The Klezmatics didn’t approach “Deportee” as a cover. They approached it as a responsibility. The Grammy-winning Yiddish band shares their stunning reimagining of Woody Guthrie’s “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” today, featuring Grammy-nominated vocalist, songwriter, and producer Sofia Rei, as the second single from their upcoming album ‘We Were Made For These Times,’ due May 1 via Shamus Records. Nearly 80 years after Guthrie wrote it to restore names and dignity to migrant workers reduced to statistics, the song keeps returning to the moment we’re living in with renewed urgency.
The version The Klezmatics and Rei have built is trilingual, weaving English, Yiddish, and Spanish through a shared musical tradition that spans klezmer, Latin American rhythms, and diasporic memory. Band member Lorin Sklamberg puts it plainly: “I never imagined that an 80-year-old song would mean so much more in these challenging times.” Rei adds that the collaboration felt like “weaving many strands of resistance into a shared voice across cultures and borders.” The accompanying live video captures their time in the studio, with an additional video featuring Nora Guthrie exploring the track’s historical weight and its connection to the present day.
‘We Were Made For These Times,’ out on International Workers’ Day, draws from protest songwriters including Guthrie, Holly Near, Dovid Edelstadt, and Chaim Zhitlovsky, addressing migration, labor, war, belonging, and collective responsibility. The album brings together an extraordinary cast, including gospel powerhouse Joshua Nelson, the Lavender Light Gospel Choir, Crimean Tatar guitar virtuoso Enver İzmaylov, jazz visionaries William Parker and James Brandon Lewis, Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer, and Colombian percussion collective La Manga.
The Klezmatics have been pushing klezmer forward since emerging from New York City’s East Village in 1986, fusing Yiddish song with punk energy, gospel intensity, jazz improvisation, and global rhythms. They remain the only klezmer act ever to win a Grammy, taking home Best Contemporary World Music Album for ‘Wonder Wheel – Lyrics by Woody Guthrie.’ Thirteen albums, five continents, and now their most urgent statement yet.
A North American tour runs May through August, with stops in Washington D.C., Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and beyond.
Tour Dates:
May 16 – Theatre J, Washington, DC
May 20 – The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries, St. Louis, MO
May 21 – City Winery Chicago, Chicago, IL
May 28 – City Winery Boston, Boston, MA
June 2 – City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
June 6 – Los Angeles, CA (TBD)
June 7 – Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
June 20 – Crown Hill Theatre, Brooklyn, NY
June 21 – The Falcon, Marlboro, NJ
July 12 – Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, Amherst, MA
Anika Louise knows exactly what she’s writing about, and ‘Thorns’ makes sure you feel it. The Boorloo/Perth-based indie-folk singer-songwriter releases her second single today, a tender and cutting track about the slow realization that someone you trusted was never quite who they appeared to be. Built on softly strummed acoustic guitar, warm electric lines, twanging banjo, and subtle piano, the song earns every emotion it reaches for.
The metaphor at the song’s centre is deceptively simple. “Something beautiful on the surface that was hiding thorns underneath,” Anika Louise explains. That image unfolds across the track with confessional lyricism and lilting melodies that swell and soften in turns, making ‘Thorns’ feel like a journey rather than a single moment. It’s achingly real, grounded in vulnerability without losing its shape.
The single follows her 2025 debut ‘Pearl’ and arrives with genuine local momentum behind it. Anika Louise has performed on national television for Telethon at RAC Arena, earned a WAM Song of the Year nomination, and opened for the Perth Symphony Orchestra at the Pop’N’Rock Symphony Concert. For just her second release, the attention is well-earned and the foundation is already solid.
‘Thorns’ is out now. Anika Louise celebrates with a single launch show Sunday, May 3 at Perth’s Four5Nine.
ROREY doesn’t flinch. The New York-based singer-songwriter releases “Dying Fire” today alongside an official music video, a cathartic dream pop track built on bittersweet melodies, lush arrangements, and the kind of radical acceptance that only comes after sitting with something painful long enough to understand it. “The song doesn’t blame or excuse,” she explains. “It simply states that what once was can never be again.” That restraint is what makes it hit.
