Just in time for the world that's coming are a bewitching new duo from Australia. Featuring music and instruments by Mick Turner and words and voice by Helen Franzmann, Mess Esque's debut album restlessly wanders through a series of intimate dialogues.

Helen lives in Brisbane; Mick in Melbourne. Mick’s played guitar for years, collaborating with loads of talented others; he's perhaps best known as one third of Dirty Three - though we know him as the visionary behind six or seven mostly instrumental releases for Drag City.... (read more)

After a successful roll up and down California this summer, Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy are now set to prowl through select US cities again this fall in support of their sublime new Superwolves album! To bring the LP's songs new and newer life, these 'Wolves add frequent co-conspirator Emmett Kelly to the pack and promise to provide welcome assemblage for all creatures wherever they may roam!

If the simple thought of such magical communion as Matt Sweeney's guitar and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's voice doesn't instantly... (read more)

Yes, the sun is setting - but a new day's already on the horizon, with the latest song from Alasdair Roberts og Völvur! Sung by Völvur’s saxophonist, Marthe Lea, this Norwegian spiritual is an ancient traditional melody, but the band's capacious sense of sound breaths fresh air through the centuries-old song.

Live on tape from their Norwegian homeland, Völvur's solo rendition of their arrangement of "Nu solen går ned" demonstrates their sympathy for the syncretic visions of Alasdair Roberts. It should be noted that ... (read more)

A meetings of minds and cultures well-suited to Alasdair Roberts’ syncretistic nature, The Old Fabled River melds Celtic and Scandinavian intuitions of culture and music.

Responding to the invitation of Norwegian fiddler Hans Kjorstad, Alasdair made an almost preternatural connection with a group of musicians well-versed in folk, jazz and free-playing. The diverse musical backgrounds deeply inform this collection of Roberts’ originals and Scottish and Norwegian traditional song. Nicking a spiritual conceit off Saint Teresa, "Orison of Union" notes love’s human frailty,... (read more)