Journal
- Friday, November 22, 2024
The Way Out of Easy, the first album from guitarist Jeff Parker and his long-running ETA IVtet—saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, drummer Jay Bellerose—since their 2022 debut Mondays at the Enfield Tennis Academy, which Pitchfork named one of the Best Albums of the 2020s So Far, is out now on International Anthem / Nonesuch Records. Like that album, The Way Out of Easy comprises recordings from LA venue ETA, where Parker and the ensemble held a weekly residency for seven years. During that time, the ETA IVtet evolved from a band that played mostly standards into a group known for its transcendent, long-form journeys into innovative, groove-oriented improvised music. All four tracks on The Way Out of Easy come from a single night in 2023, providing an unfiltered view of the ensemble, fully in their element.
Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
- Tuesday, January 3, 2023
David Byrne rang in 2023 performing two songs with Miley Cyrus as part of NBC’s New Year’s Eve special Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party. Byrne, Cyrus, and a full band performed “Everybody’s Coming to My House,” from his 2018 album American Utopia and its subsequent Broadway production, and David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.” You can watch them both here.
Journal Topics: Artist News, VideoTuesday, January 3, 2023The Staves—sisters Emily, Jessica, and Camilla Staveley-Taylor—are the guests on the latest episode of the podcast Griefcast, hosted by Cariad Lloyd. They talk with Lloyd about the loss of their mother, Jean, who died in the summer of 2018, addressing grief, and creativity after death. You can hear their conversation here.
Journal Topics: Artist News, PodcastThursday, December 22, 2022As 2022 draws to a close, and the Nonesuch Journal takes a bit of a hiatus till the start of what we hope will be a happy, healthy new year, it's time to take a look back and remember all of the great and diverse music made by Nonesuch artists over the past year. Many Nonesuch artists and their recent Nonesuch releases have made year's best lists and are up for Grammy Awards. So here, in words and music and in chronological order, is a look back at the year in Nonesuch music, in gratitude.
Journal Topics: Artist NewsWednesday, December 21, 2022'Tis the season to be jolly with holiday songs! To add our merry to the mix, we've updated Nonesuch for the Holidays, our playlist of holiday tunes both classic and soon-to-be-so from Rachael & Vilray, Joachim Cooder, Mountain Man, The Staves, Rostam, Chris Thile, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Julia Bullock, John Adams, Boston Camerata, and, of course, George Balanchine's The Nutcracker. You can hear it here on Spotify and Apple Music.
Journal Topics:Wednesday, December 21, 2022Hurray for the Riff Raff has released a new version of "LIFE ON EARTH"—the title track to their latest album and New York Times' Lindsay Zoladz's Song of the Year—featuring friends and fellow New Orleans musicians the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, recorded live in Esplanade Studios. The album was on many year's best lists, including those of NPR, Mojo, Rolling Stone, Uncut, and Brooklyn Vegan. Hurray for the Riff Raff tours North America with First Aid Kit in May.
Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist NewsTuesday, December 20, 2022Punch Brothers recently concluded a US tour with Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart featuring Sierra Hull. You can now watch a holiday medley from their December 15 Indianapolis show—including “The Chipmunk Song,” “Sleigh Ride,” and letters to Santa—here. Punch Brothers' latest album, Hell on Church Street, a reimagining of, and homage to, the late bluegrass great Tony Rice’s landmark solo album Church Street Blues, has been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.
Journal Topics: Artist News, VideoThursday, December 15, 2022Vinyl Me Please will release an exclusive Seaglass Wave vinyl edition of the soundtrack to the 2013 Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Oscar Isaac, in January 2023. Limited to 2,000 copies, the vinyl is pressed at Independent Record Pressing and will arrive in a single, direct-to-board, foil-stamped and numbered jacket. The soundtrack, produced by T Bone Burnett and Joel and Ethan Coen, with Marcus Mumford as associate producer, features 12 recordings created especially for the film and soundtrack, plus a previously unreleased recording of Bob Dylan performing his song "Farewell," recorded during the sessions for his album The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist NewsWednesday, December 14, 2022Cécile McLorin Salvant performs "Optimistic Voices / No Love Dying"—the Grammy-nominated song from her Grammy-nominated Nonesuch debut album, Ghost Song—in a new video recorded during her two-night engagement at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center this past spring. The video features Salvant along with pianist Sullivan Fortner, percussionist Keita Ogawa, guitarist Marvin Sewell, flutist Alexa Tarantino, and bassist Yasushi Nakamura, all of whom are on the album. Salvant arranged the songs written by Harold Arlen/Herbert Stothart/Yip Harburg and Gregory Porter, respectively. You can watch it here.
Journal Topics: Artist News, VideoTuesday, December 13, 2022Molly Tuttle was on California Now, a podcast exploring the people and places of the state, to talk about Grass Valley, the Northern California site of the annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival, which the South Bay–raised artist would attend with her dad and where she was first exposed to the bluegrass music that inspired her to play. Tuttle wrote the song “Grass Valley” for Crooked Tree, her Grammy-nominated Nonesuch debut album with her band Golden Highway. You can hear what she had to say and a solo performance she made of the song and the album's title track for the show here.
Journal Topics: Artist News, PodcastMonday, December 12, 2022Caroline Shaw was on BBC Radio 3’s This Classical Life to talk with host Jess Gillam about some of their favorite music, including works by Clara Schumann, Mark Guiliana, Scott Joplin, Sarah Vaughan, Josquin des Prez, Stanley Myers, Kae Tempest, and Schubert. You can hear the music and conversation here. Evergreen, Shaw’s new album with Attacca Quartet, has been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and made several year’s best lists, including NPR Music's 10 Best Classical Albums of 2022 (“some of the finest string quartet music of recent times ... irresistible”).
Journal Topics: Artist News, Podcast, RadioMonday, December 12, 2022Rhiannon Giddens is on Sing for Science, the science and music podcast from Talkhouse. The focus of the episode, titled “At the Purchaser’s Option: Listening for the African Diaspora in American Music,” is the opening track to her 2017 album, Freedom Highway. Giddens, host Matt Whyte, and ethnomusicologist Dr. Portia Maultsby discuss "At the Purchaser's Option," the African origins of the banjo, and the connection between African and African American music. You can hear it here.
Journal Topics: Artist News, PodcastFriday, December 9, 2022Classical singer Julia Bullock's solo debut album, Walking in the Dark, which NPR Music named one of The 10 Best Classical Albums of 2022, is out now. Bullock is joined on the album by London’s Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Christian Reif for Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and an aria from John Adams’s El Niño. With Reif on piano, she also performs a traditional spiritual and songs by Connie Converse, Oscar Brown Jr., Billy Taylor, and Sandy Denny. Bullock is "one of the singular artists of her generation," says the New York Times, "a singer of enveloping tone, startlingly mature presence and unusually sophisticated insight into culture, society and history.”
Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News