Zachary Cale returns with Next Year’s Ghost, out 5/24 via Org Music. The eight-song album, the follow-up to 2022’s Skywriting, marks Cale’s first turn to piano-based songs and includes contributions from Shahzad Ismaily (Bob Dylan, Marc Ribot), Jeremy Gustin (The Ah, Delicate Steve, Okkervil River), Uriah Theriault (Woodsy Pride), and others. The album is informed by the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic, possessing a stillness that recalls those lost, lonely days spent in quarantine. It meditates on the strange elasticity of time, but at the edges a tense pulse beats, capturing what it felt like to have to live without urgency in a deeply urgent time.
Tracklist:
A1 Heart of Tin
A2 Fragile Line
A3 House on Fire
A4 My Mutineer
B1 Doom Loop
B2 Shatterstar
B3 Beyond Belief
B4 Rough Devotion
Zachary Cale: Songs, Vocals, Piano, Wurlitzer
Shahzad Ismaily: Bass, Korg, Arp, Mellotron
Uriah Theriault: Electric Guitar
Jeremy Gustin: Drums, Percussion
Guests:
JR Bohannon: Pedal Steel on 3
Jill McKenna: Upright Bass on 3
Brent Arnold: Cello on 2, 7, 8
Anni Rossi: Viola on 2, 7, 8
Alfra Martini: Harmony Vocals on 1, 3, 4, 7
Mastered by Josh Bonati at BONATI MASTERING.