A recording studio in Albany, NY announced last week that Bob Dylan spent two days working there, leading to speculation that the legendary singer-songwriter may be working on a new album. The still-speculative release would mark the first new, original Bob Dylan album since 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways.

On Friday, August 8th, White Lake Studios issued a press release stating that Dylan and his band had two days of sessions on August 5th and 6th during a break from Willie Nelson‘s traveling Outlaw Music Festival tour. The studio indicated that it was aware in advance of Dylan’s plans to visit the facility, and that staff worked diligently to preserve the enigmatic singer’s privacy. White Lakes noted, “Details of Dylan’s two-day visit were not publicly disclosed,” so it seemed a tad ironic to issue a press release for the secret studio session.

Speaking with New York Upstate, White Lake Studios CEO David Bourgeois couldn’t get into specifics about Dylan’s time at the studio but said the iconic musician was “kind and pleasant and at one point or another had an exchange with everybody.”

“I had an opportunity to tell him how pleased I was that he was there,” Bourgeois told the local newspaper. “At one point, I ran into him in a hallway and asked him how everything was going. He was very positive.”

That’s about all we have to go on for new information on Dylan’s trip to White Lake Studios. The Nobel Prize-winning songwriter has not recorded an album outside California since 2006’s Modern Times, and it is also unlikely that the 84-year-old powered through an entire disc in the span of a couple days. But between Dylan’s renewed willingness to break open his own coveted songbook on the Outlaw Festival tour—reviving classics “Mr. Tambourine Man“, “Masters of War”, and “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” this summer—and stepping back into the studio (for whatever reason), recent years have had the feeling of another late-career renaissance for Dylan.

To add more fuel to the speculation, Dylan originally advertised his ongoing Rough And Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour to run from 2021 to 2024. Now, the tour has been extended into 2025 with a Europe/U.K. leg set to run through the fall, but this run of shows heavily fueled by Dylan’s 2020 album may possibly be winding down to make way for a new album cycle in the coming year. However, there’s no more certain way to go mad than trying to predict what Bob Dylan will do next.

What we do know is that Bob Dylan will return to the stage on September 5th in Bangor, ME to kick off the final leg of Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival tour before going overseas for headlining dates in October. Find tickets and tour dates here and listen to him play “Masters of War” for the first time since 2016 to open his set from Friday in Darien Center, NY.

Bob Dylan — Darien Lake Performing Arts Center — Darien Center, NY — 8/8/25 — Full Audio

[Video: OldHenry Lee]

Tracklist:

01. Masters of War 0:04
02. I Can Tell (Samuel Smith) 4:04
03. Forgetful Heart 7:39
04. Axe and The Wind (Willie Dixon) 11:30
05. To Ramona 14:53
06. Early Roman Kings 20:05
07. Under the Red Sky 26:26
08. I’ll Make It All Up to You (Charlie Rich) 31:37
09. All Along the Watchtower 34:41
10. ‘Til I Fell in Love with You 39:39
11. Desolation Row 43:54
12. Love Sick 50:18
13. Share Your Love with Me (Alfred Braggs & Deidric Malone) 55:24
14. Positively 4th Street 58:07
15. Highway 61 Revisited 1:03:28
16. Blind Willie McTell 1:08:04
17. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right 1:12:41