Lily-O, a new album of reimagined folk songs by Vermont-born singer / fiddler / banjoist / guitarist Sam Amidon is out today on Nonesuch Records (with vinyl to come October 28). The album was produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Feist) and features the innovative jazz guitarist and composer Bill Frisell, along with Amidon’s other frequent collaborators, bassist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro. Amidon kicks off a fall tour in Seattle on October 11, including a number of shows with Frisell and Ismaily; for details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

To pick up a copy of Lily-O, head to iTunes and the Nonesuch Store, where CD and vinyl orders include a free MP3 download of the complete album at checkout.

"Oh my, what joyous noise," exclaims fRoots magazine in its review of the new album. "As well as being master craftsmen," writes reviewer Sarah Coxson, Amidon and his fellow musicians "create atmosphere—cinematic, mesmeric and groove-rich."

In the UK, where the album was released yesterday, Esquire names it Album of the Week, calling it "magical." The Guardian gives the album four stars. Reviewer Robin Denselow calls it "a compellingly quiet, intense affair that is remarkable both for the power of his understated, no-nonsense and often mournful vocals, and for the subtle arrangements that bring an urgency to his mostly traditional American songs and hymns." Denselow concludes of the album: "Subtle and intriguing."

"Sam Amidon's ability to imbue traditional songs with an ahistorical immediacy has never been better realized than on Lily-O," raves the Independent's Andy Gill in a four-star review.

MusicOMH gives four-and-a-half stars to this "gorgeous" album. "The standout to any Sam Amidon album is his voice," says reviewer Dylan Kilby. "The best comparison is early Bob Dylan—not because of the sound, but the way either artist belie a worldly experience far beyond their ages."

There is a five-star review in the Danish edition of Gaffa magazine. "More terrific folk-interpretations from one of the genre's strongest," reads the headline in rought translation. "Amidon belongs among today's finest interpreters of America's vast collection of traditional folk songs, which he demonstrates once again in this, his fifth album, Lily-O."

"'Walkin’ Boss' is one of the first songs I learned on the banjo, by playing along with a recording by Jeff Davis as a teenager,” Amidon says of the album's opening track, which you can hear below. “As it happens this is also the first tune that we recorded during the sessions, on a crisp October morning in Reykjavik."

Frisell has been a hero of Amidon’s since the young Vermont native first heard the guitarist play at the Village Vanguard during a teenage visit to New York City. The two musicians stayed in touch and had their first live collaboration in 2011; not long after, Amidon began contemplating a return to Iceland to make a third album at Sigurðsson’s Greenhouse Studios. He eventually invited Frisell to join him and Sigurðsson, along with Ismaily and Vatalaro, to record what became Lily-O.

“I decided to put us all in a room together in Reykjavik for a few days,” Amidon said. “I knew if I got Bill together with those guys they would get into a deep situation. I imagined that we would do something weird and fiddle-based, but when we got in there it just felt great to sing the songs I had gathered. Recording took about four days. I'd teach them the basic structure of the song; we'd do a few takes, and move on to a new one. There's maybe one or two overdubs but otherwise you're hearing what we played.”

Lily-O’s 10 songs are mostly traditional folk songs gathered from disparate sources and refashioned in Amidon’s signature way. The interplay between the four musicians is informed by their backgrounds in improvised music and the spontaneous nature of the sessions. As always, the central element is Amidon’s voice, which, in his deceptively understated manner, tells tales of adventure, love, violence and redemption.

Lily-O follows four albums by Amidon including his 2013 Nonesuch debut, Bright Sunny South. 2010’s I See The Sign and 2008’s All Is Well were made for the Icelandic label Bedroom Community and featured orchestral arrangements by composer Nico Muhly. Along the way Amidon has performed worldwide in myriad contexts, collaborating with musicians such as Muhly, Thomas Bartlett/Doveman, Beth Orton and Glen Hansard. He has appeared as a guest artist on recent albums by Tune-Yards, Aoife O’Donovan and the Blind Boys of Alabama.