Pastor John P. Kee brought his full ministry to the NPR Tiny Desk, performing with a four-piece band and a seven-person choir in a nine-song set that moved through nearly four decades of gospel output with authority and joy. From the reverent stillness of “I Believe” and “Lily in the Valley” to the full-throttle praise of “Oh How Wondrous” and “Mighty God,” the performance delivers every essential of Black gospel tradition, call and response, modulation, choir section solos and unguarded full-throated singing, in one of the most spiritually charged Tiny Desk concerts the series has produced.
Gospel Legend Pastor John P. Kee Transforms the NPR Tiny Desk Into a Full Revival
Ani DiFranco and Dessa Reimagine “Shy” for the 30th Anniversary of ‘Not a Pretty Girl’
Today, Ani DiFranco and Dessa release a cinematic new remix of the iconic single “Shy” for the 30th anniversary of DiFranco’s album Not a Pretty Girl. Listen to “Shy (Dessa Remix)” HERE.
“I knew I had to wait until the remix was a sure thing to tell my best friend about it,” Dessa remembers, “because an Ani DiFranco song isn’t a subject for casual speculation. When I finally texted the news, she sent back a selfie, in tears at a gas station. Opening the raw audio files of a song that I’d listened to so often in my formative years felt like opening a time-capsule, or maybe a time warp—the feelings I’d had as a young listener still welled up in my chest, but the musician I’ve become could identify the techniques, the structures, and the craft that was invisible to me then. It was a pleasure, an honor, and a hell of a learning experience to remix the work of an artist who’s been easy to admire for so long.”
“My path crossed once with Dessa a few years back, when we shared a stage one night,” DiFranco adds, “and I’m so happy that I got a wild hair to hit her up outta the blue. Her remix of shy is so inspired and makes that thirty year old song feel fresh and spanky new again! I only wish that she’d been there thirty years earlier, in that metalhead studio in Ontario, when I was mixing the dang thing to begin with! Of course… she was probably ten at the time.”
Ani DiFranco’s 1995 masterwork Not a Pretty Girl was more than just an album – it was a mission statement that defined the DIY ethos for independent artists everywhere. Originally released on Righteous Babe Records, it serves as a fiery declaration that artists can maintain creative autonomy while achieving massive cultural impact.
The blueprint for artist independence that RBR established with this album became a standard for success, trailblazing for contemporary independent musicians and entrepreneurs across genres. Ani’s decision to own her work and reject the corporate system – a choice explicitly referenced on the track “The Million You Never Made” – is a resounding victory for artist control that continues to inspire creators. Beyond the business model, the album’s core feminist message – foregrounding female anger, complexity, and refusing to be defined by the male gaze – laid crucial groundwork for the dialogues surrounding body positivity and unapologetic identity that pervade contemporary conversations about gender equality. This fierce spirit of independence is the lasting revolutionary legacy of Not a Pretty Girl.
Now for the 30th anniversary, Not a Pretty Girl is back in print on vinyl and cd, reverently repackaged for both formats by Grammy Award winning art director Brian Grunert, showcasing photography of Mark Dellas, and brushstroke flourishes contributed by Ani. Each copy of the vinyl includes a special limited edition art photo print of Ani, a limited number of which will be signed by the Little Folksinger herself. Learn more about the Not a Pretty Girl reissue HERE.
Double Vinyl 30th Anniversary Edition
- New 2025 vinyl remastering
- Heavy stock vertically oriented gatefold w/ soft touch matte finish
- 12-page booklet
- 12″ art photo print of Ani shot by Mark Dellas
- 2 standard weight purple translucent vinyl
CD 30th Anniversary Edition
- New 2025 CD remastering
- 4-panel wallet with 24-page booklet
Boston Indie-Folk Duo Sweet Petunia Unleash Debut Album ‘Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown’
Sweet Petunia have released ‘Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown,’ their debut album on Righteous Babe Records, and it arrives with the kind of energy that makes an immediate impression. The Boston indie-folk duo, Mairead Guy and Maddy Simpson, open the record with “I Wanna Run,” a lightning-fast banjo-driven track that Simpson wrote after dislocating her knee moshing to a punk band in an Allston basement. “It’s frantic and fast, and I’m spitting out words faster than you can comprehend,” she says. “Every time we play this song it’s cathartic knowing that with time and hard work, I’ve been able to regain the ability to do most of these things again.” No Depression called the album “raw, real, memorable and unsettling.” Boston’s NPR station WBUR named them one of the city’s “most arresting acoustic outfits.”
