RiYL

Twelve albums in, Laura Veirs is ready for a fresh start. Emerging from a breakup album dealing with the detachment from her husband and longtime producer, Found Light arrives this month like a jolt of light night. It’s been a strange and fascinating journey to get here. After studying geology and Mandarin, she threw herself into music full-time and never looked back.nAs a songwriter, she’s wildly prolific. For each of the dozen records, a hundred or more songs are written. As processes go, she readily admits it’s not the most efficient – but the results speak for themselves. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For their many downsides, the past few years have offered an opportunity to reflect and reconnect with friends, family, projects. For Wayne Kramer, 2022 represents a full-throated embrace of a specter that’s loomed large for decades. This year, the musician released the first new songs under the MC5 banner in more than half-a-century. It’s a reinvigorated collective that culminates next month’s arrival of Heavy Lifting, the first LP under the moniker since 1971’s High Time. Kramer’s been plenty busy, of course, through solo albums, collaborations and film scores. He’s also become one of pop culture’s most vocal advocates for prison reform and the founder of Jail Guitar Doors, a project that supplies musical equipment for inmates. Ahead of the album’s release, Kramer discuss his musical and personal journey. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There are birds chirping. Shaun Fleming is making the most out of this beautiful spring day in Los Angeles, taking the call from the front porch. We get into a little lore about some parrots that have colonized Pasadena. Things get personal quickly, as they tend to with these conversations. And while he’s quick to note that his latest record, With People, arrives under the Diane Coffee monitor, it’s still a personal one. The name, after all, has been a fluid one. It’s sometimes a band, sometimes a person. Sometimes him, sometimes not. Male, female. Often in-between. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fresh off the release of a new record and suddenly unable to tour, Joan Osborne got the work. The musician dug through the closets in her Brooklyn home, pulling together live recordings from across her 30-year career. The resulting compilation, Radio Waves, paints the picture of an evolving artist often paying homage to the decades’ most influential artists, from Sky and the Family Stone to Bob Dylan. It’s a nice reminder of precisely how electric and essential live performances are, in an era when everything ground to a complete halt. Back on the road, Osborne took a moment to discuss her work from her early days as a NYU film student with a penchant for nightclub singing to 2020’s Trouble and Strife, a biting repudiation of American political collapse. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“I’ve always been in more than one band,” Janet Weiss notes. Even during the nearly two-and-a-half decades she spent as one-third of Sleater Kinney, she’s kept busy. Since 1993, she’s been half of Quasi and had overlapping stints with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks and Wild Flag – to make no mention of the albums she’s performed for indie rock darlings like The Shins and Bright Eyes. When we sat down to speak, she was prepping for a joint tour as Quasi and the drummer for Jon Spencer’s latest project, the Hitmakers. The shows coincide with the release of Cockroach In A Small Town, the debut LP from Slang, a project that also features Drew Grow, Kathy Foster and Anita Lee Elliot. It’s a lot, all at once, but after rehabbing from a serious car accident, followed by a two-year pandemic fueled hiatus, Weiss is more than ready to get back at it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ambient music helped me survive the darkest moments of the pandemic, and David Toop’s 2001 classic, Ocean of Sound, gave me the context to fully appreciate what I was listening to.He is a rare bird, with dual careers as both an accomplished musician and historian/cultural critic. In a world where artists are so often concerned about overthinking, Toop revels in it.I reached out on hearing that a pair of his 90s works – Pink Spirit and Noir World – had been reissued on vinyl.It was equally an opportunity to discuss silence, a frequent topic of his writings that has become an increasing feature for many who’ve been forced to slow down for once, amid the pandemic. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our Little Secret isn’t an easy book, but it’s an important one. In her first-ever graphic novel, Emily Carrington delves deep into her history and self-conscious, to explore her childhood abuse and the resulting trauma. It’s story Carrington has waited half her life to tell, searching for the right way – and medium – to tell it. It’s a powerful debut from life-long painter, exploring the ins and outs of a new form of storytelling. In this intimate conversation, she discuss her process and how making art has impacted the way she interacts with the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Wild Tales begins at an impasse. At the tail end of the 60s, Graham Nash writes, his time in The Hollies had seemingly run its course. A trip to the U.S. to visit his then-girlfriend, Joni Mitchell, found him harmonizing with a pair of musicians who had recently left their own iconic groups. That particular story has a happy ending, of course. Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes Young) played a central role in defining the following decade. Nash’s first two solo albums, released concurrently with the CSN’s early days, are the subject of his new album, which finds him revisiting the work in a live setting. He’s a loyal person (he’s about to go into the studio to record songs with Hollies’ singer Allan Clarke, as we speak), but not necessarily a nostalgic one. Thankfully, those songs from 50 years ago still pack a proper punch. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The transition into the 70s wasn’t an easy one of for The Rascals. But it had been an extraordinaire run before the wheels came off, penning several songs that helped define what could reasonable be called pop music’s greatest decade. Throughout it all, Felix Cavaliere never stopped working. It’s a rich and fascinating career, he eagerly narrates in the recently published, Memoir of a Rascal. He highlights the whirlwind trip up the top of the charts with equal excitement during our conversation. It’s a fascinating conversation, from the guru that changed his life, to the ugly side of the music business. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Niineta opens unexpected. A call from inside the penitentiary. It’s a cousin of Joe Rainey’s – but one he considers close enough to call a brother. It’s a striking opening for a striking album that explores the traditional indigenous songs he grew up singing at Pow Wow, set to modern production. The music is both faithful and new. It’s a celebration of the communities carrying on these musical traditions and an opportunity to share that cultural wealth with the world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.