Keep Your Courage is Natalie Merchant’s tenth solo studio album and the first of new material since her 2014 self-titled record. An eclectic album, produced by Merchant, it features lush orchestrations throughout, two duets sung with vocalist Abena Koomson-Davis of Resistance Revival Chorus, contributions from the Celtic folk group Lúnasa and Syrian virtuoso clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, and horn arrangements by jazz trombonist Steve Davis. There are nine original songs by Merchant and an interpretation of a song by Ian Lynch of the Irish band Lankum. The vinyl LP edition includes four bonus tracks from earlier albums, previously unreleased on vinyl. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include access to an exclusive virtual pre-release listening event on April 6 via FlyMachine featuring songs from the album and a conversation between Merchant and a host. Further details will be sent prior to the event. A link and unique access code will be sent on April 5.

Brad Mehldau’s live solo album Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays The Beatles features interpretations of nine songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and one by George Harrison. Although other Beatles songs have long been staples of Mehldau’s shows, he had not previously recorded any of these tunes. The album, recorded in September 2020 at Philharmonie de Paris, ends with a David Bowie classic that draws a connection between The Beatles and pop songwriters who followed.

I Love a Love Song!, the second album from Rachael & Vilray—Lake Street Dive singer/songwriter Rachael Price and composer, singer, and guitarist Vilray—features eleven new songs written by Vilray plus the 1930s classic "Goodnight My Love" written by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel. The album was produced, engineered, and mixed by Dan Knobler and features arrangements from Jacob Zimmerman. Rachael & Vilray’s music’s “easy-swinging mini-big-band arrangement is as cozy as it is sophisticated,” says the New York Times. Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an exclusive autographed print in one of four colors selected at random.

Classical singer Julia Bullock makes her solo recording debut with Walking in the Dark. On the album, Bullock and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Christian Reif, perform Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and a song from John Adams’s El Niño. She is joined by Reif, on piano, for a traditional spiritual and songs by Oscar Brown, Jr., Billy Taylor, Sandy Denny, and Connie Converse. Bullock is “one of the singular artists of her generation,” says the New York Times, “a singer of enveloping tone, startlingly mature presence and unusually sophisticated insight into culture, society and history.”