“This mystical, magical, rhythmical, radical, ride.”

Jason Mraz is living full spiral. It’s not full circle, exactly, because he’s changed and his experiences have changed, but on his eighth album, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, the musician has found himself returning to a familiar junction in space. The new songs, which are unabashedly pop, see Mraz reuniting with numerous collaborators, including Los Angeles band Raining Jane and producer Martin Terefe, who helmed 2008’s We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. In fact, as Mraz looked at the number eight, he instead saw an infinity sign.

“We’re back together, but we’re not where we were,” the musician explains. “We have new perspective and new height, so we can collaborate in a new way. I feel like I’ve completed a ring of the spiral, and now I’m starting that ride again. There’s a sense of constant unwinding and ever-moving forward that is both predicable and always uncertain.”

The songs grapple with the emotions and experiences that come with being in your mid-40s, a time that is often ignored by pop songwriters. But even from a place of darkness, Mraz found that gleam of positivity, which threads through Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride.

For Mraz, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride is another step forward on the unpredictable journey of life. Its optimistic, inspiring sensibility reflects the musician’s overall approach to being in the world. Mraz, a two-time Grammy winner, Songwriters Hall of Fame Honoree and spokesman for the Good Tidings Foundation, always aims to use his position to empower others and inspire real-world change and positivity. It’s something he will carry with him as he moves into the next spiral, and one after that, and into infinity.