As an independent radio station, WNRN supports Virginia artists through its regular and specialty programming, In-Studio Sessions, and presents promotions. Each month, we’ll have a Commonwealth artist featured here. WNRN’s Commonwealth Music is supported by listeners like you. Become a member now and support Commonwealth Music on WNRN!
Artist Spotlight
Illiterate Light
Illiterate Light was formed in 2015 by Jeff Gorman and Jake Cochran, who met at James Madison University in Harrisonburg.
They released their self-titled debut album in 2019, and have followed it with their second LP, Sunburned, and a 4-song EP titled Aloe.
The band was named one of NPR’s Artists to Watch in 2020, and were highlighted in 2023 by Garden & Gun as some of The Best Rock and Roll Right Now.
Commonwealth Music on YouTube
World Cafe Features
McKinley Dixon on World Cafe
On McKinley Dixon’s new album, Beloved! Paradise! Jazz?, he moved to Chicago, looking for a blank canvas to generate ideas for this wildly inventive and sonically lush LP that tackles themes of longing. Dixon will talk about why his sound can be difficult to pin down, his love of animation, and how the author Toni Morrison inspired the album’s title, on the next World Cafe.
Lowland Hum Mini Concert on World Cafe
The songs on Lowland Hum’s latest album, From Self with Love, were written during a period of uncertainty for the husband and wife duo of Daniel and Lauren Goans. They’d just become first-time parents when they wrote the album, which touches on themes of pandemic isolation, early parenthood, death, grief, and new life.
David Wax Museum on World Cafe
Tuesday July 25th, 2023 David Wax Museum’s latest album You Must Change Your Life looked like it could be their last when frontman David Wax
