Laura Veirs - Temple Songs

Veirs built a ten by fourteen foot shed in the backyard of her Portland house and named it the Temple of Bloom. Over three months in the autumn of 2025 she went in with two microphones and a laptop and came out with her fourteenth solo album, the first she has written, recorded, arranged, produced and performed on her own. No click tracks, no electronic instruments, no pitch correction. The rough edges were left where they landed.

The room ended up as a collaborator. Rain on the skylight, neighborhood bluejays, passing crows, and a distant stump grinder all got either worked into the takes or worked around. Eleven songs in twenty-nine minutes, which for a writer three decades into a career reads as a deliberate stripping down rather than any kind of limitation. It moves between delicate nylon-string fingerpicking and bolder electric flourishes. "Flying Into Darkness" came first, written from what she describes as feeling existentially unmoored, circling the question of how to stay grounded and still do some good. "Arc Still Bends" takes on global tumult and "No Masters" takes on feminism, both threads that run through the whole record. "Pulse" ends in a cacophonous duet between electric guitar and saxophone. "Sunlight and Doom" closes it out, weaving in fragments of Sappho.

Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney called it achingly beautiful and framed it as an act of resistance, which is about right for a record this small and this stubborn. Philip Weinrobe, who mixed Adrienne Lenker's recent work, handled final touches. Released August 14, 2026 on Veirs's own Raven Marching Band Records.

Limited transparent red vinyl with back cover art and an insert carrying lyrics, credits, and original illustrations by Veirs herself. Fitting packaging for a record she made every inch of.