Shearwater’s seventh studio album, produced by the band and Dan Duszynski (Loma), chronicles what its leader, Jonathan Meiburg, has been through. While the booming songs of the band’s 2016 album *Jet Plane and Oxbow* (Sub Pop) were filled with fears for what the US was becoming under the previous administration, Jonathan resolved to find a new approach for *The Great Awakening*. He felt despair, but didn’t want to make music that offered no hope. *The Great Awakening* is an immersive, soulful journey of expansive atmospheres and intimate sonic landscapes, augmented by field recordings made while writing his critically acclaimed first book, *A Most Remarkable Creature* (Knopf, 2021). The resulting 11-track album—anchored by his closely-recorded voice, stranger and more urgent than ever—is one Shearwater has been working towards for years: a journey into the unknown, embracing sorrow and joy, beauty and terror.