Don’t Miss New Albums From Greensky Bluegrass, Florence + The Machine, Makaya McCraven & Others

On October 31, 2000, Greensky Bluegrass played their first concert and to mark the 25th anniversary of the occasion, the band released a new studio album, XXV. GSBG mandolinist Paul Hoffman, bassist Mike Devol, guitarist Dave Bruzza, banjoist and dobro player Anders Beck recruited several special guests for XXVM, which revisits the music the band has created over the past 25 years. Fellow Michigan native, guitarist Billy Strings, as well as Sam Bush, Lindsay Lou, Nathaniel Rateliff, Aoife O’Donovan, Holly Bowling, Jennifer Hartswick, Natalie Cressman, Ivan Neville, Jason Hann appear across the album’s 13 tracks.

“We’ve called on some dear friends to breathe a touch of new life into some classic Greensky songs for your listening pleasure,” Beck explained. “We’ve reinvented the sounds of some of our (dare I say) ‘hits’ because after a quarter century of Greensky Bluegrass, with plenty of new music on the horizon, we believe it’s worth celebrating what the five of us have created together… and we want you to have a damn good time listening to it.”

Florence + The Machine released their first new album since 2022, Everybody Scream, which arrived today through Polydor Records/Republic Records. Florence Welch spent the past two years writing and producing the follow-up to 2022’s Dance Fever. Welch brought in several collaborators to work on Everybody Scream, including Mitski, IDLES’ Mark Bowen and The National’s Aaron Dessner. Regarding the project, Welch stated:

“I don’t really know how to explain myself with this one, it was sort of a long poem about the cost of greatness. Who gets to decide what that is? Why do I even want it? Why am I never satisfied? “I feel like I die a little bit every time I make a record, and kind of literally nearly died on the last tour. Yet I always dig myself up to try again, always trying to please that one person who doesn’t like it, or finally feel like I made something perfect and I can rest.

“Early in my career, I was consistently ridiculed and derided for the bigness of my expression. I was thrust into the spotlight but also told again and again I didn’t deserve it, or that because it wasn’t to their taste it wasn’t good. So maybe this is a 15-year outpouring of frustration. But also, a lot of the lines I just left in because I thought they were funny.

“Me and Bowen from IDLES wrote it in one take. He played the guitar and I just sang it straight from the page. We meant to re-record it but the first take just had this amazing energy. Then Aaron Dessner helped us take it to a truly transcendent place. I wanted it to feel like you were disintegrating into nothing at the end. Which is sometimes what the creative process feels to me. Death and resurrection over and over.”

Makaya McCraven released four separate EPs – Techno Logic, The People’s Mixtape, Hidden Out! and PopUp Shop – through International Anthem/Nonesuch/XL Recordings. The material making up the four tracklists was recorded live in various settings over the past several years. Each performance saw McCraven backed by different musicians, with contributions from Theon Cross, Ben LaMar Gay, Junius Paul, Marquis Hill, Joel Ross, Jeremiah Chiu, Jeff Parker, Josh Johnson, Justefan and Benjamin J. Shepard. A composite version of the four EPs was made available in physical formats, titled Off The Record.

After five years, Anna von Hausswolff returns with a new studio album, ICONCLASTS, released today through Year0001. The Swedish singer-songwriter’s sixth album was co-produced with frequent cohort Filip Leyman. The follow-up to 2020’s All Thoughts Fly sees special appearances by Iggy Pop, Ethel Cain, Abul Mogard and von Hausswolff’s sister, Maria von Hausswolff.

Multi-instrumentalist claire rousay issued her latest album, a little death, today through Thrill Jockey. The album, “intended as a part of a trilogy along with [previous albums] a heavenly touch and a softer focus,” sees rousay joined again in the studio by past collaborators, more eaze, Gretchen Korsmo, Andrew Weathers and Alex Cunningham. The single, “just,” featured synthesist/woodwinds player M. Sage.

Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan dug deep into the archives for Bootleg Series Volume 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963, which collects some of his earliest recordings. According to the description accompanying the 139-track set:

Through The Open Window tells the story of Dylan’s emergence and maturation as a songwriter and performer, from Minnesota to the Greenwich Village bohemia in the early 1960s. Arriving amidst a global resurgence in appreciation for Dylan, the collection includes rare Columbia Records outtakes, recordings made at club dates, in tiny informal gatherings, in friends’ apartments, and at jam sessions in long-gone musicians’ hangouts. Many of the recordings are exceedingly rare; others have never been presented in any form.

The box set is a unique account of Dylan’s early years, when he honed his talent, and transformed traditional folk songs and lyric sketches into some of his greatest and most enduring songs, including “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” It concludes with a previously unreleased recording, in its entirety, of Dylan’s landmark concert at Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963. A culmination of Dylan’s exceptional early rise, that concert also marked the end of the beginning of Dylan’s long career.

Oklahoma City noise rock band Chat Pile meshed with Texas/Oklahoma guitarist Hayden Pedigo for the collaborative album, In The Earth Again. The 11-track album was recorded in Oklahoma City last winter.

“We all wanted to avoid the downfall you see in a lot of collab records,” said Pedigo. “We didn’t want this record to either end up primarily sounding like one of us more than the other.”

“For the album, every decision made was in support of each other’s ideas and making sure that everything we did was in service of a greater vision,” Chat Pile bassist Stin added.