Almost a decade ago, Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards gave up music and opened a cafe called Quitters Coffee. She returns now with Total Freedom, her first album in eight years.
Microphones in 2020 is a single 45-minute track written to "unburden myself from the weight of all this memory," says Phil Elverum, "even though I also think it has so much value."
Host Ari Shapiro talks with Linda Diaz, the winner of this year's NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest. Her entry, "Green Tea Ice Cream" is a dreamy R&B song anchored by her skilled and soulful voice.
Composer Max Richter's new album drew inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt which he calls "a blueprint for a better world."
Musician Pierce Freelon grew up in a creative and famous Black family and now he's dropping his first children's jazz/hip-hop album, D.a.D., featuring his experiences as a Black millennial father.
Singer Richard Butler talks about the power of '80s nostalgia, the state of rock and roll today and the freedom of making the band's new record, Made of Rain, on its own terms.
The jazz drummer records live performances and then manipulates those recordings in creative ways. His new album pulls from the pool of recordings that shaped his 2018 work, Universal Beings.
The symbols of America's racist past have been under intense scrutiny since the protests against police brutality erupted nationwide. Now, the traditional music community is having its own reckoning.
Women rarely received credit for their creative work in Colonial America. But with a new album, one scholar is reviving the works of the women who lived and composed at the Ephrata Cloister.
NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Rina Sawayama about her self-titled debut album, everyday racism against Asian women and going from a Cambridge student to a rising pop star.
Even before the age of social-distancing, composer and conductor Eric Whitacre had been leading an online chorus for a decade. Choir members say the connection they foster is more important than ever.
Gaslighter is country trio The Chicks' (formerly Dixie Chicks) first new album in 14 years. In some ways, the world has finally caught up to the band since it fell out of public favor in 2003.
The country artist talks to NPR's Ailsa Chang about how following her muse to make the hard-rocking That's How Rumors Get Started is a lesson to herself and her kids on following their dreams.
The Emmy-winning actress is the executive producer of Disclosure, a new documentary on trans representation in Hollywood. Trans people were on film as early as 1914, but often misrepresented.
