Mike Polizze

Following closely on the heels of his acclaimed second solo record, Around Sound, Mike Polizze is releasing an instrumental outtake from the album recording sessions, titled “Improvs 1,” demonstrating the album’s new emphasis on acoustic fingerpicking, which is, according to tourmate Ryan Davis, “a beautifully tense, peacefully unrelaxed, low-key sizzler of an instrumental track that shines bright enough to blind your brain for a brief moment before refocusing your vision, resettling your ears, and starting the whole goddamn album over from the top.”

Mike Polizze’s second solo record (“another beauty” – Uncut) is out today, streaming and available to grip in gorgeous physical forms. Watch the dreamy new video for “Is There Anybody Out There?” as well as Jennifer Castle’s miraculous “Mary Miracle” and check out tour dates for both artists. 
Comparing the album’s first single to its title track, Polizze says: “If ‘Everybody I Know’ is a soul-search about a lonely universe, then ‘Around Sound’ brings back the light of life.”

Mike will be playing a string of solo shows this spring, including dates with Jake Xerxes Fussell, Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), Prison (featuring Paul Major), and Bill Nace.

“Around Sound,” the title track to his forthcoming second solo record, which he is sharing today, unfolds to a full seven minutes, while miraculously managing to retain a sense of effortless spontaneity. Unlike so many of us, Polizze is not in a hurry. 

Comparing the album’s first single to its title track, Polizze says: “If ‘Everybody I Know’ is a soul-search about a lonely universe, then ‘Around Sound’ brings back the light of life.”

Mike will be playing a string of solo shows this spring, including dates with Jake Xerxes Fussell, Roger Miller (Mission of Burma), Prison (featuring Paul Major), and Bill Nace.

A rainier and more pensive affair than its predecessor—despite its playful humor and plentiful hooks—Around Sound affirms Polizze’s status as a consummate (and now not-so-secret) craftsman of instantly memorable bucolic odes of languid beauty, deepening his fingerstyle acoustic guitar magic. Pre-order now (out July 11), hear “Everybody I Know,” and get 30% off Mike’s back catalog with coupon code SOUND.

Mike Polizze records his debut Lagniappe Session for Aquarium Drunkard on acoustic guitar, sharing his renditions of two traditional titles: Libba Cotten’s “Freight Train” and The Byrds’ version of “Old Blue.”

Following last month’s release of moonshining ballad “Copper Kettle,” Jake Xerxes Fussell is back with “Hills of Mexico,” a wistful and timely interpretation of a traditional 19th c. ballad about going to Mexico to work the cattle drive as a vaquero, and the hardships and insecurity of underemployment and migrant work.

Mike Polizze’s bittersweet and sunny debut solo album (featuring Kurt Vile)—Uncut’s Album of the Month (“the songs themselves gleam like diamonds”)—is in shops and streaming today. Get lost in what Pitchfork calls “the sonic equivalent of a beer on the beach at sunset.”

Mike Polizze shares the Philadelphia story behind his upcoming solo album Long Lost Solace Find (out July 31), along with new song “Wishing Well” (again feat. Kurt Vile), with American Songwriter, who describe it as “a breezy folk number that has the wondrous, enveloping quality of a daydream.”