Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter shall release their first new album since 2011’s “Marble Son”, and the band’s fifth studio album since 2002. “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born” arrives on November 28th, 2025, on LP/CD/DL via Ideologic Organ in Europe/UK/Asia/South America. Southern Lord to release the album in North America and Australasia.
“Forever, I’ve Been Being Born” is a suite of masterful, emotive songs from an open heart, dwelling in a brightness yet deep in the ethereal and melancholic, steeped in themes of magical thinking, emotional dislocation, death and transformation. In the making for ten years, the album centres around the power of Jesse’s transcendent voice, which has never been more beautiful, evocative, and hauntingly intimate. Guitarist Phil Wandscher’s playing masterfully frames these songs with classic and fractured tones, a duet of vulnerability and strength frequently on the edge.
The album also features exquisite contributions from Marissa Nadler, who can be heard on the lead single, “Gentle Chaperone” – out today.
“O my gentle chaperone, this is where I stay, but this is not my home”, says J.Sykes.
Watch the official video for “Gentle Chaperone” below.
“This album is our attempt to create elegant folk and sometimes ragged, cosmic, heart rendered songs full of eulogies and laments. Our sound is still familiar enough, but unrecognizable at times—we’ve gotten older and wearier, the music more fragile… When we started recording this album, I remember saying: ‘Play the songs as if the edge of a butterfly wing was brushing against your cheek in the dark while you’re holding a small child’. I wanted to connote tenderness and a state of grace in the wake of resolution—paying homage to the creeping knowledge of an emerging, menacing undertone forming in our collective psyche. In hindsight, the delay in releasing this record has been a bit of a blessing, as the lyrics seem more poignant now, transcending our own internal voices and psyches. As the world shares its collective crisis, so we too, share our songs”, comments J. Sykes.
On “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born”, Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter have crafted a work which feels “very much like a eulogy”, a collection of tracks which see Sykes exploring the idea of mortality with a calm acceptance.
Whilst Sykes’ voice has already acted as a guiding light through dark times for others, for Jesse herself, that presence is felt in the form of a chaperone on this record. More specifically, Jesse’s childhood babysitter inspired a motif on the record, “She truly was the person who taught me love”, muses Jesse, “When I think of the moment of death, I often think that it would just be going to her”.
Recording a new album was delayed for years, in the wake of two band members unexpectedly leaving after “Marble Son”. “Losing our rhythm section was heartbreaking”, she reflects. “It sounds cliché, but we had to grieve that loss, and in doing so, we had to separate ourselves from making music for a while, because dare I say, music was painful at the time. It reminded us of what we’d lost. Bands are like family and I’d lost my family. So yes, I had to give up music in order to fall in love with music again”.
The album title, “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born”, hints towards this sense of cyclical surrender – “I’ve felt I’m constantly being born and constantly having to die. Or constantly dying in order to be reborn”.
We live in a time of collective mourning, and to Jesse, “the lyrics make more sense now than when I was writing them. I think there was some kind of premonition going on… juxtaposed to what’s happening in the country, the emotional climate – this music speaks to the times we are living through”.
The emotional feeling of the record can be summed up in a single line from the title track – “Eternities, they will crumble”. A quiet sense of acceptance runs through the record like a stream meandering towards the sea.
“It is with great pleasure and humility that we bring you, ‘Forever, I’ve Been Being Born’. Listen in the dark”.
“It’s that ancient light that wanders,
Rapt in the splendor of your form,
And to this I will surrender,
Forever, I’ve been being born,
Beneath an overarching,
Melody, so forlorn”.
Pre-order & pre-save “Forever, I’ve Been Being Born” here.
Tracklist:
1. Feather Treasure
2. Gentle Chaperone
3. Dewayne
4. I Still Hear Lorelei
5. Winter’s Empty Pages
6. Dead End Pools
7. Oh, My Sitter
8. Forever, I’ve Been Being Born
9. My Sweet Hereafter
10. A New Medium
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter is the result of the enduring musical alchemy between singer and songwriter Jesse Sykes and guitarist Phil Wandscher, which began in Seattle, Washington in 2001.
Blending folk, blues, orchestral pop and various psychedelic stylings, their sound culminates in what the New York Times has described as “spellbound music, rapt in fatalism and sorrow”. Known for her dusky, otherworldly vocals and lyrics that touch on the metaphysical, Jesse was once described by Magnet as being “less like a performer and more like a sage… a truly unique vocalist whose dusky voice is capable of imparting a transcendent, almost spiritual quality to almost any tune it touches”.
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter have toured extensively in the both the US and Europe, and have shared stages with artists on opposite ends of a vast spectrum of genres, ranging from SUNN O))), Boris, Nicolai Dunger, Coco Rosie, Marissa Nadler, all the way to Jason Isbell, J.Tillman, Steve Earle, Martha Wainwright, Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch.
They are planning on touring in 2026 in support of this album.
Sykes is also known for her diverse collaborations—most notably for co-writing and singing cult classic; ‘The Sinking Belle’ on the monolithic album “Altar” (Southern Lord), a joint project with art metal bands Sunn O))) and Boris (Japan). Pitchfork called ‘The Sinking Belle’ the album’s “centerpiece and masterpiece” and Sykes claims the lyrics were inspired by Joan Didion’s book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which she’d been reading during the writing process. Sykes (also a visual artist) photographic work has been featured in Vice magazine.
Prior to his work with Jesse Sykes, Phil Wandscher helped co-found the influential alt- country band Whiskeytown with Ryan Adams. Wandscher appears on the first three Whiskeytown records, co-writing some of the band’s most beloved songs, most notably songs from the album Strangers Almanac, which many say was the band’s most realized. Wandscher also appears on singer songwriter Marissa Nadler’s acclaimed album July, and has recently recorded and toured with Jon Langford, the leader of the legendary Mekons. Other album guest appearances include, Rocky Votolato, Nada Surf and Death Cab for Cutie.
Weblinks:
jessesykes.com
www.facebook.com/JesseSykesSweetHereafter
