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How much of your identity and self-worth is tangled up in your dreams? What happens when the pursuit of those dreams lets you down? 

When Brooke Annibale faced a setback that sent her back to square one, she did something quietly radical: she slowed down. In a world that tells you to push through and move fast, she took her time, shifted her perspective, and built something new from the ground up. 

Pittsburgh-raised, Rhode Island-rooted, singer songwriter Brooke Annibale crafts music that resists easy categorization. Her music drifts somewhere between dreamy and dark — lush, genre-defying soundscapes built on expressive melodies and lyrics that linger long after the song ends. Now stepping fully into her own creative process as producer and mixer, Brooke has released several new songs in 2026. 

With over 50 million streams, TV placements including Grey's Anatomy, One Tree Hill and Pretty Little Liars, and performances at SXSW, SiriusXM, Audiotree, Acoustic Café, Paste Magazine, and AmericanaFest — plus opening sets for Margaret Glaspy, Josh Ritter, and Dispatch — Brooke's career thus far has been anything but quiet. But this new chapter feels different. Less defined by milestones, more defined by the joy she rediscovered along the way and the quiet confidence of someone who deeply enjoys the process of creating music. 

In 2022, Brooke signed a record deal for her album Better By Now — a big leap after years of releasing music independently, and one she embraced wholeheartedly. About a year after its release, the label ended the partnership, citing streaming numbers that hadn't met their expectations. It was a difficult blow, especially for someone who had hoped for a long-term creative home. The door closed abruptly, and Brooke was left to reimagine what came next. 

“It stung, you know, I had taken a leap and trusted others with my entire catalog of work that I had built since I was 23. Signing with a label for the first time felt like validation of all that hard work. But I’ve learned many times before that ‘stamps of validation’ are mostly just a facade. Self-worth doesn’t come from someone else’s approval, numbers or productivity output. Music, as always, became a space of therapeutic processing and you can hear this experience in many of these songs, especially the title track Bolder Font. That’s essentially what the entire song is about.”  

She started to convince herself that maybe her dreams were just too bold to actually achieve. She considered walking away from music, but every time she tried, she felt herself drawn back, searching for a way to feel connected to it all again. In that moment, Brooke chose curiosity over collapse and took full creative control of her next release. She found that connection through taking a deeper dive into the process than ever before - and learning how to produce and mix her own music.  

"Instead of totally falling apart, I got curious about what could reignite my love for making music. I have always loved being in the studio, it was like magic to me to hear my songs come to life in that way. I had dabbled in producing my music before, but never for a full length record. I wondered what would happen if I tried. This record is has more of me in it than any other record because there is not a single sound on this record I didn’t have my hands on in some way.”  

She enlisted the help of a mentor, Christian (Leggy) Langdon, the producer of her 2022 record Better By Now, and that mentorship encouraged her to grow beyond what she ever imagined. She studied with Langdon on and off for nearly 2 years. 

“Working with Leggy on my last record (Better By Now, 2022), was such an easy uncomplicated process, where I felt I could fully trust him. Having him as a mentor on this project was a smooth transition, because that trust was already established. The mentorship was approached in two different stages. The first was a lot of teaching me the skills I needed to an actually do the work (of finishing a production and mixing) myself. The second was taking his feedback and leveling up. I was able to take his feedback as if they were mix notes from a client, and incorporate them into my mixes with the skills he had taught me. Every time I thought I was close, he would push me just a little bit further. Finishing each mix felt incredible because I knew I had achieved a standard that I could truly be proud of.” 

And now she’s ready to present, Bolder Font, the first full length album that she has written, produced, edited, and mixed herself. 

“This process has made me feel like a kid again. After more than 20 years of making music, I’m learning new things constantly, getting deeply inspired by the craft in a way I haven’t felt in years. I’ve grown more than I ever expected. It’s been slow, quiet, sometimes invisible growth, but I hope you’ll hear it in the songs. These songs are the most hands-on, personal work I’ve ever made.” said Brooke of her experience making this record. 

Brooke hand picked every musician on this record, from long-time collaborators like violinist Eleonore Denig (met freshman year of college in Nashville), pianist Mark Ramsey (playing keys with Brooke since 2015 in Pittsburgh, now both settled in Rhode Island), bassist Tommy Ng (met opening for Chadwick Stokes in 2018), and cellist Cara Fox (a returning presence from previous releases) — to new energy from drummers Florian Gouëllo and Dan Burns. 

