Martin Courtney has announced he will release his second full-length solo album, Magic Sign, on June 24 via Domino. The frontman of Real Estate also unveiled “Corncob,” the lead single off the forthcoming album and the track’s official music video. 

Courtney’s latest project chronicles the nights of his youth spent aimlessly wandering the suburban sprawl of New Jersey, the indie rocker formally called home. He and his friends would “get thoroughly confused and look for familiar green signs with arrows pointing to towns we’d heard of. We’d call them ‘magic signs,’” Courtney commented in connection to the album’s title. 

Magic Sign was written and produced by Courtney, and features performances by Matt Barrick, Oliver Hill, Kacey Johansing and Tim Ramsey. The LP is comprised of 10-tracks that reveal a consistent theme of counter-emotions, nostalgia and optimism: the captured sense of a teenager on the border of adulthood. 

The musician has also shared the lead single off the new album, “Corncob.” “The lyrics are about a specific time, the end of youth, pre-adulthood, scummy kid hanging around your hometown a little too long, smoking weed and driving around the surrounding area with your friends to get as completely lost as possible.”

Courtney shared, “You do this enough times and it eventually gets harder and harder to get lost. A song about pushing the boundaries of where you grew up until you exhaust the mystery and hit a different kind of boundary. A song about aimless kids looking for direction.” 

Additionally, he has released the official music video for “Corncob,” co-directed by Bráulio Amado and Antonio Vicentini. The four-minute video features a magenta background with Courtney situated barefoot, his shoes placed in front of the stool he sits on. Strumming, the musician locks eye contact with the camera, laminating his message while animated images dance on and off the screen. 

Pre-order Magic Sign now. 

Stream “Corncob” here. 

Watch the official music video for “Corncob” below.