Elijah Wolf details surprise new album out this Friday

The surprise LP arrives after a period of recalibration. In the years following early albums made with the likes of Nels Cline, Sam Cohen, and Robin Pecknold, Wolf found himself burnt out on the machinery of being a full-time musician. Stepping back, he launched Mtn Laurel Recording Co. as a way to nurture other artists and, in the process, reconnect with his own songwriting. “The way of coming back was by way of making a label,” he says, having put out records by sister., nara's room, Dead Gowns, and h. pruz - who features on this surprise album - among others. That shift fed directly into the sound of track star. Rather than return to a sprawling studio, Wolf recorded the 10-track collection alongside labelmate Felix Walworth (Told Slant, Florist), with additional contributions from h. pruz. The intimate, collaborative set-up suited a set of songs preoccupied with the mini conflicts of small-town life in upstate New York, where Wolf grew up in the orbit of the Catskills. Across the tracklist, high-school athletes, dive bars, petrol stations, and the weight of local expectations cut against what looks to outsiders like a postcard landscape. "Making this record and learning through...