Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Dan Shaw from the Holyoke, Massachusetts based group Landowner. Assumption is Landowner's latest record, which was released a few weeks back via Exploding In Sound Records. You can find out more about Landowner (and purchase their music) here https://landowner.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Chris Brokaw and Tanya Donelly's The Undone Is Done Again EP, which was released on Friday April 17th. You can hear it in all the usual places, or purchase it here; https://firerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-undone-is-done-again and my review can be read below.

Chris Brokaw & Tanya Donnelly: The Undone Is Done Again (Fire Records)

Released April 17th 2026

A brief but beautiful collaboration between Chris Brokaw of Come, Codeine and countless others and Tanya Donelly from Belly and Throwing Muses. The Undone Is Done Again —released by Fire Records for Record Store Day 2026— is a four track EP of medieval music that has been reinterpreted by Brokaw and Conelly following a joint performance at a charity benefit in 2024. 

Featuring Brokaw on guitar and Conelly on vocals, the EP’s sessions took place at Waltham, Massachusetts’ Woolly Mammoth Studios in Spring 2025, The Undone Is Done Again’s four songs were all originally composed between the 12th and 15th centuries. Each of the pieces were originally written as yuletide madrigals, which makes it an early or late Christmas album, depending on which side of the fence you sit on.

Opening with Novvus Annis Adiit, Brokaw’s spidery, reverb-drenched guitar lines weave majestically in and out of Donelly’s ethereal vocals, it is a beautifully crafted song that almost feels devotional. Sainte Nicholaes feels slightly darker and spookier, which is, perhaps, ironic, given the original was the first hymn to be dedicated to the individual who would go on to inspire the legend of Santa Claus. In Hoc Anni Circulo is, another shining example of divine interplay between Brokaw’s playing and Donelly’s voice, whilst (final track) Plaudat Letitia is far more voice forward and finds Donelly bordering on the operatic.

It would be an understatement to call The Undone Is Done Again unique, there is —realistically— little else to compare it to. It is too experimental to be considered traditional, but may be too traditional to be truly experimental. Either way it’s a wonderful collaboration, a lovely surprise and perfect, albeit short, reprieve from the madness of the modern world.

Nick Stephan