Every week, 88Nine music director Erin Wolf shares a sonic gem she found using her nearly 20 years of new-music exploration experience. You can hear all her discoveries live on 88Nine at 10 p.m. every Monday on What’s All This: Adventures in New Music.
Liberian-born, Tennessee-based folk artist Mon Rovîa (born Janjay Lowe) shares of his new album, Bloodline, “I spent years trying to understand where I came from before I had the tools to do so. Writing this helped me accept that wanting to know your story is not a flaw — it’s part of being human.” The album’s opening track, “Black Cauldron,” hazily yet vividly traces roots and sets the scene for what’s to come while reflecting on what’s been.
Growing up in West Africa and in the southern United States after being adopted by missionaries, Lowe shares that the song is “not a clean origin story, but a felt one. My earliest understanding of myself came in fragments, sensations and inherited weight. I spent years trying to understand where I came from before I had the tools to do so. This song opens the album by stepping back into that heat and acknowledging that my life was shaped long before I had any say in it.”
Bloodline is out now on Nettwerk Records, and “Black Cauldron” from Mon Rovîa is on the latest episode of What’s All This, which you can check out using the player at the top of the page. Be sure to tune in at 10 p.m. every Monday on 88Nine for another fresh batch of tunes.
Best new indie music this week
- Juliana Hatfield, “Fall Apart”
- Haute & Freddy, “Dance The Pain Away”
- Chinese American Bear, “No No Yeah Yeah”
- Cate Le Bon, “Always The Same (ft. St. Vincent)”
- Maria BC, “Marathon”
- SAULT, “Create Your Prophecy”
- Lucy Clearwater, “I Wanna Fight You”
- Nectarine Girl, “before photo”
- spiderhouse, “Downer”
- Mon Rovîa, “Black Cauldron”
- Anna Tivel, “Memphis”
- Buck Meek, “Gasoline”
