Brandi Carlile is headed to the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, and the 12th Annual induction ceremony on July 1 at ACL Live at The Moody Theater in Austin is already shaping up to be one of the great nights in the Hall’s history. Bonnie Raitt will do the inducting and perform in tribute, a pairing that carries genuine weight well beyond ceremony.
Carlile has been part of the ACL story for over 15 years. She made her debut in Season 36 in 2010, returned in 2018 for a Season 44 hour built around her landmark sixth studio album ‘By the Way, I Forgive You,’ and headlined the Season 48 premiere in 2022 with material from her acclaimed seventh album ‘In These Silent Days.’ She also presented induction honors for Sheryl Crow at the 2022 ceremony. The relationship runs deep in both directions.
For the July 1 taping, Carlile brings new material from ‘Returning to Myself,’ her first solo album in 4 years, alongside career-spanning favorites. The evening will air as an hour-long broadcast during Season 52 of Austin City Limits, premiering this September on PBS.
Carlile is direct about what the honor means. “Being inducted into the ACL Hall of Fame by one of my absolute heroes, Bonnie Raitt, means everything to me,” she says. “I’m so grateful to have had such a deep and powerful connection to the city of Austin and Austin City Limits all these years.” Raitt, an 13-time Grammy winner and Hall of Fame inductee herself since 2016, matches that energy: “She is truly one of our most respected and impactful artists. I admire her not only for her incredible music, but for standing up for the causes and artists she’s passionate about.”
ACL Executive Producer Terry Lickona frames it with characteristic precision. “The moment you hear her voice, you know exactly who it is. She will always have a home here at ACL, and now she takes her well-deserved place in the ACL Hall of Fame.”
The Hall of Fame has built its reputation on moments that transcend the standard tribute format. Past evenings have included Matthew McConaughey inducting Willie Nelson, Ethan Hawke saluting John Prine, Jason Isbell paying tribute to Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson and Buddy Guy sharing the stage in honor of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Garth Brooks delivering a 2-hour set for his own induction. Carlile and Raitt on July 1 belongs in that company. Tickets will be distributed via a public giveaway, with details to be announced.
Angus & Julia Stone are 7 albums deep, and ‘Karaoke Bar’ feels like a genuine turning point. The title track is out now via Virgin Music, and the full album follows on September 4. It’s a record built around joy and human connection, 2 things the Australian sibling duo have always understood but rarely leaned into this directly.
The title track was written on the Greek island of Hydra, steps away from Leonard Cohen’s former home, a detail that carries its own quiet weight. The song captures the specific electricity of a late-night karaoke bar, strangers bonding over shared songs, fleeting moments that feel larger than they should, memories that don’t fade. Julia Stone describes it with real clarity: “A night at a karaoke bar can hold so much goodness. Everyone has the chance to be heard. And it’s so often more than that, a moment of real connection. We’re together singing with a roomful of strangers, and the things that normally separate us in life all fall away.”
Angus calls the writing period “a magical time on one of the strangest and most beautiful islands we’ve ever been to.” That sense of discovery runs through the track and sets the tone for everything that follows. Recorded across Greece, France, and Australia, ‘Karaoke Bar’ is described as vibrant and expansive, intimate in feeling and cinematic in scope. September 4 is the date to mark.
Resonant Bodies, the Sheffield duo of Rob Bentall and Zebedee C. Budworth, have released their debut album ‘St Augani’ via Redundant Span Records, and it arrives as the first installment in a planned trilogy. Both founding members of Emergence Collective and doom-folk ensemble Slug Milk, Bentall and Budworth build their sound from 2 medieval instruments, the nyckelharpa and the hammered dulcimer, improvising spontaneously and pushing both instruments well past any expectation of tradition. Listen here.
The album moves between genuine extremes. “For Jacken” opens into spacious, serene territory, while “Apparition in Situ” pulls toward something more unsettling and immersive. The Quietus described their approach as “nyckelharpa and hammered dulcimer probing and prodding until melodies take shape before your ears.” KLOF called it “a masterful balance and build that would put many a post-rock epic to shame.” Northern Exposure landed on 2 words: “anxious elegance.” All 3 assessments are accurate simultaneously.
The trilogy’s conceptual spine draws from Coptic legend and early Christian iconography. Each of the 3 albums is dedicated to a cynocephalus, a dog-headed saint from ancient tradition. Saint Augani and Saint Ahrakas appear in legend surrounding Saint Mercurius (225-250 AD), serving as his bodyguards after a dramatic act of repentance involving an angel and a ring of fire. Saint Christopher, also historically depicted with a canine head, completes the trilogy. Artwork across all 3 releases comes from Sheffield-based artist Lino Folk, also known as Fiona Allsop, whose imagery weaves the saints with symbolic objects drawn from the instruments themselves, 2 sickles for the dulcimer’s hammers, a sword for the nyckelharpa bow, all rendered as if the saints are wearing tracksuits.
