Half Waif Nandi Rose is on her own again, and three songs into her forthcoming album The Caretaker, the singer, songwriter and producer declares her fearlessness: "Baby don't worry about me, I don't worry about you." Here, on "Ordinary Talk," Rose meditates on the heaviness of ordinary moments, the constellation of tears and chores and self-doubt and small talk that comprise being a person, accompanied by her most cinematic, pulsing arrangements to date. It's an apt introduction to The Caretaker, an ax-lbum that negotiates the space between working alone and with others, between isolation and connection. The result is her boldest work yet. Over the course of eleven songs, Rose creates the lush world of a humid summer night, dreaming of and reaching for a season in which she is her "best self."

Enhanced with PlayARt - Augmented Reality

This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”

This Wild Willing is Glen Hansard’s fourth solo album. Written and created in Paris, France with a band of brothers; new friends and old, more than 24 musicians collaborating on the album. From his partners in The Frames (Joe Doyle) and Swell Season (Marketa Irglova & Joe Doyle), to his touring family of players , to three Iranian brothers he met in Paris (the Kroshravesh brothers) , Glen brought together a group of global talents who each left an indelible mark on this recording. “It became quickly apparent in the studio we were onto something interesting. I was finding new ways into the existing songs and we were improvising new ideas every day. When you surround yourself with great musicians and do your best to keep up, stay loose, give little direction, and allow everyone to bring what they bring, something transformative may happen. This collection of songs is mainly made up of those that came through while improvising and following the melodic lines and threads. Sometimes when you take a small musical fragment and you care for it, follow it, and build it up slowly, it can become a thing of wonder. In this sense, some of these songs weren’t written in the traditional form; they were ideas followed to a conclusion. I want to thank all these great musicians for coming and giving these songs their best. All a song wants is to be heard. I hope something in this music can be of use to you. I know it’s been of great use to me to make it. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.”

CURTIS HARDING could best be described as a student of the gritty, sweat-dripping, hip-swinging blues that wafted through the air of the American sixties. The offspring of a mother who sang gospel, and a retired veteran, he traveled all over the country as a child, singing alongside his parents, learning that music was in fact the great communicator, and that the key was not just in how pretty the notes were, but how if you were honest in what you were singing, you could stir a person on the inside. This is what Otis Redding knew. What Sam Cooke, and Bo Diddley, and B. B. King knew. That somehow there was a way to take your experiences, your pain and joy, and give them melody, cause them to live and breathe and massage the hearts and minds of all those who hear. 

No Mercy In This Land is a blues record. Charlie Musselwhite and Ben Harper were introduced to one another by John Lee Hooker. The legendary musician thought the two men should play together, so he brought them into the studio to record a song called simply “Burnin’ Hell.” The two remained friends and their paths periodically crossed out there on the road. But it wasn’t until 2013 that the two met up in a studio to record what would be their Grammy winning album Get Up!. And as good as that record was, it was just the beginning. Both men agree that their friendship deepened in the many months of touring that followed. And it’s that bond, that closeness, that makes this new record something special. At first glance, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite might seem an unlikely pairing. While Ben grew up in in the tree lined Southern California college town of Claremont, a bastion of culture and liberalism just east of Los Angeles, Charlie was raised in Memphis during the time of rockabilly and Sun Records. But while the two might have come to their musical knowledge in different eras and places, as Charlie explains, “We were both searchers and we’re still seeking.” Each of them possess an enduring hunger for musical knowledge that came to them early.

“We’re a bunch of outsiders who refused to be kept out,” says High Pulp drummer Bobby Granfelt. “We’ve never had an academic approach to jazz—most of us grew up playing in DIY bands—so it was the rawness and the energy and the absolute freedom of the music that called to us in the first place.”

Indeed, there’s something defiant, something utterly liberating about High Pulp’s remarkable ANTI- Records debut, Pursuit of Ends. Drawing on punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music, the band’s brand of experimental jazz is both vintage and futuristic all at once, hinting at times to everything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine. The songs here balance meticulous composition with visceral spontaneity, and the performances are nothing short of virtuosic, fueled by raw, ecstatic horn runs ducking and weaving their way around thick bass lines and dizzying percussion.

