Jonathan Richman - Only Frozen Sky Anyway (2025)

Legendary balladeer JONATHAN RICHMAN will be digitally releasing his 18th studio album ONLY FROZEN SKY ANYWAY on July 4, 2025 via Blue Arrow Records. With his longtime drummer and percussionist Tommy Larkins and former Modern Lovers bandmate the inimitable Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) on keyboards, Richman follows in his longtime tradition of injecting his lyrical wit into indie rock in a fashion that he perfected over the decades.

Kicking off with the rhythmic “I Was Just A Piece of Frozen Sky Anyway,” the album finds Richman in his prime, traipsing through acoustic styles effortlessly from track to track. Lifting the melody and chorus from Bee Gee’s eponymous hit single, Richman creates a nostalgic narrative in “Night Fever,” where he takes on a voyeuristic look on typical a Saturday night in Europe. The infectiously propulsive “The Older Girl” sees Richman warning a younger fellow to avoid dating up (“She was a whole year older / And I looked a lot younger / I was too young to know how important those two things were”). The Spanish-inflected “Se Va Pa’volver” captures the thematic thread of departures and returns that permeates the album. Richman explains, “Like many of the songs on this new record, which either existed in a vague, skeletal form or did not at all before we started recording on January 5th of ’25 (and finished by January 10th), this song fits in with the theme that seems to have taken shape during that recording session. The song is about how our friends are leaving, in their dying, on an errand, only to return in another role… with another mission. How do I dare say such a thing? Oh…I don’t know.”

In addition to this album of all new material, Blue Arrow will be releasing his last three albums Ishkode! Ishkode! (2016), SA! (2018) and Want To Visit My Inner House? (2021) as well as the EPs Cold Pizza & Other Hot Stuff (2022) and Yatasamaroun (2023) to streaming services for the first time ever. Previously only available via Bandcamp or for purchase at shows, the rollout of these releases finally makes them accessible to a much larger audience. Of these albums, Richman says, “Jerry Harrison, Nicole Montalbano and I produced [Want To Visit My Inner House?] as well as SA! (2018). To us, the two albums are related in the sense that Want to Visit My Inner House? suggests where SA was starting to head.”