In their debut album, Hookahs of the Cave, Danny Riley and Noah Radley deliver an addictively listenable collection of electric guitar and drum excursions. From the acid-tinged, eastern raga-esque grooves of ‘Smoking the Bone’ to the pensive, sparse atmosphere of ‘Enclave of Parisian Cash’, the duo showcases immense depth. Whether through muscular drumming or patient restraint, this collaboration is consistently exciting and atmospheric.

Jimmy Cauty and Jem Finer’s The Standing Stones return with Twa Sisters, an eleven-minute, three-part rendition of one of the darkest Scottish ballads — sung by Iona Zajac, accompanied by Lankum’s Daragh Lynch. The track will be encoded into a twelve-foot Welsh slate monolith under the Flower Moon in Stroud on 1st May. The New Stone Age continues.

Our latest Mixtape draws together a constellation of artists we’ve been championing lately — Bill Callahan, Buck Meek, Tōth, The Notwist, Iron & Wine, Juni Habel, and more — alongside a few welcome discoveries. From highway-wide Americana to quietly devastating folk, sun-bleached indie to avant-garde drift, it’s an hour-plus of music that earns your full attention. Press play and let it run.

In conversation with Harper Mahood, Barry Walker Jr. talks about “Paleo Sol,” his Thrill Jockey debut — a record born from new age lullabies, ancient oxidised soils, and dark forces banging on the door. “I want people to look past the horizon and try to break the material veil that we’re all living in.”

South American field recording artist Caminauta has shared Encounters, the new single and video from her debut album Unseen Dimensions, due March 2026 via Wayside & Woodland Recordings. Shot during isolated coastal walks after three years of near-total solitude, the video captures the same unhurried, observational spirit as the music itself — organic, atmospheric, and quietly essential.

Iron & Wine’s Hen’s Teeth is decidedly darker than its sibling album, admitting emotional ambiguity at every turn. Sam Beam knows that a lot can happen in the span of a single song, and here he leans ever further into the South’s musical traditions, surrounding himself with collaborators who double the vulnerability at the heart of his most open-hearted work in years.

Blood Sucking Maniacs, the multigenerational family band led by Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, have announced their self-titled debut album, out April 24th via Paradise of Bachelors. Spanning five generations and 121 years — from Pauline Allen’s ghostly piano to a great-grandchild’s fetal heartbeat — the album is a wild, tender testament to family as creative force.

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.