Chris Thile is the guest on the latest episode of WNPR's Audacious with Chion Wolf. They spoke both onstage from a recent performance at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts in Connecticut and via Zoom from home. "I’ve been following his work for over 10 years," says Wolf, "simultaneously singin’ my heart out to his recordings, while being totally mind-boggled at his mandolin playing." You can hear their conversation about his music, what makes Bach a musical "truth north," and more here:

Thile’s new album, Laysongs, is due June 4 on Nonesuch Records, available to pre-order here. It's his first truly solo album: just Thile, his voice, and his mandolin, on new recordings of six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. Recorded in a converted upstate New York church during the pandemic, Laysongs features the three-part “Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth,” which was inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters; a song Thile wrote about Dionysus; a selection from Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin; “God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot” based on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s adaptation of a Leonard Cohen poem; and a Hazel Dickens cover. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include a print of the album cover image autographed by Thile.