While the Seattle-based collective is centered around a crew of six core members, they also make judicious use of a broad network of collaborators on the album, wrangling special guests like sax star Jaleel Shaw (Roy Haynes, Mingus Big Band), harpist Brandee Younger (Ravi Coltrane, The Roots), GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter Theo Coker, and keyboardist Jacob Mann (Rufus Wainwright, Louis Cole) to help stretch the boundaries of their already-expansive sonic universe. The result is a lush, cinematic collection that’s as unpredictable as it is engrossing, an urgent, exhilarating instrumental album that manages to speak to the moment without uttering a single word.

“We’re a bunch of outsiders who refused to be kept out,” says High Pulp drummer Bobby Granfelt. “We’ve never had an academic approach to jazz—most of us grew up playing in DIY bands—so it was the rawness and the energy and the absolute freedom of the music that called to us in the first place.”

Indeed, there’s something defiant, something utterly liberating about High Pulp’s remarkable ANTI- Records debut, Pursuit of Ends. Drawing on punk rock, shoegaze, hip-hop, and electronic music, the band’s brand of experimental jazz is both vintage and futuristic all at once, hinting at times to everything from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine. The songs here balance meticulous composition with visceral spontaneity, and the performances are nothing short of virtuosic, fueled by raw, ecstatic horn runs ducking and weaving their way around thick bass lines and dizzying percussion.

While the Seattle-based collective is centered around a crew of six core members, they also make judicious use of a broad network of collaborators on the album, wrangling special guests like sax star Jaleel Shaw (Roy Haynes, Mingus Big Band), harpist Brandee Younger (Ravi Coltrane, The Roots), GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter Theo Coker, and keyboardist Jacob Mann (Rufus Wainwright, Louis Cole) to help stretch the boundaries of their already-expansive sonic universe. The result is a lush, cinematic collection that’s as unpredictable as it is engrossing, an urgent, exhilarating instrumental album that manages to speak to the moment without uttering a single word.

Christian Lee Hutson starts his new album Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his ANTI Records debut, Beginners, Hutson moves away from a focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. Written under lock down, the laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you’ll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says “California,” a place where lonely people gather together like birds.

The song “Rubberneckers” follows the story a romance from beginning to breakup, with backing vocals by Phoebe Bridges, who returns as producer along with Conor Oberst. Quitters is a departure from the digital recording of his debut. Hutson shares, “With this record, Phoebe and Conor had an idea that it would be fun to make it to tape. Phoebe is my best friend and making Beginners with her was so comfortable and easy. So I wanted to work with her again and Conor is someone who I really respect as a lyricist.”

If every great record is a world, then this is Christian Lee Hutson’s world. It’s one filled with the fuzzy haze of a dream, and the half-remembered moments of a forgotten life. It’s a record brave enough to say, In the good old days, when times were bad. But beyond the songs, it is this voice. The voice of someone who was alive in 2021 and recorded a group of songs with his friends for us to hear.

Christian Lee Hutson starts his new album Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his ANTI Records debut, Beginners, Hutson moves away from a focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. Written under lock down, the laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you’ll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says “California,” a place where lonely people gather together like birds.

The song “Rubberneckers” follows the story a romance from beginning to breakup, with backing vocals by Phoebe Bridges, who returns as producer along with Conor Oberst. Quitters is a departure from the digital recording of his debut. Hutson shares, “With this record, Phoebe and Conor had an idea that it would be fun to make it to tape. Phoebe is my best friend and making Beginners with her was so comfortable and easy. So I wanted to work with her again and Conor is someone who I really respect as a lyricist.”

If every great record is a world, then this is Christian Lee Hutson’s world. It’s one filled with the fuzzy haze of a dream, and the half-remembered moments of a forgotten life. It’s a record brave enough to say, In the good old days, when times were bad. But beyond the songs, it is this voice. The voice of someone who was alive in 2021 and recorded a group of songs with his friends for us to hear.

