HELLO STRANGER: Introducing No Depression’s Winter 2023 Journal + Playlist

EDITOR’S NOTE: Managing Editor Hilary Saunders’ letter, below, opens our Winter 2023 quarterly journal, featuring the best and most timely stories in roots music today. Buy the Winter 2023 issue in print or digitally here. Better yet, start a subscription with this issue and help support No Depression’s music journalism all year long.

As of this writing, a war has been fought in the Holy Land for 13 days. For these nearly two excruciating weeks, the news has been even more awful than usual. Some days are debilitating, a challenge just to get out of bed. On other days, the grind of “normalcy” wins out, my deadlines screaming for attention in my head like less-emergent versions of sirens on the other side of the world.

The other day I took a walk, via phone, with my friend Shoshi, a violist, educator, and peace-builder whom I describe to others as “my friend who’s going to solve the Middle Eastern crisis through music,” and we tried to console each other. We spoke while I stomped along the East River in Queens and she paced up and down the Hudson River overlooking New Jersey. We texted each other photos of the same sunset from less than 10 miles apart, the sliver of Manhattan between us.

One thing she said that really stuck with me is how we have to cling to the things that make us feel human, even as the violence, propaganda, biased reporting, social media nonsense, and rising hate crimes continue to dehumanize us.

It’s a hard thing to do, of course. In our despondent states, she told me about not wanting to practice lately, and I replied that I hadn’t been listening to much music either. The feeling of helplessness weighed too heavy on us both.

Still, our lives here carry on, and I had a speaking engagement with singer-songwriter William Prince at an event organized by the Grammy Museum, Americana Music Association, and City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. Prince’s latest record, Stand in the Joy (ND review), is becoming one of my favorites of 2023 for its honest, thoughtful representation of love — not just the warm fuzzies, but also the hard work it takes to maintain. His baritone, smooth and soothing, carries messages about, as he has described it, “being in love versus loving somebody.”

Thinking about this record through a critical lens was a fresh reminder of the work I do and love. This kind of critical thinking, analysis, and reporting are what we try to do here through No Depression. This issue explores origin stories of some specific instruments and the intertwining personal histories of others. It celebrates album anniversaries and honors roots musicians who never got their due in their time. It showcases the interdisciplinary nature of art, elevating musicians who are also visual artists and poets.

These are the most human things I can think of — songs, stories, illustrations, collages, poems, melodies. And while I know these are not the things that will recover hostages or rebuild buildings or feed children or mend bones, they are what heal hearts. Even if our humanity is all we have left, it’s — in the words of one of my favorite Frightened Rabbit songs — how we can “make tiny changes to Earth.”

Here’s a playlist featuring artists and songs mentioned in our Winter 2023 journal: