Margo Cilker lines up third album Little White Cross and shares its title track

Western folk singer-songwriter Margo Cilker has revealed plans for her third album, Little White Cross, due October 9 on Fossil Records, a label she recently launched with fellow musician ISMAY. She has also shared the title track, which was originally written and recorded by her friend Christy Hays.

The album follows 2023's Valley of Heart's Delight. For the record, Cilker travelled to Lockhart, Texas, to record at The Bunker with Bruce Robison, the writer and producer behind work by Charley Crockett, Lee Ann Womack and George Strait, recording directly to tape in an all-analog setup with a studio band that included Eric Heywood, Geoff Queen, Beth Chrisman, Lisa Pankratz and Scott Davis. Cilker has said the album could fairly be called a concept record, if the concept is that she got sad and went to Texas.

The album combines Cilker's original songs with covers she started playing as a way to process her own pain. Coinciding with its release, she is set to embark on an East Coast co-headline tour with Lilly Hiatt, followed by headline shows in Portland and Seattle and a West Coast run supporting The Cactus Blossoms.

Cilker explained why she chose to open the record with a friend's song rather than one of her own: "When I find a song that really speaks to me, it helps me make sense of things," she said. "Writing can be a lonely affair. But that exchange, that open spirit, it feels essential to art for me." She was just as candid about how dark her own writing got in the sessions: "I had some material so dark I didn't think I'd show it to [Robison]," she said. "Then I remembered this is the man who wrote 'Travelin' Soldier.'"

Little White Cross lands in the release calendar among this autumn's country releases, with the full ten-track record due October 9.