Nashville-based performer Jeremy Ivey has operated in the background for years, initially performing in bands like Secret Handshake and country-soul group Buffalo Clover with his wife, celebrated country-rock luminary Margo Price. But now Ivey is ready to take a much-deserved step into the spotlight with a debut LP, The Dream and the Dreamer via Anti- Records). Recorded in a “little bitty house studio” in Nashville and produced by Price, the nine-song album hosts a collection of homespun, deeply introspective tracks. Ivey, who writes prolifically and cites everyone from the Beatles to Neil Young to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan as influences. Unlike his country-soul aesthetic in Buffalo Clover, which disbanded in 2013, Ivey’s solo material is much more straightforward yet still travels through a wide spectrum of classic folk, gently frayed psychedelia, pop, and yes, even a bit of Southern rock and Americana. Ivey is invested in his own version of the American Dream—specifically, offering up a melting pot of genres, ideas, and stories. “The best thing I could say is that I’m trying to fill the holes that I can see in the scene,” he says. “Whether it be Americana or country or rock or whatever. There’s a certain type of song that isn’t being written.”

Wilderness is a powerhouse of a record by Jade Jackson, a follow-up to her 2017 debut, Gilded. Her new work deals heavily with the in-betweens and stepping stones we dwell in and leap across while coming to terms with our sense of self, and how melancholy can be a powerful weapon to wield, especially in the form of a roots-rock or country song. Wilderness, like Gilded, was produced by Mike Ness, the SoCal punk rock legend who essentially plucked Jackson from obscurity several years ago and helped hone her craft and sound. Jackson calls Ness “a master of feel and rhythm” and credits him with showing her how to invoke more of those calling cards in her new work, in addition to those countless tools now in her arsenal that they developed together over time. As the pair’s master-pupil relationship continues to evolve, Jackson recognizes that Ness has become more open to her input while she herself has gotten more hands-on in the studio, a process that ultimately resulted in delivering the sound for which both parties were striving. “The message of ‘Wilderness’ is in how to get through tough situations—if you visualize yourself somewhere, all that good energy and intention can get you where you want to go.” – Jade Jackson

Introducing Jackson + Sellers and their debut album Breaking Point, on ANTI records. Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, two rising stars who aligned during the pandemic to write one of the most compelling duo albums of the last decade.

Drawn together by instant chemistry, cosmic forces and their ability to write intuitive romantic breakup songs for each other, their album is a window into the dissolution of two different relationships and the formation of another: a perfect, platonic, creative union. United in their desire to write a record that reflected their expansive musical interest from 70s rock to raucous roots to indie pop, their LA written, Nashville recorded album is a masterclass in unexpected vocal harmonic convergence.

With Breaking Point, Jackson + Sellers will establish themselves as two individual artists who together, share a deep friendship, musical kinship and the ability to craft tight singular pop rock songs that will embed themselves in your ears for the rest of time.

Yves Jarvis is back with his third solo album entitled, The Zug. The Montreal, Canada based artist’s unique vision for “psychedelic-jazz-folk” comes into sharper focus, with elevated production and a waterfall of creative ideas presented with an ever growing confidence in craft.

Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. He fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, and jazz experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis’s whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated.

On Sundry Rock Song Stock, Yves Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. The latest album from the Montreal-based musician fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, pastoral prog, and musique concrète experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis's whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated in ways we haven't heard from him before. While Jarvis' 2019 album, The Same But By Different Means stretches out across 22 sonic sketches ranging in length from 14 seconds to eight minutes, Sundry Rock Song Stocks takes a more traditional approach with it's 10 concise tunes. Jarvis's preferred self-contained process found him recording every instrument, mixing the album, and even painting the portrait on it's cover. The only outside contribution came from engineer Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Basia Bulat, Peter Gabriel), who helped roll tape while Jarvis played drums.

Yves Jarvis is back with his third solo album entitled, The Zug. The Montreal, Canada based artist’s unique vision for “psychedelic-jazz-folk” comes into sharper focus, with elevated production and a waterfall of creative ideas presented with an ever growing confidence in craft.