“Dying Fire” follows “Temporary Tragedy,” her raw and poignant 2026 single about the cost of self-abandonment in intimacy, accompanied by a cinematic video rooted in her first queer relationship. Both singles are drawn from her forthcoming album ‘Temporary Tragedy,’ a project she describes as being about two people who couldn’t make it work no matter how much they loved each other, because what they wanted and what they needed were at odds. “It holds space for both peoples’ experience,” she says, “almost as a shared ache.”
ROREY has built her sound across her 2025 sophomore EP ‘Dysphoria,’ a fearless plunge into the contradictions of mental illness co-written and produced with longtime collaborator Scott Effman. The project drew acclaim from Zane Lowe, LADYGUNN, and Atwood Magazine, and landed on Spotify editorial playlists including New Music Daily and Fresh Finds Indie. She’s an artist who transforms raw confession into something that unsettles as much as it heals, and “Dying Fire” is another strong entry in a catalog that keeps deepening.
Ricky have been doing this their way since 2020, and ‘What’s The Point’ is the clearest picture yet of what that sounds like. The San Diego slacker rock outfit’s third full-length album is out now via DHCR Records, rooted in punk, blues, and psych, and covering the wide range of Southern California life from the ground level up. It’s the kind of record that sounds lived-in because it is.
The album builds on two previous full-lengths and a handful of singles, and it finds the group pushing into new sonic territory without losing the grit that defines them. Ricky write about the parts of life that most people recognize but rarely hear in music, the relatable, unglamorous, everyday stuff that slacker rock was built to carry. ‘What’s The Point’ delivers that with confidence and a sharp sense of humor about the whole thing.
The group has earned their road credentials touring alongside The Frights, Worriers, Tiny Stills, and Decent Criminal, and they’re putting those miles to use again with a full record release run already underway. The tour wraps April 14 back home in San Diego, giving the album a proper send-off in the city that made them.
‘What’s The Point’ is out now on vinyl pre-order and available digitally.
11x Grammy Award-winner Brandi Carlile returned to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night, where she performed “Church & State” solo on piano and spoke with the host. Carlile also performed a special web exclusive version of Alphaville’s “Forever Young.”
The appearance adds to another triumphant year for Carlile, who will continue her extensive “The Human Tour” through the fall, including stops at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre (three nights), Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena, Austin’s Moody Center and Santa Barbara’s Santa Barbara Bowl among many others. She will also headline Newport Folk Festival on July 26 and return to The Gorge Amphitheatre this spring with her “Echoes Through the Canyon” weekend on May 29, 30 and 31, with The Highwomen headlining night three.
Additionally, the eighth edition of Carlile’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend will take place in Riviera Maya, Mexico January 14-18, 2027. Blind Faith tickets are on-sale starting today at 1:00PM ET. Full details can be found at www.girlsjustwannaweekend.com.
In the midst of yet another groundbreaking year, Carlile’s renowned new album, Returning To Myself—produced by Carlile, Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon—debuted at #7 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart this past fall. Stream/purchase HERE (Interscope Records/Lost Highway).
Carlile was also recently honored as one of TIME’s 2026 Women of the Year, performed a “gorgeous” (Billboard) rendition of “America The Beautiful” at Super Bowl LX (watch HERE), appeared on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series and NBC’s Saturday Night Live as musical guest for the fourth time, was featured on Good Hang with Amy Poehler, The Howard Stern Show, NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin and The Drew Barrymore Show, and spoke with The New York Times for an in-depth profile. Additionally, Carlile’s song, “You Without Me,” from Returning to Myself was featured twice in the season three finale of Shrinking, out now on Apple TV.
Carlile is an Oscar-nominated and 11x Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, performer and producer, 2x EMMY-winning composer, lyricist and writer, #1 New York Times Bestselling author and activist, who is known as one of music’s most respected voices. Throughout her acclaimed career, Carlile has released eight studio albums including Who Believes in Angels?, the universally acclaimed, Grammy-nominated collaborative album with her childhood hero, Elton John, which debuted at #1 in the U.K. and top 10 in the U.S.
