Upward and Overhead
BOGO North American tickets, an annual look backward and forward
Usually this time of year feels like a quiet is snowing down everything, insisting on me doing less and taking time to stop. But there is so much beginning soon, so for me it feels more like a brief pause.
There was a lot of activity in Antlerland these last 12 months, across so many phases that it’s hard to believe they all happened within the span of one year. I’m going to get to all that, but first a bit of business.
We have many of shows coming up in just a few weeks. And as a special holiday gift, we’re offering a deal on tickets for North American shows: buy one, get one free (or BOGO, one of the best acronyms to say aloud).
This deal runs only until December 24th, and a few cities are excluded (see poster for details)
Get tickets here.
A few folks have already asked what we’ll be playing on this tour. The answer? I don’t know yet! But pretty much any song from the Antlerverse is fair game. We even played songs from Uprooted and In The Attic of the Universe in NYC a few weeks ago, and I could see us doing some of that again. February Tape anyone?
For those in NYC, I’m pleased to tell you I’ll be part of this year’s On Air Fest, having an on-stage conversation and playing some songs, at what could best be described as "Podcastapalooza” or maybe “Podchella”. The lineup is pretty mind-boggling, including many legends of audio storytelling.
The festival happens February 23-26 and tickets are on sale now here.
Big news for those who wear clothes: we have a new Blight-themed shirt.
We’ll have it for sale on tour, but you can get it at our online store here.
Alright, the time has come to wax nostalgic about the year that was 2025.
At the top of this year, we self-released Hospice at Ten: Live in Chicago. The album, available exclusively on Bandcamp, was recorded at Chicago’s Thalia Hall on our ten year anniversary tour of Hospice in 2019.
The setup for these shows was bare bones — just me on acoustic guitar, our longtime collaborator Tim Mislock on electric guitar, and Michael Lerner on a single snare drum, all accompanied by disarming, cavernous silence.
As I said in the original announcement, the result is a particularly haunted live album, as well as what I’ve come to think of as an alternate version of Hospice: markedly different from the original 2009 studio album, but possessing a kindred spirit.
You can get Hospice at Ten here.
In the Spring, Cowboy Sadness assembled to embark on our first ever tour, down to Knoxville, TN’s Big Ears Festival and back. We did a hometown show in Kingston, NY before departing, hit Asheville on our way back, and in between, played two monumental shows at Big Ears, both in gorgeous churches. The whole trip felt like a star exploding, finally letting off this latent energy we three have been storing privately for so long.
And ever since, we’ve been setting aside time to make our second album, blocking out pieces of weeks to make endless hours of recordings abbreviated in terms of time but infinite along other dimensions.
We carved out a small piece of these dives for the excellent Across the Horizon compilation. That song, “Seltzer”, is light on its feet, and could best be described as Cowboy Sadness Unplugged.
You can listen to “Seltzer” here.
Recently, David Moore took these lovely film photographs during one of the sessions for LP2.
Not long after the Cowboy Sadness tour, we (Antlers) released another live album, the cleverly-titled Okkervil River & The Antlers Band Together. This one is a document of the tours we did with Will Sheff, recordings pulled from shows both stateside and abroad in 2024.
To me, Band Together is a time capsule of a unique moment in time, finding common ground and complimentary contrasts with one of my favorite songwriters, him stepping into our songs and us stepping into his in kind.
LPs in hand, we went out on one last joint tour this past June along the East Coast, then all the way down to Texas and back. The experience was strangely meta: a tour to promote the recordings of the tour. It felt right to complete the circle.
You can get Band Together here.
And then came Blight.
It feels a little too soon to reflect on Blight… that story’s still unfolding. But I want to thank all of you for listening and responding to the album. It’s reassuring to hear so many of you thinking about many of the same issues that have consumed my conscience these last few years. I’m eager to take these songs on the road, to be in the same room and tell you more of what I think and hear more of what you have to say.
Something has shifted for me internally since its release, which happens every time we let an album out into the world. It reminds me of setting off a burning paper wish lantern. I have an idea of the path I want it to take: straight upward and overhead, where I can keep an eye on it, hoping it climbs high enough to keep from getting caught in trees along its ascent.
But I can’t control where the wind carries it. I can only watch the flying flame until it passes out of view, and then tell you about what I saw, as best as I can remember it, having no idea where it ultimately landed.
You can find Blight here.
Looking ahead to the coming year, embarking on a few tours feels like an appropriate way to start. At this point, our shows feel like the signposts of Antlers past and present appearing on the same plane, revealing connections that aren’t necessarily bound to the years of their origin.
For me, the challenge involves stringing together a cohesive narrative — to give these songs’ inclusion in the set some logic, to consider the wider purpose of the work and how all these pieces fit together to bring about a clearer understanding of the whole.
And then, of course, balance that against the simple question, “Well, what do y’all wanna hear?”
I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
But in these last several days of the year, I’ll try to keep my attention on simpler things. One image in particular has kept me warm on these early winter evenings: the glow of multicolor string lights on our neighbor’s porch, a simple gift to us peering through the window.
Wishing you all peace and renewal in 2026,
P
This was a lovely read. "But in these last several days of the year, I’ll try to keep my attention on simpler things." Thank you for the good reminder.
I've seen you live only once, maybe it was 2012?, in Bogotá, Colombia. It's been a long time. Excited to see you in Chicago next April!