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 booked with the
mission of spreading their newfound message of radical love, 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, Beacons 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 (political polarization and division throughout the U.S., the Israel–Hamas War, and Russo-
Ukrainian Wars), 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.
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. “Bluegrass has an energy that’s so intense and invigorating, and for this album we wanted to take that even further,” says Zasloff.
