Josh Ritter flexes his creative muscles on 'Spectral Lines'

By Raina Douris, Kimberly Junod

Published April 28, 2023 at 7:06 AM PDT

This story was published more than 1 year ago.

Josh Ritter never goes too long without making something. Since releasing his last full-length album in 2019, he kept busy painting and publishing his second novel. He's the kind of person who seems endlessly compelled to create, so it might surprise you to hear that there have been times when he worried he would lose that creative impulse. It also might surprise you to hear the music on his just released new album, Spectral Lines — a sonically adventurous album that sees him flexing his creative muscle and experimenting with field recordings and seamless transitions between songs.

The album is dedicated to Josh's mother, who passed away in March of 2021. In this session, you'll hear about the stories behind the songs. Plus, you'll hear Josh perform a few of those songs live.

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Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).