#5176, From Soundcheck: Dálava

New Sounds | Aug 26

The Vancouver-based duo of Julia Úlehla and Dálava has put out three albums based on old Czech, specifically Moravian, folk songs, sourced from melodies transcribed over 100 years ago by the great- grandfather of Dálava's singer, Julia Úlehla. Their latest record, Understories, uses symbolic birds and stories to set a series of progressively darker, more experimental arrangements that seem to cast those songs adrift in both time and place. Julia Úlehla and guitarist Aram Bajakian (Lou Reed, John Zorn) explore magic and realism, harnessing the intense emotion in the body memory of ancestral connections as they perform in-studio.

Then, listen to the versatile , distinctive, in-demand guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, Elvis Costello). He plays an arrangement of the traditional Italian folk song -turned-protest-song, “Bella Ciao”, in-studio.  - Caryn Havlik

#5176, From Soundcheck: Dálava (First aired 8/26/26)

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: The Way Up [2:12]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Escape Velocity [5:31]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2026
SOURCE:This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The track appears on the record, Understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Bowed Low [1:01]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Entanglement [6:39]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2026
SOURCE:This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The track appears on the record, Understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Phase Transition [1:36]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Phase Transition [1:05]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Queen of Heaven and Earth [:28]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: Side Real Time [6:37]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, March 2026
SOURCE:This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The track appears on the record, Understories

ARTIST: Dálava
WORK: The Way Up [1:24]
RECORDING: Understories
SOURCE/INFO: https://dalavamusic.bandcamp.com/album/understories

ARTIST: Marc Ribot
WORK: Bella Ciao [4:06]
RECORDING: Live for the Soundcheck Podcast, June 2025
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available. 
INFO: The song appears on Ribot's 2018 album, Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 

ARTIST: Marc Ribot, Sam Amidon & Fay Victor
WORK: How To Walk In Freedom [:57]
RECORDING: Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 
SOURCE: Anti Records
INFO: https://marcribot.bandcamp.com/album/songs-of-resistance-1942-2018

Top Stories

NYPD seizes 580 pounds of cocaine in Queens, its biggest bust in more than a decade

Dolly Parton's America

How 'Lake America' is about culture, not just tariffs

Advice for Sending Your Kid Off to College

YOU ARE ONLINE