First Listen: Townes Van Zandt, 'Sky Blue'
A new collection of unearthed solo recordings from 1973 offers a tantalizing glimpse at the creative process of a legendarily mercurial artist.
Music Reviews
'Modern Sounds' Re-Release Revives Ray Charles' 1962 Venture Into Country
Fifty-seven years ago, Charles released two albums that helped extend the reach of country music. Though initially perceived as a novelty, a re-release of the albums proves they were anything but.
First Listen: Hand Habits, 'Placeholder'
Singer-songwriter Meg Duffy pays scrupulous attention to detail in transfixing songs that function like intricate dioramas.
First Listen: TEEN, 'Good Fruit'
On its dark but buoyant new album, the artful pop band explores the complexities and contradictions in love, loss and learning to leave the past behind.
First Listen: Della Mae, 'The Butcher Shoppe'
Returning from hiatus, the bluegrass band showcases its combination of playfulness and muscle as a performing unit.
First Listen: Ryuichi Sakamoto, 'BTTB (20th Anniversary Edition)'
The composer and multi-instrumentalist's newly reissued 14th album is an intimate collection of brief solo piano compositions, first released in Japan in 1998 and hard to find since.
Greg Ward's New Album 'Feels Like A Walk Home' And A Tribute To Chicago
Saxophonist and composer Greg Ward's Stomping Off From Greenwood is a love letter to the city where he came of age as a musician.
'Newest Sound You Never Heard' Revisits The Music Of Jeanne Lee And Ran Blake
Lee, one of the premier singers of new jazz, mixes it up with pianist Blake on a newly reissued two-CD set featuring standards and straight-up jazz tunes the two recorded in Belgium in 1966 and '67.
First Listen: Ray Charles, 'Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music Vol. 1 & 2'
Charles laid claim to the center of American popular music on these 1962 classics, and ended up with some of the brashest and best-selling music of his career.
First Listen: Benny Sings, 'City Pop'
You've heard the Dutch pop and R&B singer's music before and probably didn't know it. Now, he makes a perfectly timed bid for stardom.