Jason P. Woodbury - Jason P. Woodbury and The Night Bird Singing Quartet (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Birdsong
02. What Else Is New
03. Get To Meet Them
04. Calling From Somewhere
05. Rooster At Five
06. When I Get Lonesome (Again)
07. All Motion Aglow
08. Is It The Light
09. Thunder Deepens
10. Gila River
11. The Season Has Arrived

Jason P. Woodbury and the Night Bird Singing Quartet sweetly arrives like its namesake, an unexpected pre-dawn visit the Phoenix based musician, writer, and podcaster received one dark quiet night. Dazed and captivated by the unpredictable melodies floating outside of his window, the nighttime serenade reminded Woodbury of all the music that plays while the rest of the world sleeps.

Like St. John of The Cross recording an album in Laurel Canyon before heading down to the pub to catch a sunrise set by Brinsley Schwarz, Night Bird Singing couples nocturnal longing with blissful dashes of transcendence, bright flashes of light against black night skies.

The sound veers from rocking to hushed, with a pop-forward sensibility that evokes an era when classic rock evolved into new wave and snuck onto soft-rock radio. In a voice reminiscent of artists such as Lindsey Buckingham or Amen Dunes’ Damon McMahon, Woodbury spills out lyrics that split the difference between the self-aware screeds of Elvis Costello and the coiled spirituality of Van Morrison.

“There are moments on this album where I’m referencing my earliest memories, or Phoenix UFO lore, or The Upanishads, but there are also parts where I’m just sort of letting the air out of my own self-inflated ego balloons,” Woodbury says. The result is an album that’s as intimate in focus as it is cosmic. "They are all praise songs of sorts," Woodbury says, citing Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan's quote, "Some day music will be the means of expressing universal religion" as a creative credo.

“Birdsong” opens with an ominous upright bass, drums, and 12-string doom folk groove, recalling the wide-open expanse of early My Morning Jacket, before “What Else Is New?” crashes in on a Doobie Brothers bounce complete with indie rock freakout guitars.

“When I Get Lonesome (Again)” updates a previously released (and quite scrappy) demo version with power pop chime and pedal steel. Instrumentals like the Sonoran noir ballad “Gila River” and the swooning folk-jazz number “Rooster At Five” add winding variety to this nighttime journey toward dawn, while “All Motion Aglow” introduces shades of ‘90s-styled alterna-pop as Woodbury outlines faded nostalgic childhood memories of traveling the southwest on summer road trips with his grandparents.

There’s the lo-fi devotional “Is It the Light?”, which questions the nature of consciousness (“Is it the light/does it reflect the light?”) over a drum machine mantra, captured by Woodbury and collaborators during an unplanned recording session in his living room.

Then there’s the stately closer “The Season Has Arrived,” a mellow but urgent ballad which unravels personal history alongside images of flooding rivers and Christ-haunted innards—a song about life and water in a desert that is always in need of more as the climate crisis accelerates.

Written in the years after Woodbury’s first album (under the JPW banner) Something Happening/Always Happening (2022), the lo-fi dub-influenced Raw Action on Route EP (2024), and Amassed Like a Rat King (2025), a fuzzed out full-length duo collaboration with Zach “Dad Weed” Toporek, Jason P. Woodbury and The Night Bird Singing Quartet leans into full band mode, with Toporek returning on drums, guitars, keys, and voices, along with electric and upright bassist Andrew Bates, Rick Heins on pedal steel and guitar, and pianist and musical polyglot Rob Kroehler.

“Playing so many shows together definitely put me in a band-focused state of mind,” Woodbury says, referring to performances with the quartet in support of Rosali, Rose City Band, Hataałii, and The Format.

“Andrew’s command of the upright bass opened the door to more British folk and jazz feels; Rob’s incredible piano playing made it so we could ease into E-Street territory, and Rick’s guitar and steel just sent our melodies and textures to the moon,” Woodbury says.

The record also represents the next stage in Woodbury and Toporek’s collaborative development, with the latter not only producing, but also providing drums, guitar, keys, backing vocals, arrangements, and sound design. Recording may have been split up between every contributor's recording space, but Toporek carved out the album’s sonic narrative and sequence in post-production.

“At one point one of Jason’s collaborators said it sounded like I was in my ‘Lillywhite-era,’” Toporek says, referring to producer Steve Lillywhite, whose work with U2, Marshall Crenshaw, and key ‘90s efforts from Dave Matthews Band and Phish that Woodbury considers foundational to his musical sensibility.

“I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly,” Toporek explains. “But I decided to lean into what I imagined it meant.”

The result lands somewhere between a parallel universe where Daniel Lanois produced The Gin Blossoms or Southern California dream poppers Starflyer 59 had gone y’alternative in the wake of the retro-pop classic Leave Here a Stranger. Ghostly percussion clatters alongside slippery guitars, jazz chords bubble alongside drum machines, and pedal steel blooms up like flowers in sidewalk cracks.

Nighttime is haunted with mystery and populated by bleary wonder. Jason P. Woodbury & The Night Bird Singing Quartet brings musical light to the kind of truths that cut through the clutter of life, sparks in the lingering pre-dawn darkness.

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