Additionally, Carlile is a renowned producer with recent Grammy-winning projects from Joni Mitchell and Brandy Clark. She also produced and recorded a rendition of Indigo Girls’ “Closer To Fine” with her wife, Catherine, which was included on Barbie The Album as well as a version of “Home,” which was featured in the final season of Ted Lasso. She received her first Oscar nomination in the Original Song category in January 2025 for “Never Too Late,” a Grammy-nominated track written alongside Elton John, Bernie Taupin and Andrew Watt for the Disney+ documentary of the same name.
Beloved by her peers, Carlile has collaborated with artists such as The Highwomen, Soundgarden, Sam Smith, Alicia Keys, Hozier, Noah Kahan, Jacob Collier, P!nk and Dolly Parton. Carlile was named OUT Magazine’s 2023 “Icon of the Year,” awarded Billboard’s Women In Music “Trailblazer Award,” CMT’s Next Women of Country “Impact Award” and NMPA’s 2023 Songwriter Icon Award and received multiple recognitions from the Americana Music Association. On top of being a musician and writer, Carlile is a founder of the Looking Out Foundation, which has raised over $9 million for grassroots causes to date. Carlile lives in rural Washington state with her wife and two daughters, Evangeline and Elijah.
BRANDI CARLILE UPCOMING TOUR DATES May 20 /// Bend, OR /// Hayden Homes Amphitheater< May 21 /// Bend, OR /// Hayden Homes Amphitheater< May 29 /// George, WA /// The Gorge Amphitheatre* (SOLD OUT) May 30 /// George, WA /// The Gorge Amphitheatre† (SOLD OUT) May 31 /// George, WA /// The Gorge Amphitheatre‡ June 6 /// Greenville, SC /// Peace Center Concert Hall‡‡ June 7 /// Charleston, SC /// College of Charleston Cistern Yard (SOLD OUT) June 9 /// Savannah, GA /// Johnny Mercer Theatre‡‡ June 10 /// Asheville, NC /// Thomas Wolfe Auditorium‡‡ July 26 /// Newport, RI /// Newport Folk Festival (SOLD OUT) August 13 /// Portland, ME /// Cross Insurance Arena+ August 14 /// Uncasville, CT /// Mohegan Sun Arena+ August 16 /// Bethel, NY /// Bethel Woods Center for the Arts+ August 18 /// Lenox, MA /// Tanglewood – Koussevitzky Music Shed+ August 20 /// Canandaigua, NY /// CMAC# August 21 /// Rochester Hills, MI /// Meadow Brook Amphitheatre# August 23 /// Grand Rapids, MI /// Acrisure Amphitheater# August 24 /// Madison, WI /// Breese Stevens Field# August 26 /// Highland Park, IL /// The Pavilion at Ravinia# August 29 /// Nashville, TN /// Bridgestone Arena^ September 1 /// Charlotte, NC /// Spectrum Center§ September 3 /// Duluth, GA /// Gas South Arena§ September 5 /// Fort Worth, TX /// Dickies Arena§ September 6 /// Austin, TX /// Moody Center§ September 11 /// Morrison, CO /// Red Rocks Amphitheatre|| September 12 /// Morrison, CO /// Red Rocks Amphitheatre|| (SOLD OUT) September 13 /// Morrison, CO /// Red Rocks Amphitheatre|| September 17 /// Vancouver, BC /// Rogers Arena** September 19 /// Stanford, CA /// Frost Amphitheater** September 20 /// Santa Barbara, CA /// Santa Barbara Bowl** (SOLD OUT) September 22 /// San Diego, CA /// The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park** October 15 /// Dublin, Ireland /// 3Arena†† October 18 /// Manchester, U.K. /// Co-op Live†† October 19 /// Glasgow, U.K. /// OVO Hydro†† October 21 /// London, U.K. /// The O2†† October 23 /// Paris, France /// La Seine Musicale†† October 24 /// Zurich, Switzerland /// The Hall†† October 26 /// Dusseldorf, Germany /// Mitsubishi Electric Halle†† October 27 /// Amsterdam, Netherlands /// AFAS Live†† October 29 /// Oslo, Norway /// Spektrum†† October 30 /// Stockholm, Sweden /// Annexet†† November 1 /// Lisbon, Portugal /// Sagres Campo Pequeno†† January 14-18, 2027 /// Riviera Maya, Mexico /// Girls Just Wanna Weekend 8
*with special guests Indigo Girls and I’m With Her †with special guests Bonnie Raitt and Sara Bareilles ‡with The Highwomen, Sheryl Crow, Wynonna Judd and Brittney Spencer +with special guest Jensen McRae #with special guest I’m With Her ^with special guest Gregory Alan Isakov §with special guest The Head and The Heart ||with special guest Stephen Wilson Jr. **with special guest CMAT ††with special guest KT Tunstall ‡‡An Acoustic Evening with Brandi Carlile
