Okkervil River share "In A Light," announce co-headlining solo tour w/ Damien Jurado

While Okkervil River released a career-spanning live album last year, they haven’t put out new music since 2018. That’s now changed with the release of a new song, “In A Light.” It was recorded during the same sessions that produced the band’s last album, In The Rainbow Rain, and starts out as a piano-based ballad, picking up twangy instrumentation and ending with a funky, extended jam. Stream it below.

In addition to “In A Light,” Okkervil River have a second new track, “It Hasn’t Happened Yet,” due out on Friday (5/14). About both songs, frontman Will Sheff says, “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.”

Will has also announced a solo Okkervil River tour, which Damien Jurado co-headlines. It kicks off on September 21 in Evanston, IL, and stops in Louisville, Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Woodstock NY (October 3 at Levon Helm Studios), Boston, Brooklyn, Oakland, Big Sur, Portland and more. The Brooklyn venue is still TBA, but otherwise tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM local time, with an artist presale beginning Wednesday 5/12. See all dates below.

OKKERVIL RIVER SOLO/DAMIEN JURADO 2021 TOUR
9/21 – Evanston, IL – SPACE
9/22 – Evanston, IL – SPACE
9/23 – Grand Rapids, MI – Wealthy Theatre
9/24 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
9/25 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall
9/26 – Nelsonville, OH – Stuart’s Opera House
9/28 – Nashville, TN – Third Man Records
9/29 – Atlanta, GA – City Winery
9/30 – Charlotte, NC – Neighborhood Theatre
10/1 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
10/2 – Vienna, VA – Barns at Wolf Trap *
10/3 – Woodstock, NY Levon Helm Studios ^
10/5 – Boston, MA – City Winery
10/6 – Brooklyn, NY – To Be Announced
10/7 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts
12/1 – Santa Ana, CA – Ebell of Santa Ana
12/2 – Ojai, CA – Ojai Women’s Club
12/3 – Oakland, CA – Starline Social Club
12/4 – Big Sur, CA – Henry Miller Memorial Library (early show)
12/4 – Big Sur, CA – Henry Miller Memorial Library (late show)
12/5 – Sonoma, CA – Sebastiani Theater
12/8 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
12/9 – 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