Okkervil River’s Will Sheff is hitting the road once again, heading out on a co-headlining US tour with Damien Jurado this fall. To celebrate, his band has shared “In A Light,” their first new music since 2018’s In The Rainbow Rain, which begins as a piano ballad before morphing into an expansive country-rocker and then a spacey psychedelic jam. “In A Light” and another new track called “It Hasn’t Happened Yet,” which will be out on Friday, both originate from the same sessions that led to In The Rainbow Rain. As Sheff explains:

I wrote “In A Light” with our guitarist Will Graefe right before I moved out of Brooklyn. We recorded it in one take at Figure 8 studios, with Frank LoCrasto adding piano and Ryan Dugre on second guitar. It sounded great instantly, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to release the track, and the track didn’t seem to be quite at home on In The Rainbow Rain. So I kept it under my hat. I’d had “It Hasn’t Happened Yet” kicking around as well, and I’d always wanted to release that one on its own but I could never get the recording to sit quite right. Finally I had a tandem eureka moment with both of them — I figured out what I needed to do to fix “It Hasn’t Happened Yet” and I felt the time was right for “In A Light.” So I brushed them off and sent them to Dave Cerminara to mix. The whole process was incredibly smooth and easy. I think of these songs as two sides of the same coin, supporting each other by saying two different but complementary things. And even though I started them a couple years in the past they both seem to want to talk about the present and future.”

Listen to “In A Light” and check out Sheff’s upcoming solo tour dates with Damien Jurado below.

TOUR DATES:
09/21 Evanston, IL @ SPACE
09/22 Evanston, IL @ SPACE
09/23 Grand Rapids, MI @ Wealthy Theatre
09/24 Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
09/25 Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
09/26 Nelsonville, OH @ Stuart’s Opera House
09/28 Nashville, TN @ Third Man Records
09/29 Atlanta, GA @ City Winery
09/30 Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
10/01 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
10/02 Vienna, VA @ Barns at Wolf Trap *
10/03 Woodstock, NY @ Levon Helm Studios ^
10/05 Boston, MA @ City Winery
10/06 Brooklyn, NY @ To Be Announced
10/07 Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts
12/01 Santa Ana, CA @ Ebell of Santa Ana
12/02 Ojai, CA @ Ojai Women’s Club
12/03 Oakland, CA @ Starline Social Club
12/04 Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library (early show)
12/04 Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library (late show)
12/05 Sonoma, CA @ Sebastiani Theater
12/08 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
12/09 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
12/10 Tacoma, WA @ Fawcett Hall
12/11 Bellingham, WA @ Wild Buffalo

* On sale at a later time
^ with Elvis Perkins