“Bob Dylan (Bring it All Back Home Sessions)” by ky_olsen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Bob Dylan – “Rocks and Gravel (Solid Road)”
Bootleg Series Volume 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 (Oct. 31 via Columbia)

On Thursday, Sept. 18, Bob Dylan announced the 18th edition of his Bootleg Series, Through the Open Window, 1956-1963, set for release on October 31, 2025, via Columbia Records/ Legacy Recordings. The eight-disc box set centers on the emergence of his career and artistic maturity, moving from the Land of 10,000 Lakes to the hip streets of Greenwich Village. 

The forthcoming collection comprises rare Columbia Records outtakes, early recordings from club appearances, as well as small informal gatherings and gigs at friends’ houses, which often resolved into jam sessions. Many of the captures have not been shared publicly and, upon release, will represent another layer of musical foreshadowing that informed one of the great careers of all time. 

From the depths of Dylan’s early recordings, and a confluence of his Bootleg Series, this example from the bard’s Free Wheelin’ sessions showcases the raw and unabashed confidence of his New York arrival. “Rock And Gravel” finds Dylan kicking the Minnesota snow off his boots, mingling with greats and seeding confidence through a raw, stripped-down acoustic plea using metaphor to convey his need for a woman’s love.

– Hana Gustafson

Thundercat – “Children of the Baked Potato”
(Brainfeeder)

On Monday, Sept. 15, Thundercat returned with two new singles, “I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time” and “Children of the Baked Potato.” The singer-songwriter and pathbreaking bassist’s latest offerings are his first original solo recordings since 2020’s It Is What It Is.

Both of Thundercat’s new tracks were created with guidance from Grammy-winning producer Greg Kurstin, whose support helped to strike a balance between rich layering and a sense of intimacy. Thundercat’s basslines are sparing and rubbery beneath “I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time,” a soft, enchanting poolside funk meditation featuring the sort of scattered introspection that’s long been a strength of his songwriting. “Children of the Baked Potato,” on the other hand, is a frenetic, uptempo, polyrhythmic bounce, named for the venue vital to LA’s jazz scene for over 50 years. Remi Wolf, Thundercat’s leftfield funk-pop peer and fellow alumnus of the storied stage, provides explosive guest vocals.

“[Remi Wolf is] a child of the Baked Potato, like me,” Thundercat said in a statement. “She knew exactly what the song needed. And it was wild to watch her make it happen. The more I listen to the song, it’s clear there was no one better I could have picked.”

Lukas Nelson – “Friend in the End (feat. Sierra Ferrell)”
American Romance (Sony Music Nashville)

“I just wanted to play my own music and sing my own songs,” Lukas Nelson said on the origins of American Romance, his ninth studio album and solo debut, in a new interview with Relix. “Promise of the Real was a band since 2009. Then, when Neil Young took notice, we ended up becoming his backing band for a long time. So we had to split our time between playing our own stuff and going out with Neil, which I also loved doing.

Eventually, though, because I was the songwriter and the creative force of Promise of the Real, it became more important to me than the other guys to keep playing my own music. Neil kept wanting to go out and it was taking me away from my projects. So I felt like I owed it to myself as an artist to give myself the greatest chance to have my own audience. I also wasn’t getting any younger, and I didn’t want to spend all of my time playing with Neil.

I wanted to do my own thing, and the other guys were happy to do both, but I just couldn’t do that. I decided that I can’t keep trying to switch between tours—I need to focus on my own music and my own tours. So the Promise of the Real became Neil’s band, and I made my own music my main priority.”

– Dean Budnick

Read “Lukas Nelson Turns The Page” here.

Kieran Hebden & Wiliam Tyler – “Secret City”
41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s (Temporary Residence Ltd.)

If you’d told early fans of William Tyler and Kieran Hebden (better known as Four Tet) that those singular artists would one day unite for a duo record, you might be met with a medieval peasant-with-iPhone-grade meltdown. In the decades since, though, the icons of cosmic country and experimental electronic have followed their omnivorous tastes to stranger, parallel sounds, which finally met back in 2023 on the shared single “Darkness, Darkness” and “No Services.” Today, after years of consideration, they’ve released their first full-length collaboration.

41 Longfield Street Late ‘80s turns Tyler and Hebden’s talents for halcyon, immersive interpolations of folk, post-rock and field recordings to center on Music City’s heyday. Outside of referents like noise-rock and electro-acoustic ambient, all layered in Four Tet’s sedimentary style, the new duo bonded over a shared love for ‘80s country and sought to explore that through the record’s seven tracks.

“Our idea for the album was to make music that focused on that influence and brought it to the front of our awareness,” Hebden shared. “We’d record the guitars in the studio, exploring styles and sounds from that music, and then I’d take it all home to my computer and bring it into my other world.”

“I think we both in our own specific ways want to recontextualize a lot of music that we grew up with, regardless of the genre, and I think that’s what this album reflects,” Tyler echoed. “It’s a lot of nostalgia but it’s also very forward-focused. I don’t even know what genre I’m supposed to be in at this point, but I trust Kieran and I love what we’ve done together. He’s become a dear friend and I can’t wait to see what’s ahead for us.”

Count Five – “Psychotic Reaction”
Psychotic Reaction (Double Shot)

Well, I’m a huge fan of Brenton Wood’s interpretation; something about Count Five’s debut with its harmonica interludes and fast tempo shifts demands a dance break. One of my favorite self-practices is taking time to move and dance for the sake of dancing. It feels good to start with the acknowledgement: ‘I feel depressed, I feel so bad,’ and let your body shake away the feelings.

