Tōth has always been somewhat genre-slippery; it’s proof of his unwillingness to stay in one place for too long, and that’s something to be celebrated. There aren’t too many musicians making heart-on-sleeve emotional rollercoasters with this much control, poise and skill. ‘And The Voice Said’ moves in all directions at once, and ends up exactly where it should be.

Philadelphia/Chicago duo The Early have mastered a specific brand of improvised music that draws on jazz and hard-edged experimental rock. Across their latest EP, Cusp, and album, I Want to be Ready, Lewis and Nussbaum pass through landscapes, lighting them up and leaving them changed for the better. A resounding success.

Colleen has shared Mis armas se habían caído al suelo, the opening piece from her forthcoming album Libres antes del final, out March 20th via Thrill Jockey. Three insistent chords and a tentative melodic line surface through warm organ like a held breath released — a declaration of vulnerability that sets the tone for what Cécile Schott calls her most emotionally intense work.

The Wave Pictures fashion their touchstones into new shapes: rapid-fire surf-pop, sleazy garage blues, tender slow-burners full of weeping guitars. Tattersall’s playing remains immediately distinctive, incorporating desert rock and spiky proto-punk, sometimes sounding like both Television guitarists at once. From Proustian throbs of memory to blazing solos, “Gained/Lost” is accessible, varied, and endlessly rewarding—another bright star in their constellation.

My Days of 58 finds Bill Callahan embracing uncertainty — and it has made his songs wiser than ever. They are also funnier, sadder, deeper. Live energy, partly improvised performances, a spirit of collaboration: these are the things that make Callahan tick. Over three and a half decades into his career, he is still capable of adding more strings to his bow.

Seamus Cater and Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten have an exceptional ear for space — knowing what to leave out as much as what to put in. Across six unhurried songs, Strange the Grass Grows breathes and blooms with quiet confidence, its traditional ballads and originals handled with such grace and elegance that it stays with you long after the final note.

Magic Tuber Stringband have announced Heavy Water, out May 22nd — their most expansive album yet, rooted in the ecological and human fallout of nuclear arms production in rural South Carolina. Lead single Tribute to the Angels draws on Hilda Doolittle’s wartime poetry and old-time fiddle tradition, its luminous harmonics hovering between folk memory and grief. Spring tour dates are forthcoming.

Darkly cinematic and compellingly unhurried, “laundry | blood” finds Whitney Johnson, Lia Kohl, and Macie Stewart at their most brooding — a slow-burn highlight from BODY SOUND. A live performance video directed by Derrick Alexander accompanies the single. The album arrives March 20th via International Anthem and the trio are perfomring live across the East Coast US, London’s Cafe OTO, and Europe this spring.

Recorded at Capitol Records in 1971, “10,000 Greyhounds” is a frantic, jangle-blues workout that sends Tommy into scats and the band into sprawling jams before spiraling into an ebullient pocket epic of blissed self-discovery. It’s the latest preview of Echo Park, the 91-year-old LA legend’s long-lost album, mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke and due March 27th.

In the Low Light is one of the strongest albums of its kind this year — a record that puts songs and the emotive stimuli that drove them front and centre. Written in the shadow of profound personal loss, Lucy Kitchen strikes a remarkable balance between darkness and light, unflinching in its grief yet quietly alive with hope.

Almost Proustian in its relationship with memory, Proof Enough goes beyond mere nostalgic effect. Michael Cormier-O’Leary became a father while recording these six songs, and his writing is full of hopes and fears alongside the quiet determination to live well. He has become an exceptional songwriter, alchemising human concerns into low-key poetry and backing it with a nuanced, delightfully off-kilter grasp of song dynamics.

With Stray Dogs, Hrishikesh Hirway opens a debut LP shaped by grief, memory, and the passage of time. The track — a gentle folk song co-written and performed with Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam — traces two packs: stray dogs in his mother’s Indian hometown and a group of teenage friends burning through a New Haven summer. Produced by Phil Weinrobe, In the Last Hour of Light arrives April 24th …