Two big names in the music industry announced they're suing SUNO, the most prominent musical AI company this week. Jason Isbell and his team filed a complaint on Monday (with news breaking on Tuesday) and Canadian music rights-management organization SOCAN announced its claim on Wednesday. Billboard obtained the original legal complaint and dug into the details here. Additionally, SOCAN developed an entire section of its website that explains the AI lawsuit, includes basics on AI terminology, and offers audio examples comparing songs from their rights catalogue and SUNO's versions. Read on for more information via SOCAN's Instagram post below.
Nearly a year after his original album Debbie Downers came out (ND review) and five months since the woodwind interpretation of it, Jonny Fritz is surprise-releasing Debbie Downers - Karaoke today via Gar Hole Records. After Fritz once again reinvented the album, this time with programmed MIDI instrumentals, he asked friends including Nick Shoulders, Cary Ann Hearst (Shovels & Rope), Courtney Marie Andrews, The Lone Bellow, Vincent Neil Emerson, and others to sing. Check out Fritz and Emerson's version of "Polished Turd" below.
Allison de Groot and Rich Ruth announced a new record, their first as a duo, due out October 2 via Western Vinyl. Their self-titled debut features acoustic instrumentation like banjo and fiddle, as well as more experimental synthesizers and effects pedals to create a sound at once organic and ambient. As Ruth said in a press release, the single "Distance From Then,"
represents the ambition and curiosity of this entire project really well. ...What started as a solo banjo piece morphed into a live duet with fiddle recorded outside in my backyard. Allison and I expanded the second half by adding Parker James on vibraphone and a lot of fuzz guitar, culminating in a cacophony of intense sounds and rhythm. Like most of these pieces, it went somewhere very different than how it started.
RIP to two more women tangential to roots music, Grammy award-winning jazz vocalist Cassandra Wilson and pioneering feminist journalist and activist Gloria Steinem. Read more about Wilson in the Associated Press and in a few remembrances from roots musicians below. Additionally, check out her jazzy take on Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from her 1995 album, New Moon Daughter. Finally, read my editor's note inspired by Steinem from the Fall 2022 issue of No Depression here.
Finally, it's Bandcamp Friday again, where all fees are waved when purchasing music and merch, meaning your favorite artist gets as much financial support as possible from the platform. Go buy some tunes.
WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO
Dawn Landes and Justin Townes Earle - "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind" (Dolly Parton cover)
BR5-49 - "Even If It's Wrong" (ND column)
Lena Rich - "Gas Is Cheap" (from her new album, Emerald City, out today)
The Animeros - "Qué Bárbaro"
NEW RELEASES - 9/4/26
Jonny Fritz - Debbie Downers - Karaoke
Rose Gerber - They Can't Take The Music
Hollow Hand - Wish Road South
Medium Build - King of Having Fun
Charlie Pike - Creeks All Rise
Lena Rich - Emerald City
Lily Seabird - Lightspheres on Their Way
Angus & Julia Stone - Karaoke Bar
Benjamin Tod - Country Is Dead
Molly Tuttle - So Long Little Miss Sunshine Acoustic [EP]
COMING SOON - 9/11/26
Angela Autumn - Believer
Ali Holder - Garden of the Unknown
Pokey LaFarge - Rent Money
Buddy Miller - Buddy Miller
Eli Paperboy Reed - Getting There
Twilark - Never Learned the Tide
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