Airport Departure Lounge

FOR RELEASE FEBRUARY 2026

ANDY JANS-BROWN ANNOUNCES NEW INDIE ROCK ALBUM

AIRPORT DEPARTURE LOUNGE

Preview Gig: The Rails, Byron Bay on Sunday January 11, 2026.                               

First single (The title track) out Monday February 2, 2026

An Indie Rock Reverie for a World on the Threshold

Acclaimed multidisciplinary artist Andy Jans-Brown announces his fifth studio album, Airport Departure Lounge; a cinematic, emotionally charged indie rock reverie taking off in 2026. Moody yet propulsive, intimate yet widescreen, the album marks his second collaboration with long-time creative partner Cameron Spike-Porter, following the critically acclaimed 2024 release Falling.

Airport Departure Lounge unfolds like a film set in limbo; a place of delayed departures, missed connections, and moments of deep unsparing reflection beneath harsh fluorescent lights. It is an indie rock exploration of broken dreams, heartbreak, grief, disillusionment and the long stretched out shadow of mortality. It’s a poetic outpouring, singing of endings and the transitions of relationships, illusions, beliefs, ideals, inherited myths, and the uneasy waiting that follows when the future has not yet arrived, but the old world is definitely receding.

Opening with Growing Pains, set both literally and metaphorically in 1984, the album draws a direct line between Orwell’s warnings and the present moment of surveillance culture, authoritarian drift, algorithmic control, and the sense that we are standing at the edge of a historical rupture. From there, the record moves through heartbreak, avoidance, fear, longing, and ironic detours, such as phone calls unanswered, flights feared or missed and dreams deferred, before briefly lifting above the clouds to glimpse a moment of clarity, and landing again in the uneasy knowledge of our shared, fragile humanity.

More than a break-up album, Airport Departure Lounge is a meditation on suspension and the strange purgatory of modern life where time stretches and accelerates all at once. The vertigo of a world in freefall, where days feel long, but the years disappear, and everything seems delayed except for consequence. Themes of aging, sleep paralysis, democracy in decline, percepticide and technological uncertainty are woven throughout, balanced by moments of playful irony, levity, melody, and hard-won perspective.

“These songs were born, or rather torn from one womb and placed into another.A waiting room. A strange purgatory.But the shell is cracking and what emerges will shape everything that follows.”Andy Jans-Brown

Musically, the album ranges from brooding, cinematic indie rock to lighter, radio-friendly pop structures that are often subverted by lyrical depth and irony. There are echoes of The War on drugs, The Cure and early U2’s atmospherics, mixed with Springsteen’s forward motion, Lennon’s raw vulnerability, and R.E.M.’s wry social observation, all filtered through Jans-Brown’s distinctly human voice, Spike-Porter’s epic cinematic guitar layering and driven along to snappy unmistakable beat of Grant Gerathy on drums.

The album was mixed by Cameron Spike-Porter and mastered by Jordan Power.

Building on the acclaim of ‘Falling’, which Keyline Magazine called “an indie rock masterpiece”, Airport Departure Lounge deepens Jans-Brown and Spike-Porter’s reputation for emotionally resonant, socially engaged music. Jamsphere Magazine described the duo as “among the most creative forces in indie rock today,” while journalist Fernando Dávila wrote:“Andy Jans-Brown is magic… his voice is bones, blood, soul, flesh and power; a real human giving all in a song.”

Airport Departure Lounge will be available on all major streaming platforms. Music videos and tour dates will be announced soon.