Nathan Bowles

Michael Chapman: 50 Release Day.

If you need a distraction from the eldritch horrors of Inauguration Day, take a lesson from the Fully Qualified Survivor. Get thee to your local record store to grip what is shaping up to be one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2017. Or, as Laura Snapes (Pitchfork, NPR, Guardian) recently recommended: “If you’re looking for a peaceful record for this torrid week, 50 is it.” Check out Uncut’s career-spanning 7pp. feature and new rave reviews in The Times, Daily Mirror, i, etc.

Pre-order Jake Xerxes Fussell’s What in the Natural World + Hear “Peaches” via NPR.

As we brace ourselves for this week’s ersatz presidential pomp, rank and rancorous politics, and righteous protests and marches, please allow us to ask one philosophical question no pundit but Jake Xerxes Fussell is asking: “Have You Ever Seen Peaches Growing on a Sweet Potato Vine?” Today NPR Music premiered this first Natural Question from Jake’s forthcoming album, with Laura Snapes writing that his “burly, winking voice is made for storytelling.”

Stream Michael Chapman’s 50 in Full via Stereogum.

January 20th sees the release of Michael Chapman’s 50, produced by Steve Gunn and described by Pitchfork as “a startlingly current and nearly apocalyptic vision of America… an album full of brimstone and brine, perhaps more perfect for this moment in history than we’d like to admit.” Now Stereogum presents 50 in its entirety.

Michael Chapman Premieres “Memphis in Winter” via Noisey.

Taken from his anticipated album 50, out January 20th, the hellish travelogue approaches a pure distillation of the perfect Chapman song, with its dark lyrics and mesmerizing, elastic instrumental passages. (We’re snowed in here in North Carolina, so it feels particularly apropos to the season.)

Michael Chapman Live Session on BBC 6 Radio with Marc Riley.

The legendary Michael Chapman joined Marc Riley on BBC 6 Radio Music today, playing several songs and chatting about his new album 50; recording with Steve Gunn, Nathan Bowles, James Elkington, Jason Meagher, and Jimy SeiTang (“a stick insect who plays the bass!”); his first American tour disaster in 1971; and … run-ins with Jimi Hendrix, among other things.

Pre-order Michael Chapman’s 50 + Hear “That Time of Night” via NPR Music.

Michael Chapman’s new record 50, produced by Steve Gunn and titled to commemorate fifty years of touring—and released four days before Michael’s 76th birthday—stands as a formidable monument of retrospection and introspection in his adventurous catalog, embodying his undeniable late career masterpiece. Today Chapman shares debut track “That Time of Night” via NPR Music’s Songs We Love. Pre-order and watch an album trailer.

Hopscotch Weekend with the PoB Crew.

Your guide to Hopscotch and other performances this weekend by PoB artists Lavender Country, Promised Land Sound, Gun Outfit, and Nathan Bowles, including events at the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, and Slim’s and Fletcher Theater in Raleigh.

Nathan Bowles: Whole & Cloven Release Day

Today, just in time for the first stirrings of autumn, Nathan Bowles’ radiant new album is finally among us, in stores, on turntables, in the humid air. According to Pitchfork, Bowles is “a crucial force in folk music … with the power to transform the sound of a banjo into something transcendental, often bringing the spirit of Americana to new heights … An album that reshapes folk music into something boundless and new.”

Nathan Bowles Shares “Moonshine is the Sunshine” via Noisey.

Hear the Jeffrey Cain cover, which features Bowles singing: “The moonshine is the sunshine, shining twenty minutes later/and ‘crocodile,’ that’s just another name for ‘alligator.’” Read the rave review of Whole & Cloven, out Sept. 2, from The Wire, and check out some upcoming tour dates, including tonight in Durham, NC and a record release show on Sept. 8 at UNC.