Multidisciplinary abstractivist and auteur Rob Mazurek will release a new album with Exploding Star Orchestra, Dimensional Stardust, via International Anthem / Nonesuch Records on November 20, 2020. The album track "A Wrinkle in Time Sets Concentric Circles Reeling" is available today; the video by Mikel Patrick Avery can be seen here. Mazurek arranged his pieces for eleven musicians and commissioned his long-time lyrics collaborator Damon Locks to draft original texts for the songs. The album recalls an array of Mazurek’s symphonic­ influences, from Béla Bartók to Morton Feldman to Gil Evans to Sun Ra to Pedro Santos to Bill Dixon to The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Opting to focus on tight ensemble orchestration over passages of open improvisation, he distills an orchestra of explosive improvisers into a graceful group exercise in melodic minimalism.

Brad Mehldau's new album, Suite: April 2020, is now available on CD and standard vinyl, following the release of the digital and limited-edition deluxe vinyl editions earlier this year. While sheltering at home with his family in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring, Mehldau wrote twelve new songs about what he was experiencing; he was able to record them safely in an Amsterdam studio, along with interpretations of three tunes that mean a great deal to him. One thousand numbered and signed copies of the deluxe edition were sold, with a minimum of $90 from each sale donated to the Jazz Foundation of America’s COVID-19 Musician’s Emergency Fund. Brad Mehldau has several solo concerts in Europe ahead.

Vagabon has released a new version of her song "Home Soon," featured in the new Lionsgate film Antebellum, starring Janelle Monáe. The song was originally released on Vagabon's critically acclaimed self-titled album, which Clash called an “indie-pop masterpiece.” The new mix can be heard here.

Rostam, in celebration of the three-year anniversary of his Nonesuch debut, Half-Light, has released an acoustic version of the album's title track. The song, which was originally released as part of a compilation album benefitting Fair Fight, features Rostam solo and multi-tracked on guitar, drums, piano, hammond organ, and bass.

Sam Amidon's self-titled album will be released on Nonesuch on October 23, 2020, with the vinyl due January 22, 2021. The album, which Amidon produced and considers the fullest realization to date of his artistic vision, comprises his radical reworkings of mostly traditional folk songs, performed with his frequent band, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro, along with saxophonist and label mate Sam Gendel, guitarist Bert Cools, bassist Ruth Goller, and Amidon’s wife, Beth Orton, who adds vocals on three songs. Pre-order to download "Maggie" now and get a signed print. You can watch the "Maggie" video here. Tickets are available for Amidon's October 3 concert and live stream from Kings Place in London.

The Staves have released "Trying," the second track from the British trio this year, following last month’s release of "Nazareth." "I wanted to write a song about the state of things in the world and how broken our ability to communicate with each other had become as a society," Camilla Staveley-Taylor says of the new track, "but it became impossible as I was writing to separate my personal life from the broader message ... I feel like trying is what we spend most of our lives doing really. Just trying our best."

Emmylou Harris made her Nonesuch Records debut with the release of her album Red Dirt Girl on September 5, 2000. To mark its twentieth anniversary, Nonesuch will release the album—which won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album—on limited-edition, translucent red vinyl on February 19, 2021, available to pre-order now in the Nonesuch Store. Harris wrote all but one of the twelve tracks on Red Dirt Girl. The album was produced by Malcolm Burn, who also performs on the album, along with Buddy Miller, Daryl Johnson, and Ethan Johns. Dave Matthews sings a duet with Harris, and Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, and Patty Griffin also contribute vocals.

Pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan's new album, The Call Within, is out now. On the album, he performs ten original compositions, with Evan Marien on electric bass and Arthur Hnatek on drums. Produced by Hamasyan, the album is a journey into his dreamlike inner world, taking inspiration from his interest in maps from different eras, poetry, Armenian folk stories, astrology, geometry, ancient Armenian design, rock carvings, and cinematography, and creating what Record Collector calls "a kaleidoscopic tapestry of sound." Jazzwise exclaims: "An exceptional recording for exceptional times." You can take a look inside the vinyl edition in an unboxing video here.

A limited-edition, 45-RPM version of The Black Keys’ chart-topping ninth album, “Let’s Rock," will be available from independent record stores this Saturday, August 29, for part one of this year's Record Store Day. The new Record Store Day edition of “Let’s Rock” is pressed on two 180-gram vinyl discs and comes in a deluxe holographic gatefold jacket, with each piece individually numbered. Also out this Saturday are two special k.d. lang vinyl releases from Warners: Angel with a Lariat and Drag. Due to Covid-19, Record Store Day, usually held in April, is being replaced this year by RSD Drops, three separate title drop dates August 29, September 26, and October 24.

Rhiannon Giddens has released a new original song, "Don’t Call Me Names," about rejecting toxic behavior. The track debuted on the inaugural episode of Southern Craft Radio, Kelly McCartney’s new show on Apple Music Country, and can be heard here. "The framework in the song is a love affair, but it can happen in any kind of connection," Giddens says. "The real story was accepting my inner strength and refusing to continue being gas-lit and held back; and refusing to keep sacrificing my mental health for the sake of anything or anyone ... When I listen to it, the anger that I felt then now is the anger I feel at my entire country being gas-lit, held back, and sacrificed. We have to keep saying NO to toxic behavior, no matter how small or large the stage, and keep saying it nice and loud.”

Mountain Man—the trio of Amelia Meath, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, and Molly Sarlé—has released Look at Me Don’t Look at Me, a live album recorded in November 2018 at Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle. The live recording captures the band’s intimate touring shows in support of its acclaimed Nonesuch release, Magic Ship, and features tracks from that album, as well as songs from the trio’s 2010 debut, Made the Harbor; Molly Sarle's “Human”; covers of Fiona Apple's “Hot Knife” and Michael Hurley's "Blue Mountain"; and the group’s singularly quirky banter.

The Staves have released "Nazareth," the band’s first new music since its 2017 EP with yMusic. "We recorded 'Nazareth' in one take on a field recorder sat outside the studio in the summer of 2018," says the trio. "The sun was shining and the birds were singing. We tried recording it in the studio but just kept coming back to this version. It seemed to have the magic.  The song was intended to be in the spirit of an Irish blessing or a kind of a prayer, asking to be kept safe—but it pretty quickly became a more personal and introspective lyric. Moments of glory quickly faded. Worrying, trying. How we mean everything and nothing at the same time. To everyone, to no one."