SPOTLIGHT: Emily Nenni Steps Out with Newfound Confidence on ‘Movin’ Shoes’

Editor's Note: Emily Nenni, whose new LP Movin' Shoes comes out today via New West, is No Depression's Spotlight Artist for May 2026. Read more about this up-and-coming singer-songwriter and stay tuned for more from her all month long.

It took Emily Nenni four days to get from her home in Nashville, Tennessee to Austin, Texas where her rhythm section lives, and finally to Seattle, Washington for the first stop of their latest tour. Even after pulling 12 to 14 hours a day in a van with her band, she arrived wrapped in a sense of ease and contentment.  

The open road often symbolizes freedom, possibility, an uninterrupted opportunity for self-discovery. Nenni, however, embarked westward with much of that already in tow, her focus resharpened and her direction forward clearer than ever. 

“I am genuinely just glad to be here, glad to be doing it,” the alt-country singer-songwriter says the morning after her feet finally hit pavement in the Emerald City. To be able to do what she loves, she says, “It makes me happy.”

That same sense of pure satisfaction and unflinching fulfillment is bottled on her new album, Movin’ Shoes. Her fourth full-length offering, and follow-up to 2024’s Drive & Cry, the 13-track collection finds Nenni at her most uninhibited and self-assured — a state that, in the past few years, has been especially hard-earned.

“I've been doing a lot of self-work,” she says. Where her last album tackled themes surrounding change – cleaning house and making room to come into her own – Movin’ Shoes sees Nenni settling into that space, opening up, speaking her mind, and putting her personal evolution into action.

“I've spent a lot of time with myself and my thoughts,” she explains of a recent season of growth, “and I am really trying to dissect how I'm communicating with people and also talking to myself.”