Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney has announced a new solo album, Magic Sign, which will be out June 24 via Dominio. This is his first solo record since his 2015 debut, Many Moons. He made it with producer Rob Schnapf at Mant Sounds in Los Angeles, and the album features Matt Barrick (The Walkmen), Oliver Hill (Pavo Pavo), Kacey Johansing, and Tim Ramsey.
The first single off the album is "Corncob," a nicely mellow track bathed in pedal steel and nostalgia, whose lyrics give Magic Sign its title. “The lyrics are about a specific time, the end of youth, pre-adulthood, scummy kid hanging around your hometown a little too long, smoking weed and driving around the surrounding area with your friends to get as completely lost as possible," says Martin about the song and album. "Eventually getting home using these little green signs that are posted throughout the NJ suburbs telling you which way to go to reach different towns. We called them magic signs. You do this enough times and it eventually gets harder and harder to get lost. A song about pushing the boundaries of where you grew up until you exhaust the mystery and hit a different kind of boundary. A song about aimless kids looking for direction.”