Blind Pilot announce first album in eight years, In The Shadow Of The Holy Mountain

The album marks a journey for Blind Pilot’s Israel Nebeker – both geographically and spiritually – to reclaim his voice as a songwriter. "I was struggling with a lot of fear surrounding expectations of who I was supposed to be", he confides, "I’d lost my path with music".

Travelling to Scandinavia to reconnect with his family's roots in the nomadic Sámi community, a drum ceremony led Nebeker to visions of his ancestors, and to the mountain where his creative rebirth began. From there, his return to songwriting was solidified when he and Blind Pilot co-founder Ryan Dobrowski were invited to perform in Mexico City by a humanitarian group helping migrants in the country. After speaking with them for hours, "I got the idea to write a song that looks at ideas of ownership and othering, and what it does when we tell people, ‘This is our home, not yours.'" After years of not writing so much as a single verse, 'In The Shadow Of The Holy Mountain' flowed out of him in one month.

The album sessions were the most free-flowing of the band's career, approaching perfection like "an overly Photoshopped picture of someone you love". The final result was "the most joy we’d ever had in making an album together", as Nebeker described it – which shines through palpably on a collection that's equal parts celebration and revelation.

“We’re still feeling that deep connection that’s been a throughline for our entire adult lives,” adds Dombrowski, who formed an early version of Blind Pilot with Nebeker nearly two decades ago as college students.

Tracklist:

1. Jacaranda
2. Brave
3. Pocket Knife
4. Don’t You Know
5. Just A Bird
6. Coming Back
7. Faces of Light
8. One Drop
9. Lucky
10. Bitter Water
11. Same Thing