PHARIS & JASON ROMERO’S NEW ALBUM, THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT TURN IN TO YEARS, OUT TODAY
BUY / STREAM THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT TURN IN TO YEARS HERE
LISTEN / SHARE “CANNONBALL” HERE
PERFORMANCE DATES BEGIN JUNE 22
Photo Credit : Rick Magnell // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, four-time JUNO Award-winning singers, songwriters, banjo builders, and folk icons, Pharis and Jason Romero release their new album, These Are The Days That Turn Into Years. Their seventh studio record is a songwriter’s deep exhale, replete with stories, love, and nostalgia. It’s four years after the duo’s banjo-heavy last release, and recorded in the same eclectically restored riverside barn in Horsefly, British Columbia. With Pharis’ love of storytelling as a base for the duo’s artistic connection, the songs are lush and saturated with their lives: incidental touring, raising two kids, making banjos, and playing this music because they love it.
The songs are created as much from ideas - from being on the tops of mountains and phone calls with aging loved ones to insomnia, meditation and family feuds - as they are from the joy of playing and recording with a stellar band: fiddle, bass, piano, and percussion. Two people in the thick of their lives, reveling in the music, words, and community.
In celebration, they are releasing the new single “Cannonball” which saw its birth on a family camping trip. “Pharis took our daughter on a backcountry alpine overnight last summer,” explains Jason. “It was a sleepless night for her, with a spooked dog ending up in the tiny tent and her ending up on the bottom of a dog-kid pile. But at 1:30am, to the sounds of coyotes and owls in the distance, one of the songs on this record popped into her head. Thank goodness for voice memos. The song came right out of the gates, nearly fully formed in her head, and we watched it grow while Trent Freeman (fiddle) and Patrick Metzger (bass) and John Raham (percussion) layered on such good textures. Every time we sing that song she's immediately back in that tent on the mountain, mumbling words on top of a guitar riff playing in her head. On a coming-of-age trip like that with our daughter the words “mama I’m a cannonball, mama I can’t go slow, when I get to where I’m going I’ll let you know” pretty much wrote themselves.”
LISTEN / SHARE “CANNONBALL” HERE
MORE ABOUT PHARIS & JASON ROMERO
Pharis and Jason Romero have a classic story. When some scratchy old records and a custom banjo led to their meeting in 2007, they quickly knew they were in for the long haul. The depth of their musical and personal relationship has grown incrementally over the years as they’ve explored old-time stringband music, how to sing like one person, and the banjo as an artform.
On their newest record Pharis’ love for the compelling pulse of stories as songs is the base for the duo’s artistic connection. The songs are lush and saturated with their lives: phone calls with ageing loved ones, standing on top of mountains, meditation, family feuds, nostalgia for things that haven’t happened yet, sleepless nights. The lyrics capture tender, lovely and strange snapshots of life, often anchored by sing-along choruses.
These Are The Days That Turn In To Years was recorded in their eclectically restored riverside barn. John Raham (Frazey Ford, Dan Mangan, Tanya Tagaq, Ocie Elliott) engineered and mixed, marking “the fifth record that John has come to make with us in Horsefly,” says Pharis. “I can’t imagine making a record without him, Trent (Freeman) or Patrick (Metzger). The songs are created as much from ideas as they are from the joy of playing and recording with friends and stellar musicians.”
WATCH / SHARE “LAST CALL” (LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO) HERE
WATCH / SHARE “THESE ARE THE DAYS” HERE
The group was also joined in the studio by Clinton Davis on piano and Pharis’ sister Marin Patenaude who makes a vocal appearance on the insomnia-inspired “Last Night”. The band’s joyful, slightly on-the-edge old-time approach often playfully stretches the melody into an energetic ride through the bouncier songs, while ambient strings and ragtime piano hold some of the more introspective pieces. The duo keeps to their roots with the spare banjo blues “Left My Home”.
Pharis and Jason tour incidentally while they’re raising two kids and making banjos in their home of Horsefly, BC. They play this music because they really, truly love it, and this record is a shining development of stories, love, and nostalgia from this unique duo.
BUY / STREAM THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT TURN IN TO YEARS HERE
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Jun 22 - Port Townsend, WA - Voice Works 2026
Jul 11 - Horsefly, BC - Arts On The Fly
Jul 16 - Williams Lake, BC - Performances In The Park
Aug 6 - Salt Spring Island, BC - Pitchfork Social
THESE ARE THE DAYS THAT TURN IN TO YEARS TRACKLIST
01 Big Time World
02 Last Call
03 Hey Babe
04 Always Losing Track
05 Last Night
06 Left My Home
07 Cannonball
08 I Got Away From Myself
09 Everybody Wants
10 Georgie
11 These Are The Days