Photo Credit: Silvia Garv
My Morning Jacket have announced the March 21, 2025, release of their 10th studio album, titled is, via ATO Records. Today’s album announcement is coupled with the initial sonic preview for the lead single “Time Waisted” and paired alongside a Danny Clinch direct music video as an added visual layer to the introductory experience. Watch below.
The forthcoming full-length arrival comes three years after My Morning Jacket released their last batch of studio songs in 2021. The new set was produced by three-time Grammy winner Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam) and helmed by the ensemble’s love-tinged ballad, “Time Waisted,” which samples a bewitching piano segment that was culled from pedal-steel virtuoso Buddy Emmons’ lost LP, 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 My Morning Jacket vocalist/guitarist Jim James via press release. “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.”
is arrives 25 years into the band’s history and serves as another beam of support for long-time creative sensibilities and musical hunger, which brought them fame in the early aughts and continue to fuel their following, due in large part to the combined prowess of James, bassist Tom Blankenship, guitarist Carl Broemel, drummer Patrick Hallahan and keyboardist Bo Koster.
Primarily recorded at LA’s Henson Recording Studios, the group’s 10th studio offering found them stepping away from their self-produced approach in favor of working with O’Brien. Notably, the change was a significant move for James, who has produced the group’s records since their 1999 debut, The Tennessee Fire.
“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 stepping into the studio, MMJ took part in two probing writing and recording sessions, in which they accumulated over 100 demos, prior to narrowing it down to the 10 best and most eclectic tracks. “I like how the word is 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.”
Pre-order is now. Watch the official music video for “Time Waisted” below.
For more information on My Morning Jacket, visit the band’s official website.
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