Composer/pianist Timo Andres has made his NPR Tiny Desk Concert debut with a performance of two Philip Glass Piano Etudes—Nos. 6 and 5—that premiered today, on Glass's eighty-seventh birthday. You can watch it here. Andres performs Glass's Evening Song No. 2 on the 2020 Nonesuch album I Still Play. Andres's new album, The Blind Banister, is due March 22.

Hurray for the Riff Raff, aka Alynda Segarra, has released "Colossus of Roads” and Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive),” two new tracks from their upcoming album, The Past Is Still Alive, due February 23. "I've only had this experience a couple of times, where a song falls on me—it’s all there, and I don't do anything," Segarra says. "Writing ‘Colossus of Roads’ felt like creating a space where all us outsiders can be safe together. That doesn’t exist, but it exists in our minds, and it exists in this song—this one is sacred to me. I’ve also always wanted to make my version of Bob Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home,’ and ‘Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive)’ is it.” 

"This was the first song we recorded for the album, and we had just written it so there’s a freshness and an immediacy to it for us,” The Staves say of "I Don’t Say It, But I Feel It," the new song from their upcoming album, All Now. “The song is about passing surges of emotions and memories that often don't get expressed or articulated. It’s exploring that state of stillness on the outside but with a flurry of things happening below the surface and how, often, we don’t let on what we’re really feeling most of the time or how much we’re feeling it."

The Black Keys released a music video for their new single, "Beautiful People (Stay High)," from their upcoming album, Ohio Players, out April 5. The video showcases beautiful people across the world, bringing high-energy dancing to match the track’s feel-good sentiment. You can watch it here.

Guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's new album, Cloudward, is out now. Halvorson performs eight new compositions with her sextet Amaryllis—the improvisatory band that performed on her acclaimed 2022 albums Amaryllis and Belladonna: Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Jacob Garchik (trombone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet). Laurie Anderson is featured on one track. The Guardian, naming Cloudward its Jazz Album of the Month, says: "Halvorson’s fusions of written and spontaneous music reach an entrancing new seamlessness and seductive warmth with this terrific set. Superb." PopMatters calls it "a shimmering, deeply satisfying example of a jazz sextet firing on all cylinders. Prepare to be astonished." Bandcamp says: "It’s only January, but it’s hard not to see this as one of the great achievements of 2024."

As part of the year-long celebration of Nonesuch Records' 60th anniversary, we're launching a new video series today called Nonesuch Selects. For the series, artists stop by the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorites from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson, whose new album, Cloudward, is out tomorrow, kicks things off with music by Laurie Anderson, Tyondai Braxton, Jeff Parker, Caroline Shaw & Attacca Quartet, and Kronos Quartet. You can watch it here.

The Black Keys have released a new single, "Beautiful People (Stay High)," and announced their twelfth studio album, Ohio Players, due April 5. Ohio Players—a title inspired by the legendary Dayton, Ohio, funk band of the same name—features several collaborations between band mates Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney with various friends and colleagues, like Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Beck, Noel Gallagher, Greg Kurstin, and others. “We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music,’" Carney says. Auerbach adds, “No matter who we work with, it never feels like we're sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor ... But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me.”

The second album from Grammy-nominated Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie Joachim, Ki moun ou ye, is due February 16 on Nonesuch / New Amsterdam Records. On the album, Joachim takes listeners through an intimate collection of music that ponders its title’s question: “Who are you?” Inspired by the remote Caribbean farmland that her family continues to call home after seven generations and performed in both English and Haitian Creole, the work examines the richness of one’s voice—an instrument that brings with it DNA, ancestry, and identity—in a vibrant tapestry of Joachim’s voice, and intricately sampled vocal textures underscored by an acoustic instrumental ensemble. Ki moun ou ye draws upon the voice’s historic and ongoing role as a tool for survival, healing, preservation of self, fellowship, and an affirmation of freedom.

"Rhiannon Giddens is currently carving out her own impressive legacy," Christiane Amanpour says on PBS's Amanpour and Company. "She's the singer, songwriter, banjo player, fiddler, and actress who keeps adding strings to her bow." Giddens is on the show to talk with Walter Isaacson about her Grammy-nominated new album, You're the One, and what Amanpour calls "her unstoppable career." You can watch their conversation here.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Yussef Dayes closes out a year in which his debut solo album, Black Classical Music, received critical acclaim and landed on several year's best lists, with the release of A Colors Show, in which he performs "Chasing the Drum" from the new album. You can watch it here.

Composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's Nonesuch Records debut album, Owl Song, is out now. The album, featuring a trio with two musicians Akinmusire has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley, has landed on the New York Times’ list of Best Jazz Albums of 2023 and on Jazzwise’s Albums of the Year list. Uncut says: "This is subtly profound music, full of meditative, focused beauty." "A quiet rush of gorgeous sound where space, tone and beauty come together in one of the most impactful albums of 2023," says DownBeat's five-star review. "This is one of the most interesting recordings to come along in a very long time by one of the most interesting artists of our time.”

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway have released a live performance video of "Where Did All the Wild Things Go?,” a song from their Grammy-nominated new album, City of Gold, filmed at Sound Emporium Studio A in Nashville, where the album was made. "When I wrote [the song] with Ketch Secor, I couldn’t wait to play it live with my band," Tuttle says. "Since then it’s become one of my favorite songs to perform because it gives everyone the chance to let loose and have a little fun. We hope all you wild things will howl along to this live in studio version!" You can watch the video, directed by Michael Kessler, here.