Guy and Simpson met at Berklee College of Music in 2018, shaped equally by punk basements in Allston and centuries-old Appalachian ballads. The album tips its hat to Flatt & Scruggs while running that lineage through a restless, modern filter, double-banjo fire and cutting harmonies built for rooms that don’t have stages. This spring, Sweet Petunia take these songs on the road as openers for Ani DiFranco’s Spirit of Love tour.
Sweet Petunia on Tour with Ani DiFranco:
April 22 – Jackson, MS @ Duling Hall
April 25 – Pensacola, FL @ Vinyl Music Hall
April 26 – Gainesville, FL @ Heartwood Soundstage
April 28 – Savannah, GA @ Victory North
April 29 – Birmingham, AL @ Lyric Theatre
Indie-Pop Duo Gracie and Rachel Announce New Album ‘If We Could, Would We’ With Double Single
Gracie and Rachel have announced ‘If We Could, Would We,’ their new album arriving April 10 on Righteous Babe Records, alongside a double single, “How Can I” and “Caroline,” premiering today. The two tracks are the duo’s first solo efforts released together, each approaching the album’s central preoccupation from a different angle. “How Can I” sits in the regret of a risk taken and wished back, while “Caroline” works through the grief of a relationship’s end by projecting onto an idealized external figure. Both land with the melodic sharpness and emotional directness that earned the duo two NPR Tiny Desk Concert sets and Rolling Stone’s “Song You Need to Know” designation for their 2025 single “WTF.”
Produced by Benjamin Lazar Davis (Okkervil River, Maya Hawke), ‘If We Could, Would We’ pushes Gracie and Rachel’s sound further than anything they’ve done before. Rachel plays guitar on record for the first time, the songwriting splits between four solo tracks each and four co-written songs, and the result is the duo at their most unguarded. Since their praised 2017 self-titled debut, Gracie and Rachel have opened for Tori Amos, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. A headline U.S. run follows in June.
Gracie and Rachel Headline Tour:
June 4 – Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy
June 5 – Washington, D.C. @ Songbyrd Music House
June 6 – Durham, NC @ The Pinhook
June 10 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
June 11 – Somerville, MA @ The Rockwell
June 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust
Musician and Animator Sean Solomon Announces Debut Album ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’ on ANTI-
Musician and animator Sean Solomon had great expectations. But when his hopes for an abundant world crashed against an unforgiving reality, he decided to feel nothing. For a time, the Los Angeles-born-and-raised singer/songwriter and cartoonist/animator gave into the void, but artistic expression can be a release valve – a way to comprehend the world and build community, which is exactly what Solomon does on his debut solo album ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’, arriving April 17 via his new label home of ANTI- Records.
Solomon takes stock of his personal history on “Remember,” out today, which comes with a video comprising clips taken from Sean’s family’s home movies. “My parents asked me to digitize our old family videos, and I ended up cutting them up into a music video and the visuals I perform live with,” Sean explains. “I’ve noticed at shows people really connect with this song and it reminds them of their own families. I think it’s hard for most people to have empathy for their parents because they are supposed to serve this purpose in our lives where they take care of us and know what’s right or wrong … But everyone has both sides to them. This song is about trying to remember the good.”
The album art features Sean’s winking take on a Richard Scarry book cover and mirrors the cognitive dissonance that pervades the album, which seamlessly moves from bare-bones acoustic guitar to a Neutral Milk Hotel-esque cacophony of marching drums and horn blasts. “I was thinking about those books and how they show an idyllic version of the world,” Sean says. “I thought it was kind of funny — the contrast between the title and the images. Like, there’s a dog walking a dog on the back cover, an elephant drinking out of a coffee cup with its snout. It was fun to study these children’s books and think about what my version would be.”
Growing up in the San Fernando Valley, Solomon felt especially drawn to both music and animation and immersed himself in episodes of The Simpsons and illustrated stories by graphic novelist and Ghost World author Daniel Clowes. Meanwhile, Sean was an avid fan of seminal ‘90s and early 2000s punk and alternative acts such as Daniel Johnston, Elliott Smith and Nirvana, the latter of whom he admired for the way they preserved their artistic integrity in the face of global stardom. Adopting his own punk sensibility, Sean and his high school band, the folk-punk Moses Campbell, played all over LA, booking their own shows at coffee shops, houses, and famed DIY venue The Smell. This was followed by playing in the three-piece band Moaning who released two albums on Sub Pop.