Jarvis continues to refine his creative approach to the core of his being, where music and life intertwine in harmonious fashion. He fuses genre elements into a symbiotic relationship where wistful folk, tender R&B, and jazz experiments feed into one another to grow lush new forms. Though he maintains an air of mystery with his lyrics, Jarvis’s whisper-soft words can be interpreted as both deeply personal and politically motivated.

Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-song- writer and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada’s most exciting and fresh voices.

With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them.  

On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, “This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being.”

With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.

Jasmyn is the new solo project created by Jasmyn Burke, former singer-song- writer and frontwoman of the critically acclaimed Canadian band, Weaves. Having two JUNO nominations for Alternative Album of the Year and two SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations, Burke has established herself as one of Canada’s most exciting and fresh voices.

With this new project, she has decided to use her own name, Jasmyn, to mark the start of exploring her own unique sound as a solo artist. Collaborating remotely with Los Angeles-based producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) on a body of work she had compiled over months of being in lockdown. Finally in the Spring of 2021, Jasmyn went to LA to record with Congleton, exploring themes of finding patterns in life and how to perhaps change them.  

On the general direction of her new album In the Wild, Jasmyn said, “This was written during the Fall of 2020; The world was feeling pretty heavy, and I felt myself wanting to write music that created a mood of happiness and space to grow. I feel like I have grown and changed as a person over the last few years and wanted to write songs that created a sense of confidence and well-being.”

With Weaves receiving worldwide support from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine, NPR, Pitchfork, and more, Jasmyn is excited to share a new side of herself, perhaps her most honest and raw work to date.

On the cusp of releasing his first-ever solo album, Every Feeling on a Loop (ANTI-Records), songwriter Josiah Johnson is aware he wasn’t supposed to be here. Just five years ago when he took a leave of absence from the acclaimed indie-folk band, The Head and the Heart, the question was less where Johnson’s star would take him and more whether his struggles with addiction would end his music career. But then, he wasn’t supposed to be there, either.

Prior to co-founding the band, Johnson studied math and computer science in graduate school. But the magic of song led him to an open mic that changed his life. At Seattle’s Conor Byrne Pub, Johnson sparked collaborations with fellow musicians who would eventually form The Head and the Heart. The group’s rise was rapid. They built a loyal fanbase and zigzagged the globe, with sold-out shows at historic venues from The Fillmore to Red Rocks and festival appearances at Coachella and Lollapalooza. Their 2011 self-titled debut went on to receive RIAA Gold certification, followed by 2013’s Let’s Be Still, which landed on Billboard’s Top 10 Albums Chart.

On Every Feeling on a Loop, lush musical arrangements and harmonies support Johnson’s baritone crooning. At times, the songs sound like prayers. At others, his exuberance feels like the euphoria he’d always sought, this time hard-earned and wiser. He says he feels like a new person making it, charting his journey out of the dark into the wide awake of the morning, using the magic that was his all along.

Kristine Leschper’s The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, is a paean to the sensory world. It’s the first Leschper has released under her given name, having retired the moniker Mothers after eight years of performing and releasing music under it. Though both projects are guided by Leschper’s idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, they couldn’t sound more different. While Mothers drew inspiration from the stark, skeletal sounds of post-punk and contemporary folk, Leschper’s new work is practically baroque, integrating an array of synthesizers, strings, woodwinds, and over a dozen percussive instruments. “Earlier work didn’t involve recording as part of the writing process, recordings were simply made as a document of something that had been written and rehearsed. I have since discovered a deep affection for home recording and sound exploration, finding that I thrive in those rabbit holes of texture, timbre, rhythm, which can add so much complexity to the emotionality of a composition.”

The at-home recording process gave Leschper freedom to set her personal ethos to music divorced from the pressure of an audience. As she worked on The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, the constellation of ideas that had guided her personal transformation began to cohere into something communicable through music. 

