Ben Folds will release his new album, What Matters Most on June 2 via New West Records.
The 10-song set was co-produced by Folds and Joe Pisapia (K.D. Lang, Guster) in East Nashville, TN and features guest appearances by dodie, Tall Heights, and Ruby Amanfu.
What Matters Most is Folds’ first studio album since his chart-topping collaboration in 2015 with the string ensemble yMusic.
The new album is a bold, timely, cinematic work that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measures as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective.
Folds reveals that the songs are “bittersweet, hilarious at times, yet often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread. Taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful album that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognise their moments as they arrive
“There’s a lifetime of craft and experience all focused into this one record,” he adds. “Sonically, lyrically, emotionally, I don’t think it’s an album I could have made at any other point in my career.”
Today Folds shares the first new music from What Matters Most with the album highlight Winslow Gardens, an off-kilter pop song about losing track of the passing time while isolating with a loved one.
“I come from the vinyl era, and this perhaps more than any record I’ve made is a true album,” he shares.
“There’s a very specific sequence and arc to each side, all building up to this almost surreal positive finale, and that structure was really important to me. More than anything, I wanted to make an album that was generous, that was useful. I want you to finish this record with something you didn’t have when you started.”
Folds also announced an initial round of new tour dates in support of What Matters Most, with shows across the US, the UK - including a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London - and throughout Europe.