[Cover photo credit to Mark Halski]
Singer/songwriter Avery Hellman returns with a new single and music video, “American Flag”, the latest release from their Alt-Country project, Ismay. The song is the first release from the upcoming album, Half Truth, which arrives on June 12, 2026 via Fossil Records.
Hellman says of the song:
After scrolling through wild mustang adoption sites, I stopped on a single image that made my heart leap. At that moment, I decided to try something I had long considered – adoption of a wild horse. However, as we worked together for over a year with trainers, I came to the conclusion that my dream of having her as a rodeo horse, carrying the American flag, would never come to fruition. She never softened to the close presence of humans. She now roams free in a trainer’s “back 40” where she lives to this day. The song is about the expectations we put on other creatures and ourselves, and how we must reconcile those expectations with present reality.
Half Truth came from a time when Hellman was tracing the roots of Lucinda Williams for a documentary film and podcast they created called Finding Lucinda. During that journey, they uncovered self-doubt about being an artist, but also discovered the craft of poetry, which motivated them to become a better songwriter.
For the first time in their album creation process, many of the songs started as poems and then became songs. Subsequently, Hellman was invited to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, where they presented a few early poems displaying “the raw and unsmooth poetry process” of what you will hear on the album.
Half Truth is produced by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Rhett Miller, Curtis Harding, Norah Jones, and Joseph Arthur), who Hellman felt was“someone who could make the music feel organic, imperfect, simple, and folky, while still reaching out of the box to places that were uncontrollable.”
This Spring, Ismay hits the road with a mix of solo performances and selected festival appearances. Catch Ismay live at upcoming stops including Berkeley, Point Reyes Station, and Markleeville this season.
UPCOMING TOUR DATES:
April 25 – Kevin Carducci Record Release & Fossil Records Showcase – Berkeley, CA
May 16 – Finding Lucinda Film Screening and Songwriter Round – Point Reyes Station, CA
June 12 – Woollystar 2026 – Markleeville, CA
