New West Records has released the first collaboration between Steve Earle and Los Lobos; Earle wrote the song drawing from his early memories as a teenager framing houses in San Antonio alongside Mexican coworkers. "Trying to Love You" is the first new original music from Sierra Ferrell since 2024’s 4x GRAMMY Award-winning album, Trail Of Flowers, and is in more of a 60s Memphis Soul direction. And Texas music legend Kevin Russell returns with another Shinyribs album, Real Alligator, out soon. This first single includes his personal metaphor that, no matter how tough something is, it will never be as hard as a particularly tough night he experienced once, out in the Arkansas Mud.

The Womack Sisters -- Kucha, Zeimani, and BG Womack -- were singing before they could walk. They grew up on the road. Their schools were stages and studios all over the world, where they sang behind their parents, Zekkariyas & Zeriiya (formerly known as Womack & Womack), alongside their four siblings. Nowhere was home for long. No matter where they lived, they were always surrounded by music and family. Their 2026 self-titled debut album, The Womack Sisters, is the musical culmination of the Sisters’ long and winding journey to find themselves. If you know the Daptone Record label (Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, for instance), then you’ll agree they’ve found the right home for them, musically. On an album that is deeply autobiographical, perhaps no lyric is as fitting as the final refrain: “People come and go, But, darling this I know, It will always be my sisters and me.”

We’ve got two in a row from Daptone Records for New Tunes at 2 this week: This new release expands on the classic Mambo sounds reminiscent of Benny Moré and banda gigante of the 1940s and 50s that the band has become known for — blending Latin soul, boogaloo, and salsa - all while staying true to their Cuban roots. On this fourth studio record, they introduce an all-star line-up of new singers, including Miriam Elhajli and Carolina Oliveros (of Combo Chimbita). Themes of loss, upheaval, and the weight of the immigrant experience are addressed here. “Akokan” is a Yoruba word from Nigeria, loosely meaning “from the heart.”

Following the critically acclaimed 2025 release American Cosmic Revival Vol. 1: Back At Home, this new album continues the series with a broader exploration of the music, stories, and enduring legacy of Cosmic American Music. Inspired by the enduring legacy of Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and the pioneers of country-rock, Miles From Nowhere expands beyond the International Submarine Band material featured on Vol. 1. Rather than simply revisiting classic recordings, the album brings together songs connected by a common thread of heartache, redemption, loneliness, resilience, and the search for home—capturing the emotional spirit at the heart of Cosmic American Music. The album features legendary pianist Earl Poole Ball, whose career spans Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and Buck Owens, alongside legendary pedal steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness, whose work with Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and the Desert Rose Band helped define the sound of Cosmic American Music and country-rock.

Musician and producer Adrian Younge has recorded modern Afrobeat classics with Tony Allen and Ebo Taylor through Jazz Is Dead, and on this latest collection on his Linear Labs record label, Younge asks a new question: what would a Ghanaian producer in '76 have made if he set out to create an American disco record for his hometown? The result is a relentless, hypnotic patchwork of Afrobeat, funk, and disco recorded to tape, built for the DJ of any era.

One of the bands that really helps to define Asheville’s great music scene is this collective of Charles Humphrey III on bass, Mark Schimick on mandolin (and most lead vocals), Sam Wharton on guitar, Gabe Epstein on banjo, and James Schlender on fiddle. They’re back with their 7th album, recorded at Asheville’s Echo Mountain Studios. Charles has mostly co-written these new tunes with the likes of Darren Nicholson, Thomm Jutz, Tommy Maher, and Nick Dauphinais among others, plus there’s a nearly ten-minute Allman Brothers jam to wrap it up. They live up to their band name absolutely, with some area gigs over the next few weeks in addition to cross-country treks. If they live up their their album’s name, you can’t really tell from listening.

John Darnielle and company have this follow-up to the album they released last November, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan. But he says this one started life as Grunges, a sequel to their 2017 LP Goths. “These songs are loosely about the 70s, 80s, and 90s, which is to say they’re about the accumulation of days, each one a little further back than the next, sometimes miraculously seeming clearer as they recede and sometimes blurring into unrecognizable shapes which are sometimes pleasant and sometimes troubling.” John Congleton produced this new one, recording the band at Sear Sound in Manhattan. Darnielle is joined in by bandmates Matt Douglas and Jon Wurster; Peter Hughes left in 2024, after 30 years. Additional players on the album include bassist and French horn player Rob Jost, harpist Mikaela Davis, and assorted backing vocalists.

Introducing a (relatively) new singer/songwriter out of Philadelphia, who has won awards these past few years from the likes of American Songwriter, Songwriter Serenade, and the John Lennon Songwriting contests. She has been the opening act for Carsie Blanton, who says she’s “One of my favorite young songwriters, out there sticking it to the patriarchy with gorgeous, singable, perfectly crafted confections of song.” This debut studio album of hers will be released on August 28th.

The music world is reeling from the tragic death last Wednesday of Glen Hansard, star of the 2007 film Once and member of The Frames, The Swell Season, and a career that touched the lives of countless musicians, music fans, neighbors, and strangers with his warmth, passion, and philanthropy. He died in a motorcycle accident, aged 56. Recorded live in April 2025 and released just this past month, Vol. 2 – Transmissions West joins Vol. 1 – Transmissions East for a complete record of the two incredible nights spent in Berlin’s Funkhaus.

Texas songwriter Waylon Payne has released his third album, the follow-up to 2021’s Blue Eyes, The Harlot, The Queer, The Pusher & Me. Collaborators here include Aaron Raitiere, Brennen Leigh, Matraca Berg, and Miranda Lambert.