Abandoned churches and occult imagery fed the creative process alongside the mythology. Their live performances carry that energy directly into the room, ranging from calm to near-chaotic, pushing both players to their limits. The duo recently accompanied award-winning writer Max Porter for his 2026 PEN Lecture, a pairing that speaks to the reach of their work beyond the purely musical.
The 24th Annual Blues From The Top Festival returns to Winter Park, Colorado from June 26 through June 28, and the Grand County Blues Society has assembled one of the strongest lineups in the event’s two-decade history. Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Los Lobos, The Wood Brothers, Jimmie Vaughan and the Tilt-A-Whirl Band, North Mississippi All Stars, Bywater Call, Marc Broussard, Southern Hospitality featuring JP Soars, Victor Wainwright, and Damon Fowler, Blind Boys of Alabama, Vanessa Collier, and the Tyron Benoit Band are all confirmed across 3 days at the Rendezvous Event Center in downtown Winter Park.
The setting alone makes this festival worth the trip. Winter Park sits 67 miles west of Denver in the Rocky Mountains, with views of the Continental Divide framing every performance. Festival attendee Jamie Caffrey, a 16-year veteran of the event, puts it plainly: “It’s the best music festival in the western United States with views of the Continental Divide, great music, and easy access to outdoor recreation.” That combination of world-class music and genuine mountain atmosphere is what keeps Blues From The Top in a category of its own.
The festival runs multiple stages, a silent auction benefiting Blue Star Connection, and a full vendor village. The Check Out The Music Side Stage on Electric Avenue features young musicians from the School of Rock alongside local and regional artists during set changes, giving the next generation of blues and roots performers a real platform. It’s one of the more thoughtful programming decisions in the festival circuit.
Attendees arriving Thursday June 26 catch a free concert starting at 6:00 p.m. at the Rendezvous Event Center, with music continuing nightly throughout town across the entire weekend. General Admission and VIP tickets are both available, with pricing set to increase closer to the event.
The Grand County Blues Society is the engine behind all of it. Founded in 2002 as a nonprofit, GCBS has produced 21 blues festivals and more than 285 individual blues concerts over its history. Its Blue Star Connection program, now in its twentieth year, has supplied more than 92 children’s hospitals with instruments for music therapy departments and gifted personal instruments to more than 800 children. The festival is the fundraising backbone of that mission, which means every ticket purchased does more than get you into a great show.
Russell Dickerson has spent years proving he operates at the intersection of country soul and crossover ambition. “BOOTS,” his new collaboration with Fetty Wap, is the most direct expression of that instinct yet. Out now, the track fuses country swagger with R&B and hip-hop rhythm, dropping listeners into a late-night barroom where a magnetic connection takes over and doesn’t let go.
Written by Dickerson, Fetty Wap, Matt Dragstrem, and Dylan Marlowe, “BOOTS” builds its world through vivid, sensory storytelling. Dickerson brings the playful romantic lyricism his fanbase knows well. Fetty Wap brings his signature melodic confidence, the same quality that made “Trap Queen” a cultural moment, and the 2 styles lock together with real ease.
Both artists speak to how natural the process felt. “Working with Russell on this record was easy. Nothing felt forced,” says Fetty Wap. “It was just good energy and a real natural vibe.” Dickerson is equally direct: “I’ve been a Fetty Wap fan since the beginning and his music has influenced mine probably more than I even know.”
A viral early teaser generated tens of millions of views before the track even landed, which tells you everything about the appetite for this one. Holler called it a “country-trap anthem,” and that framing holds: “BOOTS” lives somewhere between a honky tonk and a late-night club, and it works completely in both spaces.
Tonight, the RUSSELLMANIA Tour rolls into Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater for Dickerson’s hometown “Nash-Birthday Bash,” with Tyler Hubbard, Adrien Nunez, and Kevin Powers joining the celebration. The tour continues through the summer across amphitheaters and his largest venues to date.
Dickerson arrives at this moment with nearly 4 billion career streams behind him, a string of multi-platinum number ones including “Yours,” “Blue Tacoma,” “Love You Like I Used To,” and “Happen to Me,” and a fourth studio album, ‘FAMOUS BACK HOME,’ that captures him at his most confident and expansive. “BOOTS” fits that momentum perfectly.
T-Pain at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2025 is exactly what a festival headline slot should look like. Backed by a full live band, he moves through a catalog that holds up completely, “I’m Sprung,” “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” “Bartender,” all of it landing with a crowd that knows every word. The NPR Tiny Desk Concert years ago reframed the conversation around his talent, making clear that the voice was always there underneath the Auto-Tune innovation that defined a generation of pop and hip-hop. This performance carries that same energy forward, a high-voltage, joyful set from an artist who remains a genuine showman and a significant architect of the modern sound.
At a swearing-in ceremony for 28 new Papal recruits in Vatican City, the Swiss Guard band closed out the proceedings with the last thing anyone expected: a full, swingy rendition of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” performed specifically to honor Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope. The crowd reaction says everything.
