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Written across Bolinas, the North Carolina Piedmont, and a Santa Fe motel room, this new album from M.C. Taylor and Hiss Golden Messenger traces the artist’s search for clarity through landscapes both external and internal. These songs move through heartbreak, aging, fatherhood, desire, disillusionment, and the hard-won hope that remains after the spirit has been scraped bare.

Jim Lauderdale embodies the sound of American roots music for listeners around the world. A 2025 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Lauderdale also received the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award ten years ago. He will release his 38th and 39th albums in 2026: Country Super Hits Volume 2 and a bluegrass collection, The Birds Know. We also know him as just a good friend of ours who grew up in nearby Due West, SC, and Flat Rock, NC.

It’s Taj Mahal! We’re excited to share with you this strong album of soul, roots, folk, reggae, and blues from one of the cornerstone architects of American music. Originally recorded in 2010 alongside Taj’s longtime collaborators the Phantom Blues Band — a three-decade partnership responsible for GRAMMY-winning albums Señor Blues (1997) and Shoutin’ in Key (2000) — Time captures a shared musical language refined across decades.

Midwesterner Kevin Morby always delivers lyrically rich, intriguing albums. There’s a newfound confidence and clarity in this, his 8th one, following 2020’s Sundowner and 2022’s This Is a Photograph. Aaron Dessner of The National produced this, and both Morby’s writing and Dessner’s production recall Tom Petty’s 1994 classic Wildflowers. “Morby’s albums are akin to novels, best taken as a whole, but the songs that make up each of the chapters are their own novellas. …This record is so Zen. So Heartland. Kevin Morby is a Master of The Sonic Build.” – WNCW Program Director Joe Kendrick. “Repetition and ritual are paths to enlightenment in Mr. Morby’s songs, and the quietly powerful ‘Little Wide Open’ is filled with earned wisdom.” — The Wall Street Journal

A literal sign in Musgraves’ tiny, unincorporated, no-stoplight hometown, population under 300, that reads “Golden, TX: Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere” sparked the idea for the title track and symbolic throughline of the album, speaking to something deeper and more nuanced. A recent big breakup is another throughline you might notice. Pedal steel, accordion, and Texas dancehall rhythms provide a nostalgic framework that she flips on its head in signature fashion. It is a sonic love letter to the musical borders of Country, echoing influence from adjacent genres such as bluegrass, pop, and even bits of Norteño and Zydeco. See what you think!

The old-time, bluegrass, & folk band from Boone and now the world over is back. Their latest has a theme that’s right on time for our 250th anniversary of the USA, with songs like “Howdy Do America”, “Last American Waltz”, “Rainbow Stew”, and “Revolution Now”. Guests include Del McCoury, Jesse Welles, and Molly Tuttle.

The latest release from one of our favorite bands marks a return to the bluegrass foundations that first bound them together, approached with the confidence and emotional range earned through years of collective evolution. It is an affirmation that bluegrass still contains endless expressive possibilities. Themes of history, chance, and generational continuity recur throughout this new, 15th album from the band. And it marks their 25th anniversary! Steve Martin and Edie Brickell guest on this one.

We’re glad to have the latest project of Western NC’s Anya Hinkle, Billy Cardine, and Mary Lucey — Tanasi. Perhaps you’ve already gotten to know this trio of “worldgrass” musicians. As they describe it, their music “follows the invisible threads that connect cultures, landscapes, and hearts—from Nepal’s high plateaus and South African villages to the mountains of Appalachia—celebrating the shared human rhythms that surface wherever people gather to sing, dance, grieve, and love. Together they represent an eclectic variety of regional acts over the past 20+ years, including Tellico, the Biscuit Burners, Lovers Leap, and Acoustic Syndicate. Songwriters on this new release, aside from traditional Appalachian and Nigerian tunes, include Jimmy Cliff, Shambhujeet Baskota and Bidhan Acharya, George Harrison, and the three members.

Our introduction to country singer Joshua Ray Walker was his wonderful trilogy of albums Wish You Were Here (2019), Glad You Made It (2020), and See You Next Time (2021). After his serious cancer diagnosis and intense treatment in 2023, he began releasing a second trio, beginning with the rather light-hearted, surprisingly whimsical Jimmy Buffett-inspired Tropicana, followed by Stuff, which envisioned the world from the perspective of the inanimate objects we leave behind us. Now he completes trio #2 with a return to his honky-tonk roots with Aint Dead Yet, which he describes as “my most autobiographical record yet.”