Article Contributed by Sacks and Company
Published on 2026-07-28
Acclaimed singer-songwriter and producer Lawrence Rothman has unveiled “Karmakaze,” a new single featuring longtime collaborator Amanda Shires. The track is out now via KRO Records, alongside a music video directed by photographer and filmmaker Floria Sigismondi.
“Karmakaze” is the latest release from Rothman’s forthcoming album, Here Lies Love / Sawdust to Stardust, due September 25 via KRO Records.
“Time doesn’t heal much. It just gives a song another verse,” Rothman says.
“‘Karmakaze’ became the companion to a song of mine, ‘Thrash the West,’ featuring Amanda Shires, and my dear friend Amanda came back to sing on it. I didn’t know I was writing the second half of ‘Thrash the West.’ Sometimes people have a way of showing up exactly where the story left off.”
Rothman says the song helped carry them through one of the darkest periods of their life, including severe depression, relentless anxiety, and confronting childhood trauma.
“Sometimes art has a way of reaching places that even a therapist can’t,” Rothman says. “At least it did for me.”
Rothman hopes to someday create healing workshops centered around songwriting, including for people who have never written a song before.
“I believe there’s something transformative about giving pain a melody and a place to exist outside of yourself,” they say. “When you sing the things you’ve been carrying, they move through your body and your mind and are destroyed.”
The “Karmakaze” video was directed by Rothman’s wife and creative partner, Floria Sigismondi, who has directed all of Rothman’s videos. Her credits also include work with David Bowie, Rihanna, and Brandi Carlile.
The new track follows previously released singles “A Word’s a Weapon” and “The Meaning,” the first two songs shared from Here Lies Love / Sawdust to Stardust. Sigismondi also directed the music video for “The Meaning.”
In support of the album, Rothman will embark on a North American tour beginning September 23 in St. Louis. The run includes stops in Chicago, Nashville, New Orleans, Atlanta, Tulsa, and more.
Here Lies Love / Sawdust to Stardust is Rothman’s fifth studio album and their most revealing work to date. Written and recorded in Biarritz, France, and Nashville, Tennessee, the album marks a full embrace of the Americana tradition.
Produced and mixed entirely by Rothman, the album features contributions from Katie Pruitt, Amanda Shires, Jillian Jacqueline, Sarah Klang, and others.
The record explores addiction, recovery, grief, identity, anxiety, lost love, and the ongoing act of surviving long enough to reinvent oneself. Grounded in Americana while refusing to remain within one genre, it pushes the form forward through direct songwriting, raw production, and lived experience.
The album completes a trilogy that began with Good Morning, America in 2021 and continued with The Plow That Broke the Plains in 2024. The three albums were conceived as one continuous body of work.
The series emerged during the pandemic, when a collaboration with Lucinda Williams drew Rothman back to their Nashville roots. Together, the three records represent Rothman’s most cohesive creative statement to date.
Rothman is a singer-songwriter, producer, and visual artist whose work has existed at the intersection of folk, rock, Americana, and experimental pop for more than two decades.
Their acclaimed debut album, The Book of Law, established Rothman as one of alternative music’s most distinctive voices. As a producer and collaborator, Rothman has worked with artists including Angel Olsen, Lucinda Williams, MUNA, Blondshell, Amanda Shires, Kim Gordon, and Margo Price.
Here Lies Love / Sawdust to Stardust Tracklist
1. The Meaning
2. A Word’s a Weapon
3. Karmakaze featuring Amanda Shires
4. Stable
5. Deep Cut
6. A Fire Test featuring Sarah Klang
7. Here Lies Love
8. Demons
9. Worn Out Woman
10. Slow Rush
11. Nothing Like Shakespeare
12. Lost in Her Rock ’n’ Roll
13. Sawdust to Stardust
Lawrence Rothman Live
September 23 – St. Louis, MO – Old Rock House
September 24 – Chicago, IL – Judson & Moore
September 25 – Urbana, IL – Pygmalion Festival
September 26 – Newport, KY – Southgate House
September 27 – Nashville, TN – Chief’s on Broadway
September 29 – Decatur, GA – Eddie’s Attic
September 30 – New Orleans, LA – Siberia
October 1 – Little Rock, AR – White Water Tavern
October 2 – Tulsa, OK – Mercury Lounge
October 21 – Saugerties, NY – The Local
