Blue Tomorrows, the introspective project of Portland-turned-Wisconsin artist Sarah Nienaber, returns with a new single and video, “Owl Creek Blues,” ahead of her forthcoming album Weather Forever, out December 12th, 2025 (self-released).
A meditative reflection on loss, relocation, and emotional memory, “Owl Creek Blues” merges Nienaber’s affinity for analog warmth with her celestial, reverb-drenched dreamscapes. The track feels like it exists between worlds—where tape hiss becomes heartbeat, and nostalgia hums like electricity beneath quiet snowfall.
Listen / Watch: “Owl Creek Blues” (Official Video)
Pre-Order: Weather Forever
A Song Written in Grief and Reverence
Nienaber wrote “Owl Creek Blues” in the stillness of a Wisconsin winter, shortly after moving cross-country and losing her beloved 18-year-old cat, Nuni. The song, she explains, came from a moment of eerie intimacy:
“One night when I was home alone, I felt like I could hear her walking around the house, and I sat down at the piano to drown out the imagined sound. This song came out very quickly, all at once.”
The track’s delicate piano and drifting synths carry the weight of that moment — a mix of sadness and transcendence, solitude and memory.
The Sound of Time and Place
Much like her earlier work, Weather Forever builds on a tactile interplay between the acoustic and the artificial. Tape hiss, upright piano, analog synths, and warped cassette textures coexist in fragile harmony.
Early sessions began in a small Portland home with a temperamental upright piano, tracked to an old reel-to-reel tape machine and warped through a TC-Helicon pedal. The album’s second life took root in rural Wisconsin, recorded in a sunroom surrounded by pine trees and apple orchards — a place where Nienaber says “the songs finally had room to breathe.”
The title track and “Owl Creek Blues” were finalized and mixed with Neil Weir at Blue Bell Knoll, a 19th-century converted church near Turtle Lake, WI, with final mixes printed to a Studer B67 two-track, infusing every layer with rich analog warmth.
Weather Forever — Out December 12th
Across Weather Forever, Nienaber finds beauty in imperfection — letting the quirks of tape, room, and instrument dictate the shape of each song. It’s music that feels lived-in: tender, atmospheric, and timeless.
Every hum, wobble, and delay is a memory, a breath, a moment preserved.
“Old instruments, tape artifacts, and quiet spaces — weathered, worn, inhabitable. Amid frictions between the acoustic and the artificial, at the heart of Weather Forever is a songwriter making room for welcomed limitations and their subsequent discoveries.”
About Blue Tomorrows
Blue Tomorrows is the solo project of Sarah Nienaber, who also performs with Shady Cove. As the sole writer, producer, and performer, Nienaber crafts sonic worlds that balance fragile warmth with textural experimentation. Her music dwells in liminal spaces — between nostalgia and renewal, isolation and belonging.
Weather Forever arrives December 12, 2025
Watch: “Owl Creek Blues” (Official Video)
Pre-Order / Save: Bandcamp