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Released when Dolly Parton was 27 years old, the introductory track of My Tennessee Mountain Home finds her reading an old letter she wrote to her parents when she left home to chase a music career in Nashville at age 18. Her dispatch from Music City embodies a familiar feeling, no matter where you come from: going off on your own, only to find you miss all the trappings of home that you never noticed or appreciated.

‘Where I came from, people never dreamed of venturing out. They just lived and died there,’ she told Playboy in 1978. ‘To me, a little kid coming from where I did and having that ambition and sayin’ I wanted to be a star, people would say, “Well, it’s good to daydream, but don’t get carried away.”’

Like the words of a hit song, the story of Chalino Sánchez’s life has been repeated over and over again, as well as the theories about who killed him and why; more than 30 years later, fans and reporters still obsessively analyze the clues. Corridos de los Félix y Los Quintero features songs that were not played on the radio, nor were they of commercial interest to any major label during Sánchez’s lifetime. It wasn’t until a decade after his death that they were compiled by the powerhouse Mexican label Musart Records for CD, copies of which are now collector-coveted as well. Here, they appear on vinyl for the very first time.

The Deslondes are a five-piece group of dudes from New Orleans. The band splits up songwriting and lead vocal duties among its five members, continuing its democratic ethos and musical versatility. Now, with their latest record, Roll It Out the band continues to build on their inventive take on New Orleans country and R&B. Roll It Out finds the band leaning on the country-folk of their debut along with the sometimes-psychedelic, electrified gospel-soul sound of their previous records. The sound will continue to draw comparisons to the country-funkiness of The Band, Link Wray, and others but Roll It Out is the sound of a band that understands the history of American music, while embracing their own contemporary approach.

Jaime Wyatt's third studio album Feel Good, recorded with Black Pumas' blurs the lines between classic roots, southern soul, and vintage R&B. "A lot of us grow up feeling like we have to hide who we are just to be accepted, but that comes from a place of fear and judgment,” Wyatt explains. “I wrote these songs as a way of letting go of all that, as permission to feel good."

Limited to 500 copies, the VMP exclusive version of Jaime Wyatt's Feel Good is pressed on White vinyl at The Vinyl Lab. The 1LP will arrive in a gatefold, direct-to-board, foil-stamped and numbered jacket. It was mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Mastering.

Revival is a folk EP showcasing Annahstasia’s uncompromising vision, recorded live by the artist and her band over a one-week period in a Joshua Tree Airbnb. She sought a DIY recording experience in order to center the ‘’human aspect'' of her music, something she was missing in her previous work — like the less stripped-back collaborative album Sacred Bull she made with Jay Cooper (which led to her opening for Lenny Kravitz throughout Europe in 2019).

‘’Folk as a genre is rooted around the essentials, there’s no fluff, there’s just the expression of your life experience in your standing and the world and your cultural viewpoint,'' Annahstasia said in an interview with VMP. ‘’I’m borrowing aspects from places that I might not even know that are just subconsciously in my space that to me elicit power, strength, this feeling of capability and warmth. All of those things symbolize power to me, so when I’m making my music as a folk artist, my folk music is directionally guided, inspired and motivated by making people and myself feel empowered.''

Each song on Revival, recorded in a single take, is driven by that self-determination and goal of empowerment. As the title implies, it’s a sort of rebirth for the artist, whose name even translates to ‘’resurrection'' in Greek. The result is a stunning and serendipitous project built to stand the test of time.

Top left corner is damages, otherwse NM. Record is super close to NM.

Like new. Comes with original inner sleeve and inserts. Record looks unplayed.

Why you'll love it...
Kris Kristofferson was the true country outsider, a man who single-handedly pushed the genre leftward, changing forever the perception of its songwriters, its performers and its message. He was long-haired, anti-war and sang songs with drug use, sex and violence always lurking as dangers in the margins, at a time when Waylon and Willie were wearing sweaters and playing golf on their album covers. He was the outlaw, in a genre that would soon have people recording his songs, and co-opting his vision for a new version of country, to much greater financial success.

