Sturgill Simpson is keeping good on his 2021 promise to release only five studio albums under his own alias. Mutiny After Midnight, the second record under the singer-songwriter’s Johnny Blue Skies moniker, arrives March 13 via Atlantic Outpost on physical formats only (vinyl, CD, cassette).
In a letter posted ahead of the official announcement, Simpson says he and his band—now known as Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds—“decided to make an album centered firmly on groove,” adding that the songs on the album break down “into two categories—the dark state of the world and the bright state of love.” As for the title, Simpson notes, “this mutiny is really more about the primary dance. The dance of all creation. To be clear it is a protest against oppression and suppression, and the only tried & tested true antidote to that is pure, unfiltered, unapologetic, relentless disco-hedonism.”
Also included in the press release are Simpson’s lyrics from opening track “Make America Fuk Again”:
Johnny Blue Skies released their first album, Passage du Desir, in 2024. Simpson’s last album as Sturgill Simpson was 2021’s The Ballad of Dood & Juanita. You can read his full letter introducing Mutiny After Midnight, along with the new album tracklist, below.
Mutiny After Midnight:
01 Make America Fuk Again
02 Excited Delirium
03 Don’t Let Go
04 Stay on That
05 Viridescent
06 Situation
07 Venus
08 Everyone Is Welcome
09 Ain’t That a Bitch
What’s Behind the “Mutiny After Midnight?”
In a word, kinship…
The majority of this band has been on the road together on and off and on again for over thirteen years. We have all grown sometimes together and sometimes apart. But we’ve never felt more “together” than right now. I couldn’t be happier.
This is the band I’ve dreamed about being in since middle school. Last year we did two complete laps around the U.S. and a tour of Western Europe. Between gigs this past September, we went into a brand new gorgeous studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Inspired heavily from endless hours on the bus watching old clips of the great fusion-funk band ’Stuff, and revisiting off-the-beaten-track concept records like Marvin Gaye’s “In Our Lifetime”, where, in what looks like the end of the world, the artist’s response is, “Let’s dance and make love.”…we decided to make an album centered firmly on groove.
We started every day from scratch with a basic groove, I wrote the songs and lyrics in the moment on-the-spot, and everyone established their individual parts servicing the songs and not the individual ego.
You can break down the songs on this album into two categories-the dark state of the world and the bright state of love. Light lives in darkness just as darkness lives in light. I have come to find over time that it’s far easier to just embrace contradictions rather than attempting to resolve them.
Hence “Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds”…
