Searows, the project of Pacific Northwest singer-songwriter and guitarist Alec Duckart, shares “Photograph of a Cyclone,” the latest from his forthcoming recently announced new album, Death in the Business of Whaling, due January 23, 2026 via Last Recordings On Earth. The track arrives with a shot on Hi8 companion music video directed by Marlowe Ostara.

“When I initially started writing this song I went into it without a real intention of what I was trying to say. It was one of those songs for me where I didn’t know what it meant until after it was finished, which occasionally happens when I write. This song is about repeating cycles you learned from your surroundings or culture, and feeling incapable of doing anything different. It’s about witnessing chaos in your world and in your periphery and not knowing what else to do but watch it happen. Sometimes you can create art from that chaos. But you aren’t sure if the creation in itself is a new perspective or understanding, or simply a picture of it,” Duckart explains.

Though Death in the Business of Whaling arrives as Searows’ second album, it’s the product of many firsts, including his first time recording outside the creative cocoon of his bedroom. His 2022 debut Guard Dog was written, recorded and self-produced in Duckart’s Portland home and independently released with little expectation as to how it would be received. The music soon found a passionate audience that were already sharing snippets of Duckart’s music via communities on TikTok, as well as co-signs from artists like Ethel Cain, Gracie Abrams and Robin Pecknold.

When the time came to commit the collection of ideas for his new record to tape, he set up shop in a converted horse barn outside of Seattle, keen to harness a greater sense of scale and space in the creation of the music, working this time with co-producer Trevor Spencer (Father John Misty, Beach House, Mary Lattimore) to expand his creative vision.