[Cover photo credit to Katie Silvester]

London-based Folk and Americana singer/songwriter Merrick Winter has announced his sophomore EP, The California Zephyr due out May 9, 2025 via Tone Tree Music. Alongside the announcement, Winter has shared the orchestral version of title track “The California Zephyr” with Lockeland Strings (Live At British Grove Studios) with a matching live video.

On The California Zephyr, Winter deals with “love, loss and the human condition.”

Winter shares:

‘The California Zephyr’ is really a travelogue of longing. It’s the feeling that most often yields a song for me. A chronology of bygone eras; a homesickness morphed into fantasy. I find comfort in making that feeling permanent through songs.

The project captures accounts of ordinary lives with vignettes of American life, mixed with the memories of the artist’s childhood, leaving for the UK at age 12.

The EP, produced by Matt Zara (Teddy Swims, Lola Young, Niall Horan), Patrick James Fiztroy and Adam Lee, takes its name from the cross-country Amtrak train Winter boarded while writing it. On that journey, he gathered inspiration from conversations with strangers across the U.S.

The title track, featuring Nashville’s orchestra collective, Lockeland Strings, was recorded at London’s British Grove Studios. Owned by Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), the studio is replete with music history, including Beatles-era EMI consoles, one used on Paul McCartney’s Wings records.

On the recording experience, Winter says:

We tracked everything live in about an hour. I played my Gibson ES-340, which I’d just bought in New York, and used a Benson Vinny Reverb in an iso booth. Playing with the orchestra felt like flying—my songs had never sounded so alive.