- 2026-03-04
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MUSIC
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WRABEL Releases New Album “up above”
Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter WRABEL released his third studio album “up above” on February 13, 2026 via Nettwerk.
It is his first album in three years, following the 2023 album “based on a true story”.
Inspired by American journalist Annie Jacobsen's 2024 non-fiction book “Nuclear War,” the album embraces world-building, surreal imagery, and existential reflection, exploring the fragile duality of human existence between devastation and tenderness, fear and hope, and the vastness above us and the intimacy within us.
The album comprises 12 tracks, which he co-produced the project for the first time alongside longtime friend and collaborator Austin Ward.
WRABEL said of the album, “I know artists say things like 'this is my most personal album ever' every time they release an album, so I won't say that cos well that wouldn't be true. In the narrative form of 'true' at least. But in so many ways, this is my truest album yet and in so many ways, this is the album I've wanted to make since I started this thing. since 'Sideways'.”- He continued, “I started this album on my living room floor where much of it was written and for the first time ever, where much of the production was started - the mosaic that became the world of this record. Thank god for Austin Ward who shared such vision and coproduced or produced all but one song on here.”
He added, “The record was also heavily inspired by Annie Jacobsen 'nuclear war : a scenario'. That book and scenario contextualized a batch of songs I was forming. It raised the stakes on everything. On how deep love is. How fleeting life is. How every little moment is somehow completely insignificant and absolutely miraculous at the same time. how in an instant, there could be no trace we were ever even here. How much sweeter does that make the sweet? How much more beautiful does that make the beauty?” -
WRABEL explained some tracks for the album.
“up above”
“This song and album were inspired by Annie Jacobsen 'Nuclear War'. How quickly it could go from a beautiful Sunday morning to dust, with no evidence we were ever even here. How much sweeter does that make the sweet? What's the use in wondering if the grass is greener if in the end, there's no grass at all?
The song really contextualized the album as it was when Drew Pearson and I wrote it, and opened my mind and heart up to the endless layers of our existence. How we find meaning... what matters... who matter... looking for the light in the dark. Diving into the bittersweetness of our life, existence, and all that comes with it. For me, this album explores the balance between existential meaning and beauty, and existential dread and impending doom. If you knew the world was ending tomorrow, how much more would the person you love matter today?
I wrote this song 'up above' with Drew Pearson. Coproduced by him and Austin Ward. Cue a magician and guru Damian Taylor who challenged us to find what really matters in every song, every sound, every moment. And the incredible Emily Lazar mastering w some kind of magical spacedust.”
“future”
“It’s a call to myself and to the listener to look up and to look forward. It’s too easy to carry past hurt and heartbreak into the present and future tense. It’s a realization that everything I’ve done – good and bad – right and wrong – has led me here, to the love I have found.
“For me, with time and space comes inspiration. I am quite a big fan of idle time. one thing i'm not doing is too much. ha. And so i took the idle time and slowly but surely followed the nudges in my mind and heart and started to build out a new world for myself. Pulling from my first inspirations. Trying to get what's in my head out into a laptop I dusted off from under my couch.
future is the first song from this new world. A world of time and space (distance and also 🪐) and life and love and something about the end of the world. This song had its first 5 iterations solely in my hands. Something I've never done before. Thanks to the absolutely incredible Austin Ward, Damian Taylor and Emily Lazar, 'future' has distilled and blossomed into the first frame of what I can wholeheartedly say is what I've always wanted to do and a world I've always wanted to live in.”
“surrender”
“'surrender' is definitely the sweatiest song on the record. It’s about love. I believe love is, in fact, a surrender to another – emotionally, spiritually, physically – love asks us to put aside every ounce of our own ego to see, hear, and care for someone else as we do ourselves. Not that we abandon ourselves in a bad way, but we take on the wants, needs, and desires of someone else as our own. That sweet spot in the middle of the venn diagram of love.”
“sugar”
“And sugar wow. Getting to sit with Austin in his beautiful studio and see and hear and feel in realtime that song grow and blossom and bloom into its fullest form was one of the most beautiful experiences of the record. I don't know that I've ever felt so aligned with someone on what a song * is *. and I feel that and hear that every time I listen to it.”
“shape of my heart”
“I wrote these two on my living room floor. Sometimes for me, things come as they come and I have a hard time even thinking about it any other way - shape came out as it is, in many ways, it was born out of the fx. It came out of me from wherever things come from thru a hypemic direct USBc into my laptop screen in the shape of a blue squiggly line. Pardon the cliche, but to me the vocal is evidence of the lyric. How love can change you. How love has the power to alter. To change course, change heart, change meaning, change purpose.” - source : Apple Music
