The latest full-length from Cordovas, Destiny Hotel is a work of wild poetry and wide-eyed abandon, set to a glorious collision of folk and country and groove-heavy rock-and-roll. In a major creative milestone for the Tennessee-based band—vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Joe Firstman, keyboardist Sevans Henderson, guitarist/vocalist Lucca Soria and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Toby Weaver—the album harnesses the freewheeling energy of their live show more fully than ever, all while lifting their songwriting to a whole new level of sophistication. The result is a batch of songs that ruminate and rhapsodize with equal intensity, inviting endless celebration on the way to transcendence.

But while Destiny Hotel unfolds in untold revelations on fear and ego and self-liberation, Cordovas offer up that insight without ever slipping into didacticism. In fact, much of the album radiates utter elation, each moment echoing Cordovas’ band-of-brothers kinship and extraordinary closeness: when they’re not touring the world, taking the stage at leading festivals like Stagecoach, Newport Folk and Pickathon, or hosting their own Tropic of Cancer Concert Series down in Todos Santos, Cordovas spend much of their time practicing in the barn at their communal farm home just outside Nashville. “I can’t imagine that many bands rehearse more than we do,” says Firstman, whose wife and young child also live on the farm. “We’re all here together in this wonderful space, and we’re pretty good about never taking it for granted.”

Bella White
22-year-old singer / songwriter Bella White has a one-of-a-kind musical talent: a finespun breed of country/folk both fresh in perspective and wholly steeped in bluegrass tradition, despite her upbringing in the Canadian city of Calgary. Her sophomore album, Among Other Things (Produced by Jonathan Wilson) unfolds with gorgeously textured layers encompassing elements of country, folk, indie, and classic rock.

A near-lifelong songwriter who names Joni Mitchell and John Prine among her earliest influences, White wrote all of the songs on Among Other Things entirely on her own, mainly for the sake of preserving the intimacy of each track’s incisive introspection. And in that devotion to excavating her personal truth, White ultimately made her way to a greater clarity on her overall vision as an artist. “When I made my first album, I didn’t have much direction beyond loving that style of music and wanting to create something that showed that,” she says. “But with the new record, I felt a much stronger understanding of what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. It made me feel a lot more empowered in the whole process, and it brought me so much joy to see my songs become their own little universes. I hope when people hear this music, it leaves them with that same feeling of empowerment—like they’re completely free to do their own thing.”