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Kathleen Edwards Finds 'Total Freedom'

Kathleen Edwards is back making music after a five-year break, and it was worth the wait. The songs on Total Freedom are lyrically delightful and melodically charming.

Music

Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few Play It Cool​

Austin's Monte Warden and the Dangerous Few perform sophisticatedly unsophisticated jazz/Americana that's perfect for these times

Music

July Talk Transform on 'Pray for It'

On Pray for It, Canadian alt-poppers July Talk show they understand the complex dualities that make up our lives.

Music

Charley Crockett Takes Us to the Movies on 'Welcome to Hard Times'

Charley Crockett's Welcome to Hard Times invokes the same misery and corruption as E.L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times: the world is just a rigged casino where one can never get a break or even hope to break even.

Music

Lori McKenna Is 'The Balladeer' We Need Right Now

The Balladeer will only help cement Lori McKenna's reputation as one of America's finest musical artists. These 10 songs will bring a tear to your eye and remain stuck in your brain.

Music

Wye Oak Look Out at 'No Horizon'

Wye Oak's songs are haunted by the familiar as bits of old melodies, percussive beats, stray conversations, street sounds, and the natural world seem to float in and out of their compositions.

Music

Bobbie Gentry's Neglected Masterpiece 'The Delta Sweete' Returns

Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete has been hailed as a lost and unjustly ignored masterpiece. Now it's finally being reissued after more than 50 years with ten bonus cuts.

Music

Country's Corb Lund Finds the Absurd in 'Agricultural Tragic'

On Corb Lund's Agricultural Tragic, he sings of grizzly bears, tattoos, hunting rats and elk, the meaning of author Louis L'Amour's fiction, and the meaning of life.

Music

Lianne La Havas Is Reborn After a Long Layoff

British soul artist Lianne La Havas rediscovers herself on her self-titled new album. It's a mesmerizing mix of spirituality and sensuality.

Music

Joshua Ray Walker Is 'Glad You Made It'

Texas' Joshua Ray Walker creates songs on Glad You Made It that could have been on a rural roadhouse jukebox back in the 1950s. Their quotidian concerns sound as true now as they would have back then.

Music

The Jayhawks Offer Us Some 'XOXO'

The Jayhawks offer 12-plus songs on XOXO to help listeners who may be alone and scared by reminding us that we are all alone together.

Music

Margo Price Is Rumored to Be the New Stevie Nicks

Margo Price was marketed as country rock because of her rural roots. But she was always more rock than country, as one can hear on That's How Rumors Get Started.

Music

The Bird and the Bee's Inara George and 'The Youth of Angst'

Inara George's The Youth of Angst is a three-song bundle that looks back as a way of moving forward during troubled times.

Music

Folk's Jeb Loy Nichols Says We Are in 'Season of Decline'

Jeb Loy Nichols finds humor in ambiguity, and real sadness in the joy of being in the current moment on his new EP, Season of Decline.

Music

Indie Pop-Rocker Liza Anne Takes Us on a 'Bad Vacation'

On Bad Vacation, Liza Anne has found a way to be strong and survive. She's not drowning but waving.

Music

Fifty Years Ago the Grateful Dead Became the 'Workingman's Dead'

Psychedelic rockers the Grateful Dead changed directions in 1970 and went country with Workingman's Dead, becoming early folk-rock/country-rock pioneers.

Music

Diana Ross Mixes It Up on 'Supertonic'

Diana Ross' Supertonic begs the question: what does Motown music mean in 2020?

Music

Teddy Thompson Sings About Love on 'Heartbreaker Please'

Teddy Thompson's Heartbreaker Please raises one's spirits by accepting the end as a new beginning. He's re-joining the world and out looking for love.

Music

Hinds' 'The Prettiest Curse' Is One of Victory

On The Prettiest Curse, Hinds create messy pop music that captures the vibrancy of youth without being childish.

Music

Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch Are 'Live at the Village Vanguard' to Raise Money for Musicians

Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hersch release a live recording from a 2018 show to raise money for a good cause: other jazz musicians.

Music

Charli XCX Tells Us 'How I'm Feeling Now'

Charli XCX uses her isolation as inspiration for a brand new record conceived during the pandemic. How I'm Feeling Now captures the frustrations and pleasures of confinement with a feisty attitude.

Music

Jim White and Marisa Anderson's 'The Quickening' Takes an Experimental Journey

Avant-garde drummer Jim White and folk guitarist Marisa Anderson get together without rehearsing to see what happens on The Quickening.

Reviews

Jarrod Dickenson's Country-Soul Wows on 'Ready the Horses'

Jarrod Dickenson's rootsy, broad-ranged Americana draws deeply from tradition while forging all-new sounds on Ready the Horses.

Music

American Aquarium Offer 'Lamentations' on the American Dream

On Lamentations, Americana band American Aquarium address these hard times, the sins of the South, and those that want the band to just shut up and sing.

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