Self-produced at Goosehead Palace Studios in Nashville, TN with engineer Dan Knobler, Free Yourself Up is Lake Street Dive's second album with Nonesuch Records. To the group, the title is both an exhortation to listeners and a statement of purpose. In many ways, this is their most intimate and collaborative record, with the quartet working as a tightly knit unit to craft its 10 songs. They also drafted touring keyboardist Akie Bermiss to join them in the studio which freed up the the band to explore a wider range of instrumental textures, construct more full-bodied arrangements, and build on their well-known background harmonies. "This album is based in the realities in our time," Bridget Kearney reflects, "which have inevitably become part of everyone's daily life. It's something you think about and obsess over – and write songs about. Free Yourself Up is about empowering yourself, emboldening yourself, no matter what's going wrong."