– Hana Gustafon

I’m With Her – “Wild and Clear and Blue”
Wild and Clear and Blue (Rounder)

In May, I’m With Her–the Americana supergroup of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins–released their sophomore studio album, Wild and Clear and Blue. The trio’s follow-up to their celebrated 2018 debut, See You Around, shows the acclaimed combination further honing its collective sound.

“The first record was more about capturing the initial spark and magic that the three of us felt when we sang together for the first time,” O’Donovan said in a new interview for Relix. “It was more of us discovering, as we were going along, what we could do together. With this one, it felt more focused on the actual material and the songs because we already know what we’re working with. We’ve played a lot of gigs together, so we had a much better idea, this go-around, of the sound that we can actually create as just the three of us.”

“All of these songs are 100% co-writes,” Jarosz added. “Even when someone does bring a seed or a nugget, which is often how a lot of these songs start, they wind up becoming all of ours. It’s often the first couple lines and maybe a melodic idea or something. It’s amazing how naturally the writing process winds up being and how we’re all contributing ideas.”

“Every writing session starts with a trip to the grocery store,” Watkins detailed. “We make some meals together, start catching up, get our instruments out and show a couple ideas. And then things develop. The three of us really respect each other’s individual careers and individual points of view. It’s neat to have these three different speeds on the bike that can work together. When we find our rhythm, which doesn’t take long at the beginning of a project, it can do some exciting things. I just love being in this band. But it’s very important that you love each other off the stage too, especially at this stage in life. Life’s too short to be with people that you don’t love. And we love living life together.”

– Jeff Tamarkin

Read “I’m With Her: Find My Way to You” here.

Antibalas – “La Ceiba”
Hourglass (Oct. 24 via Daptone)

After a five-year absence, Antibalas reemerged on Tuesday, Sept. 16, to unveil Hourglass, their first studio album since 2020’s Fu-Chronicles. The revered Afrobeat ensemble’s triumphant return dates back to the tour supporting that Grammy-nominated offering, when the onset of the pandemic and all the unrest that came with it forced a fundamental re-evaluation. From a moment of rare clarity in 2021, the Brooklyn-based band reunited to pour their altered outlook into new studio compositions, which they ultimately set to tape with Grammy-winning engineer Joel Hamilton at Studio G, just blocks from the site of their formation.

To preview their long-awaited eighth album, Antibalas shared “La Ceiba,” an infectious embodiment of a new frontier in their fearless fusion. ‘70s Ghanaian dance, Nuyorican funk and Lagos afrobeat meet in a tight, blistering revel. It’s lyrical without vocals–a meaningful and intentional shift that runs through the forthcoming project.

“Once a song has lyrics, everyone who doesn’t speak that language finds themselves on the outside,” baritone saxophonist, co-founder and co-producer Martín Perna detailed. “As humans sharing planet Earth, we are all confronting different versions of the same problems: climate change, bad governance, the violence of late-stage capitalism to name a few. We have already written songs about those issues. We haven’t abandoned vocals but on Hourglass we use rhythm and melody exclusively to convey our emotions.”

Hermeto Pascoal – “Música da Lagoa”

On Saturday, Sept. 13, Hermeto Pascoal passed away at 89. By his life’s work as a composer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Pascoal earned a reputation as one of the most inventive, prolific and influential musicians not only in Brazilian jazz, but at large in the broader music world. His total devotion to sound in all its forms drove him to create more than 2,000 instrumental works, nearly all of which challenged expectations with bold melodic and rhythmic shifts that manifest his vibrant interiority.

Affectionately termed “The Mad Genius,” Pascoal playfully welcomed non-traditional instruments into his recordings, pushing back against orthodox notions of musicality. Before first picking up his father’s accordion at 8 years old, he played to the birds with a pipe he made from a fife and a pumpkin and struck all the scrap metal from his grandfather’s blacksmith shop to explore their sounds. While recording Slaves Mass in 1977, he brought two live piglets to the studio and incorporated their squeals into the mix.

Pascoal’s expansive catalog is worth exploring with the same curious spirit by which it was created. Some of my favorite entries include 1979’s Zabumbê-bum-á; 1967’s Quarteto Novo with Theo de Barros, Heraldo do Monte and Airto Moreira; 1973’s A música livre de Hermeto Pascoal; and Pra Você, Ilza, released in 2024 in tribute to his departed wife Ilza. Some of his best contributions include Miles Davis’ Live-Evil; Edu Lobo’s Sergio Mendes Presents Lobo; Donald Byrd’s Electric Byrd; and Flora Purim’s Open Your Eyes You Can Fly.

“Música da Lagoa,” possibly his most iconic work, was never recorded for an album release. Pascoal wrote the four-minute, two-chord piece for the 1985 ecological film “Sinfonia do Alto Ribeira” and performed it only once. In the film, he makes an instrument of a lagoon, playing into and through the water, just as he’d done for hours at a time as a child.

“The instrument I like most is whatever instrument I happen to be playing at the moment,” Pascoal shared with The New York Times in 2004. And, he added, “Since everything is an instrument, from the burble of water to a symphony orchestra, there is never a moment I am without music.”

This week’s Relix Staff Picks dispatch also features tracks from Stereolab, Woods, Helado Negro, Black Lips, The Third Mind, Cécile McLorin Salvant, AVTT/PTTN (The Avett Brothers and Mike Patton), Drive-By Truckers, Circles Around the Sun and many more. Tune in here.