Folk
Marissa Nadler Announces New Album The Path of the Clouds, Shares “Bessie, Did You Make It?”: Stream
Marissa Nadler is gearing up to release her ninth studio album. The Path of the Clouds, the forthcoming LP from the Boston singer-songwriter, arrives October 29th via Sacred Bones and Bella Union. As a preview of what’s to come, Nadler has shared the album’s opening track, “Bessie, Did You Make It?,” along with the song’s pensive music video. Nadler wrote the bulk of The Path of the Clouds in quarantine, during which she found an odd solace in the documentary series Unsolved Mysteries. The show’s frequent topics of cold cases and paranormal wonders pushed Nadler to go for a similarly eerie approach with The Path of the Clouds, which sees her grow in her musical exploration. Here, reality and the metaphysical feel less distinct from each other, driven by simultaneous anxiety and curiosity a...
Neil Young Announces Bootleg Recording of His 1970 Carnegie Hall Performance
Neil Young has announced the first volume in his upcoming series of bootleg recordings. The Neil Young Official Bootleg Series — Carnegie Hall 1970 is set to be released October 1st via Shaky Pictures/Reprise Records. The 23-track collection captures the magic of the singer-songwriter’s near-mythic performance on the night of December 4th, 1970 — the first of two back-to-back shows at the legendary New York City venue. Throughout the evening, Young performed a stripped-back setlist of songs like “Down by the River,” “Cinnamon Girl,” and the then-newly unveiled title track to After the Goldrush. He also played early versions of numerous tracks which, up to that point, had yet to be released — or even recorded — including “Bad Fog of Loneliness,” “Old Man,” and “See the Sky About t...
Waxahatchee Covers “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues” for Woody Guthrie Tribute Album: Stream
“Mighty thin stew though.” Waxahatchee has released a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues.” Stream it below. On the track, the indie project of Katie Crutchfield spins a yarn the late folk icon first told in the opening track of his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads. “Back in 1927/ I had a little farm that I called heaven/ Well, the prices up and the rain come down/ And I hauled my crops all into town/ I got the money/ Bought clothes and groceries, fed the kids/ And raised a family,” Crutchfrield recounts over gentle acoustic guitar. Advertisement Related Video Waxahatchee’s take on the folk classic serves as the second single off the upcoming tribute album, Home in This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads. The album also features lead single “Dust Cain’t Kill Me”...
R.I.P. Nanci Griffith, Grammy-Winning Singer-Songwriter Dead at 68
Nanci Griffith, the Grammy-winning folk and country artist who pioneered the “folkabilly” sound, has died at 68. No cause of death has been revealed at this time, Variety reports. According to a statement from Gold Mountain Entertainment, “It was Nanci’s wish that no further formal statement or press release happen for a week following her passing.” In the 1990s, she survived two bouts with cancer. Griffith’s successes arrived in contradictory forms. A powerful vocalist, her biggest hits as a songwriter came for other artists, such as Kathy Mattea’s “Love at the Five and Dime,” Bette Midler’s “From a Distance,” and Suzy Bogguss’ “Outbound Plane.” And despite her chops as a writer, she won her only Grammy for a cover album, 1993’s Other Voices, Other Rooms, which fe...
Big Thief Share Two New Singles “Little Things” and “Sparrow”: Stream
You’d think that after releasing two stellar albums in 2019, Big Thief would be keen on taking a much longer break before they began churning out more new music. Thankfully for us, that’s not the case; Today, the Brooklyn indie-folk band returns with two new singles, “Little Things” and “Sparrow.” Both songs were recorded in 2020 and produced by Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia. The slow-burning, hymn-like “Sparrow” sees vocalist Adrianne Lenker recount a Bible-inspired tale that reads like an epic poem of sorts. The track was recorded all in one take, lending to an intimate, natural feel. On the other hand, “Little Things” is an unexpected sound for Big Thief, in which they swap their more typical somber feel with a propulsive rhythm section and noisy guitar riffs. Here, Lenker seems to...
Aimee Mann Announces New Album Queens of the Summer Hotel, Shares Song: Stream
Indie folk-and-piano icon Aimee Mann has just announced a new album. It’s called Queens of the Summer Hotel and it’s due out November 5th via Mann’s own label SuperEgo. Apparently it came about after Mann started developing music for a stage adaptation of Girl, Interrupted in 2018. To preview the record, she’s sharing the album’s lead single, “Suicide Is Murder,” along with a music video below. According to a press release, Queens of the Summer consists of “a song cycle constructed from music that Mann wrote for the show.” It’s sung by Mann and orchestrated with her longtime collaborator Paul Bryan. As a nod to the project’s theatrical origins, the album features strings and woodwinds in addition to Mann’s usual style of piano playing. It spans 15 songs in total and serves as the follow-up...
Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield Trade “Songwriting Slump” Tips and Discuss Returning to the Stage
Katie Crutchfield was destined to be a Bright Eyes fan. The singer-songwriter, who performs poignant folk-rock as Waxahatchee, recalls the music of Conor Oberst as a crucial turning point in her upbringing as a self-proclaimed outcast in suburban Alabama: “I feel like Bright Eyes had one of the biggest impacts of any band at the time,” Crutchfield tells Consequence by phone from her Kansas City home. It’s serendipitous that nearly twenty years after she first became enamored with albums like Letting Off the Happiness, Fevers and Mirrors, and Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, Waxahatchee would be pegged to open for the Bright Eyes show, along with Lucy Dacus, at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium on July 31st. (The emo-folk titans played their first show tog...
Jimi Hendrix’s Personal Recording of 1968 Joni Mitchell Concert Included in New Box Set
Joni Mitchell has been an icon for so long that it’s hard to imagine that she, like most of us, was once a regular, fledgling 20-something, who just happened to possess an insane amount of talent. A massive new box set, Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971), due out October 29th captures the prolific songwriter during that defining era. Included in the box set is an unearthed recording captured by Jimi Hendrix, who saw Mitchell in action during her two-week residency at Le Hibou Coffee House in Ottawa, Ontario, before his death. As a preview of the collection, Hendrix’s recording of Mitchell performing “The Downtreader” is now available to stream below. Hendrix’s tape recorder from his night at Mitchell’s concert was stolen just a few days after the show. T...
Newport Folk Fest Marks the Glorious Return of Festivals in US
Most major music festivals coming back in 2021 chose to give perspective attendees a fair amount of time to decide to get vaccinated while still keeping the events “summer.” Hence September is jammed with nearly sold-out fests, from Bonnaroo to BottleRock. But many are looking towards August’s Lollapalooza as the first real test of what a post-pandemic festival looks like, which isn’t entirely accurate. Over the weekend (July 23rd-25th), Newport Folk Festival returned for part one of its slimmed-down Folk On 2021 double-event — and there really is no better way to bring music festivals back. Typically on the smaller side of capacity limits anyway, Newport cut back to just 5,000 daily attendees to help mitigate COVID risks. They also broke up the schedule over two back-to-back three-day chu...
Taylor Swift Shares Original Version of “the lakes” For folklore’s First Anniversary: Stream
Somehow, an entire year has passed since Taylor Swift surprise-dropped her eighth studio album, folklore. To celebrate the anniversary, the singer-songwriter has gifted Swifties with an original version of “the lakes,” the album’s bonus track. “It’s been 1 year since we escaped the real world together and imagined ourselves someplace simpler,” Swift wrote on social media. “With tall trees & salt air. Where you can wear lace nightgowns that make you look like a Victorian ghost & no one will side eye you cause no one is around.” “To say thank you for all you have done to make this album what it was, I wanted to give you the original version of The Lakes. Happy 1 year anniversary to Rebekah, Betty, Inez, James, Augustine and the stories we all created around them. Happy Anniversary, f...
Bob Dylan’s Latest Bootleg Series Boxset Covers Singer’s Early 1980s Period
Columbia Records announced today that the sixteenth volume of its ongoing Bob Dylan Bootleg Series will be released September 17th in conjunction with Legacy Recordings. The five-disc box set, titled Bob Dylan – Springtime In New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985), will cover the iconic singer-songwriter’s early ’80s period, which spans the release of 1981’s Shot of Love, 1983’s Infidels, and 1985’s Empire Burlesque. According to the tracklist, the 57-song collection will include everything from outtakes and alternate versions of studio recordings to rehearsal footage and live recordings of “Enough is Enough” and “License to Kill” captured at Ireland’s Slane Castle and a 1984 appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, respectively. Elsewhere, the box set features a mix of Dyl...
Yahaya Bello: Nigeria deserves the best captain no matter where he comes from
The Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, has said that rather engage on the unconstitutional issue of rotational presidency, what Nigerians should focus on is look for that Nigerian, no matter where he comes, who can be the captain to pilot the country to the promised land. The governor who stated this at the First Annual Governor Yahaya Bello (GYB) Seminar for Nigeria’s Political and Crime Correspondents/Editors at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, said that even after 16 years of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and another six years of All Progressives Congress (APC), in the country, the problems of the nation has not been solved by the rotational presidency that has taken place over the years. Bello insisted that the political party must not limit the choice of Nigerians to any region...