After Moaning went on indefinite hiatus in 2023, Solomon thoughtfully wrote and recorded his first solo songs over the better part of two years, culminating in what would become ‘The World Is Not Good Enough’. The contemplative eight tracks feature fellow Sub Pop veteran and Sean’s former roommate Shannon Lay on backing vocals and guitar and producer Jarvis Taveniere (Whitney, Purple Mountains, Waxahatchee), who produced and stood in on bass and some percussion.
“Working with Sean felt brotherly,” says Taveniere. “We’re similar people; we can both lean into being neurotic or anxious, so it was fun to balance each other out … He was somebody who had a tight vision but let me be playful while also staying sensitive to the material.”
In addition to animating each video he releases, Solomon has also been cooking up comics with his lyrics in word balloons for each new song. He even drew his stage plot and tech rider by hand: “All the stuff that’s annoying about being a musician, I’m like, ‘How can I do this in a creative way so that it doesn’t feel like work, and it feels like something that’s inspired?’” So that he can integrate his animated visuals into his live shows, Solomon has lugged a vintage TV set armed with a VHS input to each venue, the animations and backing tracks running on tape being the only bandmates he shares the stage with.
Brennan Wedl Signs to ANTI- Records and Shares “Six O’Clock News” Cover Featuring Waxahatchee
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Brennan Wedl announces her signing to ANTI- Records today with the release of a cover of the Kathleen Edwards classic “Six O’Clock News” featuring Waxahatchee.
“I first heard “Six O’Clock News” on the Cities 97 Sampler CD around 2003,” Wedl detailed. “There’s no doubt that this song shaped my songwriting voice. Originally written by Kathleen Edwards, “Six O’Clock News” is a story about the hysteria of gun violence in an American town. To record and sing this very contemporary story with Waxahatchee over twenty years later is a direct link to the very heart of why I play music. It’s an honor to be joining the ANTI- roster and I’m ecstatic to share what we’ve been working on.”
Originally from Minneapolis but now based in Nashville, Wedl was previously in the band Dazey & the Scouts, which garnered a dedicated following with their only LP ‘Maggot’. Now embarking on a solo music career playing “grungetry” – a combination of grunge and country, with an indie rock lilt to boot – Wedl’s “wistful vocals and fingerpicked acoustic guitar will feel nostalgic to anyone who’s left behind a traditional life to follow their dreams,” describes the Chicago Reader.
Upon hearing Wedl and Waxahatchee’s version of the song, Kathleen Edwards said: “I absolutely love this so much and am humbled that my song gets to live a new life with Katie and Brennan. 25 years ago, my audience looked a lot different than theirs does today – it’s incredibly cool to see young women love the songwriting that means so much to me, too.”
Wedl and Katie Crutchfield will continue to cover this song and others on the upcoming Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman co-headlining tour, which Wedl is opening, this April. All upcoming dates are listed below.
“Brennan and I really bonded over our mutual love for Kathleen Edwards’s music,” Crutchfield says. “It’s such a powerful song with timeless appeal and I’m just thrilled to get to release our take on it.”
Tour Dates with Waxahatchee & MJ Lenderman
April 13 – Atlanta, GA @ Atlanta Symphony Hall
April 14 – Asheville, NC @ Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
April 15 – Richmond, VA @ Altria Theater
April 17 – Washington DC @ The Anthem
April 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met
April 19 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount
April 20 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
April 22 – Boston, MA @ Boch Center – Wang Theatre
April 23 – Buffalo, NY @ University of Buffalo Center For The Arts
April 24 – Detroit, MI @ Masonic Temple Theatre
April 25 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
April 27 – Chicago, IL @ The Auditorium
April 28 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Riverside Theater
April 29 @ Minneapolis, MN @ State Theatre
May 2 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
May 3 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
May 5 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
May 6 – Los Angeles, CA @ Walt Disney Concert Hall
Death Cab for Cutie Announce 11th Album ‘I Built You A Tower’ and a Sweeping World Tour
Today, indie rock titans and eight-time GRAMMY nominees Death Cab for Cutie – Benjamin Gibbard, Nicholas Harmer, Jason McGerr, Dave Depper and Zac Rae – announce their 11th studio album. I Built You A Tower, will be released on June 5 via ANTI- Records. The move marks the band’s return to their independent roots after 20 years on Atlantic Records. Produced and engineered by John Congleton and assembled from a mere three weeks of sessions, I Built You A Tower was recorded at Animal Rites in Los Angeles, as well as the band members’ homes in Seattle, Bellingham, Los Angeles and Portland.
