Little Wide Open

Announcing a new album, a new season

Today I am overjoyed to announce my eighth album Little Wide Open, which comes out May 15th on Dead Oceans. I’m also releasing the first single and video, called Javelin, as well as tour dates in North America/EU/UK. I hope to see y’all out there and I can’t wait to bring this new album and the most incredible band with me.

I recorded Little Wide Open with producer Aaron Dessner and engineer Bella Blasko at Long Pond throughout the winter, spring and summer of last year.

Aaron and I constructed these songs from the ground up - and then we built our own little world around them before calling in the calvary to get us to the finish line. There are many amazing friends across the album; Andrew Barr plays drums, Mat Davidson plays fiddle, Lucinda Williams sings, Amelia Meath sings, Katie Gavin sings, Justin Vernon sirens, Meg Duffy guitars, Colin Croom steels, Oliver Hill strings, Rachel Baiman plays violin, and more.

It was a thrill to witness Aaron and Bella operate within Long Pond as if the studio itself was its own instrument. Aaron would float around the studio picking up instruments and adding them where he saw fit; mandolin, guitar, banjo, bass, piano, synths and drums. And me, I did my thing, singing my songs, playing piano, guitar and banjo. Outside the glass walls of the studio the snow gradually melted into spring and spring turned into summer across three different sessions and before we knew it we had made an album.

I wrote LWO throughout the many-year cycle touring my last album. I’d get back home and chip away at these songs in my little midwestern isolation chamber and also out on various solo road trips - across Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Texas - my own private America, my own private heaven.

LWO is set to a backdrop of tangled highways, towns with populations less than 100,000, roadside crosses, a rock and roll romance, coupling butterflies, being an American entertainer, Econoline vans and more. This is, without a doubt, the most personal and vulnerable album I’ve ever made. Aaron did a heroic job of holding me back from throwing too many tricks at the songs, and letting my stories stand a bit naked. Despite its title this album is in fact, very wide open.

The great Chantal Anderson took the cover photo; my arm, inside an American stunt jacket, reaching out of an Econoline van towards a field of sunflowers. I like to think of the sunflowers less as flowers and more as a crowd of people. People who are looking on at an entertainer who has just arrived to perform their tricks, and is doing all in their power to connect.

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For now, please enjoy Javelin - it features Amelia Meath, who absolutely shines all over it, and the video was a lot of fun to make and features Katie and our good friends Caleb and Tara. I’m very proud of both. I have a lot more to say on Javelin that I’ll save for a separate post. That reminds me…

Once the album is released I will be publishing a post dedicated to each song with a demo in tow, beneath the pay wall, just as I did for This Is A Photograph, so look out for that. It’s something I really enjoyed doing then and am stoked to be able to do again; breaking down each individual song and revealing their demos that outline my process.

OK - I love you all! And am forever so grateful for you listening to my music. Please let Little Wide Open season commence. I’ll see y’all out there! xoxox

Album cover taken by Chantal Anderson and laid out by Mike Krol

Photo by Chantal Anderson

Pictures by Harper Cowan

Poster by Mike Krol