Black Marble shares 80s New Wave-inspired "Jim Carol New Year."

Singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Black Marble creative mastermind Chris Stewart will be releasing his fifth Black Marble album, Life in Small Spaces through Sacred Bones Records on August 21, 2026. The album, which is Stewart’s first full-length album since 2021’s Fast Idol, is an album of clear-eyed commentary and analysis of the music industry as a whole, a discussion of authenticity and a heartfelt letter to all the independent creatives out in the world.

“I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things,” Stewart says. “When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, ‘will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed?’ The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last-ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

Drawing from early American left-of-the-dial “college radio” staccato guitar lines and live drum samples, the album’s material sees Stewart eschewing his usual wall of synths-driven sound for a more live sound.

Life in Small Spaces‘ first single “Jim Carol New Year” is a hooky, decidedly upbeat, 1980’s New Wave-inspired track featuring layers of glistening and shimmering synths and gated reverb-soaked, angular drum machine beats. Seemingly channeling Security and Peter Gabriel 3-era Peter Gabriel and New Order, the song’s title nods to the late New York-born and-based author, poet and musician Jim Carroll and holiday season carols, while casting a critical eye on modern life. Throughout, the song sees is narrator and protagonist rejecting false promises of religion, advice from so-called experts or easy answers in favor of self-validation and independent thinking. The song’s refrain of “I forgot my money” is meant to convey all the things the song’s protagonist isn’t buying. “If you want to be free,” Stewart says, “you have to watch out for some of life’s classic pitfalls.”

Directed by Clayton Hunt, the accompanying video for “Jim Carol New Year” follows two travelers — one of them is in a hazmat suit — being inexplicably drawn to a house in the distance. The two travelers wind up meeting each other and discovering they’re doppelgängers for each other.

“Chris had an idea of a house in the distance with two travelers being drawn toward it. We wanted each traveler to represent a different version of the journey,” Clayton Hunt explains. “One traveler struggled unprotected against the landscape, the other was cautious, outfitted in an orange hazmat – type suit. I decided to shoot 16mm and capture everything against the green landscape, creating a vibrant contrast. That imagery helped guide the production and inform the story.”

Stewart will be embarking on a tour to support the new album throughout August and September. The Serfs will be opening for the West Coast leg of the tour. The fantastic Public Circuit will be opening for the East Coast leg. Jimmy Cicero will also be an opener for a select number of shows. The tour includes a September 10, 2026 stop at Webster Hall. Check out the rest of the your dates below.

Black Marble – TOUR DATES

* w/ The Serfs

# w/ Public Circuit

(and Jimmy Cicero for select shows)

Aug 22 Constellation Room at the Observatory Santa Ana, CA *

Aug 23 1720 Los Angeles (LA), CA *

Aug 25 Rickshaw Stop San Francisco, CA *

Aug 26 Harlow’s Sacramento, CA *

Aug 28 The Crocodile Seattle WA *

Aug 29 Wonder Ballroom Portland, OR *

Aug 30 Shrine Social Club Boise, ID *

Aug 31 Urban Lounge Salt Lake City UT *

Sep 1 The Federal Theatre Denver CO #

Sep 3 Slowdown Omaha, NE #

Sep 4 Fine Line Minneapolis, MN #

Sep 5 Thalia Hall Chicago, IL #

Sep 6 El Club Detroit Detroit, MI #

Sep 7 Lee’s Palace Toronto, ON #

Sep 8 La Sala Rosa Montreal QC #

Sep 10 Webster Hall New York (NYC), NY #

Sep 11 Union Transfer Philadelphia, PA #

Sep 12 Ottobar Baltimore, MD #

Sep 14 Kings Raleigh, NC #

Sep 15 The Earl Atlanta GA #

Sep 17 White Oak Music Hall – Upstairs Houston, TX #

Sep 18 Club Dada Dallas TX #

Sep 19 29th Street Ballroom Austin, TX #

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