Stone Age Is Now: Poems from Lithic is the new album from Caleb Nichols, due out on 2nd October via Royal Oakie Records. It follows a new single, A Feeling of a Feeling of a Feeling, released on 27th July.
The album is a companion to Nichols’ book Lithic: A Hyperballad (Harbor Editions, 2026) and a follow-up to 2025’s Stone Age Is Back. Across twelve tracks, Nichols interpolates poems from the book with songs from that earlier album, reworking both into something new. He recorded the whole thing in five days, sticking to a first-take-best-take rule and drawing on the raw immediacy of Neil Young, early R.E.M. and Califone. Jay Pellicci (Deerhoof, Om, Sleater-Kinney) engineered and mixed the sessions at Brother’s (Chinese) Recording in Oakland, with Nichols later recording spoken-word overdubs alone, after hours, in an empty bar in San Luis Obispo. David Glasebrook (Patti Smith, Peter Case, Sugar Candy Mountain) mastered the record at The Garden Shed, also in Oakland.
Field recordings thread through the album, gathered by Nichols at Kew Gardens in London, Llan Tysilio on Anglesey, Treborth in Gwynedd, a beach near Bangor, Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow, and Broad Street in San Luis Obispo. Bandmates John Metz and Aaron Kroeger play throughout, Lorenzo Coretese adds saxophone, and Rhys Trimble provides the Welsh translation and performance on Orme Dream At The Car Park.
Nichols shifted some of the poems away from their printed versions for the recordings: “You’ll notice that there are differences between the printed poems and the poems recorded here. That is because a poem is never finished and can exist in multiple instances at the same time, like in quantum mechanics. The cat in Schrödinger’s box is both alive and dead; at the bottom of the cliff, our eyes are both: closed and open.”
Nichols, Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo, tours the US and UK across November and December, taking in bookshops, libraries and small venues from Fresno to London.
Tour Dates
November 5th – Fresno State University Library
November 9 – Los Angeles – Skylight Books
November 10 – Modesto Stanislaus Poetry Center
November 11 – Merced Arts Center
November 12 – San Francisco – Medicine for Nightmares
November 14 – Big Sur – Henry Miller Library
November 17 – Cal Poly State University
November 18 – SLO Public Library – Rooted In Art Talk
November 19 – Morro Bay – Papa Shop
November 20 – San Luis Obispo – Walker Street
November 21 – Paso Robles – Jan’s Place Vinyl Bar
November 30 – University of Glasgow Creative Conversations Series
December 16 – London – Yer Bard Poetry N at Dash the Henge