Our latest Mixtape opens to Frankie Archer, whose new album, The Dance of Death, is out today. We’ve also got new music from Zoh Amba, Simon Joyner, Johnny Bell, and a big finale from Brown Wimpenny. Plus: Iona Zajac, Stein Urheim, The Modern Folk, The Deadlians, Hack-Poets Guild, Naomi Alligator, Deer Scout, Josh Kimbrough, Nora Brown, anne annie, Jonny Kearney & Lucy Farrell, Robert Wyatt, Maxine Funke & more.

Emmett Kelly, Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney and Jim White have all done time in supergroups before. Could they handle it on a cold Tuesday night on a Bluetooth stereo in Glasgow? Alex Neilson gives an emphatic and unequivocal yes. Released in late 2024, “The Hard Quartet” carries all the messy, confounding joy of Dirty Three and Pavement, and makes you remember what you love about music.

New Mexico banjoist Johnny Bell builds “Mountain States” around the character of the five-string banjo, though his focus is far from traditional. There is unease and an underlying gravity to music that is stark, edgy and gnarly in places, with an ominous drone haunting throughout. He set out to make a modern solo banjo album, and he’s done exactly that.