Nefesh Mountain

The latest album from Nefesh Mountain, Beacons emerged from a bold and wholehearted attempt to transform the world around them. Soon after wrapping up a whirlwind tour, co-founders Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg immersed themselves in the feverish writing of songs that turned their frustrations and fears into irrepressible hope, all while reaching far beyond their bluegrass roots and forging a fiercely joyful sound unbound by genre convention. By the time they’d completed that process of musical alchemy, the New York-based husband-and-wife duo had profoundly refined the band’s vision and voice and arrived at the unfettered radiance of Beacons: an epic double album affirming Nefesh Mountain as a singular musical force — one whose deeply impassioned songwriting awakens us to new ways of navigating an endlessly troubled world.  Self-produced and mainly recorded at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, the album expands on the soulful intentionality Nefesh Mountain has brought to their music since forming a decade ago.  

“We live in such strange and divided times, and while we wanted this album to be a full-on celebration of American music, one of our main goals was to bring love, hope, and positivity into a world that sorely needs it,” says Lindberg. “In the end, we made a choice: instead of getting angry, we just made music.” 

Although much of the album stemmed from their rumination on the political landscape, its spirit of purposeful optimism is made all the more potent by Nefesh Mountain’s willingness to speak about their most intimate struggles and triumphs, including the birth of their now-three-year-old “miracle baby” Willow, and Zasloff ’s journey with sobriety. 

“This is definitely the most revealing and personal album we’ve ever made, which was a big leap for us,” says Zasloff. “At some point, it became obvious that if we’re going to really open our hearts, we need to talk about things we’ve never shared before, with the hope that it will end up helping others.” The result:  a selection of lived-in and truly revelatory songs, each providing a beacon-like transmission of uplift and light.

One of the first songs penned for Beacons, “This Is Me,” graces the album’s second disc with a harmony-fueled anthem that captures the pure glory in fully owning your truth. 

“Over the years I’ve had a lot of people ask me how a Jewish kid from Brooklyn ended up loving bluegrass and country music, but there’s really no answer — you just can’t help but be who you are,” says Lindberg. “This album is in many ways a new coming out for us as a band. We’re playing and writing in so many different styles that are all organic to us as musicians, and ‘This Is Me’ is a reminder that we should embrace ourselves, and all be able to unapologetically live and love freely in this world.” Lindberg adds. “We’re all about Radical Love these days, and trying to bring people together and finding some common ground at a time in history where there is so little tolerance or empathy toward each other,” says Zasloff. 

The follow-up to Songs for the Sparrows — a 2021 LP praised by Rolling Stone as a “master class in string music” — Nefesh Mountain’s fourth full-length effort, encompasses two distinct discs, the first of which blurs the lines between Americana, blues, country, and psych-folk, offering up an electrified sound created with the help of their longtime live band and guest musicians like pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz (Beck, Joni Mitchell, Ray LaMontagne, Willie Nelson). Meanwhile, the second disc to Beacons finds the duo working again with legendary roots musicians Jerry Douglas (on Dobro), Sam Bush (mandolin), Rob McCoury (banjo), Cody Kilby (guitar), Mark Schatz (bass), and Stuart Duncan (fiddle), and serving up an all-acoustic lineup of  songs spotlighting their boundary-pushing form of bluegrass.