RiYL

In 2022, Hanson will celebrate 30 years as a band. It’s a remarkable accomplishment for any group, let alone one whose members ranged from age six to 11. The group was propelled to success in its earliest days on the strength of its 1997’s Middle of Nowhere, a multi-platinum debut. Hanson’s seventh’s studio release, Against the World, arrived earlier this month. At first glance, the title is downright confrontational, though Taylor Hanson explains that the name is intended to reflect a kind of underdog status adopted by the group. It’s a strange notion, for band that has seen such high highs, but intervening years have forced the group to forge its own path in the often difficult to navigate world of the music business. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2021, Merry Clayton returned with a vengeance. In her solo first album in 27, years the singer once again poured her heart out on record. Beautiful Scars bears the mark of a musician who has suffered tremendous loss, but remains defiantly joyous and hopeful. Her voice remains confident and unmistakable, singing a title track that references, in part, a 2014 car crash that result in the loss of both of her legs. It also marks a post-humous return for her husband, Curtis Amy, whose sax part from her original recording of “A Song For You” 50 years prior reemerges on a rerecording. As she notes, our interview was recorded on what would have been his 92nd birthday. It was Amy who answered a phone call in the middle of the night that found Clayton recording what may be her best-known performance, dueting alongside Mick Jagger on the Stones classic, “Gimme Shelter.” But that’s just one moment in a 58-year singing career that’s among popular music’s most legendary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Released over the summer, Alone in Space offers brilliant glimpses in the process and work of a powerhouse cartoonist. The collection offers works from her teenage years and the classroom prompts that catalyzed her early works, include a Windsor McCay homage that would prove foundational her developing style. Walden’s books range from 2017’s deeply personal Spinning to 2018’s sci-fi meditation, On a Sunbeam. Most recently, she’s been working on Clementine, a coming-of-age zombie book set in Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead universe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I spent a lot of hours and a lot of words exploring the world of vertical farming over at TechCrunch. The research, which resulted in this feature, was bookended by conversations with Dickson Despommier, a former Columbia University professor now regarded as the godfather of vertical farming. This final discussion with Despommier is a kind of coda to the piece, exploring his seminal book, The Vertical Farm 10 years after its initial publication. You can read a writeup of the full interview over on TechCrunch.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seems hard to believe that 40 years into a career of pushing boundaries and taking risks that They Might Be Giants still have anything left up their sleeve. But amidst a global pandemic, when the world is perpetually falling apart at the seams, the band has returned with a new album and accompanying art book. Book (the book) is a beautiful document celebrating Book (the album) with 144 pages of  photography and type-written lyrical art. Most of all, it’s a testament to the fact that a band that’s made a career of making wonderful music staunchly against the cultural grain can still surprise. John Flansburgh joins us to celebrate the release of both and reflect on one of music’s most fruitful collaborations.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A citizen of the world, Cedric Noel has made his home in Montreal for the past five years. His musical influences are every bit as eclectic as his geographical background, result in songwriting that isn’t particularly beholden to any one form. Hang Time, released this year on Joyful Noise, continues his explorations, and a focus on deconstructing the fundamental elements of popular music, be it Salif Keita or Blink-182. In a wide-ranging conversation, Noel discussing near manic bouts of songwriting and freedom that comes with never learning the rules.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The press copy describes Factory Summers as Guy Delisle’s “most personal book.” It’s a strange phrase for a cartoonist whose work often tends toward the autobiographical — but it’s hard to ignore. What begins as a memoir of teenage summers spent working the floor at a Quebec City paper factory ultimately grows into something deeper. Ultimately, the book is a mediation on the relationship between a son and his distant father. That dynamic is the heart of the story — a fact the cartoonist says he only truly recognized as he was deep into the work.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fictional Father begins with an apology of a kind — or, at very least, an acknowledgement. Told as a self-effacing autobiographical strip, the preface notes the accidental similarity to the real life story of Dennis the Menace and the 1999 novel, The Funnies. But maybe some stories are too good not to tell through a different lens. “I’m sure you’ll make it your own,” Seth tells Joe Ollmann in the piece. And that certainly proved fortuitous. What happens when your life is made the focus of a parents’ ultra-saccharine comic strip? How does one square a true and fictional father when the two are seeming polar opposites? The cartoonist joins us to discuss the work and some broader truths it brings to the front.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2017’s What I Found in a Thousand Towns finds Dar Williams tackling urban studies. It’s new territory for the singer-songwriter, but one that builds on decades of fascination with the small towns she frequented on tour. The book has taken on a special sort of resident over the past two years, as the pandemic has spurred countless think pieces about the future of life in cities. It’s certainly top of mind as we discuss the force stasis of life during Covid-19, and something Williams is clearly thinking about as her latest album (her first in six years) I’ll Meet You Here is returning her to the road again. This, perhaps, is where the book and album converge, around the concept of “meet[ing] life as it arrives,” as Williams puts it – however and wherever that might be.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“We are the apes that are starting to understand the universe and our place in it,” José González says in a statement released ahead of his latest album, Local Valley. The comment refers specifically to the track “Visions,” but the sentiment can be applied to many of the thoughts that occupy this mind. A one-time PhD student for biochemistry, the musician’s social media outreach reflects the sentiments of a person deeply consider with climate change and the state of the world he leaves for his young daughter. As quiet and thoughtful in conversation as in song, Gonzales discusses altruism, the pandemic and teenage years spent playing in hardcore bands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.