Since their formation in 2015, Brooklyn-based duo Rachael & Vilray have achieved a certain timeless quality with their singular take on traditional pop. Though rooted in the language of an earlier age, their songs transcend nostalgia with wit and a flair for the theatrical. On their third album West of Broadway, vocalist Rachael Price (also of Lake Street Dive) and guitarist/singer/songwriter Vilray evolve their music’s previous dreaminess to achieve a refreshing angularity built on left-of-center instrumentation (e.g., vibraphone and alto saxophone coasting above the moody strains of baritone sax and trombone). Produced by Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Bahamas), West of Broadway unfolds in a series of sharply drawn vignettes inspired by a recent fascination with classic musicals—bringing their luminous vocals to offbeat tales of love and heartache along city streets.

Recorded at the legendary Sear Sound in Manhattan, West of Broadway took shape with the help of renowned musicians like saxophonist Steve Wilson (a former member of Chick Corea’s Origin sextet) and drummer John Riley (Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie). Over the course of 10 lush and effervescent tracks, the album delivers standouts like “Love Comes Around” (a joyously romantic piece that set the direction for the LP’s West Coast jazz-inspired aesthetic), “My Key to Gramercy Park” (a fantastically salty number narrated by a well-to-do character who lives in lonely suspicion of all those who covet their key to the notoriously exclusive private park), and “Off Broadway” (on which golden-voiced comedian Stephen Colbert joins in for what the duo dubs an “oddly grumpy anti-Broadway screed”). Thanks in large part to the colorful detail and extravagant personality of Rachael & Vilray’s storytelling, West of Broadway ultimately immerses the audience in an exquisitely out-of-time vision of their beloved New York City.

Taylor Ashton is a shape-shifting songwriter with the heart of a novelist and the timing of a stand-up comic. Whether it’s just his warm baritone over solo clawhammer banjo or his agile falsetto soaring over an electric, horn-laced six-piece band, his live shows unfold like a play: vulnerable, funny, and slyly profound. Laughter often gives way to a hush. Ashton’s sound evokes the intimacy of Nick Drake, the soul of Bill Withers, the tender playfulness of Harry Nilsson, and the searching spirit of Joni Mitchell. Like his heroes, he thrives in the liminal space where heart-on-sleeve meets tongue-in-cheek, with a groovy brand of folk-rock in which surprising pairings of familiar ingredients add up to a greater sum that is tricky to define, but easy to love.

Originally from Vancouver BC, Ashton started touring in his teens as frontman of the band Fish & Bird, who became Canadian folk festival favorites over four albums. Eventually, he relocated to Brooklyn to launch his solo career. His vibrant debut The Romantic (2020) was followed by the stark Stranger to the Feeling (2023). The latter was recorded on a New York-to-LA road trip, mostly in the living rooms of friends across the States who became featured guests on the album, including members of Vulfpeck and Big Thief. Over the years, he’s toured and recorded with artists like Aoife O’Donovan, The Wood Brothers, Madison Cunningham, Courtney Hartman, and his wife Rachael Price (of Lake Street Dive). Taylor Ashton has written for and sung on the Tonight Show and the New York Times, and he has established himself as a staple of Brooklyn’s prismatic folk scene.

2026 heralds the arrival of a new LP, produced and largely co-written by Benjamin Lazar Davis (Cuddle Magic, Okkervil River, Maya Hawke). The new music marks a bold evolution in both sound and subject matter. Davis’ influence brings flavors of jagged experimental pop and classical harmony to these new songs: a set of atmospheric short stories about fidelity, friendship, destiny, and self-deception. Crystalline photographic details mingle with stark confessions and cosmic longing. Whether his focus is trained on a nebula of cream in a diner coffee cup, a misheard piece of advice, or the infinite quest to stop fooling oneself, Ashton finds the mythic in the mundane and the sacred in a sideways glance.