From the Basement is a brilliant podcast turned exceptional television program created by music producer/engineer Nigel Godrich that features live performances from various musicians, without a host or audience.  Nigel is best known for his work with Radiohead and is sometimes referred to as the “sixth member” of the band. He has also been a member of lead singer Thom Yorke‘s live band, Atoms for Peace, since 2009.

The site features videos and information about a diverse group of today’s best artists.  The videos are filmed in HD but are simple and to the point.  Nigel puts his genius touch to the sound mix and what you get is artists being allowed to be…artists.  They don’t have to play to the crowd, they don’t have to worry about the next camera angle.  They do what they do best and that is tell stories with their craft of music.

Here is what Nigel has to say about the project.  “Welcome friends and music lovers.
  Here lies the website of From the Basement – A sort of music show / labor of love produced by a small group of dedicated individuals. We shoot it all on HD video and the sound is produced by me.
  The whole emphasis of the show is about being artist friendly and making our bands as comfortable as possible so that they can give great performances without the usual agony of TV promo which everyone has to do but no one seems to enjoy. TV world is a pretty hostile environment for your average musician to have to walk into and bare his soul on cue.. It also doesn’t hurt that a lot of the people we’ve filmed are friends or people we’ve worked with before so they trust us and know that we understand what recording music is about as well as making good TV.
  All in all I think it all adds up to something unique and special which I don’t feel happening anywhere else in either the music side of mainstream TV or online.
” 

“My own personal goal is that in the future some of these performances might be seen as the truest representation of the state of their artists work, captured in a way that lets their talents speak without the interference of presenters, or audiences. That is what I feel when I watch Talking Heads or Bill Withers on the ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’, that they are most definitely playing for me, not someone else in the room. If we can even touch on that kind of directness and quality then I think the whole project will have been a success“.
 – Nigel Godrich

If you are a fan of music this site is a must see and will quickly consume you as you check out amazing performance after amazing performance into the wee hours of the night or until your boss comes by your desk and tells you to stop streaming video at work.

Head over to his website HERE to see the impressive lineup of artists or click over to their YouTube channel HERE to watch even more videos.