Longtime Variance favorite Robert Ellis has shared a new song today called "Yesterday's News." It's actually the title track of his upcoming album, which will be released May 19 on Niles City Records.

In contrast with his splashy, wonderful 2019 album Texas Piano Man, the singer is hinting at a change of course this time, with a more minimalist, no-frills approach, as this first song reveals. It's an intimate, poignant track, accompanied by a video filmed over the span of several years by Ellis' partner Erica Silverman.

“I met Erica (the director of this video) around seven years ago," recalls Ellis in a note about today's release. "We've been both life partners and creative partners since. We started shooting much of this footage shortly after falling in love, and before kids. The footage spans four continents and too many tours to count. Originally our intent was to make a narrative short film about being on the road. Life, as it often does, got away from us and said film vanished into the ether. The footage however, remained."

He continues: "For Erica and I, going through it now, all these years (and two kids) later was cathartic to say the least. It also struck us both that unknowingly we had been documenting much of the source material behind the song ‘Yesterday's News.’ This is more than just a music video for us, it's a window into where this song comes from.”

As for the album itself, he explains his mindset this time around: “I’ve spent my entire career trying to make records that I thought would be ‘exciting’ to other people, but the albums I’ve always been most drawn to are small and gentle and soft. The more I sat with these new songs, the more I realized that their stillness was their strength.”

Watch the new video below.