Kyle Crane will release his new album Crane Like the Bird, due out January 18th. The announcement came alongside lead single/video “Nicole,” featuring Band of Horses singer Ben Bridwell. Crane Like the Bird features contributions from Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), James Mercer (The Shins), Luke Steele (Empire of the Sun), Sabina Sciubba (Brazilian Girls), Peter Morén (Peter Bjorn and John), M. Ward, Blake Mills, acclaimed pedal steel guitarist Daniel Lanois and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau.

Kyle Crane on “Nicole”

“This song is about honoring my sister,” Crane explains. “She is a very strong woman who has been through a lot. She got pregnant in high school and became a single mother when the father died of a drug overdose. The chorus takes us back to simpler times.”

Crane Like the Bird is akin to gazing out different windows of the same childhood house. Crane’s pilot father, Jeff was a Coast Guard lieutenant out of Humboldt Bay, CA; his helicopter went down in a 1997 search-and-rescue mission, leaving the family shattered. The album tells the story of the time leading up to his father’s death and the effects on them – everything from the music to the album art that includes his father’s old pilot logs and maps, and the album cover photo of his mother at the site of the crash on the cliffs of Mendocino, throwing a rose out to sea.

Kyle Crane
Crane Like the Bird
Tracklisting

1. Wishing Cap (feat. James Mercer)
2. Now
3. Nicole (feat. Ben Bridwell)
4. Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park
5. Mendocino (feat. Luke Steele)
6. When I See (feat. Conor Oberst)
7. Kaleidoscope (feat. Sabina Sciubba and Brad Mehldau)
8. Glass Half Full (feat. Peter Morén)
9. The Painter (feat. M. Ward)

“I’ve always had songs, but you keep putting them on the shelf when you’re a sideman,” Crane explains. Drums were his ticket into music – his dad gave him his first set for his tenth birthday, a year before the crash. Crane went on to attend Berklee College of Music and post-grad jazz studies at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he lives now.