WATCH: Washed Out channels the pastoral on 'Notes from a Quiet Life'

Ernest Greene, who performs as Washed Out, says his latest album was inspired by moving back to where he grew up in Georgia.

“I grew up in this very rural environment," he says. "Lots of nature to explore, and I was missing that in a lot of ways. I love the idea of my kids experiencing a similar thing.”

The album is called Notes from a Quiet Life, and it’s clearly something Green is embracing. After his 2020 album, Purple Noon, Green left Atlanta to build a home studio in a barn not too far from where he grew up in rural Georgia.

Tired of the music industry grind, he intentionally took his time working on new music. In this session, Green talks about making an album on his own time and taking inspiration from visual artists like Cy Twombly and Henry Moore. Plus, he talks about the unexpected reaction to a different type of visual art: his AI-generated music video for "The Hardest Part."

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.