My Morning Jacket has announced the release date of their eagerly awaited new album, “is”, …ahem… is arriving via ATO Records on Friday, March 21st. Pre-orders are available here now. Produced by 3x GRAMMY® Award-winner Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam), “is” marks My Morning Jacket’s 10th studio album and first full-length new collection in more than three years and is heralded by the lead single, ‘Time Waited’ which you can watch the official music video for below. It’s directed by Danny Clinch and features new performance footage interspersed with archival photos from throughout the band’s history. The song emerged from a sample of a piano part lifted from pedal-steel virtuoso Buddy Emmons’ lost classic album, “Emmons Guitar Inc.”
“I made a loop of that piano intro and listened as I went for a walk, and all these melodies started coming to me,” says vocalist/guitarist Jim James. “For a long time, I didn’t have lyrics, but then I had a dream where I was in a café and a song was playing, and the lyrics to that song became the lyrics to ‘Time Waited’ – the melodies just fit perfectly. And the lyrics are about how flexible time is, how we can bend and warp time, especially if we are following our hearts, the universe and time itself can flow to work with us.”
Largely recorded at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, “is” finds the boys deviating from their typically self-produced approach by teaming up with Brendan O’Brien, one of the most recognizable producers in rock music, known for his extensive work with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. For James – who has produced or co-produced all of the band’s studio albums since their 1999 debut ‘The Tennessee Fire’ – the decision to work with O’Brien stemmed from a newfound willingness to open up the process and involve an outside creative force in shaping My Morning Jacket’s ever-evolving sound.
“Up until now I’ve never been able to let go and allow someone else to steer the ship,” James says. “It almost felt like an out-of-body experience to step back and give control over to someone who’s far more accomplished and made so many more records than us, but in the end, I was able to enjoy the process maybe more than I ever have before.”
Before joining O’Brien in the studio, the band got together for exploratory writing and recording sessions, amassing over a hundred demos before settling upon the 10 tracks that eventually comprised the finished album. When it came time to name the collection, they chose a title they felt spoke to the infinitely unpredictable nature of music-making.
“I like how the word indicates a sense of presence in the now – there’s no logic or rationale behind this record; it just is,” says James. “All these songs came into existence out of an attempt to connect with something beyond the human experiment, which for me is one of the most beautiful things about music – that connection with something larger than us, yet something we are all equally a part of.”
“is” tracklist:
Out In The Open
Half A Lifetime
Everyday Magic
I Can Hear Your Love
Time Waited
Beginning From The Ending
Lemme Know
Squid Ink
Die For It
River Road
The single ‘Time Waited’
