World Cafe

Imagine walking into a tiny venue to see a band, and Robert Plant walks out onstage. On the next World Cafe, Robert Plant talks about his latest project, Robert Plant with Saving Grace featuring Suzi Dian, and about why it was so important to him to play very small shows with no promotion when they started out. He also talks about how he says the band “saved his sanity”, and they perform songs from their album, Saving Grace, live.

On a quest to make warm and emotional electronic music, the New York City band Nation of Language released their fourth studio album, Dance Called Memory, earlier this Fall. The album explores themes of loss and change, and coming up, Nation of Language joins us for a mini concert, playing songs from the new album, on the next World Cafe.

Drummer and producer Tom Skinner might be best known for co-founding The Smile, alongside Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, but he’s been a force in the UK Jazz scene for decades, playing in the band Sons of Kemet. His new solo album, Kaleidoscopic Visions, features an appearance from Meshell Ndegeocello. Join us for a live performance from Tom Skinner on the next World Cafe.

No one turned a phrase, cracked a joke, or broke hearts like the late great John Prine. In an encore edition of World Cafe, we’re revisiting our last ever session with John from 2018, where he talked about his early career as a songwriter in Chicago, the impact of some of his most enduring songs like “Sam Stone”, and he reflects on what would be his final studio album, The Tree of Forgiveness.

A force of nature is how you might describe Neko Case. But it’s more than just her voice and performance. On the next World Cafe, Neko talks about her deep connection to the natural world, she tells stories from her recent memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You”, and talks about her new album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, the first of her albums where she credited herself as the sole producer.

You might scream if you’re frightened, but after going through a traumatic physical and emotional experience, Florence Welch wondered if she could find power in communal screaming. On the next World Cafe, she talks about making the latest album from Florence + the Machine, called Everybody Scream, about digging into the history of witchcraft for inspiration and healing, and about the tension between the onstage self and the “normal self”. They also perform live.