Why you'll love it...
"Miranda Lambert possesses this specific Cool Girl archetype’s enviable quality of being able to be open, honest and vulnerable, while never revealing anything that might give someone leverage over her. She is prickly and sweet, cool and commercial, writes songs that are exceptional and accessible. She’s a songwriter and an entertainer, a country star and a rock star. She isn’t as pop as many of her contemporaries, but she’s not whittling-and-loom-weaving Americana, either. These are tightropes she’s always walked, and still walks. Revolution is the moment she found her balance."

Why you'll love it...
'Hello, I'm Dolly' is Dolly Parton's debut album and the Vinyl Me, Parton Record of the Month for October 2023. It's pressed on 180g Flame Galaxy vinyl with AAA lacquers cut from tapes by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound.

Why you'll love it...
The conventional way of talking about The Houston Kid, Rodney Crowell’s 2001 release and the greatest achievement of his 50-year career, is autobiographically. From this way of thinking, the album pretty straightforwardly looks at Crowell’s life growing up in the poor, white working-class parts of Houston, Texas in the 1950s and 1960s, the only child of J.W. and Addie Cauzette Crowell’s tempestuous, dysfunctional union. Hearing The Houston Kid this way isn’t wrong, of course, but it is incomplete.

For starters, if it’s Crowell’s actual life story we’re after, we’d be better off reading Chinaberry Sidewalks: A Memoir, the book project he began around the same time but didn’t publish until 2011. For another thing, The Houston Kid’s details and effects are autobiographically inspired, sure, but also rife with exaggerations, omissions and flat-out fictions. You know, art.

Why you'll love it...
“Dave Van Ronk was bemused by the title of this album. He didn’t think of himself as a folksinger and had mixed feelings about what he wryly called ‘the Great Folk Scare’ of the 1960s. And yet, he was a central figure on that scene and this album was instrumental in shaping a new sense of what it meant to be a folk musician. A generation of guitarists took him as a model and honed their skills on his arrangements of ‘Come Back Baby’ and ‘Cocaine Blues,’ and his masterful reimagining of older traditions made him a defining voice of the folk-blues revival, showing that a young, urban performer could reshape songs from rural sources into modern, personal statements that were as rough and honest as anything from the hills or prairies.”

Why you'll love it...
“On Honky Tonk Heroes, Waylon Jennings had no one else to answer to, and the joyful mess of the album testifies to the kind of magic that can happen when you finally cut a lifelong misfit loose.
Honky Tonk Heroes isn’t Jennings’ first great album, but it was the first that captured his wild-hair energy instead of attempting to tame it. It belonged completely to him. It was so liberating that it would unleash a series of triumphs. This is the birthplace of the iconic 1970s Waylon, the one who would go on to slalom across the rest of the decade on a series of increasingly brilliant albums and mountains of cocaine. Waylon Jennings transformed himself into the Waylon, the leader of a movement forever altering the perception of country music in America.”

Why you'll love it...
“Knowing Tammy Wynette’s troubled history, and with 50-plus years of social change since the recording and release of Stand By Your Man, it’s difficult to hear the album and not want to scream: Tammy, get out of there; you’re so much better than him! But that’s not to say that the album, which ascended to No. 2 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart and earned a Country Music Association Album of the Year nomination in 1969, isn’t worth listening to. Wynette’s mournful voice, described by her longtime producer Billy Sherrill as ‘husky and soulful and tearful and dynamic,’ was made for songs like these; frankly, so were her real-life experiences. ‘She lived it, you know. She lived every tear every-body ever heard her sing,’ Sherrill once said of Wynette, and he assembled talented musicians to match her delivery in lush, Nashville Sound-era style.”

Why you'll love it...
Restless, the certified platinum fourth studio album from singer Sara Evans, celebrates it's 20th anniversary. The early 2000's hit includes "Backseat of a Greyhound Bus," "Perfect," "Suds in the Bucket" and "Tonight."
The VMP exclusive version of Sara Evans' Restless is pressed on Fruit Punch vinyl at Memphis Record Pressing (MRP). The 2LPs will arrive in a widespine, direct-to-board and foil-stamped jacket.

