bhatia
‘Before Our Eyes’
from Breaking English

Son Lux guitarist Rafiq Bhatia is an incredibly gifted artist who, on his latest solo album, blows up all expectations about what can be done with the instrument and how it should sound. The result is a globe-spanning mix of twisted rock, warped jazz and electronics. This track from Breaking English includes the stirring, South Indian Carnatic violin of Anjna Swaminathan.

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