Julie Byrne Announces First New Album in Six Years, The Greater Wings

American singer/songwriter Julie Byrne’s last album, Not Even Happiness, was a sight to behold: a paradoxical, inspired document of lonesomeness; a treatise of lush vocal harmonies and digital textures. But that was six years ago, and a new chapter has begun for Byrne, whose long-awaited third LP—The Greater Wings—is arriving on July 7 via Ghostly International. Lead single “Summer Glass” is a spectral, glittering affair. Positioned directly in focus is Byrne’s talismanic voice, which bellows and breaks atop a cinematic synthesizer. The keys fade out and into an orchestral climax, as Byrne sings about devotion. It’s a powerful return from one of our sharpest songwriters, who’s given us a portrait of something otherworldly on “Summer Glass.”

“My hope for The Greater Wings is that it lives as a love letter to my chosen family and as an expression of the depth of my commitment to our shared future,” Byrne explains. “Being reshaped by grief also has me more aware of what death does not take from me. I commit that to heart, to words, to sound. Music is not bound to any kind of linear time, so in the capacity to record and speak to the future: this is what it felt like to me, when we were simultaneous, alive, occurring all at once. What it has felt like to go up against my edge and push, the love that has made it worth all this fight. These memories are my values, they belong with me.”

Watch the music video for “Summer Glass” and check out the artwork and tracklist for The Greater Wings below.

The Greater Wings artwork:

The Greater Wings tracklist:
The Greater Wings
Portrait of a Clear Day
Moonless
Summer Glass
Summer’s End
Lightning Comes Up From The Ground
Flare
Conversation is a Flowstate
Hope’s Return
Death Is The Diamond