Why you'll love it...
Ocean Front Property, the 1987 multi-Platinum smash-hit from George Strait, is the VMP Country Record of the Month in December 2022. Celebrating the record's 35th anniversary, our edition is pressed on 180g "Am I Blue" colored vinyl with lacquers cut...

Why you'll love it...
Dolly's 2003 star-spangled masterpiece features "God Bless The USA," "Go to Hell," "Color Me America" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon." If this album doesn't make you say "MURICA" nothing will.

Limited to 2000 copies, the VMP exclusive version of Dolly Parton's For God and Country is pressed on "Red, White and Bluegrass" vinyl at GZ Vinyl. The 2LPs will arrive in a widespine, reverse board, numbered jacket.

Why you'll love it...
After recording demos with Sam Phillips that he considered "too jazzy" Charlie Rich was given a stack of Jerry Lee Lewis records to study and "come back when [he got] that bad". The single "Lonely Weekends" hit Top 30 and earned a gold record for selling one million copies. The album features classics such as "C.C. Rider," "You're Gonna Be Waiting" and "Apple Blossom Time."

Limited to 1000 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Charlie Rich's Lonely Weekends is pressed on Sky Blue vinyl at Softwax Record Pressing. The AAA 1LP will arrive in a single, direct-to-board jacket.

Why you'll love it...
Still Life, Carson McHone’s third album and first release with Merge Records, quivers like a tightrope, with songs about existing within the tension of the in between and surviving beyond the breaking point. These are stories of sabotage, confusion, and surrender. The album is a testament to the effort of reaching, sometimes flailing, for understanding and for balance. Still Life invites us to gasp at our own reflection and acknowledge the unsettling beauty in this breath.

Why you'll love it...
With one foot in a bucket of painfully earnest reflection, and the other in a pool of the sick, sunny oddball pop satire she does so well, Caroline Rose wrote, recorded and produced Superstar in her 10’x12’ home studio and on a portable rig she’d set up in green rooms while touring behind her 2018 album, LONER. The album’s first track finds its protagonist the recipient of an accidental call from Hollywood’s glamorous Chateau Marmont hotel, which they take as a sign to leave everything behind and pursue their star-studded destiny. What ensues is an indulgent, glistening sonic wonderland located at the crash site of innate personal aspiration and a bloated, absurd and fickle collective definition of success, fame and the artist in the era of late-capitalism. Superstar is a double-edge examination of the destructive and motivating forces of the human ego in a time and place that stokes its most aggrandizing desires, all wrapped up in brilliant, wonky modern earworms and a world as shiny as it is unsettling.

Why you'll love it...
"“Brad Paisley might be his generation’s most staunch traditionalist, who simultaneously is able to stay current on the charts. He’s able to walk a fine line between being of the past, and being of the present. He’s able to sound like both Buck Owens and Don Rich rolled into one, a man who can work his voice and his Telecaster into overdrive serving as his own ace guitarist, but who will also record with LL Cool J. Paisley hit his tallest peak — which he hasn’t even really begun to descend — with his best-selling and beloved LP ‘5th Gear.’ It’s a bursting-at-the-seams album with 19 songs and 73 minutes, nearly testing the bounds of the CD format and now appearing on vinyl for the first time.”"

Why you'll love it...
Following the massive success of her 2017 album Highway Queen, Nikki Lane was uncertain whether she wanted to make another album. Exhausted from touring, she spent time at home and was happy lending support to fellow artists like Sierra Ferrell, Lana Del Rey and Spiritualized.

‘’I hadn’t made a record in years and did not really feel interested in making another one,'' she shared. ''What I realized was how many little nuggets I was sitting on.''

Connecting with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Joshua Homme, Lane entered the studio for her next album. With talent on the album like Queens of the Stone Age collaborators Alain Johannes (guitar), Dean Fertita (organ), Michael Shuman (bass), Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys (drums), Carla Azar of Autolux (drums) and Matt Pynn (steel player), Denim & Diamonds marks Lane's massive return.

