My Morning Jacket just triggered some big thrills, not only by announcing The Waterfall II – their first studio album since 2015’s The Waterfall – but by setting the release date for this Friday, July 10th. MMJ will also be sharing the surprise companion record in full, for the very first time, during a listening party this Thursday evening at 9pm ET on their Facebook and YouTube pages. Vinyl lovers like us will definitely want to jump on the nice preorder bundles available here; the deluxe edition even includes animated zoetrope labels, which will make it all the more enjoyable to spin (check out that magic below).
zoetrope labels
According to today’s press release, “The Waterfall II was massively inspired by the band’s idyllic surroundings in Stinson Beach, CA – and a sense of charmed isolation that frontman Jim James likened to ‘living on our own little moon.’ There, the Kentucky-bred five-piece ended up creating over two dozen songs at the mountaintop studio known as Panoramic House. Though they flirted with the idea of putting out what would have been a triple album, the band ultimately decided that less would be more at the time and divided the project into two halves.”
The Waterfall II album artwork
Out via ATO Records, the second half of the project includes ten songs the world hasn’t yet heard – see the tracklisting below. The press release goes on to explain that “the decision to unearth The Waterfall II was sparked from a bit of serendipity in the early days of self-quarantine. While out on a walk, [Jim James] placed his music library on shuffle and soon stumbled upon ‘Spinning My Wheels’…Struck by the song’s enduring relevance, James revisited the other tracks reserved from the Panoramic House sessions and found that they invited a welcome moment of self-reflection – an outcome perhaps even more perfectly suited to the chaos of the current day than the circumstances of their recording.”
“As so many of us feel out of tune and long for the world to be a better place, we have to look to nature and the animals and learn from them: learn to love, accept, move on, and respect each other,” said James. “We gotta work for it and change our ways before it’s too late, and get in harmony with love and equality for all of humanity and for nature too.”
The Waterfall II Tracklisting
“Spinning My Wheels”
“Still Thinkin”
“Climbing The Ladder”
“Feel You”
“Beautiful Love (Wasn’t Enough)”
“Magic Bullet”
“Run It”
“Wasted”
“Welcome Home”
“The First Time”
Article: Olivia Isenhart
