sarah Jarosz

The seventh full-length from four-time Grammy Award-winner Sarah Jarosz, Polaroid Lovers is an album-long meditation on those strangely ephemeral moments that indelibly shape our lives. "What I love about a Polaroid is that it's capturing something so fleeting, but at the same time it makes that moment last forever," says the Texas-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist. "It made sense as a title for a record where all the songs are snapshots of different love stories, and there's a feeling of time being expansive despite that impermanence." Through her finely wrought lyricism, ravishing vocal work, virtuosic yet unfettered musicality, Polaroid Lovers performs the much-needed magic of leading us toward a heightened sense of presence, all while casting a lovely spell with her timelessly powerful songs.

The follow-up to 2020's studio album World on the Ground (winner of the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album) and 2021's song cycle Blue Heron Suite, Polaroid Lovers embodies a bold new vitality that has much to do with a deliberate shift in Jarosz's writing process and sonic approach. "Historically I've been somewhat closed off to co-writing, but in the past couple of years I've felt curious to get out of my comfort zone," says the newly Nashville-based artist, who released her debut album at just 18-years-old.

"For a long time it was important to me to write for myself, so that I wouldn't get lost in those rooms full of amazing writers. But now that I'm more confident in my musical identity, I know I can collaborate but still stay true to my own voice." In one of her first co-writing sessions for Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz joined forces with Daniel Tashian (a songwriter/musician/producer known for his award-winning work on Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour) and immediately felt an undeniable creative connection. "Daniel and I were both so excited by the idea of creating a new sound together, and he pushed me in ways I felt completely ready for and open to," she says. "It felt really good to allow myself that freedom, and to take that leap into something new."

Produced by Tashian, Polaroid Lovers took shape as Jarosz recorded live with musicians like Rob McNelley (Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood), Tom Bukovac (Tom Petty, Vince Gill), her husband Jeff Picker (Nickel Creek), and Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams) while keeping at the foreground her spirited performance on octave mandolin. "Out of everything I play, the octave mandolin is definitely my soulmate," says Jarosz, who first took up mandolin at age nine, quickly gained major acclaim in the bluegrass world, and also plays guitar and banjo throughout Polaroid Lovers. "I started playing it when I was 16, and that's when I started writing songs that truly felt like me — there's something about the tonality that really lets my voice shine through."

A widely beloved musician whose past efforts include teaming up with fellow singer/songwriters Sara Watkins and Aoife O'Donovan to form the Grammy Award-winning trio I'm With Her — as well as appearing on albums by iconic artists like David Crosby and Amy Ray of Indigo Girls — Jarosz derived a particularly profound sense of purpose from the highly collaborative process behind Polaroid Lovers. "Maybe more than any record I've ever made, I felt so present and hyper-emotional with this album because I believed in it so much," she says. "It was so joyful to work with all these writers and musicians, and I think that joy really comes through."