Limited to 1,000 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Denim & Diamonds is pressed on 1LP Seaglass vinyl at United Record Pressing. The album will arrive in a single direct-to-board, foil stamped and numbered jacket along with an 11x22 poster. The album is mastered by Gavin Lurssen of Lurssen Mastering.

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Why you'll love it...
Amelia Meath and Alexandra Sauser-Monning have been sharing the stage for upwards of fifteen years; they have now come together for a new band called The A's. Their debut album, Fruit, shares a beautiful ten-song collection that features covers of folk songs, lullabies, ballads and more. The album includes their rendition of “He Needs Me,” the Harry Nilsson and Shelley Duvall classic from 1980’s Popeye along with standouts like the ballads “Swing and Turn Jubilee,” “Copper Kettle,” “Buckeye Jim” and others. Fruit is a glimpse a deep collaboration and friendship between the two artists and bandmates.

Limited to 400 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of The A's Fruit is pressed on 1LP Banana Yellow vinyl at Citizen Vinyl. The album will arrive in gatefold direct-to-board, hand-numbered jacket. It's mastered by Patricia Sullivan of Bernie Grundman Mastering.

Why you'll love it...
Much of Montevallo was deceptive in its simplicity, hiding era-defining songwriting talent and a whole new mode of country crossover behind a seemingly easy-to-replicate formula of marrying traditional country instruments with programmed beats and slick, dynamic melodies. Its velvet revolution won Hunt years of radio dominance and anticipated a tidal wave of what’s been termed “boyfriend country” — legions of imitators who took the singer’s gently flirtatious tack and R&B influences to their cloying extremes. Plenty in Nashville didn’t see Montevallo as a changing of the guard, and even after he’d become a country megastar wrote him off as either a novelty, insufficiently capital-C Country, or both. When confronted with resistance about his own mode of widening country music’s lens Hunt has tended to return to the root of the issue, which runs much deeper than a simple disdain for pop music in country or concern about preserving some of its imagined “authentic” past.

Why you'll love it...
What’s most apparent, though, across Coat of Many Colors — through the pain, the work, the heartbreak and even the cruelty — is Parton’s complete, undying adoration for life and the people in it. “Early Morning Breeze,” a track that subtly veers into psychedelic folk, is a spiritual meditation that observes and appreciates the simplicity of an early morning walk through a meadow and a moment of prayer. Album closer “A Better Place To Live” takes time to imagine what an actively kinder world would look like. Bold and brilliant “Here I Am,” in retrospect, serves as a much more definitive, and more fitting, introduction to her self-driven rise than a simple “Hello, I’m Dolly.” Sung almost exclusively in Dolly’s unhinged all-out belt, the song’s a pipe-showcasing testament to the simple power of showing up: lending a hand, offering an understanding ear, knowing how much love you’ve got to give and shelling it out indiscriminately.

Why you'll love it...
As the lead vocalist of Grizzly Bear and a founding member of Department of Eagles, Daniel Rossen has long been steeped in the spotlight alongside bandmates. You Belong There is his debut solo album, written across an isolated location in upstate New York and in Santa Fe with Daniel Rossen performing almost all of the parts on the album. The album explores themes of adulthood and the adventure of new possibilities. After all, a solo album is a new adventure in itself.

Why you'll love it...
“In the first 75 years of Carnegie Hall being in operation, country music was an intermittent guest in the hallowed hall. In March 1966, however, a country band from Bakersfield, California, took to Carnegie Hall’s stages at the peak of their powers, as only the second country band to headline a show there, and ultimately released — outside of At Folsom Prison — the most important live country album ever. An album that proved many things between its two sides: that country music had an audience around the world already, and that the artist behind the album’s gamble on himself and his sound proved that you didn’t need to go to Nashville and sell out to sell big. With Carnegie Hall Concert, Buck Owens and His Buckaroos entered the pantheon of country music, becoming part of its very fiber, and altered the way it was considered in big cities and at record labels.”

