Seth Walker - I Hope I Know

2022 CD release.

“I was just in it, swimming through it. There was no plan.” Despite swirls of uncertainty surrounding him, Seth Walker’s new album, I Hope I Know is a beacon of light, each of its ten songs shining forth with what many have come to love about Walker and his soulful Americana: diverse influences, contemplative lyrics, that signature blue tone on the guitar, and movement both geographic and spiritual. Walker’s 11th recording to date, it continues a long-running collaboration with producer Jano Rix.

Walker credits I Hope I Know to the practice of “search and surrender”—a quest for new meaning in things he may never fully understand. It’s a beautiful reckoning with heartbreak, moving across states, not knowing when the next tour will begin among other mysteries encountered day to day existence. The ten track collection could best be described as Walker's 'round-midnight album. Its tempos are slower and tonality darker than on previous work, one where Walker had to “sit with it,” trying and failing without forcing anything: not time, not the songwriting or its grooves, not a sense of control, not even his own healing.

The first sessions for the record began in 2019, however the breakup of a longtime romantic relationship and the onset of the pandemic in 2020 led Walker to relocate from his home in Nashville, Tennessee to Asheville, North Carolina, not far from where he was born and raised. The emotional heft of these events paired with the time and space afforded by not being able to tour factored heavily in what was to follow.