Brandi Carlile Looks Inward On ‘Returning To Myself,’ 1st Solo Album In 4 Years

Brandi Carlile will issue her first solo album in four years, Returning To Myself, on October 24 via Interscope Records/Lost Highway. The celebrated singer-songwriter previewed the LP with the title track, which is accompanied by a music video.

Carlile co-produced Returning To Myself with a trio of notable producers: Andrew Watt, Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver). The contributor list is equally star-studded including Brandi’s longtime bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth, SistaStrings (Monique and Chauntee Ross), Josh Klinghoffer, Chad Smith, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Mackay, Rob Moose, Blake Mills, and Stewart Cole.

While Carlile has worked with music legends like Joni Mitchell and Elton John over the past few years, the aptly titled Returning to Myself is Brandi’s first solo record since releasing In These Silent Days in 2021. However, introspection isn’t necessarily Brandi’s favorite thing to do, as she explained:

“I’m not my favorite person to spend my time with. Returning to myself is not just a lonely, but a painfully boring thing to do. So much so that I’m actually not at all interested in doing it.

I prefer to double, triple, and quadruple down on co-dependency, which I’ve come to learn that outside of 12-Step programs and junior high school relationships, isn’t really that unhealthy at all…

For me the key to learning to ‘be alone’ is not being alone at all. It’s being alone in a crowded room. It’s hearing an unexpected doorbell ring and wondering who has shown up to watch me read my book and bite my nails all day. That a guest can be a deep lean-in over a cheap bottle of wine or simply an eyebrow raise and a gesture toward the refrigerator while I play Zelda…where I totally choose myself with someone so close to me I can hear them relax.

People want to be together in silence more than we allow in our time. It’s falling deeply in love with the car wheels on a gravel road. The possibility of the visitor. The “not being alone-ness” of it all…

Togetherness has given me everything I love about being alive. Starting with my original family in a single wide mobile home, gathered around a wood stove all the way to living with my band, haunting my wife everywhere she goes, raising my children on a tour bus, learning at the feet of Joni Mitchell, to making music with my greatest hero of all time, Elton John.

Why is it heroic to untether, when the tense work of togetherness is so much more interesting?

…because I don’t want to do it. Because I don’t want to return to myself.

And that’s why I will.”

Previewing the record is opening track “Returning To Myself,” which arrived with a music video directed by Floria Sigismondi. Watch below:

Brandi Carlile kicks off a three-night run at Red Rocks on Friday. Scroll down for info.

Returning To Myself Tracklist:

1. Returning To Myself
2. Human
3. A Woman Oversees
4. A War With Time
5. Anniversary
6. Church & State
7. Joni
8. You Without Me
9. No One Knows Us
10. A Long Goodbye