Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, The Civil Wars, Mat Kearney, Amy Stroup and Shawn Mullins are among the artists lending their voices and talents to Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest arriving April 10. The new project is spearheaded by noted producer and writer Phil Madeira with a goal, according to a press release, "to find that loving and nourishing part of faith that has become obscured anytime religion reaches mainstream media." Other artists participating include The North Mississippi All-Stars, The Carolina Chocolate Dropes, Cindy Morgan, guitarist John Scofield and Dan Tyminski of Alison Krauss and Union Station.

SoCal singer/songwriter Greg Laswell has called upon some well-known female singers -- including his wife -- for his forthcoming April 24 album Landline. Sia, Elizabeth Ziman (of Elizabeth and the Catapult), Sara Bareilles and Laswell's bride Ingrid Michaelson all make vocal contributions to the eleven track project, with the uptempto Bareilles duet "Come Back Down" pegged as the album's first single. Michaelson, who married Laswell last summer, closes the album with Laswell on the title track. See the full track listing below. A short video of Laswell in the studio with Ziman -- as the instrumental intro to the track "Late Arriving" plays in the background -- is now playing at his website.

Jack White will release his debut solo album Blunderbuss on April 24 via Third Man Records/Columbia. The former White Stripes founder and Raconteur will offer up a first taste of the new project today with "Love Interruption" available digitally at 9pm tonight. Stream below.

Produced by White and recorded at his own Third Man Studio in Nashville, Blunderbuss has been described by White as "an album I couldn't have released until now. I've put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas."

Jack White - "Love Interruption" (from Blunderbuss)

The long-awaited Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a dramatic "roots musical" collaboration between novelist Stephen King and veteran performer John Mellencamp, will finally be launched this spring via a theatrical run in Atlanta beginning April 4 and the release of a star-studded studio concept album on May 22. In the works for a decade, King originally penned the story while Mellencamp joined up to write the music and lyrics. Both projects are produced with the input of producer T-Bone Burnett -- who described the sound as "dark, foggy...and scary".

The conceptual studio album released via Hear Music in both a single disc and 3-CD deluxe version, will feature spoken word readings and music. Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow, Taj Mahal and Neko Case taking are among those taking the singing roles, while Matthew McConaughey, Meg Ryan, former boxer Joe Frazier and Costello doing the reading. "It sounds like the 'Sgt. Pepper' of Americana to me," says Mellencamp, adding that the goal was to make the recording sound something like "an old radio play" complete with dialogue and sound effects. Other musicians contributing to the project include Dave Alvin, Phil Alvin, Will Dailey and Mellencamp himself.

Following platinum success in Norway, Scandinavian songstress Ane Brun will release her latest album It All Starts With One in the U.S. on May 1 via Pias. Drum-centric lead track "Do You Remember", featuring Swedish alt-country duo First Aid Kit, is now available as a free download. We featured the video for "Do You Remember" last July -- revisit it here. Press release and live video of "Remember" below...

Ane Brun - "Do You Remember" (from It All Starts With One)

Brendan Benson -- solo artist, producer, member of The Raconteurs with Jack White -- now adds "label mogul" to his resume with the launch of his new label Readymade records. Among the handful of spring releases is Benson's own What Kind of World due April 24, his fifth solo project and successor to 2009's My Old Familiar Friend. Benson will hit SXSW in March and then hit a few clubs in late April and May with Readymade signee Young Hines in tow. Lead track from Benson's World is lushly orchestrated and  piano-fueled "Bad For Me" while earlier song "Keep Me", heard a couple of years ago (and featuring Young Hines, is also included among the album's dozen tracks. See the listing below.

Brendan Benson - "Bad For Me" (from What Kind of World)

Brendan Benson - "Keep Me" (from What Kind of World)

Press Release: M. Ward will release his sixth solo album, A Wasteland Companion, on April 10. In the three years since Portland, OR-based troubadour M. Ward released his last solo album – the universally lauded Hold Time – he’s toured the globe, released two albums as one half of Grammy-nominated duo She & Him as well as one with the talented group of friends collectively know as Monsters Of Folk.

Inspired by his increasingly itinerant lifestyle Ward set forth to create something of a musical travelogue. He explains, “Between now and when I made Hold Time there has been a lot of traveling which requires a lot of reckoning with what to leave behind and what to carry – material and otherwise – and thinking about what I want versus what I need, creatively and otherwise. I wanted to get a reflection of that on the album. It was a process of stripping away my security blanket, which is the same four walls I always record in.”

Press Release: Norah Jones is set to release a new album this spring entitled Little Broken Hearts (Blue Note/EMI), a collaboration with the producer and musician Danger Mouse. The two first worked together when Danger Mouse called upon Jones to contribute vocals to his acclaimed 2011 album ROME, and their connection proved deep enough that they decided to collaborate on Jones’ fifth studio album. Little Broken Hearts, which features original songs co-written by Jones and Danger Mouse, is the fascinating next step in the artistic evolution of one of the most intriguing singers to have emerged in the past decade. Together they have married their highly personal styles to create an entirely new sound.

Press Release: Swedish born, New Orleans based soul singer Theresa Andersson is back with a new album, Street Parade, arriving April 24 via Basin Street Records, is a lush, joyful and sometimes melancholy ode to they city she has called “home” for nearly 20 years.
 
A stunning vocalist and a talented multi-instrumentalist, Theresa is best known for her live shows, where she crafts complexly layered songs using bevy of drums, stringed instruments and looping pedals. She became an internet phenomenon in 2008, when Youtube featured a home-made video of her performing a song in her kitchen. The song, “Na Na Na,” from her album Hummingbird, Go!, logged 750,000 views in three days, and has gone on to accumulate nearly 1.5 million views on YouTube.

Theresa Andersson - "What Comes Next (w/ Peter  Moren) (from Street Parade)

Press Release: Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Robert Francis will be releasing his label debut Strangers in the First Place on May 22. The 12 tracks on Strangers in the First Place embrace the emotional richness of his gravel tinged baritone and depth in his songwriting which critics and fans have long praised. 

Robert Francis - "Some Things Never Change" (from Strangers In the First Place) Free download.