Don Giovanni Records has announced that singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay will release his new album New River on November 11, 2022. Nicolay is known as a longtime member of The Hold Steady and World/Inferno Friendship Society as well as for countless featured performances both live and in-studio with other artists including Against Me!, Dresden Dolls, Worriers and more. Today, he has released the lead single “New River, Spring For Me.”
One would think that between writing and releasing his acclaimed debut novel, recording albums and touring with The Hold Steady, writing journalism about the Ukrainian resistance to Russian invasion, performing session work, and teaching as a professor of music and creative writing at Bard College would keep Franz Nicolay plenty busy. For awhile, it did. But as he reflects on the period of time writing and recording the songs that would make up his forthcoming album – New River – Nicolay stated:
“For several years after my last record, I needed a break, and actively tried to keep from writing songs. But the combination of working on new Hold Steady material, writing my second book, and having unexpected time on my hands like everyone else in spring 2020 eventually primed the pump for a record’s worth (including a co-write with my Hold Steady bandmate Steve Selvidge). The years off had constituted a time in which I thought I was finished as a musician; they were time characterized by the loss of several musician friends to suicide both acute and de-facto, and by consideration of the cost of ‘working the art muscle.’ I was approaching a familiar sort of life crossroads which I’ve traditionally addressed on the principle of “blow it all up and see if that fixes things.’”
The material was assembled in the period of time between April 2020 and spring 2021 and recorded at Atomic Garden in Oakland with drummer Ara Babajian (the Slackers) and bassist Frank Piegaro (Worriers); with help from friends including Jeff Rosenstock and Mike Huguenor (Death Rosenstock), Deanna Belos (Sincere Engineer), Lauren Denitzio (Worriers), Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble), Steve Selvidge (The Hold Steady), and Todd Beene (Lucero, Chuck Ragan).
New River Track List:
Wandering Star
Beaten For The Light
Garlic And Vine
The Morris Column
It’s Dawn
Your Ode Played By French Horns
First-Person Spectacular
Champagne Sammy
Players In Wheat And Wine
New River, Spring For Me
