Page McConnell, photo by Stevo Rood

Page McConnell has released his fourth studio album, Something Will Land. Available now via his own Keyed Records, the Phish keyboardist’s first solo offering since 2021’s Maybe We’re the Visitors arrived with no advance notice. The 30-minute instrumental project further defines McConnell’s unique creative vision, weaving transportive atmospheres from tender piano melodies and airy synthesizers.

“My appreciation for space has grown and grown,” McConnell shared in an interview with GQ accompanying the album’s launch. “It’s hard for me to listen to my own stuff, Phish or any of it, because I want to edit it all. I hear it and think, ‘I wish I could have played just a few less notes there.’”

Something Will Land is composed of eight compact yet enveloping, dreamlike pieces captured at McConnell’s studio in Burlington, Vt. The keyboardist’s ease in the familiar surroundings, which he reconfigured to allow him to simultaneously play, record, and engineer by himself for the first time, facilitated an immediacy of expression that makes the album one of his most cohesive offerings yet. With this total immersion in the music, McConnell rotated between a small upright piano and three hand-programmed synthesizers, which were incorporated far more prominently than in his previous solo work.

The resulting collection moves seamlessly through a diversity of ideas and moods, which feel open-ended and alluringly obscure without being imprecise or meandering. McConnell’s inward journey is less searching than settling deeply into presence, channeling tremendous meaning into sparse notes to define the contours of feelings and allow the listener to fill in the open spaces with their own interpretations. Six of the songs clock in at under four minutes, and “Mystery Meat,” the album’s promising, radiant centerpiece, dates back to the 2023 sessions for January, his 2023 collaborative album with Trey Anastasio.

Something Will Land is only one of the many outlets that have been occupying McConnell in a new period of prolific creativity. In May, the artist reunited with his Vida Blue bandmates Oteil Burbridge and Adam Zimmon for studio sessions in Las Vegas, produced by reggae icon Santa Davis. In the months since, he’s written and recorded material for another project with Urian Hackney, son of Death singer Bobby Hackney, Sr. and touring drummer for Iggy Pop. Read more about these experiments and more in the GQ feature.

Something Will Land is available on all streaming platforms and on vinyl now. Learn more at pagemcconnell.com, and read on for the album’s full tracklist.

Something Will Land – Page McConnell:
Amaranth
Borrowed Scenery
Something Will Land
Weightless
Mystery Meat
The Trees Were Blue
Octopi
Dropping In