Why you'll love it...
Alex Williams became recognized as a one-to-watch outlaw country artist, drawing comparisons to Chris Stapleton and Sturgill Simpson for his signature, cavernous vocal and gritty, go-your-own-way charisma. Now, following his major label debut in 2017 (Better Than Myself / BMLG), he returns with his sophomore record, Waging Peace.

“Before I made my first record, I had not toured. I had no road band and a very slim amount of experience in the studio,” Williams adds. “These past 4 years since leaving Big Machine to become fully independent, and the release of Better Than Myself has been a whirlwind. I’m very glad that I waited 5 years to make another record because it’s given me time to really find my voice as a songwriter, experience life on the road and all the pain and joy that has come my way in more ways than one.”

Limited to 300 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Alex Williams' Waging Peace is pressed on Clear vinyl at The Vinyl Lab. The 1LP will arrive in a single, direct-to-board, autographed and numbered jacket. It was mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Mastering.

Why you'll love it...
Willie Nelson wants it known, despite being divorced twice and married thrice before writing the album — including one that was spurred by his second wife finding a maternity ward bill from his eventual third — that Phases and Stages is and was not autobiographical. “The overall theme was not a reflection of my own life,” he said in his 2015 biography It’s A Long Story: My Life. “I was simply making up a story. Sure, I’d gone through breakups and heartaches of my own. What human soul hasn’t?” But when you make an album like Phases and Stages, the most devastating, humanistic divorce record of all time — and be beaten by an ex-wife after she sews you into your sheets — people begin to believe the album is about you and your ex-wives.

Why you'll love it...
'Groover's Paradise' is the third studio album from Doug Sahm, and the VMP Country Record of the Month for April 2022. It's here on AAA 180g "Texas Sunshine" colored vinyl, with lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Ryan Smith of Sterling Sound.

Why you'll love it...
“The moment country music was born, it started dying — at least according to a particular substrate of purists. For decades, they have dug in their heels for fiddle, for mandolin, for harmonies. Every so often, they get a win, pulling the rope over to their side in the endless tug-of-war between country music that incorporates the pop trends of the day (for both creative and commercial reasons), and country music that prioritizes mining the music’s widely mythologized tradition.

Marty Stuart was one of those artists. On 1982’s Busy Bee Cafe, the singer and mandolin player flaunted his real country bona fides via both his prodigious picking and the gaudy talent among the album’s personnel — earned in the course of a career that had already, apocryphally, lasted a decade in spite of the fact that Stuart was just 24 years old when the album was released. Far from being an appetizer to Stuart’s eventual commercial success, Busy Bee instead showcases his deep reverence for his musical forebears, radio playability be damned. The folksy release falls in line with a persistent strain of traditionalism even more than it does the commerce-minded revivals of Strait and Skaggs — a strain that endures today, fueled in part by inspiring performances like those captured on this album.”

Why you'll love it...
Infamous Angel is the stunning debut from country singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, and the VMP Country Record of the Month for January 2022. It’s pressed on exclusive 180g Cloudy Blue vinyl.

Why you'll love it...
Lessons for Mutants marks a shift in Johanna Warren's art and life, from the constant touring, the pandemic and moving to rural Wales. The album began with the same sessions that spawned her previous work, Chaotic Good, and continued into the UK as she was surrounded by a landscape of sheep, cows and plants. The album reflects a theme of metamorphosis in these moments of change for the artist.

Limited to 300 copies, the VMP exclusive edition of Johanna Warren's Lessons for Mutants is pressed on 1LP recycled vinyl at Optimal Media Production, mastered by Sarah Register. The record will arrive in a single direct-to-board, hand numbered jacket along with a download code.

