Josh Rouse signs to New West and sets an album for October

Josh Rouse has signed with New West Records and will release his label debut, "Museums and Women," on October 23, SPIN and MusicRow reported on August 4. Brad Jones produced the 10-song set, the same collaborator behind Rouse's acclaimed 2003 album "1972."

Rouse said the songs grew out of observations gathered while traveling, populated by drifters, dreamers and fleeting encounters that blur fiction and autobiography. "I was drawn to these songs because they're so observational," Rouse said, adding that the songs found their own characters even when he started from moments in his own life. The album's title comes from a John Updike book Rouse had long admired.

The first single, "January Sky," came together in an unusual way: Rouse took lyrics from an earlier, unfinished song and set them to an entirely new melody, something he said he had not done in nearly 30 years of writing. "I've always preferred to leave room for the listener's own interpretation," he said of the song's lyrics. "I think songs tend to have a longer life when they aren't completely explained." The album was cut largely live, with Jones on bass and drummer Fred Eltringham, known for his work with Sheryl Crow and the Chicks, before overdubs were added later each day.

Rouse broke through with 1998's "Dressed Up Like Nebraska" and has built a catalog of Americana and folk-pop records since, including more than a decade living in Spain, where he won a Goya Award for his song "Do You Really Want to Be in Love." He returned to Nashville in 2018 and will support "Museums and Women" with a fall tour opening October 14 in Los Angeles, supporting Peter Bjorn and John. It's tracked in the release calendar alongside our country coverage.