The Third Mind will release “Right Now!”, their third studio album, on 19th September 2025 via Yep Roc Records. Recorded live over four days at 64 Sound Recording Studio in Los Angeles, “Right Now!” is a combination of instinct and improvisation by skilled musicians meeting in real time to find the songs as they go. “Everything about this record is intuitive,” says The Third Mind co-founder Dave Alvin. “It’s five musicians walking a tightrope, improvising in dialogue with each other and finding the songs in real time.”
The band began as a free-form studio experiment between Alvin and Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker, Monks of Doom, Eyelids), inspired by the spontaneity of Miles Davis’ improvisational work. The Third Mind evolved into a supergroup enlisting guitarist David Immerglück (Counting Crows), drummer Michael Jerome (Richard Thompson, Better Than Ezra, John Cale), and singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes (Jesse Sykes & The Sweeter Hereafter), whose vocal presence Alvin credits as the band’s anchor. “To me, Jesse’s vocals are the glue that holds this whole thing together,” says Alvin. “Her voice is so unique, and she sings with such intense introspection that it just sucks you in.”
Like its predecessors, “Right Now!” draws heavily from the 1960s songbook, reimaging classics such as Elizabeth Cotten’s ‘Shake Sugaree’, filtered through Fred Neil’s 1966 version, and traditional murder ballad ‘Pretty Polly’,” which lands somewhere between The Grateful Dead and Neil Young & Crazy Horse. “Right Now!” is “not a concept record,” says Krummenacher, “but there’s a darkness that flows beneath the surface of everything (including Lou Beach’s brilliant collage on the cover).”
The Third Mind abides by a few core guidelines: show up, don’t overthink it, and surrender to the moment; no rehearsals, no written arrangements, no discussions on approach, just a list of songs and keys meant to serve as a guide on the band’s journey toward wherever the spirit takes them.
The all-star collective has released the first single from “Right Now!”, a rendition of The Youngbloods’ ‘Darkness, Darkness’, shared in memory of Jesse Colin Young.
