Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra) created The Past Is Still Alive during a period of personal grief, when they found inspiration in radical poetry, railroad culture, outsider art, the work of writer Eileen Myles, and activist groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury. Segarra uses their lyrics as a way to immortalize and say goodbye to those they have loved and lost, and to honor both the heartbroken and the hopeful parts of themselves. "Segarra has created an epic tale of life on the road, a nearly mythic version of their own life story that stands alongside other great American musical travelogues," exclaims NPR Music. "Career-defining." Rolling Stone says: "Segarra has honed their craft into a cohesive, astonishingly realized singer-songwriter record ... the best batch of songs Segarra's ever written." Paste calls it "a celebratory measure of love, sanctuary, and defiance ... In their hands, the trauma of the present day is a prelude to the possibilities of a better tomorrow."

On Ki moun ou ye, Haitian-American singer and composer Nathalie 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.

Kronos Quartet’s award-winning 1990 album Black Angels gets a double vinyl release in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary. The two-LP set includes George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet, and works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich; the vinyl’s fourth side is an etching of an illustration Matt Mahurin—whose work is featured on the original album cover—created especially for this purpose. Crumb’s title piece, called “an unusually elevated and searing Vietnam War protest” by the New York Times, sets a dark, powerful tone for the collection, which addresses the political/physical/spiritual consequences of war. The Evening Standard includes the album among its “100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.”

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Yussef Dayes’ eight-song release The Yussef Dayes Experience: Live From Malibu features music from his critically acclaimed debut solo album, Black Classical Music, and more. Dayes is joined by his longtime collaborators Rocco Palladino, Venna, Elijah Fox, and Alexander Bourt on Live From Malibu, which was originally released as a live-performance video filmed in the Malibu mountains.

Grammy and Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla’s beloved and critically acclaimed 1998 album Ronroco is available for the first time on vinyl in this newly remastered edition. The singer, composer, and producer’s classic album—which takes its name from a South American stringed instrument—comprises twelve original tunes inspired by traditional Argentinean music and influenced by music of Japan, Africa, and Eastern Europe. “Ronroco conjures bucolic images and feelings for me,” filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu writes in the new liner note. “There’s always a note that surprises, breaks the pattern of the rainstorm, turning into silence, a gentle drizzle, or escalating into a tempest.”

Cloudward features eight new compositions by guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson she performs 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 the track "Incarnadine." The Guardian 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."

The original cast album of Adam Guettel’s Broadway musical Days of Wine and Roses, with a book by Craig Lucas, stars Kelli O’Hara and Brian d’Arcy James. This searing musical is based on the 1962 film and original 1958 teleplay of the same name, about a couple falling in love in 1950s New York and struggling against themselves to build their family. Days of Wine and Roses marks the reunion of Guettel and Lucas, who last collaborated on the six-time Tony Award–winning musical The Light in the Piazza. “Repeated listenings compound the amazement,” the New York Times says of Guettel’s work, which “has always offered that kind of challenge—initially leaving a feeling of: Beautiful, but wait, I need to hear it again—and those up for it have a way of coming away shining like Moses down from the Mount. The new score has the same effect.”

"This is my reaction to being assaulted by information," composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire says of his Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, featuring a trio with two musicians he has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. Uncut exclaims: "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. "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."