Laura Cantrell

After a nine-year hiatus, Laura Cantrell, a familiar presence in the international Americana & Roots music scene, is back with her latest studio album.

Ben Davis and Danny Kathriner’s reunion recording project was released on June 1st, 2018. The album includes 12 new songs written and performed by Davis and Kathriner. Guests include guitarist and pedal steel player J. Tom Hnatow (Ringo Starr, Vandaveer, These United States), bassist Blake Cox (Kelly Richey) and pianist Lee Carroll (The Judds, Exile) with vocals by Laura Cantrell and Lauren Balthrop, cellist Erik Friedlander (Mountain Goats, Martha Wainwright), multi-instrumentalist Tony Scherr (Norah Jones, Bill Frisell, Sex Mob), guitarist Steve Rauner, and the versatile pianist Dred Scott.

2010 two CD collection containing 50 more tracks drawn from Bob Dylan's third season of Theme Time Radio Hour. Spanning 76 years, it contains artists as diverse as Roy Rogers, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Nirvana, Toots & the Maytals, Laura Cantrell, the Mississippi Sheiks - shuffle that lot on your iPod. This time there is a nod to the topical collapse of Western capitalism in Joe Mooney's 'The Man with $1 Million' and Mel Blanc's irresistibly alliterative (but blunt) 'Money'. Speaking of Mel we even got Pat Boone to write the sleeve note for that one. A prize for the first person to guess why. The introduction has been written by the novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw, whose book "The Importance of Music to Girls", is a must-read for music lovers and we have a spectacular array of annotators this time, ranging from the man who introduced US to the blues, Paul Oliver, to Sir Tim Rice on Elvis (Presley) and Elvis (Costello) on Dave Bartholomew's 'The Monkey (Speaks His Mind)' that he once covered.

Leon III (pronounced Leon The Third), is the new project from former Wrinkle Neck Mules members Andy Stepanian and Mason Brent. To kick off this fresh endeavor, the pair decamped to Nashville for the legendary Beech House Studios and put their songs and their trust in the hands of a small army of session musicians. And their collective efforts helped shepherd into reality a measured masterpiece of sweetly psychedelic ramblers, spacious folk-pop, and lived in roots-rock.
Leading the charge was Mark Nevers. A veteran of the country-leaning indie scene thanks to his peerless work with Bonnie Prince Billy, Lambchop, and Silver Jews, he was the bands first choice for collaborator on this new endeavor.

15 CD collection includes: Spoke (1997); The Black Light (1998); Hot Rail (2000); Even My Sure Things Fall Through (2001) EP; Feast Of Wire (2003); Convict Pool (2004) EP; Black Heart (2004) Maxi Single; In the Reins (with Iron And Wine) (2005) EP; Garden Ruin (2006); Carried To Dust (2008); Algiers (2012); Edge of the Sun (2015); The Thread That Keeps Us (2018).

Merge continues its 20th anniversary festivities with a comp of non-label artists– Bright Eyes, Shins, New Pornos– covering songs from its catalog.
Merge Records doesn't look its age. Originally formed as an outlet for Superchunk material, the Durham, N.C.-based label has grown into an indie institution, but only gradually– year by year, release by release. It never allied itself with a scene or a sound, so the mind doesn't automatically tether it to a specific place or time, the way Sub Pop, despite its strong roster this decade, will be most closely associated with Seattle in the late 1980s and early 90s. So it's hard to believe Merge is already 20 years old, an occasion the label is marking with a big birthday bash– the five-day XX Merge fest in July– and a subscription-only series of commemorative retrospectives and remixes. Perhaps the most intriguing party favor is Score! Twenty Years of Merge Records: The Covers, a choppy but oddly endearing compilation that enlists 20 non-Merge acts to cover Merge songs.