Why you'll love it...
Sound-wise, 1971’s Willie Nelson & Family is no different than the 11 studio albums that precede it: They are awash in the Countrypolitan sound, with strings, horns and backing singers. But the version of ‘’Sunday Mornin,'' complete with its guitar solo — one of the first on Nelson’s legendary Trigger guitar — feels like the first act of defiance and a statement of intent. ‘’If Kris Kristofferson can do this, I can do it too,'' Nelson seemed to be saying. Within 18 months, he’d be in New York making Shotgun Willie, free to follow his muse wherever he went, cementing Kristofferson’s outlaw country jumpoff point. And that’s why Willie Nelson & Family is such an interesting artifact: It’s the last album Willie made in his ‘’Before'' timeline; it’s the point where he started putting it all together and asserting his creative ideas in tangible ways.

Why you'll love it...
As a Nashville resident, Natalie Hemby has graced stages as a country singer and songwriter since she was 19. Fully immersed in the music scene, Hemby has since written songs for numerous artists and has appeared on the writing credits for artists such as Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Lady Gaga and a score of other artists. Hemby won two Grammy Awards, including one for Best Song Written for Visual Media for the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper film A Star Is Born.

In 2019, she joined Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires to create the quartet The Highwomen, with whom she released her second album. Pins and Needles sees Hemby’s return to a solo album, fully flaunting her singing and songwriting capabilities to the forefront for her latest imaginative, soul-touching album.

Why you'll love it...
‘’Loretta Lynn had started working on her 25th studio LP, Back to the Country, in 1972. Its eventual opening track, ‘’The Pill,'' was a song about the birth control pill and the freedoms it could give a woman from — but not limited to — a philandering husband. At first, it was put in Lynn’s back pocket after a recording session when the label deemed it too controversial to release. The label was right, of course. It was controversial. But they were wrong about the consequences of releasing a song so polarizing. Though radio stations across the country banned ‘’The Pill,'' that only made it more alluring to fans who helped boost its sales, making it one of her biggest sellers of all time. Lynn may not have been close to being one of the “outlaw” musicians of the late ’60s — not decked in leather nor caught smoking weed with Willie Nelson — but you could easily argue she was among the most outlaw of them all.''

Why you'll love it...
High Top Mountain certainly leaned traditional, but it also set the precedent that Simpson was not an artist content to coast, was not someone just trying to write the easiest song to ride to the top. He was willing to put in the work, and hire $25,000 worth of studio time and band members to make his vision a reality, and didn’t very much care what happened next. Only that he’d done it. Freedom, as a famous country singer once wrote for Janis Joplin, is just another word for nothing left to lose. The most free performer we’ve had these last 10 years is Simpson, who took a trip to High Top Mountain and never came back down.

Why you'll love it...
Richard Thompson's Music from Grizzly Man accompanies the acclaimed documentary, Grizzly Man, following the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, a documentary filmmaker, environmentalist and bear enthusiast.

This VMP exclusive record is pressed on 1LP standard weight Smoke vinyl at Independent Record Pressing. This reissue is remastered by Bob Olhsson. Limited to 1,000 copies, Music from Grizzly Man will arrive in a foil stamped and numbered gatefold tip-on jacket.

Why you'll love it...
Kentucky-based folk musician Joan Shelley returns to No Quarter Records with her newest album, The Spur. The album was written between the fall of 2019 and 2020 during the peak of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and recorded the following spring of 2021 while Shelley was pregnant. Shortly afterwards, Shelley married her long-time musical partner and now-husband Nathan Salsburg.

Of the album, Shelley said, ‘’The Spur is the result of a period of opposite extremes: of intellectual hyper-connection and physical isolation. This album will forever be fused with the memory of our marriage, the birth of our child, and the intense joy despite the darkness.''

The record is co-produced by both Joan Shelley and James Elkington, and features Bill Callahan, Meg Baird, British novelist Max Porter and Nathan Salsburg.

The VMP exclusive edition of The Spur will arrive on a 1LP Silver Fox vinyl in a single direct-to-board foil stamped and numbered jacket with a printed inner sleeve. It's mastered by Josh Bonati of Bonati Mastering.

