Zoe’s third album, Before the Machine, was released on June 7, 2024. Inspired by memories of a pre-smart phone world, the title track explores how technology, and specifically smart phones, has irrevocably altered our experience of time.

Picking up where Zoe’s last album, Waterlines, left off, Before the Machine further showcases the artist’s vivid, literary sense of language while weaving a rich and confident fabric of folk, country, rock, blues and jazz.

 “Zoe FitzGerald Carter is an artist who taps into the great American tradition of the troubadour singer-songwriter,” writes Tom Hilton of Aldora Britain Records.”With a fresh and invigorating approach, this Berkeley, California based tunesmith crafts lyrically drive, compositions that delve into themes of change, longing, exploitation, nostalgia and many more. It’s a gem of an album from top to bottom.”  

From the achingly intimate beauty of Angel Bus to the sultry rocker Magic Bus, to the Tom Waits-eque evocation of New York City on Let’s Just Stay Friends, this wide-ranging 9-track LP features a stellar cast of top Bay Area musicians and, like Waterlines, was produced by Jeffrey Wood at Fantasy Studio in Berkeley, CA. 

Zoe grew up in Washington D.C. where she began playing guitar and singing as a teenager. But while music was her first love, writing was her first career. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, Zoe has written for numerous national magazines (The New York Times, Newsweek, Vogue) and, in 2010, published an award-winning memoir, Imperfect Endings.

After leaving New York City for the Bay Area, she played with numerous local bands – Do Wrong Right, The Deadliners, Rolling Thunder, and co-founded the Americana string band Sugartown. She’s performed in clubs from the fabled Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, to the Lost Church and Hotel Utah in San Francisco, to Rancho Nicasio in Marin County.

She toured the East Coast as a solo act last fall and has played on the central coast and in Southern California where she recently performed at the Hotel Cafe and she recently headlined at Sweetwater Music Hall in Marin County.

For information on upcoming tour dates, follow Zoe on BandsInTown or go to the Events page. 

All press inquiries, please contact Maggie Poulos: Maggie@mixtape-media.com