Photo by Johnny Eastlund

Kevin Morby has announced a new album, Sundowner, which will be released on Oct. 16. Morby also shared the first single and video “Campfire.”

Morby began to write the music for Sundowner after he moved out of Los Angeles in 2017. It especially began to take shape as his relationship with Katie Crutchfield blossomed. “During that summer, Kevin’s isolation was given a subtle lift when Katie Crutchfield began visiting,” read a press release. “She would stay weeks at a time, living quietly beside him – their love taking shape in a quiet refuge from their lives on the road. They shared many things, including a mutual melancholy that seemed to appear every night around sunset. They began to refer to themselves as ‘sundowners.'”

“I wrote the entire album wearing headphones, hunched over the 424, letting my voice and guitar pass through the machine, getting lost in the warmth of the tape as if another version of myself was living on the inside, singing back at me,” said Morby in the release. “I was mesmerized by the magic of the four track not only as a recording device, but also an instrument, and considered it my songwriting partner throughout the whole process.”

Morby went to Texas’ Sonic Ranch in January of 2019 to record the record, alongside producer Brad Cook. “My end goal was to capture the cadence of what I had found inside the four track but make it three dimensional, and Brad seemed perfect for the job,” said Morby.

Morby described the album in a quote in the press release: “It is a depiction of isolation. Of the past. Of an uncertain future. Of provisions. Of an omen. Of a dead deer. Of an icon. Of a Los Angeles themed hotel in rural Kansas. Of billowing campfires, a mermaid and a highway lined in rabbit fur. It is a depiction of the nervous feeling that comes with the sky’s proud announcement that another day will be soon coming to a close as the pink light recedes and the street lamps and house lights suddenly click on.”

Morby also announced a virtual tour via Noon Chorus. He will perform each Thursday starting Sept. 10 through Oct. 15, the day before Sundowner‘s release. According to a press release, Morby will “perform his complete discography in chronological order, culminating in a performance of Sundowner the day before the album’s release.”

Watch the video for the new single “Campfire” below!