As usual with Brooke’s writing, this album contains a spectrum of emotions, this time primarily focused on the internal battle of self-worth, identity, recovering from disappointments and finding ways to live life through the heaviness of the world. 

The heartbreakingly vulnerable first track My Favorite Part introduces the project written, produced, and mixed by Brooke. “I think this song is about my people pleasing tendencies, how I’d rather break my own heart than someone else” though the song is still shrouded in mystery to her. The simple beauty of this song lives in the spaces — delicate strings, a simple piano melody echoed by guitar and bass, all woven together into something that feels both intimate and full. Sparse but never empty. “This is one of my favorite tracks on the record, no pun intended. It felt like everything just fell into place,” she says of recording My Favorite Part. “I never get tired of hearing it, or performing it. It’s one of those songs that just naturally feels like a genuine expression of myself.” 

In the title track, Bolder Font, Brooke Annibale wrestles with self-worth, and the gap between who we are and the identities that have been placed on us. Forged through disappointment, the song ultimately offers relief, a reminder that we have the power to shed that pressure and simply be enough as we are. "The first couple lines of Bolder Font poured out of me quickly, originally over a baritone electric guitar. The words felt raw and vulnerable and were an incredibly accurate description of my headspace at the time. This was one of the first songs I wrote for this record. I was in a place of deep disappointment, doubting myself and even my love for making music. I kept asking myself: do I really even want what I think I want? And the answer was always yes, and maybe even bigger and bolder than ever. That’s when the image of bolder font clicked into place. I knew almost instantly that that would be the title of my next record.” And so, Brooke kept writing.  

A huge part of Brooke's daily life is her role as dog mom to three incredible pups. Daily Dose began with the kind of unfiltered enthusiasm only a dog can bring, and the question it quietly raises: what would it feel like to greet each morning the same way? “My dogs wake up every single day like it's the best day of their lives — and honestly, I want to be more like that,” Brooke says. “I took that inspiration and ran with it. To me, the concept of a daily dose can shift and change every day. Sometimes it's a long hug from my wife, or making each other laugh until we cry. Sometimes it's being invited to share a coloring book with my niece or playing a fierce game of knee hockey with my nephew. To me, those are the small things that make life worth living.” She turns that spirit into a promise — 'I'll be your daily dose' — a commitment to showing up for the people you love and finding joy in it, no matter what challenges arise. 

On what is perhaps the most electrifying track on the record, Make You Mine burns with the thrill of chasing something you simply can't walk away from — the pursuit of love, a creative passion, a road not taken. Brooke captures that irresistible pull of going after what you want one more time, making the scenic route feel like the only route worth taking. “I wrote this song after writing a few quite lyrically heavy ones, feeling like I just wanted to write something fun. I pulled up a drum loop, set up my mic, and just started playing to see what would come out. The writing of Make You Mine fell out in about a day. I love those kinds of songs, because they just feel natural, unforced. Tommy Ng who played bass on this, really created this danceable element with the driving bass line in the choruses. I hear it in my head even when I’m playing it solo.” Mark Ramsey, a longtime friend and collaborator, keeps the synth pulsing while Florian Gouëllo's propulsive drums drive the song forward. “Sure this could be take as a simple love song, and it for sure has some of that inspiration in there. But it also is about the the pursuit of dreams, and chasing something more.” 

In Try Again, Brooke turns the lens on her own complicated relationship with music: the thing that has always healed her is also the thing that has wounded her. "There was a point between records where it actually pained me to work on music, which was an unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling. Music has been my safe place since I was a teenager, the one thing I've always turned to. Losing that felt like losing a relationship. So that's exactly how I wrote about it — like I was talking directly to music itself, the way you'd speak to someone you were afraid of losing. The conversation in this song toggles between talking to myself and talking to music like it was a person slipping away.” Tommy Ng's hooky bass line anchors the ache before the song shifts — a brief scene change — into a raw moment at the bridge: 'the thing that used to ease your pain is aching lately, the thing that used to keep you sane, it drives you crazy.' From there, the song circles back to the same question Brooke asks herself over and over: 'are you doing alright?' She never quite answers it — but figures maybe she'll try again and get it this time. As she puts it: “Somewhere in the making of this record, I found my way back to that safe space again.” 

