Bruce Hornsby Announces New Album ‘Non-Secure Connection’ & Shares Single Featuring James Mercer

Bruce Hornsby will release a new studio album entitled Non-Secure Connection via Zappo Productions/Thirty Tigers on August 14. Hornsby previewed the 10-track follow-up to 2019’s Absolute Zero by sharing the single “My Resolve,” which features The Shins frontman James Mercer.

The new album developed out of work Bruce did with filmmaker Spike Lee. Hornsby wrote hundreds of cues for Lee and decided to turn some of them into fleshed out songs. “It takes my music to a place that I like that sets it apart from other things I’ve done,” the famed musician said of the process. “I’m often looking to make a sound that I haven’t heard before and find a place in what I guess is the context of popular song for some new information.”

Bruce produced the bulk of Non-Secure Connection, which also features added production provided by Justin Vernon, Brad Cook, Wayne Pooley and Tony Berg. Mercer isn’t the only guest on the LP as Justin Vernon, Vernon Reid, Jamila Woods and yMusic’s Hideaki Aomori are among those who contributed as are members of Bruce’s backing band The Noisemakers and the Orchestra Of St. Hanks. Additionally, the album includes “Anything Can Happen,” a song Bruce co-wrote with the late Leon Russell. Leon appears on the LP via a demo the pair recorded over 25 years ago.

“The new album’s chromaticism and dissonance quotient is exactly twice as high (three songs featuring that language compared to one and a half on the last record),” added Hornsby of his new record. “I feel like my music has never been a part of any trend that defined any era of music during my 34 years of doing this. I may be wrong, but that’s how it feels to me.”

Hornsby describes “My Resolve” as “a Sisyphean tale of the creative life, sung with a fellow climber.” Listen to the lead single from Non-Secure Connection below:

Non-Secure Connection Tracklist

1. Cleopatra Drones
2. Time, The Thief
3. Non-Secure Connection
4. The Rat King (featuring Rob Moose)
5. My Resolve (featuring James Mercer)
6. Bright Star Cast (featuring Jamila Woods and Vernon Reid)
7. Shit’s Crazy Out Here
8. Anything Can Happen (featuring Leon Russell)
9. Porn Hour
10. No Limits