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  • Tuesday, February 9, 2021

    Tristan Perich's Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, is featured on WNYC's New Sounds. "It is an album-length excursion, goes into lots of different territories," says host John Schaefer. "Some moments sound to me like Terry RIley's early keyboard improvisations. Other parts have the rhythmic patterning of Steve Reich's music. There are other moments where the notes seem to give way more to noise. And even one part where those noises kind of sound a little like the famous rhythmic kecak, or monkey chant, from the island of Bali." You can hear the episode here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Podcast, Radio
  • Monday, February 8, 2021

    The Staves have released a live performance video for "Failure," a song from their just-released album, Good Woman, which you can watch here. "There’d been a hiatus period that we took," Jessica Staveley-Taylor tells Stereogum. "I think I’d been away from it for too long and I felt lots of doubt about myself, doubt about the record that we were working on, doubt about the band and the directions we were all heading in ... And I think that by the time 'Failure' was written, we were back in the studio and feeling better about things, so it’s kind of taking those feelings I’d felt during one of the worst times and kind of owning them ..."

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Friday, February 5, 2021

    The Staves release their first new album in six years, Good Woman, out now on Nonesuch Records in the US. Good Woman was written and recorded in a time of tremendous turmoil and change for the band, between the ending of relationships, the death of their beloved mother, and the birth of Emily’s first child. Produced by John Congleton, the album is a testament to the Stavely-Taylors’ strength and that of other women; to sisters, mothers, and daughters; to love, loss, and change; and to trying to be a good woman. The Staves celebrate the album's release with a live-streamed, ticketed concert from the London venue Lafayette tonight.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Friday, January 29, 2021

    Portuguese singer Mariza celebrates the twentieth anniversary of her career and the centenary of the late Queen of Fado, Amália Rodrigues, with Mariza Sings Amália, her first full album of classics, now available in the US on CD and digitally from Nonesuch Records, with the vinyl to follow on April 30. Mariza celebrates the album release with a livestreamed performance of Amália Rodrigues' music as part of The Town Hall’s The Voice. A Voz. series tonight. “The ten covers of songs once sung by Amália on this regal tribute are utterly glorious," exclaims Songlines in a five-star review. "Backed by gorgeous orchestral arrangements by Brazil’s Jaques Morelenbaum, she invests these classic fados with a rich and characterful wisdom that is somehow reverential and innovative at the same time.”

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Friday, January 29, 2021

    A remastered, expanded edition of the 2005 benefit album Our New Orleans is available for the first time on vinyl and digitally now. The new version includes five previously unreleased tracks by Davell Crawford, Buckwheat Zydeco and Ry Cooder, Dr. Michael White, Dr. John, and The Wardell Quezergue Orchestra featuring Donald Harrison. To date, $1.5 million has been raised from the 2005 release to benefit the New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Thursday, January 28, 2021

    Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor—two-thirds of the Staves—shared some records that have influenced their music and have been part of their lives with Rough Trade NYC's Transmissions series on Instagram, including favorites by The Beatles, Kate Bush, CSNY and others. You can see what they've picked and what they had to say about them below.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video, Web
  • Thursday, January 28, 2021

    While most of us can't go out to take in great live music, here are some events taking place online to enjoy while staying home this weekend: On Friday, Mariza sings the music of Amália Rodrigues for NYC's Town Hall from Portugal, Vagabon performs from a decked-out Boulevard Studios in LA, and Jeremy Denk performs Bach for Emory University's Schwartz Center. On Sunday, Chris Thile leads his master class, Caroline Shaw and Attacca Quartet perform for Miami's IlluminArts from NYC, and Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi perform for Celtic Connections from Ireland.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Thursday, January 28, 2021

    Lake Street Dive has released an acoustic performance video of "Nobody's Stopping You Now," the new single from their upcoming album, Obviously, out March 12. In the video, which you can watch here, lead vocalist Rachael Price performs the song—a letter of encouragement to her teenaged self—"on a beautiful remote island off the western coast of Canada" in the garden of her friend Elise Boer, who, with Adam Iredale-Gray, joins on strings.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Monday, January 25, 2021

    Mandy Patinkin was on NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me, answering host Peter Sagal and the panel's hard-hitting questions with his wife Kathryn Grody, talking about his new TikTok fame, duetting with Mo Rocca on music from Evita, and reciting a certain line from The Princess Bride. You can play along here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Radio
  • Friday, January 22, 2021

    Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw's second Nonesuch album, Narrow Sea, is out now. Shaw wrote the album's title piece, for Sō Percussion, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, who perform it here: five parts, each a new setting of a text from The Sacred Harp, the 19th-century collection of shape-note hymns. Video for all five parts of the piece can be seen here. Also on the album is Sō Percussion's performance of Shaw's Taxidermy, which she wrote for the ensemble.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Friday, January 22, 2021

    Sam Amidon’s self-titled album, released digitally and on CD in October, is now available on blueberry-marble vinyl. On the album, which Amidon produced and considers the fullest realization to date of his artistic vision, he performs radical reworkings of mostly traditional folk songs 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.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Thursday, January 21, 2021

    The Staves have released "Devotion," the fourth and final track to be shared ahead of the February 5 release of their new album, Good Woman. "Devotion" follows the previously released album tracks "Satisfied," "Trying," and "Good Woman." "This song came from a feeling of being totally at the mercy of someone else," the Staves say of the new track. "Being a passenger and never a driver in any situation. Being blinded by devotion and unable to navigate the way out."

    Journal Topics: Artist News