Stef Chura Announces First Album in Seven Years, Shares “Danny” with R.E.M.’s Buck and Mills

After a seven-year gap, Stef Chura will release a new album, Dancing Alone on the Concrete, on October 2 via Saddle Creek. The announcement comes with “Danny,” a track that carries a gentle, classic Athens melancholy and features R.E.M.’s Peter Buck on guitar and Mike Mills on bass. The collaboration happened without force—recorded at Chase Park Transduction studio in Athens, Georgia, with producer Robert Schneider (Apples in Stereo) and engineers David Barbe and Andy LeMaster. “Robert was like, ‘Wouldn’t this sound great with Mike Mills playing bass on it?’” Chura recalled. “So he called him up, and he and Mike Mills and Peter Buck ended up playing on that song just from shooting the shit.”

The song itself is one of Chura’s more hopeful, written after she moved to New Orleans during the pandemic and met someone briefly. “I wrote ‘Danny’ as an ode to the fantasy of meeting someone who could sweep me off my feet when I felt like I needed rescuing,” she said. She stayed home instead of going to a party, then imagined the version of herself who went. It’s a familiar kind of longing, but Chura’s voice keeps it grounded.

Since her last album, 2019’s Midnight, Chura ended an engagement, left Detroit for New Orleans, became a mother, and eventually returned to Detroit. The new songs came from time spent moving between guitar and piano. The fall will bring a North American tour opening for Dinosaur Jr., starting October 9 in Las Vegas.