There is greatness living, walking and dreaming among us, people! Austin-by-way-of-everywhere troubadour Amy Annelle has finished work on her seventh album, Cimarron Banks, and has slated its release for sometime this summer. Either under her own name or as the backbone of a permeable folk/rock ensemble called The Places, Annelle has been unfurling her consistently passionate and spectral acoustic marrow for over a decade, and though she wins praise from every heart punctured by the ether-tipped jags of the storm-felled trees that are her songs, we end to think the world can do better. And this summer (”For now we can say late May/early June,” she has reported via email) the world will get its next chance.

According the website of her own record label, High Plains Sigh, the new album “features very special guest Ian McLagan (Small Faces, Bob Dylan) and longtime musical ally Paul Brainard (Victoria Williams, Alejandro Escovedo), as well as new friends from Austin’s vibrant music community.” The site is well worth checking out, by the way, as it also houses some gorgeous photography shot by the songstress on tour and on wanderings amid desolate, broken-down stretches of the great American expanse.

Annelle will be touring the US and beyond in support of the album’s release. In the past, she has lent her talents to back up such diverse and shadowy greats as Jandek, Michael Hurley, Roy Harper and R. Stevie Moore, and in the future, who knows? One thing’s relatively certain, though, which is that her own original graces will no longer be obscured by the group moniker. “the places handle has been retired” she writes. “this is an amy annelle album.”

The Places are dead. Long Live Amy Annelle! Video of her performing a new album song after the jump…

Generally, I envision Annelle on front porches or county fair stages or what have you, but the below art gallery performance will have to do, as it is a song from forthcoming album after all. The song is called “The Hellhound’s Address,” and though the sound quality isn’t the best, it’s still a promising taste of the album of come.