Makeshift Art Bar arrive with noise, nerve, and a label deal that makes complete sense. The Belfast quartet sign to cult indie heavyweights Heist or Hit, home to Westside Cowboy and Her’s, and announce their ‘Marionette’ EP, due June 26, launching it today with lead single ‘Chocolate.’ Produced by Daniel Fox (Sprints, MELTS, Psychotic Monks), the track is a post-punk, grunge, and electronica collision about crippling social anxiety and the strange warmth of choosing loneliness anyway. Listen here.
‘Chocolate’ opens on a synth line as slippery and hyperactive as anything Aphex Twin has produced, with crispy offbeat electronic cymbals playing against atonal guitars and pugilistic drumming before collapsing into a nauseating cacophony of euphoria. The band describes the character at its centre as someone who “screams the paradox of saying everything, yet having no desire for anything in return.” It’s dissonant, arch, and completely gripping, a track that earns its chaos.
The single follows their acclaimed 2025 debut EP ‘Lackluster Writing Makes Fundamental Reading’ and arrives with real momentum behind it. Makeshift Art Bar already hold a BBC 6 Music playlist spot and live session, alongside praise from So Young and DIY Magazine. Joseph Sweeney, Callum McGuigan, Alleyah Boulaich, and Callum Sweeney are four musicians operating with a fearlessness that most bands spend years trying to find.
They’re also about to prove it live. The group are currently supporting Chalk on a European tour before their own headline dates in Derry and Dublin, and a 3Olympia show alongside Just Mustard on May 1.
Dess Dior arrives fully formed on ‘Note To Self,’ her sophomore album and most realized statement to date. The Savannah-born, Atlanta-rooted hip-hop artist drops the 15-track project today alongside a music video for focus track “Missin You,” featuring YFN Lucci. From the opening moments of “Too Blessed” through the unapologetic closer “Ms Put It On,” the album moves with the kind of self-assurance that only comes from an artist who knows exactly who she is. Listen here.
The album builds on her previous EP ‘Take Notes’ and pushes considerably further. Dess frames the project with precision: “Note To Self is a love letter to myself in all senses. It’s me reminding myself who I am, how far I’ve come, and where I’m headed.” That clarity runs through every track, from the bold, high-energy “Come Correct,” “Fine AF,” and “Pop Out” to the more introspective “Different Pages” and “Missin You,” where she pulls back the curtain on emotional complexity and the difficulty of letting go.
Sonically, ‘Note To Self’ is rooted in Atlanta’s signature sound and elevated with a polished global sensibility, including a feature from Jamaican dancehall artist Valiant alongside collaborations with Belly Gang Kushington, BJRNCK, Chalynn, and YFN Lucci. The range across 15 tracks is impressive, shifting between assertive and intimate without losing the throughline of confidence that anchors everything. It’s a seamless, dynamic listening experience that finishes as strong as it starts.
With over 4.5 million followers and a growing presence across music, fashion, and culture, including her role on BET+’s The Impact Atlanta, Dess Dior is building something that extends well beyond any single release. ‘Note To Self’ is the clearest picture yet of where she’s headed.
Multi-platinum pop artist Preston Pablo unveils the new pop anthem, “Selfish” out today via 31 East and Universal Music Canada, the country’s leading music company. The new track features Preston’s unequivocally smooth vocals layered through an addictive beat and dynamic soundscape. “Selfish” propels Preston further into his new era that embraces his creative artistry and undeniable charisma. Listen here.
