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“For us, this album is a way to acknowledge what our culture is facing and the effects of the abuse of power,” said Chadwick Stokes, member of this band out of Boston that blends reggae, ska, and roots rock on this new one. “…And we pay homage to the great activists of our time alongside Ani DiFranco on ‘In the Street,’ as a reminder of how crucial it is to not sit back idly. But mostly, our goal with this album is for listeners to enjoy the tunes in whatever way, hopefully at times collectively, and in community.” John Butler is another guest featured prominently here. Dispatch was known on the college/indie scene in the late 1990s and early ‘2000s, prior to its breakup in 2009; they reunited in 2011.

We’re excited to see this interesting collaboration, with covers from the likes of Dr. Dog, Joan Armatrading, and Wilco. Rachel Baiman has released her own work out of Nashville, alongside session and side-person work with the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Kevin Morby, and Molly Tuttle. Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno, from North Carolina and Oregon mostly, perform as a duo and in the old-time band The Onlies. As for Kissing Other (People): “The idea for recording music together was hatched on a cross-country tour in 2022. long hours in the van listening to music revealed our shared tastes and we started daydreaming of capturing some songs together in the studio. The sessions were such fun and spur of the moment. Viv smacked some drums, Rachel slayed the electric guitar, Riley played a keyboard that literally caught on fire.”

We love discovering new regional acts here, and the latest is this band out of Asheville, with this debut recorded in Weaverville. Singer/songwriter Lindsey Wall, who also plays fiddle and mandolin, has this to say about their debut: “This album captures a period of time filled with uncertainty, longing, and hope. After Hurricane Helene ravaged our community in Western NC, feelings that I never confronted before came bubbling to the surface. I coped by writing songs. I stopped caring how my musical ideas or words might be judged. So I shared these songs with my friends, who encouraged me and lent me their creative ideas, time, and musicianship.” Other members include Ross Wall, Nik Haase, Thomas Minton, Maria Mason-Freeman, Nate Ballinger, and Will Wittmeier.

Check out this album that celebrates inclusivity, togetherness and the deep African imprint on American roots music. “The porch is a metaphor for a perfect world - with the kind of smiles like those between the two of them on the cover,” said MIX Magazine in a recent front-page profile. It’s their 2nd “TajMo” collaboration, the first being in 2017. Singers Wendy Moten and Ruby Amanfu are among the musicians joining them here; for the TajMo duo though, there was one collaboration that felt particularly moving: “We had our sons in there playing with us and all the other musicians and writers were hanging the whole time,” remembers Keb’ Mo’. “So it was a really fun place to be.”

Hayes crafts songs that allow us to take a good look at ourselves – the good, the bad, and even the absurd – through his character narratives and sage perspectives. On his tenth album (release date August 8th on Thirty Tigers), Carll turns the mirror back on himself for the most deeply introspective, reflective work he has created to date. "Like John Prine, Carll has a clever, concise style of communicating serious concepts, frequently through dark humor, displaying world-weary truths underneath wry lyrics." (American Songwriter).

Produced by Shooter Jennings (Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker), “Heart of the Eternal” features a selection of songs that journey from psychedelia to Philadelphia soul to Latin-infused jazz-pop, and you can probably detect a couple of other genres, too. The album was completed during Croce’s downtime from his ongoing “Croce Plays Croce” tour—a widely celebrated run in which he performs classic songs from his late father Jim, along with his own material and a number of specially curated covers.

On this, her 11th album, Patty Griffin once again forms a poetic tapestry woven from the threads of love, loss, grief, disillusionment, resilience, and hope, shifting fluidly between intimate confessions, philosophical musings, and symbolic storytelling – all grounded in intensely human feelings and emotion. Burrowing into the stories she had long been telling herself, the award-winning songwriter ruminates on a vast array of themes and deeply personal topics, spanning the trajectory of women in the 20th and 21st centuries and communion with nature to the sound of her voice after cancer treatment made its mark to the relationship with her late mother, whose wedding day photo graces the album’s cover, set into artwork by Mishka Westell that captures many of her greatest loves, including the Maine woods of her – and Patty’s – childhood.

Here is some of Luther Dickinson’s description of this special new Allstars album: “Still Shakin’ is a celebration of our life-changing first album, Shake Hands with Shorty, which we released 25 years ago, and a love letter of appreciation to everyone who supported us and kept us in the game all these years. Touring this album cycle into 2026 will mark thirty years since we started North Mississippi Allstars, and we couldn’t resist by commemorating both of those anniversaries. Rather than focus on the old material, we decided to record new music in the spirit of our debut. …

We’ve been following the growth of brother/sister duo Elisha and Aila Wildman of Floyd, VA, for the past few years, including a Studio B session in 2022. Their old-time and bluegrass backgrounds remain strong as they forge ahead with other interests like indie-folk, and a love for Gram Parsons. This new album was cultivated in the midst of Aila and Elisha each finishing school at the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, but recording it at Applehead Recording Studio in Woodstock, New York (by producer Nicholas Falk, partner/collaborator with Dori Freeman, who hails from nearby Galax, VA), and that experience reminded them of the Floyd area.

This duo led by Australian Dan Parsons & Canadian Tracy McNeil is described as blending sixth sense harmonies with sun-dappled folk-rock. It’s a rich Laurel Canyon Southern California sound, specifically, thanks to the production work of Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist Dan Horne, who’s produced for Mapache, Beachwood Sparks, and Circles Around the Sun. See if this new discovery is a good addition to your summer soundtrack.