Anthony Pirog Trio – Composition for You, You and Me
Milan Credle – The Conflict (Instrumental)
Rod Hamilton – Treppe 2 & 1
The El Mansouris – Walden
Nerftoss – Low/Highway
Rival Skies – Destroyer
small craft – last breath
Taiwo Heard – Eternal Night
Miter – Yr Gold
Ben Dransfield – Nostalgia
Roger Aldridge – Sleepy Creek Samba
Georgie James – Places (Instrumental)
Jordan Clawson – Good to Better
Abu Jibran – Bring Back Hippy Jesus
Aaron Tinjum and the Tangents – Roving Instrumental / Interlude #1
Sun Committee – Lake Effect
Matt Rippetoe – Ladybugs
Snail Mail – Thinning
Ronny Smith – Valentine
Mud Rey – Never Satisfied

Anthony Pirog Trio – Composition for You, You and Me
Milan Credle – The Conflict (Instrumental)
Rod Hamilton – Treppe 2 & 1
The El Mansouris – Walden
Nerftoss – Low/Highway
Rival Skies – Destroyer
small craft – last breath
Taiwo Heard – Eternal Night
Miter – Yr Gold
Ben Dransfield – Nostalgia
Roger Aldridge – Sleepy Creek Samba
Georgie James – Places (Instrumental)
Jordan Clawson – Good to Better
Abu Jibran – Bring Back Hippy Jesus
Aaron Tinjum and the Tangents – Roving Instrumental / Interlude #1
Sun Committee – Lake Effect
Matt Rippetoe – Ladybugs
Snail Mail – Thinning
Ronny Smith – Valentine
Mud Rey – Never Satisfied

Beau Finley – Base Camp Departure
Jon Miller – Spinning
Georgie James – Places (Instrumental)
The Iris Bell – Shade
Aaron Agre – Cloud Empty (Selenelion) II
Tristan Welch – C.
Beauty Pill – The Western Prayer
Handsome Hound – Our Problems
Atoka Chase – Burn the Light (or Of Matriarchs and Alcohol)
Terracotta Blue – Hallow’s Eve
The Radiographers – Little Black Glove
Bossalingo – Manha de Carnaval
John W. Warren – The Frog Prince
Honey Pot Canoe – Reginald Fessenden
John Hogge – Shanai
Mathugh – I.X.X.I.
Dot Dash – Summer Lights
Buildings – For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
Calm and Crisis – Moving Parts
Aphids – Two

Burhenn has gone through big personal changes lately, including a move to Los Angeles (from Omaha, Nebraska) and a difficult breakup. She says it had been her longest relationship yet.

“I think our generation particularly struggles with intimacy and the concept of long-term relationships,” says Burhenn, who used to play in D.C. indie-pop band Georgie James. “We’re a generation who — most of us — are a product of divorced families, and I think we just don’t have faith in long-term love.”

But Burhenn says she hasn’t lost all of her faith. A couple of songs on the album — including “Semantics” and opener “All My Heart” — express being heartbroken while holding onto hope.

“‘Semantics,'” Burhenn says, “is about arguing with a lover — or even with yourself — [about whether] the glass [is] half full or half empty. At the end of the day, someone might say, ‘Well, it’s the same amount of water. It doesn’t matter what you call it,’” Burhenn says. “I’m like, ‘No, it does matter.’ In order to be hopeful… you have to espouse that whole philosophy.”

Both the album’s lyrics and music depart dramatically from her band’s 2012 album, GENERALS.

“I’m a big fan of artists who aren’t afraid to delve into new types of music, and even take on whole new personas album to album,” Burhenn says. “People like David Bowie or PJ Harvey.”

This album, Burhenn says, feels dreamier and more lush. It sounds more electronic, drawing from the 1980s and ‘90s, and touches on a few different themes. GENERALS was much more politically charged, raw and rhythmic.

“On my album GENERALS, I was asking this question: ‘What can we do in the face of so many things that are wrong in the world, and what is it that can make us feel or be powerful individually?’” Burhenn says.

Asking that question led to an awakening.

“At the end of the album I kind of came to the answer: love. Love is the answer,” she says. “And I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s so trite.’ But I think it kind of set me up to make an album of love songs.”

The Mynabirds play U Street Music Hall Sept. 26. See the band perform “Wildfire” live for KEXP.