Bruce Hornsby has announced a new album called Non-Secure Connection. It’s due out August 14th, and he’s previewing it with the lead single “My Resolve”, featuring James Mercer of The Shins.
Though only ten tracks, Non-Secure Connection is an especially star-studded affair. In addition to The Shins’ frontman, it boasts guest appearances by Rob Moose of yMusic, rising star Jamila Woods, Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, and the late Leon Russell, who appears thanks to a demo he recorded with Hornsby 25 years ago.
The collaboration with James Mercer is gloriously old-school. “My Resolve” recalls Hornsby’s pre-Grateful Dead days, when he combined rock with power pop hooks, as in the mega-smash hit “The Way It Is”. But “My Resolve” mostly avoids that previous song’s adult contemporary vibes. It uses hand drums and richly-layered strings to add texture to a track that, otherwise, could have come across as too smooth.
At the chorus, both men sing, “In my resolve I move the rock/ Maybe fall down trying.” The lyrics recall a certain tortured soul out of Greek mythology. Hornsby confirmed as much in a statement, calling the song, “a Sisyphean tale of the creative life, sung with a fellow climber.” Check out “My Resolve” below.
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Non-Secure Connection arrives August 14th, and pre-orders have begun. Last year, Bruce Hornsby released his fourth solo album, Absolute Zero, and guested on Bon Iver’s excellent LP i,i.
Non-Secure Connection Tracklist:
