It’s been more than a decade since The Autumn Defense last released an album. They’re just as surprised as anyone.

“It wasn’t intentional,” says Pat Sansone. “We thought we’d take a short break from recording, but between our work with Wilco, all of our other personal projects, and the disruption of the pandemic, ten years went by in the blink of an eye.”

While the world has changed dramatically in that time, The Autumn Defense, thankfully, has not. Here and Nowhere, the group’s long-anticipated sixth album, picks up right where the critically acclaimed quartet left off, infusing their breezy, harmony-drenched take on Laurel Canyon with lush orchestration and psychedelic flourishes. The songs are dreamy and impressionistic, as beautiful as they are bittersweet, and the performances are straight A.M. gold, warm and inviting and laced with melancholy. Put it all together and you’ve got an album full of mystery and wonder, a rich, open-hearted collection that nods to everything from Nick Drake and John Martyn to Carole King and David Crosby as it contemplates the passage of time, reckoning with what we lose, what we gain, and who we become along the way.

“There’s something amazing about the fact that we’ve been able to maintain this lineup for so long,” says John Stirratt. “In a lot of ways, this record is a celebration of the four of us together in a room, making music the same way we have for the last 25 years.”

Founded by core duo Stirratt and Sansone—and now featuring longtime rhythm section James Haggerty (bass) and Greg Wieczorek (drums)—The Autumn Defense first took shape in New Orleans, where the band recorded their 2001 debut, The Green Hour. While the group has at times been pigeonholed as a Wilco side project (Stirratt is a founding member dating back to Uncle Tupelo, and Sansone joined the band around the release of 2004’s A Ghost Is Born), The Autumn Defense’s sound has always been decidedly more West Coast than alt-country, drawing comparisons to The Beach Boys, The Byrds, and Love over the course of five studio albums. NPR hailed the group’s “timeless pop songs,” while Rolling Stone called their music “gorgeous” and “delightful,” and the New York Times praised their delivery as “warm and radiant.”

“After our last album [2014’s Fifth], we decided to regroup a bit,” says Stirratt. “We’d still perform at least a few times a year, and our enthusiasm for the band never waned, but I think we just needed a chance to focus on some of our other projects.”

As if touring and recording with Wilco wasn’t keeping them busy enough, Stirratt and Sansone both spent their time away from The Autumn Defense exploring a host of other passions. Stirratt, who now lives in coastal Maine, spent years developing and opening Tourists, a motel-turned-boutique destination lodge in the Berkshire Mountains. Sansone, who calls Nashville home, leaned into his production work, embraced his love of photography, and launched a radio show called Baroque Down Palace on WXYR in Memphis.

“The show focuses on tracks from the 1960s and ’70s that feature orchestral arrangements, which allows me to dig into all kinds of symphonic soul, baroque pop, obscure folk, and psychedelic rock,” Sansone explains. “That’s the kind of music that made us want to start The Autumn Defense in the first place.”

“When I was designing the hotel, I really wanted to focus on an immersive experience for guests, and a big part of that was music,” adds Stirratt. “We have an FM station on the campus and all the rooms have radios broadcasting these playlists I curate every spring full of deep cuts and lost tracks, so between that and Pat’s radio show, we found ourselves exchanging records and sharing new discoveries all the time like the old days.”

“I think it reminded both of us of our love for that kind of music,” continues Sansone. “It made us realize we needed to get back to it.”

Inspired all over again, the two began writing new batches of material that would eventually become Here and Nowhere, which they recorded with the rest of the band over the course of two freewheeling sessions at Nashville’s Creative Workshop.

“Walking into that studio feels like stepping back in time to the 1970s,” says Sansone, who’s produced several records there. “The feel of the room, the way it was designed, all the old analog gear, it just made for a perfect symbiosis with the material we brought in, and it allowed us to immediately fall into a very relaxed, comfortable flow.”

The group’s natural chemistry is palpable from the outset of the album, which opens with “The Ones.” Like much of the record, it’s a track built on emotional contradictions, with a gentle, easygoing feel that belies the unsettled nature of its lyrics. “Will you show me / How to be / Here and nowhere / Like a hidden sea?” Sansone asks over a deep groove and airy woodwinds. The jangly “I’ll Take You Out Of Your Mind” hints at Big Star and the Flaming Groovies as it contemplates what’s left behind when loves moves on; the tender “Old Hearts” channels Fred Neil and Harry Nilsson as it reflects on loss and regret in the face of time’s inexorable march; and the buoyant “In The Beginning” offers shades of Tapestry as it puts on a brave face at the end of a relationship.

“These songs all came out of a period of transformation for us, and for the whole world, really,” explains Sansone. “It feels like so many things we’ve grown accustomed to are falling away right now, and I think this music is really wrestling with those changes, with watching things disappear and wondering what comes next.”

While the album’s lyrics are often abstract and rooted in stream-of-consciousness meditations, much of the album’s imagery is drawn from the natural world, where ever-changing landscapes and endless cycles of death and rebirth provide ready metaphors for the human condition. The enigmatic “Winter Shore,” for instance, ebbs and flows with the tide while coming face to face with truths it can’t ignore. The jaunty “Ravens Of The Wood,” meanwhile, dips its toes into cosmic country as it searches for answers in the forest and the sky. It’s the sun and the moon, though, that most frequently populate the album, with the feeling of true human connection manifesting itself in the warm glow of light on skin in songs like “Love Lives,” “Hearts Arrive,” and ”More Than I Can Say.” “I got a feeling that surrounds me / And I have your spirit all around me,” Sirratt sings on album closer “Ever Flowing Light. “If it’s the end of the line / I’d be there anytime / And your ever flowing light.”

“Coming out of such a heavy time, we wanted to be sure the album had a sense of joy and hope,” Stirratt explains. “Fortunately for us, that happened naturally because of all the joy we felt being back in a room making this music together.”

Here’s to hoping it won’t take another ten years to happen again.