On the new single, Preston notes: “This is one of those songs I’ve been trying to make for a long time. I’ve always loved bassline-driven records, and for a while I’ve been chasing my own version of that sound. At its core, ‘Selfish’ is a simple song. The production is stripped back, but everything is intentional the melody, the pocket, the swing of the drums. That’s what makes songs like this surprisingly hard to get right.”
At its core, “Selfish” is a song about confidence. It sounds like the feel of a luxury sports car, or tailored suit that fits just right. The foundation of the song is the infectious bassline that ties everything together with the perfect amount of attitude. The lyrics tell a story of someone with ‘main character energy.’ Someone who unapologetically knows what they want, and fixates until it becomes theirs.
“‘Selfish’ carries a confident, moody, almost cocky energy,” Preston continues, “It’s about wanting something or someone so deeply that nothing else really matters. It’s that moment where logic goes out the window and all that’s left is the end goal. The day we wrote it, it instantly became one of my favourites. That’s why I knew it had to be one of the first songs I released after taking some time away from music.”
“Selfish” features production by Keith “Ten4” Sorrells and Oscar Linnander. Sorrells notably co-wrote and co-produced on John Legend’s Grammy-winning album Bigger Love, while his Demi Lovato collab “I Love Me” hit #1 on Billboard Digital Song Sales, crossed 180M Spotify streams, and won a 2022 BMI Award for Most Performed Song of the Year. He also co-wrote and co-produced Lovato’s entire eighth studio album Holy Fvck. Linnander is a producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumantalist with credits including Charlotte Sands, Jessie Murph, Kehlani, Demi Lovato, and Jamie Fine among others.
“Selfish” arrives on the heels of the latest single, “Cause I Do,” his first new music of 2026. The two tracks are the first original releases from Preston since his 2024 debut EP Anywhere But Here, home to the viral hit “Dance Alone.”
Preston Pablo is best known for his chart-topping single “Flowers Need Rain,” which earned him the 2023 JUNO Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year and was the #1 most Shazamed song of Summer 2022 in Canada. His follow-up smash “Dance Alone” cracked the Top 10 at Canadian radio across all formats and has since inspired over 450,000 user-generated TikTok videos, further cementing his reputation as one of Canada’s most compelling pop voices.
With “Selfish” Preston Pablo continues to take a confident step forward, offering a taste of the new sound and creative direction he’ll continue to unveil throughout 2026.
MÍO keep building momentum. Following a high-energy performance and overwhelmingly positive reception at this year’s Inferno Metal Festival, the Norwegian folk-rock outfit heads to Aarhus, Denmark for SPOT Festival, one of Scandinavia’s most influential showcase events for new music. As part of the Roots program, MÍO closes the Radar stage at 23:15 on Saturday, May 2.
The band has earned a serious reputation as one of the underground’s most exceptional live experiences, with hundreds of festival and venue performances across Norway and abroad. Their concerts are explosive, unpretentious, and genuinely engaging, the kind of show that converts first-time listeners into devoted fans on the spot. SPOT Festival is exactly the stage they deserve right now.
Emil Kárlsen and Northern Sámi artist Elina Ijäs release “Giđa ávašta,” a folk single whose title translates to “one senses spring,” and the timing is exact. Released during the season of giđđadálvi, spring-winter, the song arrives as polar darkness gives way to returning light in the coastal region of Gáivuotna, where both artists have family roots and where the assimilation of the Sámi people once came closest to erasing the language entirely.
The metaphor at the song’s core is both simple and profound. Rays of sunlight reaching further down between tall mountains represent the return of the Sámi language to communities where it was nearly lost. “Giđa ávašta is a very symbolic song with many layers,” Kárlsen says, “telling our story from the past while upliftingly leading us toward the present and onward into the future.” It’s enchanting, grounded, and carries real cultural significance without ever feeling like a lecture. The music video, filmed by Marakatt Media and edited by Sverre Simonsen, matches its beauty.
The single previews Kárlsen’s first solo debut album ‘Nannámii,’ due September 25.
