As the responsibilities of parenthood and academia keep Tift Merritt occupied, she’s been digging into her archives for fans eager for new music. In 2025, she released a 20th anniversary reissue of 2004’s superb Tambourine (a year late, but she’s been busy), and as a companion, she also compiled Time and Patience, a collection of unheard home recordings, demos, and live tracks. The connection to Tambourine comes in the form of five “Kitchen Recordings” of tunes that would later appear on the album, featuring just Merritt’s voice and guitar (or piano). The emotional intimacy of her songs has always been one of the most moving aspects of her music, and these bare-bones recordings are beautiful and striking; while they might be tapes she made at home, she sings…