[Cover photo credit to Adrien Bisson]
Alan Williams’ third solo album, Floating on the Dreamline has been announced for a March 2026 release, and new single “Before My Eyes” is out today, alongside a video. A music professor and former major label artist, Williams moves between singer-songwriter Folk Power-Pop, and more on the new album.
Williams says about his recent process:
The difference this time was allowing the songs and album to just emerge, without an agenda. This record was more like demos that I didn’t really intend anyone to hear … But after a few rounds of song ideas, I couldn’t deny that all signs pointed to ‘album.’ After a lifetime of second guessing and self-doubt, I’m coming around to saying, yeah, it’s fine to just be.
The throughline on the new album is Williams’ “love of harmonic exploration and alternate guitar tunings.” Lyrically, the songs address “life change, choices made, and a sense of ‘what if?’”
Engineered, produced and mixed by Alan Williams himself, Floating on the Dreamline features longtime collaborators drummer Ben Wittman (Sting, Paula Cole, Laurie Anderson) and bassist Greg Porter (Aimee Mann, Talking to Animals), as well as former Natalie Merchant bassist Mike Rivard (Club d’Elf, Boston Pops), with contributions from UMass Lowell colleague John Shirley and former students Matt Swanton and Julia James.
Recorded at Alan Williams’ workspace, in Wittman’s Toronto basement, and in rented cottages in Vermont and on Cape Cod, Floating on the Dreamline is “in part the product of re-examining the recording process itself, from a human and emotional perspective.”
He comments:
As an academic, this is my area of research: what happens to people in recording environments. The systems are really set up to take the pleasure out of the process, but I go about it in the opposite fashion. I’m less concerned with the result than I am with enjoying the process and seeing what can be explored.
As he approaches retirement and a return to his native mountains of North Carolina, Williams’ retirement concert on March 29, 2026 will double as an informal release party for the new record, followed by solo shows with his acoustic guitar.
