Article Contributed by Big Hassle Media
Published on 2026-06-23
Photo Credit: Danny Clinch
Jim James has announced the release of his visionary new album, Wowed Out, arriving via ATO Records on Friday, August 28. Pre-orders/pre-saves are available now. The 3x GRAMMY Award-nominated singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member of My Morning Jacket’s first solo recording in eight years, the album sees him transforming a vast archive of music originally composed for two major film-scoring projects in the early 2010s into an audacious, immersive new work of soulful psychedelia.
Wowed Out is heralded by today’s premiere of the first single, “Come Again,” a particularly potent moment on the LP that first surfaced from a cue James composed for a scene set in a teddy bear factory but then evolved into a kaleidoscopic but forward-moving meditation on resilience in the face of chaotic instability. An official music video, conceived and edited with analog videographic illusions by W.G. Rickel, is now streaming on YouTube.
“‘Come Again’ came from feeling discouraged by how much things are changing in directions I don’t agree with, but trying to remember that there’s still so much beauty to be experienced,” says Jim James. “You’ve got to just keep going and keep trying again and again and again to find joy.”
Watch “Come Again” official music video
In a modern world wired for constant astonishment, Wowed Out, taking its title from James’ self-coined term for the sensory overload he’s experienced in an age of chronic overstimulation, finds James searching for another kind of wonder. The fifth solo LP from the Kentucky-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist, the album’s unlikely genesis closely mirrors its underlying themes of reclamation and rediscovery. Produced entirely by James, the album took shape in the fall of 2025 as he began sorting through a stash of recordings he’d created with his longtime friend, award-winning composer Brian Reitzell, known for his extensive work with Sofia Coppola, including such films as Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides, and more.
“For years I kept returning to all this music we’d made and couldn’t figure out what to do with it,” James says. “But for some reason, last year everything started flowing in a really beautiful way.”
Wowed Out ultimately served as something of a dream project for a musician long infatuated with lost musical artifacts and sample-based experimentation. The album sets its existential musing against a gorgeously transportive sonic backdrop, steadily sinking into the subconscious through its shapeshifting texture and ethereal atmosphere. Mixed by James in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Emily Lazar (David Bowie, David Byrne, Beck), songs like “Lost Child” and a radiant folk-rock reverie, “Hands On,” offer a radically sincere statement against disillusionment, one that argues for tenderness as resistance, nature as refuge, and awe as a counterforce to dread and despair. In the end, Wowed Out unfolds as a fully realized world rather than a collection of moments, its revelatory enchantment affirming the restorative power of truly awakened attention.
“There’ve been times in my life where I’ve felt lost or depressed, but music has always been the thing that pulls me back,” Jim James says. “When I think about making this album, it almost feels like I was in some kind of dream and now I’m trying to remember what the dream was about. The whole thing brought me a lot of joy and comfort while I was making it, and I hope it brings everyone else a little joy and comfort too.”
For more than 25 years, Jim James has proven himself among the most adventurous artists in 21st-century rock music. The Louisville, KY-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has captained My Morning Jacket through seismic transformations and restless explorations as they grew from misfits to one of the most acclaimed and beloved bands of their generation. At the same time, James has crafted an ancillary catalog of his own, including such inventive solo efforts as 2013’s Regions Of Light And Sound Of God, 2016’s Eternally Even, 2017’s Tribute To 2, 2018’s Uniform Distortion and its companion Uniform Clarity, and his 2019 collaboration with Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra, The Order Of Nature.
James has further established himself as a producer, helming records by Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dean Wareham, Basia Bulat, Eggy, and Ray Lamontagne’s Ouroboros. The seemingly indefatigable artist has also found time to join forces with fellow artists on a number of unique collaborative projects, including 2009’s Monsters of Folk, 2012’s New Multitudes, and 2014’s Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes. James’ ever-evolving list of credits also includes lending his voice to albums by The Roots, David Lynch Foundation, Brandi Carlile, M. Ward, Dr. Dog, and John Fogerty; appearing in director Todd Haynes’s 2007 Bob Dylan-inspired film, I’m Not There; and a 2016 alliance with NASA for the launch of their Mission Juno exploring the planet Jupiter. Now, with the luminous Wowed Out, Jim James remains steadfast in both his avowed commitment to shapeshifting musical adventure and his deeply humanist search for wonder in a modern world wired for constant astonishment.
“We’re surrounded by all this technology that’s supposed to be so world-changing and amazing, but a lot of the time it just leaves people feeling disconnected,” Jim James says. “I really believe there’s another path through all this insanity, and it starts with putting down our phones, taking care of ourselves, being kind to other people. We need to be wowed by what’s actually real, like nature and love and music – these things that almost everyone has access to, and that still have the power to truly move us.”
On July 10, 11, and 12, James will join Beck, Jackson Browne, Bill Murray, Britt Daniel, and a host of others for Music from the Films of Wes Anderson, an all-star concert event set for Los Angeles, CA’s historic Hollywood Bowl. James is also set for a solo acoustic headline performance at Park City, UT’s annual Song Summit on August 28.
Jim James - Wowed Out
ATO Records
Release Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
Tracklist
1. “Baby Dear”
2. “Hands On”
3. “Come Again”
4. “Lost Child”
5. “Home (Green)”
6. “We Love Our Life”
7. “Wowed Out”
8. “Whole Heart (Into It)”
9. “Rewind It”
10. “Your Door”
Jim James Live 2026
July 10, 11, 12 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl ^
August 28 - Park City, UT - Song Summit 2026 at The Marquis on Main Street
^ Music from the Films of Wes Anderson
