Rufus Reid Caelan Cardello

Unfollow The Rules finds Rufus Wainwright at the peak of his powers, entering artistic maturity with passion, honesty and a new-found fearlessness, while remaining as mischievous as ever. Recorded in the same legendary Los Angeles studios as his landmark debut, his ninth album is both a bookend to Act 1 of an extraordinary career and a distillation of 21 years of experience at pop’s most flamboyant coal face. Inspired by middle age, married life, fatherhood, friends, loss, London and Laurel Canyon, Unfollow The Rules captures Rufus at a crossroads. Ready to tackle new challenges, yet compelled to confront his past, he’s taking stock of two decades of running riot with rules, making sense of how he has matured as a musician and celebrating the contended family man he has become.

Praised by the New York Times for his “genuine originality,” 2x Grammy® Award-nominated singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright releases Rufus Does Judy at Capitol Studios on Judy Garland’s 100th birthday, 10 June, 2022. First presented last year as a virtual livestream concert event, Rufus Does Judy at Capitol Studios sees Wainwright using the very microphone Garland herself used while making her own historic recordings at Capitol Studios, backed by a four-piece jazz ensemble before a micro-audience comprised entirely of 2x Academy Award-winning actress Renée Zellweger, winner of 2020’s “Best Actress” Oscar for her spectacular performance as Garland in 2019’s Judy.

At the heart of Courage: The Atlantic Recordings (2006) are the four out-of-print LPs that multi-instrumentalist Rufus Harley (bagpipes/flute/sax) cut for the label during the mid- to late 1960s. Also featured are a previously unissued cover of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" as well as "Pipin' the Blues," a Harley/Stitt duet from Sonny Stitt's Deuces Wild (1967) platter. Although criminally dismissed by many as a novelty, Harley successfully integrated the seemingly limited B flat and F drone of the bagpipes into the realm of (concurrently) modern jazz.

In January 2017 Rufus Wainwright toured with the prestigious all string ensemble Amsterdam Sinfonietta through the Netherlands. Critics and audiences of the ten concerts were enraptured by the intimacy and intensity of the program curated by Wainwright. The concerts reflected the immense bandwidth of Wainwright’s musical influences and interests from Verdi Arias to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, from Rameau pieces to the American songbook and French chanson and from Wainwright’s beloved Berlioz to his family’s and his own songs, some of them written for this program. Emotional center piece of the album is Wainwright’s almost 9 minute version of late Canadian singer songwriter Lhasa de Sela;s harrowing “I’m going in”, a song she wrote about her own death from cancer at the age of 37.

A duets collection of folk song covers could be pure novelty, but Rufus Wainwright infuses this recording with so much thought and care, it feels essential. Wainwright's song choices aren't precious. There are plenty of traditionals, including a jazzy version of the bluegrass standard "Cotton Eyed Joe" that finds him melting like butter next to Chaka Khan's heat/

The first album has gradually gained legendary status. All tracks were recorded live in the studio, resulting in a raw and unpolished sound. This album is a perfect example of raw-edged, largely instrumental progressive rock. Coming with original album sleeve cover art, informative booklet and bonus tracks, making up for more than 70s minutes of music.