Next month sees a new solo album by My Morning Jacket’s Jim James

Jim James' new solo album, Wowed Out, arrives via ATO Records on August 28. Pre-orders/pre-saves are available now. The singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member of My Morning Jacket’s first solo recording in eight years finds him transforming a vast archive of music originally composed for two major film-scoring projects in the early 2010s into a new work. 

The first single “Come Again” first surfaced from a cue James composed for a scene set in a teddy bear factory. An official music video, conceived and edited with analog videographic illusions by W.G. Rickel, is now streaming on YouTube.

“‘Come Again’ came from feeling discouraged by how much things are changing in directions I don’t agree with, but trying to remember that there’s still so much beauty to be experienced,” says Jim James. “You’ve got to just keep going and keep trying again and again and again to find joy.”

LISTEN TO “COME AGAIN”

WATCH “COME AGAIN” (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE WOWED OUT

The fifth solo LP from the Kentucky-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist was self-produced. It took shape in the fall of 2025 as he began sorting through a stash of recordings he’d created with his longtime friend, award-winning composer Brian Reitzell (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides).

"For years I kept returning to all this music we’d made and couldn’t figure out what to do with it,” James says. “But for some reason, last year everything started flowing in a really beautiful way.”

Mixed by James in collaboration with award winning engineer Emily Lazar (David Bowie, David Byrne, Beck), songs like “Lost Child” and “Hands On,” offer a statement against disillusionment, one that argues for tenderness as resistance, nature as refuge, and awe as a counterforce to dread and despair. 

“There’ve been times in my life where I’ve felt lost or depressed, but music has always been the thing that pulls me back,” Jim James says. “When I think about making this album, it almost feels like I was in some kind of dream and now I’m trying to remember what the dream was about. The whole thing brought me a lot of joy and comfort while I was making it, and I hope it brings everyone else a little joy and comfort too.”

Outside the acclaim, accolades and impressive album sales for My Morning Jacket, James has put out such solo efforts as 2013’s Regions Of Light And Sound Of God, 2016’s Eternally Even, 2017’s Tribute To 2, 2018’s Uniform Distortion (and its companion Uniform Clarity), and his 2019 collaboration with Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra, The Order Of Nature.

James has further established himself as a producer, helming records by Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dean Wareham, Basia Bulat, Eggy, and Ray Lamontagne’s Ouroboros. The artist has also found time to join forces with fellow artists on 2009’s Monsters of Folk, 2012’s New Multitudes, and 2014’s Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes. 

James’ ever-evolving list of credits also includes lending his voice to albums by The Roots, David Lynch Foundation, Brandi Carlile, M. Ward, Dr. Dog, and John Fogerty; appearing in director Todd Haynes’s 2007 Bob Dylan-inspired film, I’m Not There; and a 2016 alliance with NASA for the launch of their Mission Juno exploring the planet Jupiter. 

“We’re surrounded by all this technology that’s supposed to be so world-changing and amazing, but a lot of the time it just leaves people feeling disconnected,” Jim James says. “I really believe there’s another path through all this insanity, and it starts with putting down our phones, taking care of ourselves, being kind to other people. We need to be wowed by what’s actually real, like nature and love and music – these things that almost everyone has access to, and that still have the power to truly move us.”

Track listing:

Baby Dear
Hands On
Come Again
Lost Child
Home (Green)
We Love Our Life
Wowed Out
Whole Heart (Into It)
Rewind It
Your Door