The Barr Brothers Performance & Interview on WNYC Soundcheck 11.20.2014 [Audio Stream]

The Barr Brothers recently dropped by WNYC to talk about and play music from their newest album, Sleeping Operator. You can listen to the performance and interview in the audio stream above.

"Half Crazy" was the first song the band played. It starts off with frantic harp plucking which is then accompanied by a bluesy guitar riff full of slides and distortion. After the song, host John Schaefer talks to Brad Barr about the influence Saharan music had on this track. Shaefer points out that the way Andrew Barr plays the cymbals almost sounds like metal castanets from the region -- specifically karkabas from Morocco, Brad says.

Afterwards, the group played their song "Even The Darkness Has Arms." Although Brad Barr usually plays this song on acoustic, he switched to electric for the WNYC performance. What's also noteworthy is that there's a reference to the Cat Stevens song "Tea for the Tillerman" with the lyrics "Bribing the jury to keep me in jail / Singing tea for the tiller man."

"Static Orphans" along with "Love Ain't Enough" were the last two songs performed, but they really flow as one since they mesh into each other. For "Static Orphans," Brad plays a music box through his guitar pickups, which he manipulates through delays and other effects. The piece is more like a soft introduction which then builds up to "Love Ain't Enough." This track also ends with audio played through the Brad's guitar pickups -- this time, a recording of humpback whales.

You can listen to the full album stream of Sleeping Operator right here on Zumic.

The record is also available on Amazon (Vinyl, CD, MP3) and iTunes.

For The Barr Brothers's latest music, news, and tour dates, check out their Zumic artist page.