Other Lives - Volume V (2025)

The title Volume V signifies the latest chapter in the ongoing story of Other Lives, their fifth record of magnificent musical and emotional depth. From the first notes of the opening track and lead single ‘Mystic,’ it’s clear that the cinematic breadth of their arrangements and melodies had risen several dynamic notches, with a fuller orchestrated reach and more towering drama across the album’s eight songs and two instrumentals - evidence of the band’s hunger to keep progressing while retaining the essence of what makes Other Lives so unique and irresistible.

The majority of Volume V was recorded in The Sheerar, a former church that is now the Stillwater History Museum. “Being back in our home town was, in more ways than one, a sanctuary for us,” says founding member Jonathon Mooney.

“Mystic” is the first track to be taken from the record, and from the first notes it’s clear that the cinematic breadth of their arrangements and melodies has risen several dynamic notches, with a fuller orchestrated reach and more towering drama across the album’s eight songs and two instrumentals – evidence of the band’s hunger to keep progressing while retaining the essence of what makes Other Lives so unique and irresistible.

The band’s creative core, multi-instrumentalists Jesse Tabish (also their lead singer), Jonathon Mooney and Josh Onstott, emerged in the early Noughties from the rural township of Stillwater, north of Oklahoma City, west of Tulsa and east of the Carl Blackwell and Lake McMurtry lakes, from where they made their self-titled debut album and 2011’s Tamer Animals, their debut album for PIAS.

The trio then moved out west to Portland where they recorded their 2014 album Rituals and then 2020’s fourth album For Their Love, mostly captured in the vicinity of Oregon’s Cooper Mountain region, with Tabish’s wife Kim becoming a vital part of Other Lives, adding not just instrumental and songwriting skills but multi-layered backing vocals to en-richen Jesse’s gorgeous plaintive presence.

When the pandemic isolated the Tabishs from the other band members, the couple collaborated to create Jesse’s solo album Cowboy Ballads Part 1, released in 2022 after they had moved back to Stillwater. It’s also the location for Volume V, even though Jesse and Kim have moved on to Cleveland, Ohio while Jonathon lives in New York City and Josh in Los Angeles.

TRACKLIST

1. Other Lives - Mystic
2. Other Lives - Versailles
3. Other Lives - What's It Gonna Take
4. Other Lives - Heading West
5. Other Lives - One For The Kids
6. Other Lives - Show Us Some Love
7. Other Lives - Outro
8. Other Lives - Cisa Cisa
9. Other Lives - Read My Mind
10. Other Lives - The Wake