[Cover photo credit to Lindsey Byrnes]

New York-based singer/songwriter Emily James has announced her debut album, Summer Nostalgia, due out May 29th, 2026 via Nettwerk.  Over twelve songs, the album unfolds as a concept record, “tracing the arc of a couple’s first love – from the rush and intimacy to the quiet, unexpected ways they reconnect later in life.”

The album also “examines how we mythologize our own past – how memory softens certain edges and intensifies others.” The artist “examines how love shapes identity, especially for girls growing up in small towns where memory and longing can feel inescapable.”

After releasing the Summer Nostalgia EP in August 2025, Emily James felt that she wasn’t finished telling this story. With the full-length album, she adds new songs to draw listeners in further.

Recently, she shared the album track “Tommy,” a song she both wrote and Produced, featuring saxophone and backing vocals.

Emily James shares:

Tommy is a song for anyone who is hopelessly in love with someone, but will never express it to them. It paints the side of the friends-to-lovers arc where feelings aren’t reciprocated. There’s a very specific kind of pain that comes from watching someone fall in love with other people, while you continue to love them in your own way, from a distance.