Part Time Baby Finds Connection on the Road to My Island

Part Time Baby, the musical alter ego of New Jersey songwriter Mike Goldstein, is preparing to release the 11-track album My Island on October 30, 2026. Distributed through TuneCore, the record continues a project built around returning to music after a long hiatus and examining the choices, memories and relationships that accumulate along the way.

Goldstein describes the album as a journey through midlife contemplation rather than an escape into isolation. Across the supplied release materials, roads, time and memory recur as organizing ideas, while the project moves between intimate acoustic writing and fuller rock arrangements.

A private island that opens outward

The title My Island suggests retreat, but the album’s stated focus is connection: the tension between solitude and the people who give experience its meaning. That framing gives the record a clear narrative center without asking every song to make the same point. It also fits the larger Part Time Baby story, which began when Goldstein returned to writing after years away from professional music.

That return carries its own perspective. Goldstein earned a master’s degree in musicology from the Eastman School of Music and previously worked as a professional musician. Part Time Baby turns that background toward songs about rediscovery rather than résumé-building, treating the long break as part of the material instead of something to erase.

“Big Black Car” arrives first

The newly public video for “Big Black Car” gives listeners an entry point into the album before release day. The artist’s release materials place the song within My Island’s broader interest in roads, memory and the question of what a person is actually traveling toward.

That framing makes the single a useful introduction to the full project: movement can create distance, but it can also become a search for connection. The complete album will provide the wider context when it arrives.

A return with room to keep moving

Part Time Baby’s earlier Exposed Vocals coverage documented Goldstein’s reinvention and a track-by-track look at Came From a Woman. My Island extends that relationship with a new body of work shaped by the same willingness to begin again, while focusing more directly on time, solitude and meaning.

My Island is scheduled for release October 30, 2026. “Big Black Car” is available to watch now.

Photo: Matthew Goetz. Reporting based on artist-supplied release materials.