Katie Pruitt Wrestles With Human Impermanence And Natural Diasters On New Album

First single “Blackout” out today featuring singer-songwriter Nolan Taylor – listen here

Today (6.12), acclaimed singer/songwriter/guitarist Katie Pruitt announces her new album, Fools for the Fleeting. Coming September 18th via Rounder Records, the Nashville-based musician reckons with the impermanence that comes with being human. Her most outward-reaching and philosophically rich work to date, the album unfolds as an illuminating meditation on transience and grief, connection as a means of survival, and the healing power of presence and surrender.

Her third full-length and follow-up to 2024’s Mantras, Fools for the Fleeting finds Prutt joining forces with producer Isaiah Beard to fulfill her vision of creating an album that feels “rooted to the earth.” One of the record’s underlying themes is the idea of nature as a mirror for our inner lives, with Pruitt tapping these songs as a conduit for communal understanding. Detailing stories of heartbreak, grief and crises both real and existential, the album finds Pruitt wrestling with how to go on when the world around you is constantly changing. The 10-song set centers on her own powerful yet intentional form of Americana/indie-rock, steeped in acoustic instrumentation, her warm and soulful voice, and the beautifully imperfect friction of live performance, courtesy of musicians like Juan Solorzano (a guitarist known for his work with Ruston Kelly and Parker Millsap) and Aksel Coe (a drummer who’s played with Ella Langley and Sierra Ferrell). 

“This album came from trying to figure out how to move forward in a world that feels aggressively chaotic and constantly in flux,” says Pruitt. “So much has changed in the last few years: politically, technologically, personally, and—of course—the irreversible damage done to our planet’s climate. I’ve been thinking a lot about how everything is temporary, and how that can feel either terrifying or freeing, depending on how you look at it. There’s some somberness to these songs, but I also wanted to include a thread of hope.”

Pre-Save Fools For the Fleeting here

Alongside the announcement, she shares the album’s first single, “Blackout.” One of several album songs threaded with lyrical references to natural disasters, the stripped-back and steel-laced track surfaced during a spring 2025 tornado outbreak that nearly hit her house in Nashville, Tennessee, prompting her ex to reach out to make sure she was alright. Tapping singer/songwriter Nolan Taylor for the track, Pruitt realizes that the only thing that really matters in the face of a disaster – and nearly losing it all – is love and human connection. 

Listen to “Blackout” here

Watch the official video here

Last month, she shared the timely, NYT-praised “Same Boat.” In a country so divided, Pruitt argues that the real enemy is the wealthiest 1% that profits off all the division of the rest of us, singing “they don’t care if we’re yelling, if we’re buying what they’re selling, and they don’t care if the world goes up in smoke.” Listen here.

Less than a decade into her career, Katie Pruitt has cemented her status as an essential artist who helps us make sense of modern life and uncover meaningful ways of moving through it. Since the arrival of her critically celebrated full-debut Expectations (a 2020 LP that earned her an Emerging Artist of the Year nomination from the Americana Music Association), the Georgia-bred singer/songwriter/guitarist has assembled an acclaimed body of work exploring questions both existential and intimate. Never afraid to speak up and write about the issues she believes in, Rolling Stone praised her as a "dynamic new presence" with "soaring vocals, agile guitar work and deeply personal songwriting."