Zachary Cale Debuts “Shatterstar” Video off Upcoming Album ‘Next Year’s Ghost’

Singer-songwriter Zachary Cale will release his newest album, Next Year’s Ghost, via Org Music on May 24th, 2024. Now, well ahead of the record’s unveiling (and release he calls a “dystopian piano album”), the artist has debuted the lead single and accompanying music video, “Shatterstar.”

The LP marks his first turn to piano-based songs and includes contributions from Shahzad Ismaily (Bob Dylan, Marc Ribot), Jeremy Gustin (The Ah, Delicate Steve, Okkervil River), Uriah Theriault (Woodsy Pride), and others.

Commenting on the “Shatterstar” single and album as a whole, Cale notes:

“This is the first song I wrote for the album. It gets at that late-night anxiety, sleepless and paranoid with a mind that won’t stop racing. Trapped in our apartments, day and night blurring, the quietude can start driving you crazy. When the world stops moving and you’re sheltering in a place it’s pretty easy to plumb the depths.

“I lost a few people during lockdown and a few after. Pretty much every one of them was an artist of some sort. When your security falls through, and your livelihood dries up, it feels like the world is ending. I think this one was subconsciously written for them.”

The album is informed by the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic, possessing a stillness that recalls those lost, lonely days spent in quarantine. It meditates on the strange elasticity of time, but at the edges, a tense pulse beats, capturing what it felt like to live without urgency in a deeply urgent time.

Next Year’s Ghost Track Listing:

A1. Heart of Tin
A2. Fragile Line
A3. House on Fire
A4. My Mutineer
B1. Doom Loop
B2. Shatterstar
B3. Beyond Belief
B4. Rough Devotion

Zachary Cale ‘Next Year’s Ghost” album artwork