The eleven track debut is out October 30, 2026 and is the first of three connected concept albums
In 2018 David Maginity was playing solo acoustic songs at house shows around Muncie and Indianapolis. Those songs are now Gutter Gardens, the debut album of his band Nothing If Not, out October 30, 2026 and premiered here ahead of release. It has eleven tracks and opens a trilogy of eleven-song albums that follow a single narrative.

Artist: Nothing If Not
Release Date: 2026-10-30
Genres: Progressive Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Label: self-release
Description: Nothing If Not release Gutter Gardens on October 30, 2026, first of three concept albums from Indiana. Premiere on Retrofuturista.
The story follows a background character in a dystopia where people lose their identities, with weeds growing through ruined concrete as the recurring image. The music changes genre from track to track. The eight-minute title track opens the album. “Isolation” starts as a blues-rock groove and passes through a drum solo over cascading strings. “Toothpaste-Stained Reflections” runs keys through a guitar amp for a funk and jazz feel, “The Background Character” turns psychedelic with organ and strings, and “Faded Strip of Film” is a straight jazz song. “Optimistic Omniscient” closes the record with an acoustic guitar and a full choir. The move from the blues-rock of “Isolation” to the jazz of “Faded Strip of Film” is handled with real assurance.

The band tracked the album live at Welcome to 1979 in Nashville, with grand piano and acoustic parts recorded in Indianapolis and vocals finished partly in Maginity’s home studio in Anderson. Nic Gibbons, who has engineered and mixed the band’s work since 2020, produced the record and plays pedal steel and the guitar solos on “Faded Strip of Film” and “Broken People Factory”. Trey Campbell plays cello and arranged the strings, Sophie Buselli wrote the violin part for “Broken People Factory”, and Killazbeatz mastered the album.

Three singles are out: “Isolation”, “A Flag Half-Mast (Still Flies)” and “Broken People Factory”, the last with a stop-motion video written and directed by Maginity and animated by Nadeera A. They are in rotation on Prog Radio and Epic Prog Radio and have aired on Progzilla Radio. The band plays CTZN in Carmel, Indiana, on October 31.
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