Bonny Light Horseman have announced a new 20-song double album, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, their third album and their Jagjaguwar debut. It comes out June 7 via their new label home (pre-order). Band members Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman recorded much of across three days it at Ireland’s century-old pub Levis Corner House, backed by bassist Cameron Ralston and drummer JT Bates. On the third day, they invited a live audience to feed off their energy as they performed and recorded. With Josh producing and D. James Goodwin mixing, they finished it up at upstate New York’s Dreamland Recording Studios, where they made their first two albums. Frequent collaborator Mike Lewis (of Bon Iver) added bass and tenor sax, and Annie Nero contributed upright bass and backing harmonies.
The album includes recent single “When I Was Younger,” as well as the just-released “I Know You Know.” The new song is an instantly-satisfying dose of Bonny Light Horseman’s unique take on indie folk, and it comes with the trio’s first-ever music video. Eric says:
When thinking about directors for Bonny Light Horseman’s first (!!!) ever music video, Kimberly Stuckwisch leapt to mind immediately. I’d been a longtime fan of her always-evocative work–and for our band I felt like she’d ‘get it. The treatment she came back with was deeply aligned with the sentiments of the song: life’s multiverse, the dualities of joy and pain, the choices we make that chart our course towards one way or another. We shot this on a salt flat in the Mojave desert, trying to outrun the sunset and packs of salty coyotes, under the watch of some wayward desert pelicans.
Check it out below.
Bonny Light Horseman are also gearing up for a tour that hits NYC’s Music Hall of Williamsburg on June 18 and 19 with JT Bates and Mike Lewis’ band Alpha Consumer on night one and British folk legend Bridget St John on night two. All dates are listed below.
Tracklist
1. Keep Me on Your Mind
2. Lover Take It Easy
3. I Know You Know
4. grinch/funeral
5. Old Dutch
6. When I Was Younger
7. Waiting and Waiting
8. Hare and Hound
9. Rock the Cradle
10. Singing to the Mandolin
11. The Clover
12. Into the O
13. Don’t Know Why You Move Me
14. Speak to Me Muse
15. think of the royalties, lads
16. Tumblin Down
17. I Wanna Be Where You Are
18. Over the Pass
19. Your Arms (All the Time)
20. See You Free
Bonny Light Horseman — 2024 Tour Dates
06/11 – Norfolk, VA – Virginia Arts Festival
6/12 – Nelsonville OH – Stuart’s Opera House *
6/13 – Chicago IL – Thalia Hall *
6/14 – Nashville TN – Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
6/15 – Asheville NC – Orange Peel *
6/16 – Washington DC – Howard Theatre *
6/18 – Brooklyn NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg *
6/19 – Brooklyn NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg ^
6/20 – Philadelphia PA – Union Transfer *
6/21 – Mount Solon VA – Red Wing Roots Festival
6/22 – Northampton MA – Green River Music Festival
6/23 – Cambridge MA – The Sinclair ^ (SOLD OUT)
07/13 – Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival
8/10 – Lyons CO – Rocky Mountain Folks Festival
* w/ Alpha Consumer
^ w/ Bridget St John