Minnesota musician and memoirist Mark Mallman shares “The Beauty Is Alive” today after the announcement of his first album in 5 years called Happiness, out April 9. A pre-order for Happiness on limited-edition vinyl is now available for pre-order HERE.

Mallman says of the song and video:“The video is inspired by the films of Quentin Tarantino. It seemed fun to think that Marsellus Wallace’s briefcase might be filled with keyboards and Beethoven busts. The video was shot by award-winning photographer, Wilson Webb, known for his on-set still photography in movies like Little Women, Baby Driver, and True Grit.”

Happiness is a companion to Mallman’s uplifting memoir, The Happiness Playlist: The True Story of Healing My Heart With Feel-Good Music. The book follows Mallman’s listening to nothing but a playlist of 50 feel-good songs for an entire Minnesota winter. His goal was to process the crushing grief and anxiety following the suicide of his mother. This is the true story of a man beset by grief, healed by music, and learning to laugh through it all. The book, published in 2019, includes a foreword by Chuck Klosterman. While the subject is sad and dark, the book itself is told with humor and joy.

The album Happiness is a collection of material he wrote while writing and touring the book as well as one year after. Like the book, it explores the depth of emotions if the human experience, staring happy at track one to loss and devastation by track eleven. It has the great Twin Cities pedigree with the area’s legends Prince, The Hold Steady, Lizzo, and Hüsker Dü swimming in its DNA. Mark worked with some great talent to help him with having the album mixed by John Fields (Jonas Brothers), Aaron Cupping (Tropical Fuck Storm), Adrian Olsen (Foxygen) among others. The psychedelic ballad “We Are We” features a guest guitar by Deerhoof member Ed Rodriguez. Happiness comes out via Eagle’s Golden Tooth.