Kristine Leschper’s The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, is a paean to the sensory world. It’s the first Leschper has released under her given name, having retired the moniker Mothers after eight years of performing and releasing music under it. Though both projects are guided by Leschper’s idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, they couldn’t sound more different. While Mothers drew inspiration from the stark, skeletal sounds of post-punk and contemporary folk, Leschper’s new work is practically baroque, integrating an array of synthesizers, strings, woodwinds, and over a dozen percussive instruments. “Earlier work didn’t involve recording as part of the writing process, recordings were simply made as a document of something that had been written and rehearsed. I have since discovered a deep affection for home recording and sound exploration, finding that I thrive in those rabbit holes of texture, timbre, rhythm, which can add so much complexity to the emotionality of a composition.”

The at-home recording process gave Leschper freedom to set her personal ethos to music divorced from the pressure of an audience. As she worked on The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door, the constellation of ideas that had guided her personal transformation began to cohere into something communicable through music. 

Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.

Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.

For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”

Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.

Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.

For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”

Yves Jarvis and Romy Lightman are a pair of idiosyncratic and restlessly creative artists. In the past decade, Jarvis’s ever-expanding swatch have earned international acclaim, while Lightman’s twin-sister-led band Tasseomancy has transfixed listeners since the late 2000s. The Lightman Jarvis Ecstatic Band marks the duo’s first collaboration, slingshotting both musicians out of their comfort zones into spellbinding territories of lysergic folk and impressionistic rock.

Banned was recorded in the tranquil environment of the Tree Museum, an outdoor art gallery in rural Ontario, Canada, hosting residencies for contemporary sculptors over the past 20 years. The pair credit its 200 acres of natural spaces intermingling with human-made creations as the fuel for their unfettered process. Recorded over two weeks in a free-flowing stream of improvisation, the album finds Lightman on synthesizer with Jarvis on drums and guitar, as their voices weave together into an electrified pastoral tapestry.

For both musicians, the creation offered a chance to challenge themselves: Jarvis defying his solitary practice to record with another person, while open jams provided Lightman an alternative to her preference for thoroughly composed songwriting. “This album is a loose manifesto in our shared vision for a way of being,” says Lightman. “It’s about our relationship and the dynamics in that. There’s an epicness to it and tension at times. It’s like the ways particles collide. There’s an alchemical aspect to it with these base components slamming together.”

On Heartmind, Cass McCombs enters the double-digit-album phase of his career, a quantitatively rarified place for any songwriter; rarer still, though, is the fact that he does not yet seem to have settled into a qualitative sound or pattern, of singing the same thought twice (or perhaps even once). Songs like “Karaoke” are a god-level burst of power-pop perfection, as fetching as anything Cass has ever cut. The springy staccato guitar, the vaporized electric keys, the melody seemingly born for singing or clapping or dancing along: Cass triangulates a perch of his very own out among The Go-Betweens, The dB’s, and The Cure, and vibrates there, a beacon. And then, of course, there is the song’s playful if painful lyrical conceit—the lover who is making all the sacred motions of commitment but whose feelings may be no more deep or real than someone simply reading the lyrics for “Vision of Love” or “Stand by Your Man” from some crowded bar’s TV screen.

There are, at least, some basic facts to share about Heartmind, logistical evidence that may in turn shape your own questions: Cass recorded these songs in multiple sessions on both coasts, in Brooklyn and Burbank. The great Shahzad Ismaily not only cut the staggering “Unproud Warrior” and four others here but also played lots of bass. Buddy Ross tracked “New Earth,” a paean of post-humanity renewal with several sharp wisecracks. Ariel Rechtshaid—now a dozen years into his collaboration with Cass, which began with 2009’s Catacombs—captured Cass’ scintillating guitars on “Belong to Heaven,” a thoughtful consideration of what we all lose when we lose an old friend to the inevitable end. The steadfast Rob Schnapf (who previously produced McCombs’ ANTI- debut, Mangy Love) mixed and merged it all. Wynonna Judd (yes, that one) offers harmonies, while her beau Cactus Moser provides some lap steel. Joe Russo, Kassa Overall, Danielle Haim, Nestor Gomez are featured on the album, too.

