Josh Joplin Group has announced their return to music after 12 years with the new album GpYr (pronounced “gap year”), to be released on April 4, 2025 via NarrowMoat/Missing Piece Records.

After a self-imposed hiatus to focus on raising his daughter, Joplin is back with his decades-long collective of musicians, The Josh Joplin Group. Along with the announcement, Joplin has shared the lead single “Goodbye Berlin, ” a track about Joplin’s “admiration for the German capital and the aspirations that can be found within.”

A few days before everyone came together in the studio, Joplin introduced “Goodbye Berlin” to his collaborator and co-producer Lorenzo Wolff, the Grammy-winner known for his work on Taylor Swift’s Midnights and Folklore. GpYr showcases the feeling of a live session with additional attention to texture and detail.

Joplin reflects:

GpYr captures the confessional energy of someone ready to turn themselves in for being reckless, but is ultimately absolved by the lessons learned along the way. A gap year is like liminal space. It’s the transition between what was and what’s next—a moment of motion, unknowing, and discovery. It lingers forever, shaping us and if we let it, it can transform us.

The Josh Joplin Group has shared stages with artists like Old 97’s, A Fine Frenzy, Travis, and Matthew Sweet, making an impression on the Indie and Alternative music scenes.

With GpYr, Joplin turns his gaze toward the future. The album represents “both a return to his roots and a leap forward.”

He says:

After stepping away for so long, I wanted to create something meaningful to me—a chronicle of my life, with enough perspective I could give it a chorus. GpYr is the time it took between then and this record.