Hurray for the Riff Raff (aka Alynda Segarra)'s new album, The Past Is Still Alive, is due February 23 on Nonesuch. Segarra created the album during a period of personal grief, when they found inspiration in radical poetry, railroad culture, outsider art, the work of writer Eileen Myles, and activist groups like ACT UP and Gran Fury. They use their lyrics as a way to immortalize and say goodbye to those they have loved and lost, and to honor both the heartbroken and the hopeful parts of themselves. Though made in North Carolina by the Bronx-born, New Orleans-based Segarra and produced by Brad Cook, the record brings listeners to places far beyond, evoking vivid experiences of small shops and buffalo stampedes in Santa Fe, childhood road trips and Florida storms, struggles of addiction in the Lower East Side, and days-long journeys to outrun the cops in Nebraska. Hurray for the Riff Raff will lead a headline tour of the US and Europe from February through May.

Cécile McLorin Salvant performs Michel Lambert’s 1660 air de cour “D'un feu secret,” from her new album, Mélusine, accompanied by Dušan Balarin on theorbo (a type of French lute) and Sullivan Fortner on harpsichord, in the Unicorn Tapestries Room at The Met Cloisters in a new video out now as part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s performance series, MetLiveArts. This is the second of three performances Salvant filmed in the Met’s Unicorn Tapestry galleries of songs from the album, following the title track last week and ahead of “Dame Iseut” next week. You can watch “D'un feu secret” here.

It was thirty-five years ago today that Kronos Quartet gave the world premiere performance of Steve Reich’s Different Trains at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. To mark the occasion, Reich’s publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, has published a new video, in which he discusses the process behind composing this piece for string quartet and tape. Reich used carefully chosen speech recordings to shape the musical material for the score, evoking his American childhood during World War II while also addressing the Holocaust. The 1989 first recording of Different Trains, performed by Kronos, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition.

Cécile McLorin Salvant performs her song “Mélusine,” the title track to her new album, accompanied by Dušan Balarin, in the Unicorn Tapestries Room at The Met Cloisters in a new video out now as part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s performance series, MetLiveArts. You can watch it here. This is the first of three performances she filmed there of songs from the album; the remaining two will follow in the weeks ahead.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway made their Austin City Limits debut on PBS stations across the US over the weekend. “This is something I've dreamed of for so long,” Tuttle says. “I've been watching Austin City Limits since I was a little kid.” She and the band performed four songs from their acclaimed new album, City of Gold and two from their 2021 Grammy-winning debut album, Crooked Tree. You can watch it here. 

Natalie Merchant has released the video for "Sister Tilly," from her new album, Keep Your Courage. The track is dedicated to Joan Didion and pays homage to the generation of women who influenced Merchant in the 1960s and ’70s when she was growing up. You can watch the video, directed by Matthew Shattuck and featuring archival footage from the era, here. Merchant begins a European tour next week. She hosts a new workshop at Fondazione Prada’s Accademia dei bambini in Milan in January and resumes her US West Coast tour in May.

Rhiannon Giddens recently gave an intimate performance at Racket in New York City for WFUV’s FUV Live. She spoke with host Alisa Ali about her new album, You’re the One, and more, and was joined by her band to perform several songs from it. You can now watch the performance of the album tracks “Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad,” “You Louisiana Man,” and “Yet to Be” below and listen to the complete session at wfuv.org.

Rhiannon Giddens was on The Daily Show to talk with guest host Michael Kosta about her career, winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music, and her song "Another Wasted Life," from her new album, You're the One, which she also performed on the show. The song aims to raise awareness for the stories and voices of those who have experienced the injustices of the criminal legal system. She partnered with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project on a fundraising initiative and a music video for the song featuring 22 wrongfully convicted people, clients of the organization, who collectively spent more than 500 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

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.

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.