Jane Kramer Releases New Singles Ahead of MOON & MOTHER Album
The Asheville artist recorded THE BALLAST live at Echo Mountain Recording ahead of her fourth studio album.
Bookended by the loss of her mother and the experience of becoming a mother herself, Asheville-based singer-songwriter Jane Kramer explores the many dimensions of motherhood across two new singles, 'The Ballast' and 'The Summer You Learned to Swim,' out today. With the release of her fourth studio album, MOON & MOTHER, due October 9, Kramer places her own journey from daughter to mother at the heart of both songs, demonstrating how grief, legacy, love, fear, and acceptance are inextricably intertwined across generations of motherhood.
On 'The Ballast,' Kramer honors the woman who first taught her to listen to music, find her voice, and see the world through a lens of compassion and justice.
'Mom was a hippie activist who had a beautiful voice and an incredible ear,' she remembers. 'She introduced me to the music of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan while driving me to school, and she would make me sing the harmonies to each song, not the melodies. She was such a creative force. She was my moon.'
In the final days of her mother's battle with cancer, while Kramer was simultaneously navigating the enormity of new motherhood and all its wonder, demands, and the shift in identity that comes with becoming responsible for another life, she began to see her own life – and what she wanted from it – with new clarity. As a lifelong working musician, that reckoning inevitably extended to her career. Rather than measuring success by momentum or conventional markers of achievement, Kramer began to ask what it would mean to make music in a way that felt genuinely aligned with her values and the life she was actually living. The songs that emerged from that period became a way to answer those questions, and ultimately chart a new course forward.
On 'The Ballast,' she distills that reckoning into a question that is at once intimate and universal – 'Was I worth my weight in love?' – before turning that question inward on 'The Summer You Learned to Swim,' a song written from the vantage point of new motherhood that captures the awe and anxiety of watching a child discover the world for the first time. Reverb-washed guitars and distorted banjo, played by Tall Tall Trees' Mike Savino, give the song a dreamlike, atmospheric quality, while Kramer's masterful lyricism captures the exhilarating feeling of witnessing a new soul begin to find her bearings in an unfamiliar world.
'Darlin', there was water when we started / It was there before I felt the heartbeat / And I'm pretty sure there will be water when we come home,' she sings, before resolving, 'Until then, I'm trusting you to float.'
Together, both songs form the emotional anchor of MOON & MOTHER, an album shaped by deep reflections on identity, purpose, connection, and the complicated work of becoming.
Recorded live over four and a half days at Asheville's Echo Mountain Recording, MOON & MOTHER finds Kramer stretching beyond the folk foundations of her earlier work, bringing together the intimacy of her lyric-driven songwriting with a broader palette shaped by her eclectic musical influences. Produced with longtime friend and collaborator Lillie Syracuse, the sessions brought together an accomplished ensemble drawn from Asheville's musical community, including members of Free Planet Radio (River Guerguerian, Chris Rosser, and Jacob Wolf), Mike Savino (Tall Tall Trees), Matthew Smith, Franklin Keel, Drayton Aldridge, and Thomas Kozak.
The result is an album that is expansive without losing its center. Across MOON & MOTHER, Kramer moves between swooning fiddle, B3 organ, pedal steel, banjo, and layered vocal harmonies, creating a sonic landscape that is at once grounded and otherworldly. The songs wander beyond the borders of her earlier catalog while remaining anchored by the detailed imagery and poignant storytelling that has always defined her work.
For Kramer, that expansion is less about reinvention than alignment. After years of building a career around music, motherhood, loss, and the ever-shifting world gave her a new framework for deciding what deserves her energy, attention, and ambition. MOON & MOTHER is the sound of an artist embracing that clarity – rearranging the puzzle pieces of her life into a shape that not only fits who she is now, but that also makes room for who she is becoming.
'At the core of MOON & MOTHER is the acceptance that I can be a middle-aged mom who still makes music that matters,' Kramer shares. 'I've maintained a career that I'm proud of. There's a beautiful reckoning at this point, because music keeps my lights on and connects me with people I both love and admire. That's enough for me.'
MOON & MOTHER arrives on CD, vinyl, and digital streaming platforms Friday, October 9, 2026.
For more information on Jane Kramer and to stay up to date on upcoming releases and performances, visit JaneKramerMusic.com.
Tracklist
1. The Ballast
2. May Revisited
3. Lightest Heaviest
4. Moon & Mother
5. The Wanting Time
6. The Summer You Learned to Swim
7. 46
8. Polaroid Girls
9. Time and Water
10. Angel River
