Kevin Morby announces his eighth studio album, Little Wide Open, out May 15th via Dead Oceans, and shares its lead single & video, ‘Javelin.’ Little Wide Open was produced by Aaron Dessner.
“Little Wide Open is set to a backdrop of tangled highways, towns with populations less than 100,000, roadside crosses, a rock and roll romance, coupling butterflies, being an American entertainer, Econoline vans and more,” explains Morby. “This is, without a doubt, the most personal and vulnerable album I’ve ever made. Aaron did a heroic job of holding me back from throwing too many tricks at the songs, and letting my stories stand a bit naked. Despite its title this album is in fact, very wide open.”
Of today’s single, ‘Javelin,’ Morby says: “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone you keep circling around the globe, relentlessly traveling through the air and down highways, and then returning home alone to middle America. Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso) shines here, with her incredible vocals. I had invited her into the studio and asked that she create a backing choir out of just her voice – but her presence is so special that her ‘backing vocals’ can’t help but take the lead.”
The accompanying video for ‘Javelin’ stars Morby and friend Caleb Hearon on an ATV driving around the fields and backroads of Missouri, with cameos from Katie Crutchfield and Tara Raghuveer. “I think it captures all the fun we had making it,” says Morby.
Kevin Morby – ‘Javelin’ (Official Video)
In the summer of 2024, Dessner had asked Morby to support The National at their London show in Crystal Palace Park. Shortly after, Dessner – who was on a hot streak, having produced albums for Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Gracie Abrams – reached out to Morby to say he’d love to produce his next album. They began recording at Aaron’s Long Pond Studio in Stuyvesant, NY, early in 2025 and finished in September of that year.
The album, which includes a host of contributors such as Dessner – who plays multiple instruments across it – Meath, Justin Vernon, Katie Gavin, Lucinda Williams, Mat Davidson, Meg Duffy, Oliver Hill, Rachel Baiman, Stuart Bogie, Tim Carr, Andrew Barr, Benjamin Lanz, Colin Croom and Tom Moth, has been described by Morby as the third in an unintentional trilogy of releases, following 2020’s Sundowner and 2022’s This Is a Photograph, which catalogued his time in middle America after moving back to Kansas City. This time out, Dessner’s production elevates Morby’s recordings while never losing focus of the songs themselves. There’s a newfound confidence and clarity in both Morby’s writing and Dessner’s production that recalls Tom Petty’s 1994 classic Wildflowers. Now primarily living in LA, the atmosphere that runs through Little Wide Open has changed somewhat from its predecessors. The feeling of restlessly hurtling towards something new. A future unseen and untested, but inevitable.
Kevin’s friend, critically acclaimed novelist Rachel Kushner, has written an astonishing essay about Little Wide Open, entitled “Field Guide to the North American Troubadour.” Rather than mangle or chop up the work for the purposes of fitting something so artistically written into the format of a press release, please read her full essay below.
Field Guide to the North American Troubadour.
Praise for Kevin Morby and This Is A Photograph
“[This Is A Photograph] is a confident 45-minute sashay through vulnerable devotionals and existential reflections, tuneful folk and handclap soul. Using Memphis as a lens for understanding the frailty of bodies and the dreams they harbor, the album reckons with survival as much as death.” – The New York Times
“[This Is A Photograph is] an album of emotional ephemera set to song, culled from lives lived and lives imagined.” – Rolling Stone
“This Is A Photograph is a beautiful, meaningful approach to life and its delicateness.” – Treble, “The 33 Best Albums of 2022 So Far”
“Photograph features Morby’s richest songwriting” – Vulture
”[This Is A Photograph] is a Memphis vision quest—an earnest, ambitious collection that touches on family, nostalgia, and mortality.” – Pitchfork
“This Is a Photograph sees Morby continuing a creative streak that’s as exciting as any happening in rock-based music” – Inside Hook
“Kevin Morby has never lacked empathy, sincerity, or ambition but he has rarely sounded as inspired and dialed-in as with these 10 songs.” – The FADER
Kevin Morby
Little Wide Open
15 May 2026
Tracklist
1. Badlands
2. Die Young
3. Javelin
4. All Sinners
5. Natural Disaster
6. 100,000
7. Little Wide Open
8. Cowtown
9. Bible Belt
10. I Ride Passenger
11. Junebug
12. Dandelion
13. Field Guide for the Butterflies
