Photo credit: Alexa Viscius
Early praise for Small Talk
immaculate” – MOJO
“the band at their quintessential peak – uplifting, but not without a sucker punch of sadness in between.” – Far Out
“{Small Talk} feels timeless, like it’s always existed—the sound drifts between classic Americana, soul, and 1970s soft rock, all draped in a hazy, pastoral warmth. It is effortlessly listenable.” – GQ
“a new peak for the soulful folk-rockers” – Chicago Sun-Times
“They are firmly back in the classic Whitney, country-tinged soul sound” –Brooklyn Vegan
“The music of the soulful, soft-rockin’ Chicago indie band Whitney makes me think of gorgeous summer days in their hometown” – Stereogum
“This is the best pocket Whitney’s ever wound up in” – Paste
“Features the warm, welcoming instrumentation Whitney has honed since they first debuted last decade” – Consequence
“doubled falsetto vocals nestled in pillowy beds of guitar and acoustic piano over swinging, Bacharachian grooves” – Uncut
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Today, Whitney have released their fourth and unequivocally best and most affecting album – Small Talk. The record is out today, via AWAL. After a decade of being roommates and bandmates, first in Smith Westerns and then in Whitney, Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek entered the studio in the Summer of 2024 to begin recording Small Talk sans-producer, with assorted pals dropping in to add parts. The result is 11 incandescent songs that delight on two levels. There are instant classic Whitney songs here, tunes that tug at the same heartfelt melodic strings they’ve always pulled, and still other moments that speak to how much room they gave themselves to evolve.
Whitney is embarking on a world tour that includes a winter EU/UK headline run that will kick off on 6th February 2026 in Paris and goes through until 27th February 2026 including stops at Hackney Church in London and The Academy Dublin in Ireland, in addition to recently announced North American dates for spring. Tickets are available now via whitneytheband.com/shows. All dates below.
Whitney was formed in Chicago in 2015 by former Smith Westerns guitarist Max Kakacek and Unknown Mortal Orchestra drummer Julien Ehrlich. Known for their warm, soulful sound and introspective songwriting, Whitney quickly gained acclaim with their debut album, Light Upon the Lake (2016), which featured the standout single “No Woman.” The record established the band as a critical and fan favourite, with Pitchfork giving it it’s Best New Music distinction (8.3) and saying, “you’ll find the songs to be near flawless. Low-key perfectionism is perhaps a humbler virtue than seeking the big, dynamic splash. But it has a way of sneaking in past our defenses and lingering longer—before we know, we’ve been singing under our breath for the better part of a year.”
Following their breakthrough, Whitney released Forever Turned Around (2019), further cementing their reputation for heartfelt, meticulously crafted music. They continued to evolve their sound with Candid (2020), an album of reimagined covers, and Spark (2022), which introduced a bolder, more expansive sonic palette. With sold-out tours across North America and Europe and performances at major festivals like Coachella and Pitchfork, Whitney has built a devoted following and continues to push the boundaries of modern indie music.
SMALL TALK TRACK LIST:
Silent Exchange
Won’t You Speak Your Mind
The Thread
Damage
Dandelions
Islands (Really Something)
In The Saddle
Evangeline (Ft. Madison Cunningham)
Back to the Wind
Small Talk
Darling
TOUR DATES:
2026:
Fri Feb 6 – Paris @ Gaite Lyrique
Sat Feb 7 – Lyon @ Epicerie Moderne
Sun Feb 8 – Milan @ Magnolia (main room)
Tue Feb10 – Geneva @ Antigel Festival 2026
Wed Feb 11 – Munich @ Hansa 39
Thurs Feb 12 – Berlin @ Lido
Sat Feb14 – Copenhagen @ DR Studie 2
Sun Feb 15 – Hamburg @ Knust
Tues Feb 17 – Brussels @ AB Ballroom
Wed Feb18 – Utrecht @ Tivoli Vredenburg (Pandora Hall)
Thurs Feb 19 – Cologne @ Gebäude 9
Sat Feb 21 – Dublin 1 @ The Academy Dublin
Sun Feb 22- Manchester @ Band on the Wall
Tues Feb 24 – Glasgow @ The Art School
Thurs Feb 26 – Bristol @ Electric Bristol
Fri Feb 27 – London @ Hackney Church
Sat Mar 7- Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
Sun Mar 8- Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
Wed Mar 11- Felton, CA @ Felton Music Hall
Thurs Mar 12- San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Fri Mar 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
Sat Mar 14 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
Tues April 7 – Kingston, NY @ Assembly
Wed April 8 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Thurs April 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Fri April 10 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Sat, April 11 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
Sun April 12 – Portland, ME @ The State Theatre
Tues April 14 – Ardmore, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall
Wed April 15 – Washington DC @ 9:30 Club
Thurs Apr 16 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Cafe
Fri April 17 – Toronto, ON @ The Concert Hall
Sat April 18 – Montreal, QC @ Théâtre Beanfield
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MORE ABOUT WHITNEY AND SMALL TALK
By Grayson Haver Currin
Small Talk started before their third one, Spark, was even finished. Sometime in the summer of 2021, they were near El Paso, in the final days of making that record alongside producer Brad Cook. During a studio break, the three drove to the suburbs, got stoned, and played a few games of Topgolf. Over the years, Cook had become a trusted friend and collaborator. On the drive home, as the three were talking about the creative process, Cook turned off the stereo and offered an unexpected bit of advice: Whitney no longer needed him or, for that matter, any producer. Whitney had the vision and skill to make their own records—in fact, it turns out, to make their best one yet.
Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek sat with that conversation for nearly two years. In the months after Spark arrived, they finally decided to test it. They had written a new song called “Back to the Wind,” a strutting bit of sad soul, with drum machines and samples, much like they’d made their last batch. How would it sound, though, if they stepped back and played it in real time, with their friend and touring bandmate Ziyad Asrar simply engineering the session? It sounded, turns out, like vintage Whitney reborn, a cantering beat and gentle tremolo guitar moving like the life force that keeps you going after some upending bout of emotional torment. “I knew it all along” went its sweet little hook. Maybe Whitney had known it all along—that they could indeed do this themselves, that they alone could capture their enthusiasms and experiences in 11 incandescent songs given enough time and space. Small Talk is Whitney’s big, hard-earned expression of self-confidence.
Whitney’s sense of liberation arrived right on time, amid intense spells of professional and personal struggle. Spark was admittedly hard, the excitement they felt for its new electronic textures and structures wasn’t exactly reciprocated the way they’d hope it might be. And after a decade of being roommates and bandmates, first in Smith Westerns and then in Whitney, Ehrlich and Kakacek were finally preparing to move out of the same space and in with girlfriends who happened to share the same name. And then, well, they both got dumped in 2023, with Kakacek even getting the call around his birthday, weeks after Ehrlich started dating the woman who is now his wife. For a little while longer, they realised, they would remain roommates, if in very different emotional places. And so, they got to work at home on writing Small Talk, a record that exquisitely crystallizes all of those bittersweet feelings.
For years, Ehrlich’s dad, a drummer, had stockpiled salvaged recording gear in a barn that looked like a little airplane’s hangar in Newberg, Oregon, a small city near the forested banks of the Willamette River. Whitney had never really operated there, but it felt like the optimal space for the sort of sans-producer exploration that their experience with “Back to the Wind” proved they were ready to pursue. Ehrlich had left a tape machine there for a half-decade, and they knew they could rent anything else they needed in nearby Portland. In the summer of 2024, almost exactly three years after Cook said they no longer required his type, the pair installed themselves in Oregon for three weeks, assorted pals dropping by to add parts. The pace was leisurely but steady, Ehrlich and Kakacek no longer concerned they were wasting valuable studio space or money by trying to get a harmony or hook just so. Asrar engineered the whole thing. Together, they took the time to rediscover the core of their chemistry, of Whitney itself.
Small Talk, then, delights on two levels: There are instant classic Whitney songs here, tunes that tug at the same heartfelt melodic strings they’ve always pulled, and still other moments that speak to how much room they gave themselves to evolve. “The Thread” is pure Whitney pop, bright strings lifting the kind of groove and lick The Band might have favored on a perfect spring day. And there’s “Dandelions,” a cataract of musical pleasantry meant to sweep the sting of romantic disappointment downstream. It’s easy to imagine the song on an FM dial somewhere, bounding out of crusty old speakers between solo McCartney and Nashville Dylan.
But then there’s “Evangeline,” a moving picture of the neuroses that take charge when life lets us down. Concert snares and strings swell like a thrift-shop symphony during the second verse before fading into the distance, as Madison Cunningham steps forward to deliver the other half of this story. Whitney has never indulged such dynamics before, never so fully captured the push and pull of two hearts caught in longing and opposition. And though it details the difficulties of a long-distance relationship, “Won’t You Speak Your Mind?” finds Whitney at their most musically ebullient, locating the rhythmic and melodic space between a disco dancefloor and a yacht bandstand. It feels, like so much of Small Talk, effortless but expert, Ehrlich and Kakacek finally having worked enough to make their pop songs feel as natural as a smile or a frown.
“I’m going to try my best to survive in this place,” Ehrlich sings two minutes into Small Talk, his wondrous falsetto rising through strings like a light beam. This song, “Silent Exchange,” is a snapshot of a funeral, with Ehrlich and Kakacek peering out through bleary eyes to wonder what else there might be for them in this life, in this world. Ten songs later, during the twisting and audacious title track, Ehrlich sings from the imagined perspective of Kakacek’s grandmother, the caretaker for a husband who worked as a professional wrestler for decades. There is an optimistic weariness to her thoughts as she ponders “the feelings you hide to put on a show.” It’s hard not to picture these two old friends, still navigating life’s tandem pitfalls and possibilities by making music together.
This endurance culminates in closer “Darling,” perhaps the most striking and singular number in Whitney’s catalogue. It’s at first a breakup song about being hamstrung by a deeply damaging relationship. Just past the halfway point, however, a new beat emerges, with a flute melody floating above a strutting, triumphant rhythm. It’s a wordless, joyful coda, a final act of getting together with your buds to make music and, in doing so, breaking up with another’s expectations of who you should be. Whitney, in the end, has never sounded quite so free.