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Big Dreams Die Slowly

Ashley Daneman

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2026
Duration: 42:41
Views: 70

Tracks

Big Dreams Die Slowly; Give Me A Name; Real; Different Is Good; Like Someone Divine; All the Worries of My Heart; Some Stars; You Go To My Head; Me and You; Hard Times Come Again No More

Personnel

Album Description

ASHLEY DANEMAN RETURNS WITH BIG DREAMS DIE SLOWLY, A MEDITATION ON IDENTITY AND THE WORK OF BECOMING

New Album Out January 30, 2026

Singer-songwriter Ashley Daneman announces the release of Big Dreams Die Slowly, a deeply personal collection of songs shaped by burnout, rebirth, and the quiet resiliency of the human heart. The ten-track album (eight original compositions plus two modernized classics) arrives January 30, 2026, and continues in Daneman’s intimate, ethereal, folky-jazz style.

Daneman didn't quite bounce back after the pandemic, instead finding herself deep in a confusing mental and physical burnout that felt like identity disintegration and death. The process of creating Big Dreams Die Slowly coincided with Daneman discovering she's neurocomplex - a revelation that reframed how she arrived in burnout in the first place. It provided crucial context for struggles she’d been navigating for years.

“Like a ship on the sea,” Daneman reflects, “the forces of nature can shift our big dreams, leaving us completely off the original course, or sunk altogether. This album is about discovering that the navigation system needs recalibrating. It’s about figuring out who you are now, when who you thought you were, crumbles.”

Recorded at Transient Sound in Chicago with pianist Rob Clearfield, guitarist Matt Gold, bassist Andrew Vogt, and drummer Reuben Garza. The modernized classics are “You Go to My Head” (arr. David Izard) and Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

Daneman’s previous work has been widely praised:
• People Are Fragile (2019) received a 3.5-star review in DownBeat
• Beauty Indestructible (2015) was selected as a DownBeat Editor’s Pick
• Winner of the 2015 Joni Mitchell/Laura Nyro “MOJO” Award from Oregon NPR 89.7FM

Known for her clarity of voice and vulnerable honesty, Daneman continues to use jazz language in service of complex emotional depth - not flash. Big Dreams Die Slowly reflects not just catharsis but integration, honoring the cycle of death and rebirth. The album is available for early listening upon request.