Category: United States

Palms Station: Stand Together. Fall Apart.

December 18, 2022

Forget the billionaires’ rockets: Commonfolk have probed the heavens for millennia through the power of music. Case in point—Stand Together, Fall Apart by Palms Station (aka Hillel Tigay), a nine-track exploration of despair and hope across a between-stops universe. It’s an exhilarating ride, starting with I Don’t Know the Way to Your Heart (video 1), suspended between cosmos and concrete, words and chords ringing like incantations. Is the song about … More Palms Station: Stand Together. Fall Apart.

Lily Henley: Oras Dezaoradas

November 8, 2022

Like Appalachian dew at sunrise, Lily Henley’s voice sparkles on her second full-length album, but beneath the surface of her songs run forces that have rearranged landscapes for more than 500 years. The pillars of Oras Dezaoradas (Timeless Hours) are the artist’s nomadic childhood, her family having moved more than a dozen times; the fiddle camps she attended every summer that became an … More Lily Henley: Oras Dezaoradas

Carrie Newcomer: Until Now

January 30, 2022

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life, wrote Dickens, as the simple truth. “Emergency of life” is as good a description as any to describe humanity’s plight these past two years, and few contemporary artists are as adept at unearthing simple truths as Carrie Newcomer. On her nineteenth solo album, the Indiana singer-songwriter, essayist and educator wields her warm alto, stirring … More Carrie Newcomer: Until Now

Sarah Aroeste: Monastir

December 30, 2021

There’s an exquisite balance in Sarah Aroeste’s homage to a bygone community that lives in her heart under a bygone name. Bitola is North Macedonia’s second largest city, a place of Ottoman and Neoclassical architecture, of commerce and culture. For Aroeste’s family it is (and officially was until 1913) called Monastir, a refuge that became home: After Spain expelled its Jewish population in 1492, many migrated to the Ottoman Empire … More Sarah Aroeste: Monastir

Frank London: Ghetto Songs

July 22, 2021

It’s not news that great music emerges from dire circumstances, but bravissimo to Frank London, composer, trumpeter and co-founder of the Klezmatics (among myriad exploits) for his new album, a breathtaking journey through the ghettos of history. In 2016, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Venice Ghetto, Beit Venezia, an institution dedicated to the lagoon city’s Jewish culture, invited London as an artist-in-residence … More Frank London: Ghetto Songs

Fely Tchaco: Yita (Deep Water)

May 26, 2021

Migration is a universal story: All humanity came out of Africa’s Great Rift Valley. Voluntary or involuntary, migration is constant, driven by push-pull factors like dreams, exploration, climate change, conflict, hunger and persecution. Yita (Deep Water), the title track of Fely Tchaco’s fifth album, is a soaring elegy for migrants who never reached their destination and also a hymn … More Fely Tchaco: Yita (Deep Water)

Leyla McCalla: Vari-Colored Songs – A Tribute to Langston Hughes

April 14, 2021

Leyla McCalla stands enigmatically on the cover of Vari-Colored Songs, her dress suggesting the solution to a puzzle: Connect the dots. On the album she sings eight Langston Hughes poems that she set to music, five traditional Haitian songs (in Creole), and two original compositions—all to lean, elegant arrangements. The common thread is … More Leyla McCalla: Vari-Colored Songs – A Tribute to Langston Hughes

Beppe Gambetta: Where the Wind Blows / Dove Tia o Vento

April 7, 2021

Over a career spanning 40-plus years and more than a dozen albums, Beppe Gambetta has steadily added talents to his repertoire. From a young acoustic guitarist channeling Italian and American folk and bluegrass into a signature style, he became singer, composer, arranger, sound engineer and concert producer. At age 65 he has added one … More Beppe Gambetta: Where the Wind Blows / Dove Tia o Vento

Ila Paliwal: ILA – The Earth Symphony

January 26, 2021

Mother Nature blesses humanity with many gifts but she gave Ila Paliwal a little more—her name. “Ila” is Sanskrit for “Earth” and on her second album Paliwal, a classically trained Indian vocalist, songwriter and producer, celebrates her namesake planet and channels her reverence into protecting the environment and embracing diversity. Like the heavenly body it honors, the album is lush, from … More Ila Paliwal: ILA – The Earth Symphony

Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger

January 20, 2021

Just as we remember Bach and Beethoven, future generations will surely know Pete Seeger (1919-2014). From McCarthy-era blacklisting to performing at President Barack Obama’s inauguration, with an ebullient tenor and wielding a five-string banjo or 12-string guitar, the seminal folksinger-songwriter etched a riveting but humble profile … More Long Time Passing: Kronos Quartet & Friends Celebrate Pete Seeger