Something crazy happened in the last few years. I started writing happy music. I started writing ballads about lives that aren’t mine. I started writing music about current events, writing music based on texts I didn’t author, writing music about times I didn’t live in, and writing music about lives I didn’t live. Basically, ever since I stopped trying to live on my music professionally, and chose to pursue songwriting as the joyful, spirited, cathartic, self-transcending activity that it can be, my music has become freer, my subjects have expanded beyond my own perspective, and my musical constructions are broader and braver. Funny how that happens. Thus the time has come for my ninth studio album: Prospect Hearts. This album is a tribute to all I have learned in ten years of living in NYC, of growing up and finding the beginnings of hard-wrought happy adulthood, of looking back at the past not with regret but with gratitude for its lessons and revelations, and to the lives and ideas I have captured in my work. It's a simpler and more relaxed unfolding of the music that has been brewing in me since my last release over three years ago. I think it's really different than what the world has heard from me before, and I think it's really beautiful. I hope you will think so too. Prospect Hearts is my ninth studio album. Its contents feature stylistic diversity (including extreme simplicity!), the appearance of talented collaborators, and the deep ambition of the project. Prospect Hearts is a declaration of renewal, a love letter, and celebration of change as it appears in our own lives and in history, packaged in a handful of spirited songs about growing up, letting go, and the big and little things that get us out of bed in the mornings. The music ranges from classic folk ballads to modern and percussive guitar pieces, from acoustic indie anthems to ditties highlighting recent changes in our political and social strata. I hope you love it.