A Brooke Annibale record wouldn't be complete without a touch of nostalgia, and Birthday delivers it with a wink. It captures the quiet irony of two people who were once close enough to buy each other birthday cakes, now too distant to even send a text. “The whole premise of this song is built around an awkward feeling, sort of like the feeling of running into someone you lost touch with and forgetting how to connect with them, even though you once knew them well. This is my tongue in cheek reaction to that feeling." That tension lives right in the opening verse: 'Today's your birthday, I've been thinking about that year, when I bought your cake, I was important to you then.' “This song was just plain fun to make,”  Brooke says. “I love how snarky but sentimental it is. It’s the kind of song that goes by so quickly I could listen to it on repeat.” In the chorus, Brooke wraps that bittersweet ache in an irresistible melody, balancing tongue-in-cheek wit with genuine warmth: “don’t you want to catch up over coffee someday, I could call you, is this still your number by the way?” 

A rubber bridge guitars gentle pluck opens Now It's Over, its soft texture sets the tone for a song about learning to let go of what you can't control. “The chorus is essentially a mantra, a reminder that my worth isn't tied to my achievements.” The song is quiet but earnest reminder to stay present as the closing layers of Brooke's vocals, weave ‘I worried 'bout it the entire time and now it's over’ together with ‘you don't have anything to prove.’ This one proved to need some reinventing in the production process, "I initially recorded it too slow and in the past, I would have just had to live with that. But being in full control of this production meant I could start over. While I was working on it, I was watching the tv show, The Bear, when an R.E.M. song came on, also in 6/8, and something clicked. Hearing that inspired me to reinvent the song, and I couldn't be happier with where it landed." 

Lose My Number is the record's sharpest left turn — melancholy synth and crunchy drums pulled into an undeniably poppy groove, with passionate lyrics that land like a door slamming shut. It's about the person who keeps showing up long after the relationship is over, and Brooke's response is equal parts exhausted and defiant. 'I'm not a confrontational person — maybe to a fault — so the directness of this song is definitely outside my comfort zone,' she says. 'But it felt too real and too relatable to leave unsaid.' That tension lives right in the chorus: 'if you're trying to see what you can get from me — no disrespect, I'm all set, lose my number.'  

Heaviness strips everything back to where Brooke started — just an acoustic guitar and a vocal performance that leaves nowhere to hide — a quiet reckoning with the weight of living in a world where tragedy has become background noise. 'This was the last song I wrote for the record, and it spilled out quickly,' she says. 'It was winter, and New England winters go dark around 4pm. Our country had just witnessed the deaths of several citizens at the hands of ICE agents. I had just come from a dear friend's father's funeral. Everything felt trivial in comparison. The idea that we're expected to keep producing, keep earning, keep feeding capitalism — right in the middle of daily trauma — was just exhausting to sit with.' The lyric 'here we are in the land of the free, getting shot in the middle of the street, but we've gotta go back to work the next day' drives that feeling home. But Brooke doesn't leave us there. 'Hidden in there somewhere is a sliver of hope: those quiet, ordinary moments — walking the dog, making dinner — still hold peace in them. Or at least they should. They can't take that from us. 

Carried on a dramatic bed of strings from long-time collaborators Eleonore Denig and Cara Fox, Proof closes the record on a thought-provoking note. “This was the first time I had co-written a song that actually landed on a record of mine. There was something just so natural about the way this one came together,” Brooke says of working with co-writer Jordan Lindley on Proof. Its chorus — "all's well that ends well, but was it all bad cause it ended badly?" — is the perfect final word from Brooke: a lyric that lingers long after the music stops, reminding us that the ending of something doesn't define the whole of it. 

Making this record brought Brooke back to something she hadn't felt in a while — the pure excitement and joy of creating just to create. And somewhere in that process, she found something more valuable than a finished album: the realization that her worth was never tied to her output, but to the resilience that kept her showing up anyway.   

"Making music requires an almost insane level of resilience. There’s no guarantee that anything you pour yourself into will ever see the light of day, let alone be considered successful. But somehow that doesn't matter. It's the one thing where I completely lose myself and find myself at the same time. And when someone tells me a song got them through a moment, that makes it all worth it. No matter what comes next, I’m so proud of how I made this record: with my own hands and with a resilience deeper than I knew I had.” 

Bolder Font releases independently on September 17, 2026 everywhere you listen to music.