Over the past decade, Cass McCombs has established himself as one of our premier songwriters. It’s a ca- reer that’s twisted and turned, from style to subject, both between records and within them. McCombs has never made two albums that sound the same. His new one, Tip of the Sphere, is particularly unique. Tip of the Sphere is McCombs’ 9th studio album and while many of his records have been comprised of songs recorded in different studios and pieced togeth- er over time, this one was recorded quickly in one lo- cation with a strong sense of purpose, resulting in his most consistent record to date. This approach brings a raw immediacy to his songs, which are some of his best yet as he finds the perfect balance of compassion and experimentation. The rock songs rock harder, the ballads are more beautiful, the experiments more confident; with the sounds of jazz and latin music creeping in through the back window. This is an artist trying to make sense of it all through a relentless, ever searching creative process.

Mothers attempt to exist in two places at once - both singular and collaborative, sprawling and concise, present and distant. Kristine Leschper, songwriter and founding member of the project, explains that it is in the space between opposites that she finds herself. The multifaceted is, by nature, fragmented - each facet reflecting a slightly different perspective of the whole. On their latest record, Render Another Ugly Method, the band attempts to gain an expanded view of its surroundings through splintered sound, thought, and image. Leschper began exploring songwriting when she moved to Athens, Georgia as a teenager. Inspired by the growth that studying art allowed her and energized by the buzzing southern town, she started to perform publicly in 2013 and quickly developed local acclaim for her stark, unflinchingly vulnerable songs. During this time, she met many local artists and musicians, among them Matthew Anderegg, whom she quickly recognized as an artistic kindred spirit and friend. The following year they began working together to flesh out and arrange a collection of songs she had written, which would become the project’s 2016 debut release, When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired. Released in 2016, the album kicked off a sprawling eight months of touring across the US, UK and Europe, as the group honed their take on left-of center indie rock with an explosive and surprising live show that displayed how forceful the songs translated to a full-band setting. " Within Mothers, Leschper and Anderegg have remained a creative constant, with other collaborators changing over time. Render Another Ugly Method sees the remnants of Leschper and Anderegg, Chris Goggans and Drew Kirby in musical conversation, through cut-up songs that were torn apart and rebuilt over and over again.

Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust, is a meditative, widescreen musical experience with Beach Boy harmonies and a hypnotic pulse. Layered songs that move in a linear fashion, following a current rather than circular composition. Japanese folk myths, death poems and British folk music are tributaries flowing into a river of avant-garde composition and traditional song craft, written and performed by a member of the Grammy-winning rock band, Arcade Fire. Being released as two volumes, Quiet River of Dust Vol. 1 will be available on the start of the autumn equinox, September 21 2018. Quiet River of Dust Vol. 2 is coming out next year on the spring equinox 2019. Long before he joined Arcade Fire in 2003, Richard Reed Parry grew up in a thriving folk music community in Toronto, where house parties were full of singing. While a student of electroacoustic music and contemporary dance in university, he formed the instrumental ensemble Bell Orchestre, who have released three albums. In 2014, he released an album of biologically inspired compositions, Music for Heart and Breath, on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon classical label. The genesis of these songs came after Arcade Fire’s first tour of Japan in February 2008. Parry stayed on for weeks after the last show, heading to a monastery for some solace in “the biggest silence you’ve ever heard.” One day he was walking alone in a massive, snow-covered cedar forest when he heard distant voices, voices that sounded a lot like his father’s folk group back in Toronto, Friends of Fiddlers Green. (Parry was 18 when his father died in 1995.) “There was no reason for something to sound like full-throated, British-Isle folk singing there,” he recalls. “I walked and walked but I could never get closer to where the music was coming from.” The ghostly experience inspired the song “On the Ground,” which in turn inspired the rest of the song cycle. When it came time to record “On the Ground,” he enlisted his father’s former colleagues on concertina, Northumbrian pipes and fiddle. For a musician raised in a musical family and environment, collaboration and community are essential parts of the process. Guest performers on this project include Parry’s partner Laurel Sprengelmeyer of Little Scream, Stef Schneider of Bell Orchestre, Dallas Good of the Sadies, Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, Amedeo Pace from Blonde Redhead, and The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner.