Kevin Morby has announced his eighth studio album, Little Wide Open, will come out on 15th May via Dead Oceans. The album was produced by Aaron Dessner, and the single Javelin is out now. Additionally, Morby announced his 2026 world tour, which includes three UK dates at present.
“Little Wide Open 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,” explains Morby. “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.”
Of the single Javelin, Morby says: “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone you keep circling around the globe, relentlessly travelling through the air and down highways, and then returning home alone to middle America. Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso) shines here with her incredible vocals. I had invited her into the studio and asked that she create a backing choir out of just her voice – but her presence is so special that her ‘backing vocals’ can’t help but take the lead.”
The accompanying video for the single stars Morby and friend Caleb Hearon on an ATV driving around the fields and backroads of Missouri, with cameos from Katie Crutchfield and Tara Raghuveer. “I think it captures all the fun we had making it,” says Morby. See if he did below.
In the summer of 2024, Dessner had asked Morby to support The National at their London show in Crystal Palace Park. Shortly after, Dessner—who was on a hot streak, having produced albums for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Gracie Abrams—reached out to Morby to say he’d love to produce his next album. They began recording at Aaron’s Long Pond Studio in Stuyvesant, NY, early in 2025 and finished in September of that year.
The album, which includes a host of contributors such as Dessner—who plays multiple instruments across it— Meath, Justin Vernon, Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Mat Davidson, Meg Duffy, Oliver Hill, Rachel Baiman, Stuart Bogie, Tim Carr, Andrew Barr, Benjamin Lanz, Colin Croom and Tom Moth, has been described by Morby as the third in an unintentional trilogy of releases, following 2020’s Sundowner and 2022’s This Is a Photograph, which catalogued his time in middle America after moving back to Kansas City. Morby’s friend, critically acclaimed novelist Rachel Kushner, has written an essay about Little Wide Open, entitled Field Guide to the North American Troubadour which can be read in full following this link.
Tickets for the dates are available here and the album can be pre-ordered from this link.
Little Wide Open Tracklist:
1. Badlands
2. Die Young
3. Javelin
4. All Sinners
5. Natural Disaster
6. 100,000
7. Little Wide Open
8. Cowtown
9. Bible Belt
10. I Ride Passenger
11. Junebug
12. Dandelion
13. Field Guide for the Butterflies
Kevin Morby 2026 UK Tour Dates:
Wed. July 8 – London, UK @ Troxy
Thu. July 9 – Manchester, UK @ The Ritz
Fri. July 10 – Brighton, UK @ CHALK
