Two years on from her seventh album The Spur, Kentucky-born and raised singer/songwriter Joan Shelley returns with a new EP, Mood Ring, out 4 October via No Quarter Records.  

The five songs on the record date from the past few years, bookended by the birth of her daughter in 2021 and saying goodbye to the farm she owned with husband Nathan Salsburg in 2023. According to a press release, the first time she listened to the mixes of the new songs, it was on the drive to the new family home in Louisville with her daughter beside her.

Speaking on the title track, out today, Shelley says she was inspired by “the idea that heat and time are interlinked,” adding:

“I had read about block universe theory and it bothered me – if it were true, how do we really change anything? The song wove its own little message in response: this sense that all of us, our web of connections and the friction of our relationships, are the fuel that propels us through time… and that inevitably we are consumed by it. But what a spectacular thing to get a chance to ignite this vast, incomprehensible space with our lives. To have gotten an invitation to be here at all.”

Mood Ring tracklist:

1. Mood Ring
2. Singing To You
3. Fire of the Morning
4. Seven Steps
5. I Look After You

The track “I Look After You” shares its name with Shelley’s ongoing project on Substack, described as “a slow songbook of traditional and original lullabies,” chosen and performed by Shelley and illustrated by Sonya Montenegro.

People in and around New York can catch Shelley performing live next week at Meadowlark Festival and at a headlining show at NYC’s Le Poisson Rough. Tickets for that are available here.