Preview of the We Might Not Tell Everybody This, the third album from Stranger Still. Due out in May 2026.

From the liner notes by Allan Cooper: “An old friend of Alden and Claudine Nowlan once told me that each time he visited their home, there was music playing. Our best poets seem to have a sense that the music of words is crucial to a successful poem. Otherwise, the poem will not take flight for the reader. In We Might Not Tell Everybody This, composer Pete Johnston has handled Nowlan’s words with grace and delicacy. The music is quite minimal, but is shaped in such a way that it catches the emotive quality of Nowlan’s words; sometimes a sense of aloneness, sometimes joy or loss, but always with sensitivity and attentiveness.”

Mim Adams - vocals

Randi Helmers - vocals

Rob Clutton - string bass

Pete Johnston - acoustic guitar, lap steel, vocals

With

Sarah Frank - violin

Màiri Chaimbeul - harp

Andrew Killawee - harmonium

All music © Pete Johnston (SOCAN), words by Alden Nowlan (1933-83). All poems reproduced from the book Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan (ed. Brian Bartlett, Goose Lane Editions/icehouse poetry, 2017) and used with permission from the Nowlan Family.

Recorded at Union Sound Company in Toronto, Ontario in April 2025. Engineered by Fedge. Mixed by Lisa Conway, mastered by Fedge. Produced by Andrew Killawee and Lisa Conway.

Artwork by Mike Smith