Rhiannon Giddens Releases New Album 'Hope Is the Thing with Feathers'

Rhiannon Giddens released a new album on September 18, her seventh studio record. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, out via Nonesuch Records, is a ten-song collection the Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time GRAMMY Award winner recorded mostly live in the studio, with no frills and few overdubs, according to the label.

The album was cut at The Cypress House in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, in sessions tucked into Giddens' North American tours in 2024 and 2025. It was co-produced by Giddens and longtime collaborator and bandmate Dirk Powell, who also engineered and mixed the record. Recording live was a deliberate choice meant to put the listener in the center of the room. Giddens says she cannot play without stomping, and her footwork is audible on the opening track. Studio chatter between takes was left in the final mixes.

The new album's title comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Giddens said the tune arrived while she was pondering the poem in a hotel room at a time when "hope is needed more than ever," and she sang it to Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, who finished it with, in her words, "his beautiful harmonic movement." A video for the title track arrived on release day: a timelapse of the album cover artwork, a six-by-six-foot patchwork quilt made by textile artist Uzoma Samuel Anyanwu from a photograph of Giddens by Ebru Yildiz.

A band rooted in Louisiana, Congo, Italy and the Carolinas

The record gathers musicians and traditions that have shaped Giddens over more than two decades. She sings lead and plays minstrel banjo and fiddle, joined by longtime bassist Jason Sypher, Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi on accordion and percussion, Tsumbu on guitars, and Powell on multiple instruments. The lineup also includes her first bandmate and fellow North Carolinian Justin Robinson, her nephew Justin Harrington on bones, Powell's daughter Amelia Powell, Charly Lowry and Giddens' sister Lalenja Harrington.

Giddens described the blend as the point of the record, calling the combination of "Louisiana, the Congo, Italy, the Carolinas" an example of "that is American music" and "how American music came to be," in a statement released by Nonesuch Records.

The album includes four original songs written by Giddens and Powell, including the lead single "Carolina Rain," a song about love and money built on plucked banjo and fiddle runs. A video for the single by Nesp5euro came out with the album announcement. "Wish in Vain" addresses the global refugee crisis, an attempt at "trying to imagine being torn from all you know and how those you love never really leave you," she said. The rest of the new album turns to other writers' material: Ola Belle Reed's "High on a Mountain," Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train," Pura F\u00e9's "Going Home," and traditionals including "Cluck Old Hen" and "Walk with Me," a duet with her sister. An August single of "Freight Train," just Giddens' voice and Powell on acoustic guitar, showed how spare the new recordings can be.

Early reception

The new album has drawn early praise. NPR Music's New Music Friday described the record as the full Giddens experience, writing that she can place music that feels centuries old beside music that feels current. Pitchfork wrote that within her music there are no borders between time or culture, only "the connective thread of human experience, a common bond celebrated in song." Mojo pointed to a determination to link arms against dark days, while Variety has called her the poster woman for roots music in America. NPR has named her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century, and American Songwriter has called her "one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet," according to Nonesuch. The album was also featured in the New York Times fall albums preview and profiled in Variety and The Observer.

The label's announcement describes the vinyl edition as pressed on fully recycled vinyl and carbon neutral. The announcement was published by Nonesuch Records, with release-day coverage from Shore Fire Media.

Beyond recording, Giddens stays prolific. Her 2025 collaboration with Robinson, What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Folk Album, and she served as music supervisor and consultant on the film Sinners. She plays the lead in the forthcoming film An Ode to Mary Jo, alongside Ed Helms, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle and Regina Taylor, and this year launched the Biscuits and Banjos Foundation, which provides banjos to Black music education organizations. The foundation grew out of her Biscuits and Banjos festival, a sold-out three-day event in Durham, North Carolina. She also continues her work with the Silkroad Ensemble, which she leads as artistic director, following a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall.

The release lands in a busy stretch for music news. For related coverage, read more about the Ed Sheeran tour dispute and Kai Cenat's record streaming run.