New Mix: Cautious Clay, Third Coast Percussion, Jake Xerxes Fussell, More

On this edition of All Songs Considered you'll hear new music from Chastity Belt singer and guitarist Julia Shapiro. You'll also hear a song based on an old field recording by the singer Jake Xerxes Fussell. Both of these songs were picked by our awesome intern, Adelaide Sandstrom as she enters her final days at All Songs Considered.

I also play the lead-off track, "Sidewinder" from Cautious Clay's new EP titled Table of Context. But then the show turns dark when NPR Music's Tom Huizenga joins us to play a three-hanky classical work from Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," sung by Beth Gibbons, known best for her work with Portishead. Beth Gibbons learned to sing the Polish texts with help from a vocal coach, reaches out of her range and into our hearts with this stunning and sorrowful work.

I take us to Ireland and a piece by a brilliant band of American and Irish musicians known as The Gloaming. The opening track to their third album, simply titled The Gloaming 3, is based on an Irish poem is called "Meáchan Rudaí" ("The Weight of Things"). You can hear a reading of the poem here. It tells the tale of a mother and son from birth to death and was inspired by the piano wanderings of Thomas Bartlett, with fiddle by Martin Hayes and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, guitar by Dennis Cahill and singing from Iarla Ó Lionáird.

Our program ends on an upbeat percussive work by Third Coast Percussion and a stirring piece titled "Torched and Wrecked." -- Bob Boilen

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