Sophie Miller
Contact Sophie Miller by Email View all posts by Sophie Miller July 28, 2026
Jim James Danny Clinch* Jim James has released a new single from his first solo LP in eight years, Wowed Out, sharing its hypnotic title track alongside a new music video.
His fifth solo album arrives Aug. 28, with James producing the album himself. The record grew out of an unlikely excavation: Last fall, James began digging through a trove of music he had previously recorded with longtime friend and composer Brian Reitzell (known for his extensive work with Sofia Coppola) for two film-scoring projects in the early 2010s. More than a decade later, those forgotten pieces became the raw material for an audacious new work of soulful psychedelia.
“For years I kept returning to all this music we’d made and couldn’t figure out what to do with it,” James said in a statement. “But for some reason, last year everything started flowing in a really beautiful way.”
The title Wowed Out comes from a phrase James coined to describe the sensory overload of the modern condition, living amid constant stimulation, according to a press release. On the title track, a spare arrangement slowly unfurls around James’ voice, its shifting texture and gauzy atmosphere giving his existential musings the quality of a private incantation.
James said he was listening to Alice Coltrane’s spiritual recordings while making the album, drawn to the way her music could feel abstruse without building toward some obvious grand finale. “I wanted these songs to feel like a journey that takes you somewhere rewarding, without always trying for some big dramatic payoff like a massive chorus or a huge guitar solo,” he added.
The album’s first single, “Come Again,” which was released last month, shares a similar sentiment. James originally wrote the song for a scene set in a teddy bear factory, but eventually transformed it into a track that Rolling Stone described as a “marching, characteristically psychedelic meditation on finding beauty in a chaotic world.”
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Wowed Out signals James’ first solo album since he released both Uniform Distortion and Uniform Clarity in 2018. My Morning Jacket has released several records since then, including the 2025 LP Is, and the LP that came out last May, Peacelands, which contains a mix of acoustic covers and original protest songs.
James will celebrate his new album’s release with a solo acoustic headline performance at Park City, Utah’s Song Summit on Aug. 28. Afterward, he’ll launch a run of solo headline concerts beginning Nov. 28 at the Kentucky Performing Arts Brown Theatre in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
