Small adventures in the English language, by Helen Zaltzman from @AnswerMeThis for @Radiotopia from PRX.

Visit http://theallusionist.org, and/or subscribe on iTunes http://tinyurl.com/iTunesAllusionist.

The literary podcast presented by John Mitchinson and Andy Miller. Brought to you by Unbound. Visit www.backlisted.fm

The 68th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival will take place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds September 26-28, 2025.

Join Alex Reads and Raifa Rafiq in their journey to keep up with the millennial experience, while exploring the intersection between literature, wellness and pop-culture. 
Tune in weekly as they discuss everything that is ‘lit’ in a fun and insightful  way! #ShowDemBooks
Manager and Executive Producer Clarissa Pabi
Contact us MostlyLit@gmail.com

Penguin Books publishes blockbusting, prize-winning, celebrated, controversial, heart-warming, thought-provoking and inspiring books by a range of authors from Ali Smith to Zadie Smith, Jeremy Clarkson to Jeremy Paxman and Jamie Oliver to Oliver Goldsmith.

alt-J are Joe Newman, Gus Unger-Hamilton and Thom Green. They returned in 2022 with their latest album, The Dream.  

alt-J are one of the most successful British bands of the millennium. Their 2012 Mercury Prize and Ivor Novello Award-winning debut An Awesome Wave, was followed two years later by their number one, GRAMMY and BRIT Award-nominated album This Is All Yours. Released in 2017, RELAXER flew straight into the top 10 of the UK album chart ahead of a summer of major international shows - including a headline show at London’s O2 Arena and headline performances at numerous festivals - and became their second album to be nominated for the Mercury Prize.

Sola Rosa, the long-running project of New Zealand producer Andrew Spraggon, has never lacked stylistic ambition. Over the past two decades, he's taken an omnivorous approach to genre—soul, R&B, funk, jazz, hip-hop, and the occasional nod to pop—all filtered through a lens that favours polish and warmth over flash. It’s music that feels lived-in rather than lab-engineered.

Since winning Best Electronic Release at the 2001 NZ Music Awards for Solarized, Spraggon has quietly built an international rep. There’ve been remixes from Tall Black Guy, Hermitude and DJ Vadim; sets at Secret Garden Party and Green Man; praise from Rolling Stone, Mojo, and more. Yet he remains a bit of a secret—an underground mainstay rather than a household name.

The 2020 LP Chasing The Sun marked a return after five years and proved there was still plenty left in the tank. Now, 25 years into the Sola Rosa journey, comes New Tomorrows: a taut, considered EP that feels less like a statement and more like a bridge between chapters. The collaborators remain—singers, writers, players from both sides of the Tasman—but there’s a quiet sense of closure. A drawing of breath before something sharper.
That “something” is already coming: a new album lands later this year, with Spraggon stepping further into the foreground. Watch this space.

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