Why you'll love it...
Joshua Hedley's sophomore album goes forward in time from his debut's 1950s and '60s country ballads. Neon Blue explores the early 1990s territory of country while still having Hedley's modern flare.

Hedley said, “The last bastion of country music was the early 1990s, roughly 1989 through 1996. You could turn on the radio and immediately know you’re hearing a country song. You could still hear steel guitar and fiddle. But there was a hard fork around 1996 or ‘97, when country veered off into pop territory. Neon Blue asks, 'What if that fork never happened? What if country kept on sounding like country?'”

The album is co-produced by Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson, and mixed by Kyle Lehning.

Why you'll love it...
"Remembrances of ’90s country largely reduce the genre to the twin pillars of Garth and Shania, with a wholesale writing-off of the artists who made the genre as commercially successful as pop in the early-to-mid ’90s. And while it might not be the most beloved period among country connoisseurs — the 2010s and the ’70s seem to be the ordained decades — the era’s artists are worthy of reappraisal, its albums way more charming and enduring than they’ve been given credit for. John Michael Montgomery is a symbol of an era, but it’s also 10 songs of earnest, open and, most importantly, fun country music that you can absolutely love like that."

‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the new album by Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman.The pair have orbited each others worlds for a number of years through audio-visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations.

Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and written soundtracks for Radio 4. Perman’s work as a musician and DJ has taken him across the world, with numerous record releases under his own name and with experimental group/arts collective Found, alongside visual works at the Sydney Opera House and National Museum of Scotland.

‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the pair’s first collaborative album as a duo.The record is rooted in Perman's ambient-acid-house grooves and multi-textural percussion built from sampling the knocks, clangs and creaks of Wasylyk’s upright piano.These are woven through a palette of drum machines, rolling transcendental piano motifs, fluttering synthesisers, saxophones swells and hymnal choral vocals.

From the first notes of symbiont, the radical new collaborative album and document of Black and Indigenous futurism from Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin, the listener is met with rising tidewaters, massive droughts, and the appearance of an iconoclastic uprising amidst the world's indifference. Questions of future or present tense swirl around the music as the duo unspools the intertwined threads of racial and climate justice. Amid rumbling synthesizer drones, the thrum of banjo, and the thwack of drum machines, a whisper of truth can be heard: this crisis has been unfolding for centuries.

A classically trained vocalist with a self-taught instrumentalist's spirit, Shara Nova has been releasing spellbinding music as My Brightest Diamond since 2006. Over the years, the band has released five groundbreaking albums, each showcasing a different musical landscape while always centering on Nova's distinctive voice.

Her journey took an unexpected turn in July 2023, when within hours of learning about Sinéad O'Connor's passing, a fierce storm plunged her Detroit home into darkness. As the city held its breath, Nova sat with her guitar, reflecting on O'Connor's iconic SNL performance where she repurposed Bob Marley’s "War" to address child abuse, urging viewers to “fight the real enemy.” Inspired by this act of artistic courage, Nova poured her emotions into a raw demo – the title track "Fight the Real Terror" – which opens the album in its original form.

Traveling from her home in Detroit to Chicago, Shara worked with Tom Schick at Wilco’s studio, The Loft, for five days. Initially expecting to re-record everything, she was surprised when Tom insisted on keeping the raw demo material. The week was spent overdubbing, with Shara playing bass for the first time, alongside pianos, guitars with gizmotrons, and re-amping some original guitar parts recorded in her studio. More than just a collection of songs; Fight the Real Terror is a call to action, and a testament to the transformative power of music. Nova's powerful vocals and genre-bending compositions are simultaneously intimate and expansive, urging listeners to confront their fears, embrace their vulnerabilities, and fight for a better world.

“Her wholly enveloping, finely tuned alto sounds by turns forceful, vulnerable, cooing, playful, and endlessly emotive.” NPR Music

“…percussive, jagged art-pop that explores themes of self- acceptance, sensuality, and community.” Pitchfork.

“...has a feeling for both the grandeur and the grain, building every sweeping gesture in her music out of a swarm of small details.” The New York Times