Tampa-born, New Orleans-based singer/songwriter Thomas Dollbaum has announced his new album Birds of Paradise, “a goodbye letter to lost loved ones and former selves,” which will come out on May 22 via Dear Life Records, and the first 100 pre-orders will receive a free carpenter’s pencil!! First time we’ve heard of that! Along with the album announcement, the album’s first single Dozen Roses is out now, and it arrives with a music video shot on the Mississippi Delta by Mississippi-based ALLUVIAL which you can watch below. The band on the album is made up of Nick Corson, Josh Halper, and MJ Lenderman.
Dollbaum says of the single, “Dozen Roses is the second track on Birds of Paradise, a Part II to the album opener Visitation. That song is an introduction of sorts to the themes of the record; “magical thinking” is a way to process the world and the memories I have. Dozen Roses is more about the passing of time and acknowledgement of never feeling like there is enough of it. I also really feel like both songs (and the rest of the record) are grounded in the natural world, and sort of the magic that brings.”
The album can be preordered here if you want that pencil!
Both of Dollbaum’s previous releases, 2022’s Wellswood and last fall’s Drive All Night, had by all accounts taken way too long to record, due to circumstances out of his control, leaving him frustrated. And after having been away from his home for eight years, the place he had left was no longer the place he remembered, and the unchanging natural world felt like a constant he wanted to write about; consequently, writing the album in just three months. He then called up the musicians he trusted and admired the most. Corson, Halper, and Lenderman and asked them to meet him at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi, with producer/engineer Clay Jones. They learned and tracked the album in four days.
With the help of Lenderman, Halper, Corson, and Jones, Birds of Paradise may be Dollbaum’s breakthrough. In April, he’ll link up with Fust and Merce Lemon for another run of solo dates in the US. Nothing EU or UK yet, but stay here for updates.