‘Remember The Humans’ is out today via Arts & Crafts, and Broken Social Scene’s first album in nearly a decade arrives with the full weight of everything that’s happened in between. Loss, reconnection, grief, joy, and a reunion with producer David Newfeld, the man behind ‘You Forgot It In People’ and ‘Broken Social Scene,’ two of the most important Canadian records ever made.
The Newfeld reunion is the spine of this album’s origin story. After a collaboration that ended without resolution almost 20 years ago, Kevin Drew happened to move nearby. One hangout became, in Drew’s words, “a hurricane of fun.” During the making of the record, both Drew and Newfeld lost their mothers. That shared grief pulled them closer. Newfeld put it plainly: “our moms would have wanted us to do this, and get it right after 20 years of not working together.”
With the album comes the focus track “Only The Good I Keep,” featuring Hannah Georgas, who leads the song with total authority. Drew wrote vocals for the track, then set them aside when he recognized the song had fully become hers. Georgas traces the lyric back to her own adolescence, describing it as “a reflection on the hardships I faced growing up, as well as the things that helped me make it through.” The video is co-directed by Drew and Jordan Allen.
The album also features Lisa Lobsinger on “Relief,” a song that came to her during meditation as a vivid memory of a BSS track that no one had ever written, which the band then made real. Feist brings an earlier outtake, “What Happens Now,” to life as something that feels like earned grace rather than nostalgia. The arrangements across the record are dense, horns and guitars and voices and electronics layered over each other, but melody stays sovereign throughout.
The critical response has been immediate. Rolling Stone says the band “still brim with the kind of heart-bruising magic that seems impossible to replicate.” Pitchfork called it “a bonus lap from one of Canada’s most venerated institutions.” Exclaim! put them on the cover. New York Magazine singled out “Hey Amanda” and “Relief” for their hook-driven, maximalist energy. The Needle Drop praised “The Call” for its bigness and dynamics.
Next month, BSS head out on the “All The Feelings” tour with Metric and Stars, a North American and European run that covers Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco (sold out), Calgary (sold out), Edmonton (sold out), Brooklyn (sold out), Nashville (sold out), and Toronto (sold out), before moving through Dublin, Glasgow, London, Paris, and beyond. The tour wraps in Canada with stops in London, Ottawa, and Laval. Additional appearances include FIFA’s Fan Festival in Vancouver on June 26 and the Halifax Jazz Festival on July 11.
Drew sees the timing of all this as anything but accidental. “In 2026, you’re going to see a lot of resurgence of people going back to the roots of who they are, because things in their lifetime have gotten quite lost. I think we’ve let each other down, and I think it’s art that always tries to prevail, and tries to get us back on track.” ‘Remember The Humans’ makes that case without hedging.
‘Remember The Humans’ Tracklist:
Not Around Anymore
Only The Good I Keep
Mission Accomplished (Kingfisher)
The Call
Relief
And I Think Of You
This Briefest Kiss
Life Within The Ground
Hey Amanda
Paying For Your Love
What Happens Now
Parking Lot Dreams
“All The Feelings” Tour Dates with Metric and Stars:
June 8 – Austin, TX – Moody Amphitheater
June 9 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
June 11 – Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
June 13 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater
June 16 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
June 17 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
June 19 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
June 21 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic (SOLD OUT)
June 22 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
June 24 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
June 25 – Woodinville, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle
June 28 – Calgary, AB – South Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
June 29 – Edmonton, AB – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
July 24 – Chicago, IL – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
July 25 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
July 27 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
July 28 – Philadelphia, PA – The Met
July 30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount (SOLD OUT)
July 31 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount (SOLD OUT)
August 1 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
August 3 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle (LOW TICKET WARNING)
August 4 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
August 7 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre (SOLD OUT)
September 9 – Dublin, IE – 3 Olympia Theatre
September 11 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow
September 12 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton
September 13 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
September 15 – Paris, FR – Salle Pleyel
September 16 – Antwerp, BE – De Roma
September 17 – Utrecht, NL – TivoliVredenburg
September 19 – Berlin, DE – Columbiahalle
October 3 – London, ON – Canada Life Place
October 5 – Ottawa, ON – The Arena at TD Place
October 7 – Laval, QC – Place Bell
Additional Dates:
June 26 – Vancouver, BC – Hasting’s Park (FIFA Fan Festival)
In July 2023, RY X stood in the middle of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil, a vast desert landscape dotted with lagoons, and delivered a performance for Cercle that felt less like a concert and more like a meditation. Atmospheric indie-folk, electronica, and ambient textures merged into something genuinely transportive, with melancholic guitar, deep vocal lines, and subtle electronic layers building a soundscape that matched the landscape surrounding it. Live percussion and visual effects added dramatic depth, and his performance of “Howling” captured the particular magic RY X does better than almost anyone working in this space. The set drew from his 2022 album ‘Blood Moon’ alongside earlier material, including tracks from ‘Dawn,’ the 2016 album that first announced him as a singular voice. Cercle has built its reputation on pairing exceptional artists with extraordinary locations, and this one ranks among their finest recordings.
