Michael Nau announces new album Popfly

Indie songwriter Michael Nau, known for his earlier bands Page France and Cotton Jones, has announced his new solo album, Popfly, sharing its title track alongside the news.

Nau describes Popfly as his most "openhearted" album yet, following a run of full-length releases throughout the year. He said the title track's chorus melody had been "clanging around on guitar for years" before finally finding words. "I bet that's what this album, as a whole, might remind me of again someday, too," he said. "I'm proud all the pieces got put together. It's always puzzling."

The songs largely began as fragmented lines and observations that stuck with Nau over years, first pieced together at home before he recorded them at the Vermont studio Little Jamaica with longtime collaborator Benny Yurco. "Studio recording feels like covering my own songs," Nau said of the process. Family runs through the record in more literal ways too: his children contribute vocals, and his wife and longtime collaborator, Whitney McGraw, also lends her voice across the album.

Across its 10 tracks, including "Lost Station Hideaway," "Hi Beam" and closer "Paper And Glue," Popfly moves between folk, psych-pop, country-folk and dreamlike textures that Nau says carry "the ease of conversation among old friends." The album continues Nau's steady output since his days fronting Page France and later Cotton Jones, projects that established him as a fixture of indie rock's more understated corners well over a decade ago.

Popfly is released October 23 via Suicide Squeeze Records, giving fans a full-length follow-up to a year that has already seen Nau put out multiple releases. The announcement lands alongside other fall indie album news, including Rachel Chinouriri's sophomore record and DIIV's ZIRP!, all trackable in the release calendar, with more details on any Nau tour expected closer to the album's arrival.