Natalie Merchant is the guest on the latest episode of Songcraft, the podcast “about the creators of lyrics and music that stand the test of time.” She joins hosts Scott B. Bomar and Paul Duncan for an extensive conversation about her new album, Keep Your Courage, and music from throughout her career. You can hear their conversation here.

"This is my reaction to being assaulted by information," composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire says of his Nonesuch debut album, Owl Song, due December 15, featuring a trio with two musicians he has long admired, guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. "This record is me wanting to create a safe space. Part of the challenge was: Can I create something that's oriented around open space, the way some of the records I love the most do?" You can hear "Owl Song 1" here now. The New York Times says: "Akinmusire has been making some of the most intimate, spellbinding music of his career." Pitchfork has called his work "music that seeks peace not just despite a world of unrest, but within it."

Yussef Dayes performs “Tioga Pass,” from his debut solo album, Black Classical Music, in a new video, filmed in Malibu by German Vizcarra, with Dayes on drums, Rocco Palladino on bass, Venna on saxophone, Elijah Fox on piano, and Alexander Bourt on congas and percussion. You can watch it here. Dayes and his band play a sold-out show at London's Royal Albert Hall tomorrow, before heading out on a tour of the US next month, beginning at Warsaw in Brooklyn.

"Sorry I Haven’t Called was worth the wait, and another cool stylistic leap," Talkhouse host Josh Modell says of the new album from Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko), who talks with Jaboukie on the show. “Sorry I Haven’t Called, which was partly produced by former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, takes things even a step further, with an eye toward something even bigger and bolder. And even though the songs were inspired by a dark time in Tamko’s life, they turned out incredibly buoyant and upbeat.” You can hear the episode here.

Makaya McCraven, whose album In These Times, was released a year ago last month and is currently performing music from the album on tour across the US, has just released a video of him performing the track “This Place That Place” live at Public Records in Brooklyn ahead of the album’s release. McCraven had assembled a unique ensemble with a string quartet to perform special arrangements of songs from his new album for the Brooklyn event captured in the video by director Matthew Edginton. You can watch it here.

David Byrne returned to Late Night with Seth Meyers to talk about Here Lies Love, his musical with Fatboy Slim about the rise and fall of the Philippines’ notorious Imelda Marcos and the People Power Revolution, now on Broadway with a historic all-Filipino cast. They also discuss the famed 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, back in theaters now, and Fred Armisen’s David Byrne impression. You can watch their conversation here.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, who took home three IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards last week, have released a video for “Alice in the Bluegrass,” from their new album, City of Gold. You can watch the video, made by Joshua Britt & Neilson Hubbard at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studios, where the album was recorded, here. They kick off their Western US tour this weekend.

As part of Kronos: Five Decades, the year-long celebration of Kronos Quartet’s 50th anniversary, the group is publishing five decade-spanning playlists curated by its founder and violinist David Harrington. The first, featuring music Kronos performed in its first decade, 1973–1982, is out now. It includes works the quartet would later record on Nonesuch by George Crumb, Ken Benshoof, Terry Riley, Anton Webern, Peter Sculthorpe, Dmitri Shostakovich, Jimi Hendrix, Aulis Sallinen, Alban Berg, Witold Lutosławski, and Samuel Barber. You can hear it here.

Rhiannon Giddens is collaborating with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project on a fundraising initiative and a powerful music video for her song "Another Wasted Life,” out today, the 10th annual Wrongful Conviction Day. The video, directed by Daniel Madoff, features 22 wrongfully convicted people, clients of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, who collectively spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. It aims to raise awareness for the stories and voices of those who have experienced the injustices of the criminal legal system. You can watch it here. Giddens' song was inspired by the tragic story of Kalief Browder, a young man wrongfully incarcerated at NYC's Rikers Island for three years, where he was subjected to nearly two years of solitary confinement.

Congratulations to Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, who won three IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards at the ceremony hosted by Tuttle and Ketch Secor in Raleigh, North Carolina, last night. Tuttle and the band took home the Album of the Year Award for their debut album, Crooked Tree (which won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album), and Song of the Year for that album’s title track, written by Tuttle and Melody Walker, and Tuttle was named Female Vocalist of the Year, which she won last year as well. Tuttle and the band perform at IBMA World of Bluegrass on Saturday.

Arielle Jacobs, who stars as Imelda Marcos in the first-ever Broadway production of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s musical Here Lies Love, was joined by her cast mates on Good Morning America to perform two songs from the show: the title track and “Eleven Days.” Jacobs was also joined by Conrad Ricamora, who stars as Ninoy Aquino, on GMA3 to perform “Opposite Attraction.” You can watch the performances here.

“This new recording is just extraordinary. It’s so engaging,” saxophonist David Sanborn says of Mélusine, the new album from Cécile McLorin Salvant, the guest on his new WBGO podcast, As We Speak. “I think the gravitational pull of the way you ordered the music and how you paced it was really powerful,” he tells Salvant. “And then when I read the story of Mélusine and how that was the organizing principle for all of it, it made it even more astounding to me … Just brilliant.” You can hear their conversation here.