Alongside today’s album announcement, Death Cab for Cutie share the album’s propulsive first single, “Riptides.” “’Riptides’ is about the challenge of dealing with personal struggles as the world around us experiences tragedy and loss on an unfathomable scale,” says Gibbard. “And how when these two elements intertwine themselves in our psyches, it feels utterly paralyzing.” Listen to the song and watch its Jason Lester-directed video HERE.
In recent years, Death Cab celebrated several historic milestones, including massive sold-out tours celebrating the 20th anniversaries of seminal releases Transatlanticism and Plans. Those tours were pivotal to the creation of I Built You A Tower, as behind the scenes, Gibbard weathered the greatest pressure of his professional life — fronting both Death Cab and the Postal Service on arena stages for hours a night — while struggling with the collapse of his personal life in the background. The strain felt too much for one person to bear, and the “tower” originated as a way to protect himself. “There’s this need to find a place in ourselves to put loss and grief,” he explains. “A place that can hold it so we can move on with our lives. But there are these moments where the trauma breaks out of that shell we created for it.”
I Built You A Tower is an album of reconciling with past selves in order to locate a new future. “The anniversary tours exorcised any nostalgia in our systems,” Depper observes. “We felt part of this powerful force greater than all of us and went into the studio with a sense of, how can we capture that feeling and put it into something new?” Harmer continues, “The whole experience of this record got us back to the earliest versions of this band: If the musicians in the room like what we’re working on, that’s enough. We reconnected with the confidence that comes with that.” As such, this is not the dreaded “return to form” narrative, but a reclamation of a core ethos that has run through Death Cab’s 30-year history.
The band recently announced a North American summer tour, which is on sale now. Today the band also announces a Fall UK/EU tour, with tickets going on sale this Friday at 10 am locally. These performances come on the heels of a historic, sold-out global tour in marking the 20th anniversary of Transatlanticism plus their universally acclaimed 10th studio effort, 2022’s Asphalt Meadows. See below to find a show near you.
Tour Dates
May 29 – Denver, CO – Outside Days
July 10 – Minneapolis, MN – Armory *
July 11 – Milwaukee, WI – Miller High Life Theatre *
July 12 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park *
July 14 – Cincinnati, OH – MegaCorp Pavilion *
July 15 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavilion *
July 17 – Philadelphia, PA – Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts ^
July 18 – Canandaigua, NY – CMAC ^
July 19 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre ^
July 21 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ^
July 22 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek ^
July 24 – St. Louis, MO – Stifel Theatre #
July 25 – Bentonville, AR – The Momentary #
July 26 – Council Bluffs, IA – Harrah’s Stir Cove #
July 28 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 29 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater #
July 31 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre #
August 2 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre #
August 4 – San Diego, CA – Gallagher Square at Petco Park #
August 6 – Las Vegas, NV – The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas &
August 7 – Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre &
August 9 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands
September 16 – Dublin, Ireland – 3Olympia Theatre
September 19 – Manchester, UK – O2 Victoria Warehouse
September 20 – Edinburgh, UK – Corn Exchange
September 21 – Gateshead, UK – The Glasshouse
September 23 – Bristol, UK – The Prospect Building
September 25 – London, UK – Troxy
September 29 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg
September 30 – Brussels, Belgium – Cirque Royal
October 1 – Berlin, Germany – Columbiahalle
October 3 – Paris, France – Elysée Montmartre
*with Jay Som
^with Japanese Breakfast
#with Nation of Language
&with Lala Lala
Sam Akpro and London Soul Trailblazer TYSON Deliver Nocturnal New Single “Wayside”
Today, Peckham-born alchemist Sam Akpro shares a brand-new single/video for ‘Wayside’, featuring a guest turn from London soul trailblazer TYSON, available now on ANTI-. The single marks Akpro’s first new music since his acclaimed 2025 debut album ‘Evenfall’, a stunning document of his singular, prodigious talent.
A dub-laced slowburner, “Wayside” marks some of the richest production work yet from Akpro and his close collaborator Finn Billingham, finding a nocturnal hinterland between trip-hop and neo-soul. It fuses off-kilter beats, washes of woozy bass and flashes of brass to Akpro and TYSON’s alternating vocals.
“‘Wayside’ is about moving from one change to another & the feeling of isolation that brings,” explains Akpro on the song’s genesis, which aptly enough came to life shortly after the completion of ‘Evenfall’. Opting to carve out a new direction with the track, he linked up with TYSON at Billingham’s studio in Camberwell only for the session to be cut short by a fire in a neighbouring building. Continuing the process remotely, TYSON went on to finish the vocals from a studio in New York. The results speak for themselves.
