My Morning Jacket announces tenth studio album

The band unveils the Brendan O’Brien-produced project and new single

My Morning Jacket is beginning the new year by announcing their eagerly awaited new album, Is, which will arrive on March 21st via ATO Records.

Produced by triple Grammy Award-winner Brendan O’Brien, the project marks My Morning Jacket’s tenth studio album and first full-length new collection in more than three years. The album’s first single, “Time Waited,” is available everywhere now. The band also released an official music video directed by Danny Clinch, featuring new performance footage interspersed with archival photos throughout the band’s history.

Largely recorded at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, Is finds My Morning Jacket deviating from their typically self-produced approach by teaming up with O’Brien, one of the most esteemed producers in rock music, known for his extensive work with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam. For frontman/guitarist Jim James – who has produced or co-produced all of the band’s studio albums since their 1999 debut The Tennessee Fire – the decision to work with O’Brien stemmed from a newfound willingness to open up their process and involve an outside creative force in shaping My Morning Jacket’s restlessly inventive yet nuanced form of psych-rock.

“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 joining O’Brien in the studio, My Morning Jacket got together for two highly exploratory writing and recording sessions, amassing over a hundred demos before settling upon the 10 eclectic tracks that eventually comprise the finished album. New songs such as the sprawling, album-opening epic, “Out In The Open” and the delightfully warped “Squid Ink” reveal a band whose voracious creative appetite is wholly matched by a deft command of their visionary musicality. When it came time to name the collection, My Morning Jacket chose a title that speaks to the infinitely unpredictable nature of music-making.

Is – which arrives as My Morning Jacket celebrates the 20th anniversary of their 2005 landmark Z – represents another milestone in the band’s ever-evolving body of work, and an opportunity to breathe new energy into their historically stunning and hard-driving live performances. James points to the “undeniable force of loving” as the most essential factor in the band’s longevity and unending enchantment with the process of musical creation.

My Morning Jacket will celebrate the album with an extensive tour schedule to be announced soon. Meanwhile, the band is readying the next edition of My Morning Jacket’s One Big Holiday, a three-night music vacation set for April 3-5 at Miramar Beach, Florida’s Seascape Resort. In addition to three unique headline shows from My Morning Jacket, the event will see performances from an all-star lineup that includes Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Devon Gilfillian, Dinosaur Jr., Karina Rykman, S.G. Goodman, and Futurebirds, plus Late Night Campfire Sets by Tyler Ramsey, Maggie Halfman, and Bendigo Fletcher, as well as Late Night Silent Jam Performances by Karina Rykman, Eggy, and Illiterate Light.