Nonesuch Records releases mandolinist, singer, and songwriter Chris Thile’s Laysongs. The album is his first truly solo album: just Thile, his voice, and his mandolin, on new recordings of six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualise and banter with his ideas about spirituality. Recorded in a converted Upstate New York Church during the pandemic, Laysongs’ centrepiece is the three-part ‘salt (in the wounds) of the earth’, which was inspired by C.S. Lewis’s the Screwtape letters. The album also features a song Thile wrote about Dionysus; a performance of the fourth movement of Béla Bartók’s sonata for solo violin; ‘God is alive, magic is afoot’ based on Buffy Sainte-Marie’s adaptation of a Leonard Cohen poem; a cover of bluegrass legend Hazel Dickens’ ‘Won’t you come and sing for me’; and an original instrumental loosely modelled after the prelude from J.S. Bach’s partita for solo violin in E major. He performs solo shows in the US this spring and also continues his popular Sunday afternoon online masterclass series, music is life is music.
MacArthur fellow Chris Thile is the founding member of Punch Brothers, which a Boston Globe reviewer has called ‘the tightest, most impressive live band I have ever seen’. The group’s five Nonesuch albums are Punch, Antifogmatic, Who’s feeling young now?, The phosphorescent blues, and the grammy-winning All ashore. Thile’s other Nonesuch releases include a duo album with guitarist Michael Daves, two records with bassist Edgar Meyer (one of which won a Grammy), a Bach album with Yo-Yo Ma and Meyer, a duet album with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and the T Bone Burnett–produced soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. As a soloist, Thile has released six albums – most recently an album of his songs of the week from live from here called thanks for listening. He spent his formative years as a member of the Grammy award–winning, multi-platinum selling band Nickel Creek, which reunited in 2014 for its highest-charting album to date, a dotted line, and an extensive tour. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favourite Live from here with Chris Thile (formerly known as a prairie home companion).

1. Laysong
2. Ecclesiastes
3. God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot
4. Salt (In the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 1
5. Salt (In the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 2
6. Salt (In the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 3
7. Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz 117: IV. Presto
8. Dionysus
9. Won't You Come and Sing for Me