Happy new year, Proggerfriends and Proggerfam! We’re all in need of some good news, and this newsletter is pleased to present the biggest we’ve had in several years: our fifth album has been fully tracked with post-production well underway, and we’re all very excited indeed to unleash it into the universe later this year on La Reserve Records. We’ll be posting photos and video clips of our adventures in the studio in the coming months leading up to the release, and that includes the photos scattered throughout this email, courtesy of our photo/video guru Eric Dorris.

Here’s the first teaser video, too, with a clip from one of the new tunes.

The new record, Chronology, features a big chunk of the extended Progger squadron, some of whom flew in from New York, Los Angeles, and Japan to spend three days at Church House Studio in east Austin. We recorded everything together, as a band, with only minimal edits and overdubs, and absolutely zero AI involved in the writing or performances. Real music made by real humans for other real humans to feel real human feelings. This concept may nearly be an endangered species, but we plan to stick with it.

Our first concert of the new year will be at the brand new location of Monks Jazz Club on Wednesday, January 28, and tickets for both in-person seating and the complete livestream will be available through monksjazz.com, as always. Progger people have been playing Monks shows since before a physical venue existed, when it was a series of pop-up concerts at various restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. It’s beautiful to see how it’s grown and established itself as a serious presence in the national jazz scene. Many congratulations to Collin and the team!

So… I never thought I’d say this… but. Progger now has a TikTok account. If you’re a TikTokker, cruise on over and follow us, we’ll be posting clips there along with YouTube and Instagram.

Big thanks are in order to everyone involved with making this record: Daniel, Ryan, Nick, Bryan, Devin, Matt, Carter, Aki, and Dayne for playing their buns off; Johannes for recording and playing his buns off; Matt Meli for recording and mixing his buns off (no more buns left, anywhere); Eric and team for phenomenal videography; David Boyle for running such a great studio; our families and spouses for putting up with all this; and, crucially, the Austin Live Music Fund for considerable support in making it happen.