Pioneering vocalist/composer/producer Claire Dickson explores new pathways of song on her adventurous third album Balance

Due March 13, 2026 on New Amsterdam Records, Balance features guest artists Zoh Amba, Lex Korten, Lesley Mok, Maya Keren, Cleek Schrey, Jon Starks, and Kitba Album release concerts at Currents Festival in Zurich, Switzerland (March 4) and Birds of Paradise Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands (March 21)

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"A composer of enchanted, majestic soundscapes; a daring songwriter unafraid to break form, time, and harmony in pursuit of new truths; a poet full of mysterious yearning; an intensely subtle vocalist who can soar, glide, hover, shapeshift, and dive into the abyss — Claire is somehow all of these geniuses at once.” – MacArthur Fellow Vijay Iyer

Berlin-based vocalist, composer, and producer Claire Dickson, lauded for her “striking – at times, wordless – lyricism and melody-driven sound chambers within shapeshifting ambience” (DownBeat), releases Balance, due March 13, 2026 via New Amsterdam Records (digital only), showcasing the fruits of what Dickson calls “emergent songwriting,” a process where songs grow organically through her daily improvising practice. Balance follows Dickson’s 2022 debut Starland, her acclaimed 2024 second album The Beholder, and her 2025 EP Through.

How does one achieve balance in a disordered world? The songs on Balance, all written and produced by Dickson, explore this question and its themes of order and chaos as reflected in personal growth, safety, and the growing pains of living a fulfilled life. Dickson’s singular vocals are featured alongside an all-star group of forward-thinking musicians including saxophonist Zoh Amba, percussionist Lesley Mok, fiddler Cleek Schrey, harpist Kitba, pianists Lex Korten and Maya Keren, and drummer Jon Starks.

Dickson’s artistic approach embraces cultivation of all aspects of her creative process, including writing and producing her own music and using her voice as a pure instrument of expression. Whether delivering hushed lyrics, creating otherworldly sonic landscapes, or laying down riveting percussive sounds, her voice “[draws] the listener into a world complex and jostled, where everything seems possible, loaded with…fascination and mystery” (Silence and Sound).

“I've been working on this album for about three years and its creation was a very detailed, intricate, and multi-phase process,” says Dickson. “While I was making the album, this conceptualization of my process as emergent and embodied started to come together.” The resulting songs became “little homes” for Dickson’s voice and lyrics. “I would wake up at the crack of dawn and record vocals when I was in a dreamlike state,” she says. “I used airplane earbuds for tracking the vocals so I could only hear these really low-fi shapes of the music.” This process of selective hearing while tracking became the central pillar for the production and recording of Balance.

In 2024, when Dickson lived in Brooklyn, her recording was interrupted by a fire in her apartment. Much was lost, but the music was saved. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the Brooklyn music community, Dickson was able to finish tracking vocals at Shahzad Ismaily’s studio, Figure 8. It was then that she invited in Korten, Mok, Amba, Schrey, Kitba, Keren, and Starks. “Having the studio space gave me the option to bring in other people from my community to play on the album,” she says. “This was a really amazing opportunity for me to work with my colleagues as both a performer and a producer.”

During a marathon series of 30-minute recording slots, Dickson broke down her tracks into three categories: “bones” (rhythm and structure), “flesh” (ambient and harmonic layers), and her vocals. These were then presented to the musicians in different layered combinations with an ask for them to “be a protagonist in the music they were hearing.” Dickson later took these recordings and threaded them into the existing song worlds of Balance.

The title track boldly opens the record with large pockets of silence within the opening phrases, inspired by a technique she calls “tunneling” that she noticed while reading Clarice Lispecto’s The Passion According to G.H. The author, Dickson explains, “unpacks her sentences. She'll be describing something, then take out a magnifying glass and go way deeper into this detail of the previous sentence that you didn't even think was relevant.”

Doors the album’s first single (out Jan. 20), showcases Dickson’s one-of-a-kind vocals alongside Amba’s visceral saxophone, Mok’s subtly dynamic drumming, and Korten’s lush piano. “Sign” explores one of the record’s recurring themes, breaking out of established cycles into new spaces. Dickson calls “Waterfeel” the comfort song on the album: “It represents this safe, close, comforting feeling. That's also why it's in the middle of the album. It's protected by the other tracks.” The infinite upward spiral of “Stair” explores relationship questions through the lens of Dickson’s hyper detailed production. Small pings, string plucks, bird sounds, and melodic fragments create a tapestry for Dickson's dreamlike world building. What began as an exploration of the Velvet Hand Phenomenon (a tactile illusion where rubbing your palms across two parallel moving wires makes one feel a smooth, velvety, or even oily surface) became a platform for Dickson to express bold production choices on tracks like “Hurt Me” (the album’s second single, out Feb. 19), framed by an infectious drum groove while Dickson’s lyrical fragments explore themes of vulnerability and hurt. “Eyelid” closes the album, gathering all its themes with a knowing wink. “It is,” says Dickson, “a conclusion to all of these ideas:

being intense and vital, playing the game of life, going in circles and returning to where I found comfort before, and reaching again for that elusive ‘white hot feeling’ we all crave.”

Claire Dickson is a vocalist and producer composing emergent, embodied songs. She considers song to be an artistically flexible modality and is inspired by ancient song practices embedded in everyday life. Her work utilizes microphones, pedals, synthesizers, field recordings, acoustic instruments, and draws from lineages of improvisation, extended vocal technique, sampling, and deep listening. Her two solo albums, Starland (2022) and The Beholder (2024, New Amsterdam Records), have been praised as “enticingly atmospheric… growing in depth and substance on return visits,” by The Wire. DownBeat highlighted her “striking – at times wordless – lyricism.” Her work has also appeared in Bandcamp New & Notable, Harvard Magazine, Dummy Mag, Digital in Berlin, New Sounds (WNYC), and All Songs Considered (NPR). Her recent EP Through (2025) uses electromagnetic microphones to capture the hidden language of city electronics, weaving ATM hums, router ticks, and synthesizers into songs. As a collaborator, she co-leads the experimental songwriting duo Myrtle and is part of Lex Korten’s Canopy. Some of her recent collaborations in creative music include the Emmanuel Michael group, Careful in the Sun, Joanna Mattrey and Vinicius Cajado, and Camila Nebbia, Julius Windisch, and Elias Brown. She has performed across the U.S. and Europe, at venues including NYC Winter JazzFest, The Jazz Gallery, DC Jazz Festival, San Teodoro Jazz Festival, and KM28. Claire is a Metropolis Ensemble commissioned composer and has been recognized by the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards. A U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Claire studied with esperanza spalding, Vijay Iyer, Yosvany Terry, and Claire Chase at Harvard (BA, Psychology and Music, 2019) and completed a Master’s in Creative Production at Catalyst Berlin in 2025.

All songs on Balance composed, produced, and sung by Claire Dickson with additional performers: Zoh Amba, tenor sax (tracks 1,2) Lesley Mok, drums (tracks 1,2) Cleek Schrey, violin (tracks 4, 5, 7) Lex Korten, piano (tracks 1, 2, 3) Maya Keren, piano (tracks 4, 5, 6, 7) Jon Starks, drums (tracks 5, 6, 7) Kitba, harp (tracks 4, 5)

Recorded by Claire Dickson with additional recording and engineering support from Figure 8 Recording and Varun Jhunjhunwalla. Mixing and mastering by Lee Meadvin. Cover photography by Aaron Eidman of an artwork by Nina Blass.

Claire Dickson – Balance New Amsterdam Records – March 13, 2026