ALBUM REVIEW: Julian Taylor Stares into the Abyss on Haunting New ‘Pathways’
“You’ve been so hard on yourself / It’s time to let things soften,” murmurs Julian Taylor on “Weighing Down,” the haunting leadoff track on his new album, Pathways. A veteran singer-songwriter with more than two decades’ experience, this soft-spoken Canadian might be the best unlicensed therapist you’
BONUS TRACKS: Bluegrass Festival Rolls into North Carolina
Even as the state is reeling from the onset of Hurricane Helene today (wishing everyone a safe recovery from the storm!), so too is the International Bluegrass Music Association descending on Raleigh, North Carolina, for the 35th installment of its annual conference and World of Bluegrass Festival.
IBMA is always
ALBUM REVIEW: Billy Strings Takes Us Down a Long Highway
On the high-octane Highway Prayers, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Billy Strings flies down bluegrass straightaways, careening around curves with blind speed. These songs pay tribute to the backroads and byways Strings barreled down in his youth, and some of them pay tribute to his high-speed heroes (“Richard Petty”). Still
THE READING ROOM: The Lasting Influence of Nanci Griffith
When Nanci Griffith died just a little over three years ago — on August 13, 2021 — many hearts were broken. We knew we had lost a woman who loved fiercely, sang tenderly, told stories of women embracing their power, and looked with a gimlet eye into the ragged ways individuals move
ALBUM REVIEW: On 'symbiont,' Blount and Obomsawin Remix the Ancestors
Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin (Odanak First Nation) have worked nothing less than a miracle on symbiont, out Friday on Smithsonian Folkways. The album continues the work of Blount's Afro-futurist climate change epic The New Faith (2022) and Obomsawin's portentous assertion of Indigenous music’s
SPOTLIGHT: JD McPherson's First Five Guitars — Where Are They Now?
EDITOR’S NOTE: JD McPherson is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for September 2024. Learn more about him via this interview or check out an exclusive video of a song from his new album, Nite Owls, which releases Sep. 27 on New West Records.
Unidentified Child's Acoustic Guitar