TYSON, meanwhile, adds: ”When Sam asked me to be on this track I was struck by how much the lyrics resonated with me, like they could almost be thoughts in my own head. So I felt like I could comfortably climb into the track. I suppose it’s about being frustrated with yourself and life, going round and round in what feels like the same place forever, but there’s something hypnotic, meditative and soothing about it. I hope my vocals lend to that.”
Foxwarren and Dan The Automator Reimagine “Strange” in a Hazy, Intergalactic New Remix
A member of Handsome Boy Modeling School and Deltron3030, producer of Gorillaz’ debut album and a contributor to dozens of film and television scores, Dan The Automator brings his hazy, intergalactic-inspired West Coast hip hop sensibilities to this catchy rendition.
“It was a pleasure to work on the Foxwarren remix,” said Dan The Automator of their collaboration. “It (the track) just made sense to me and I hope that comes through in the final mix.”
Last month Foxwarren shared electronic avant-pop artist Helado Negro’s warmly pulsing remix of their song “Yvonne”. Listen to it HERE. Describing his approach to the song, Negro explained: “I wanted to create a sense of wistful dancing—a mellow bump of bouncing bass, subtle dissonance from the rearranging of the strings, and asymmetrical shapes in the phrases. A smoke screen of soft reverbs and hard-to-hold chords. Andy’s voice has a texture of its own, a beautiful landscape from a distance, and is full of delightful surprises as you listen closer.”
‘2’ became an uncanny revelation for Foxwarren, a rock band allowing itself to be sampled in order to become something else. They warped and pushed the florid folk-rock of their past until it evolved into a song cycle about the vagaries of love, where voices sampled from the past commingled with songs that sparkled with the power of their collective imagination in the present. It is a fun and surprising record, where boundaries between genre and song are constantly blurred.
By himself, Shauf has already had a stellar career; his reputation built not only by the sweetness of his melodies and sharpness of his words but also his inability to rest with past success. Foxwarren, especially here, is a crucial part of that ongoing process, but ‘2’ represents something even more significant—five friends now nearing the end of their second decade making music together, pushing against what they’ve learned how to do to venture somewhere new. It is the sound of friends who trust each other, cutting themselves loose from their past and their preconceptions to have some fun with a sampler and the very idea of songs.
Son Little Takes His Soulful New Album ‘CITYFOLK’ on the Road With an Extended World Tour
Son Little has a new album, ‘CITYFOLK,’ and the story behind it is as compelling as the music itself. The songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, whose real name is Aaron Livingston, followed a deep curiosity about his ancestry south to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he connected with two-time Grammy-winning Alabama Shakes member Ben Tanner to record the album at Tanner’s home studio. What started as voice note demos with subtle instrumentation evolved through drum machine beats and live sessions with a drummer, bassist and horn players into something rooted in the musical richness of the Shoals. “I realized, in moving here, that my mother’s people all came from this area,” Little explains. “Sometimes the spirits will guide you to a place when you don’t even know why you found yourself there.”
The recently shared single “Cherry” captures the album’s emotional range well, drifting through hazy memories with a tenderness that sits comfortably alongside Little’s catalog of over 250 million streams. He’s toured with Black Pumas, Kelis and Mumford & Sons, appeared at Newport Folk and Bonnaroo, and collaborated with The Roots and RJD2. This world tour puts ‘CITYFOLK’ in front of audiences across the US, Europe and beyond, with a June East Coast run newly added to dates already underway.
Son Little Tour Dates:
April 8 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
April 9 – Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Annabel
April 10 – Brussels, Belgium @ Le Botanique Orangerie
April 11 – Hamburg, Germany @ Betty
April 13 – Berlin, Germany @ Frannz Club
April 14 – Prague, Czech Republic @ Cafe V lese
April 15 – Warsaw, Poland @ Jasmine
April 17 – Cologne, Germany @ Yard Club
April 19 – Brighton and Hove, UK @ DUST
April 20 – Bristol, UK @ The Croft
April 21 – Manchester, UK @ Band on the Wall
April 22 – London, UK @ Jazz Cafe
April 25 – Paris, France @ Alhambra
May 21 – Honolulu, HI @ Blue Note Hawaii
June 10 – Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads
June 12 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
June 13 – Spring Green, WI @ The Shitty Barn
June 14 – Chicago, IL @ Garcia’s
June 17 – Toronto, ON @ Great Hall
June 19 – Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater
June 20 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
June 23 – Washington DC @ The Atlantis
June 24 – Westport, CT @ Levitt Pavilion
June 25 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
June 26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
July 10 – York, PA @ Appell Center