File this under things you didn’t know you needed in your life: Crooks and Nannies covering “Islands In The Stream,” the Dolly Parten & Kenny Rogers classic. Available everywhere now.

“To me, Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers’ “Islands In The Stream” is one of the most iconic duets in human history,” says Crooks’ Madel Rafter. “We wanted to cover this track so Sam and I could mess around and have fun gender-swapping Dolly and Kenny’s parts while highlighting each of our vocal styles. Our pal and occasional bandmate Jacob Blizard produced the song; he and I spent a few days in his bedroom studio trying to make it into a disco version, which we ended up scrapping for this early-aughts pop-song compilation (think Now That’s What I Call Music but quirked up) approach. Solving the puzzle of this cover was a blast.”

2022’s How It Ends is one of the most thoughtful records we’ve released – TOLEDO’s debut full-length is a collection of songs that examine the relationships that make us who we are, all painted with a gentle indie folk palate. Today they return with seven additional tracks, bundled together on How It Ends [UNRATED EDITION]. “Patch,” a clear standout, is above. The digital is available everywhere you stream music, and physical copies of the standard are still available over on our Bandcamp.

When Hippo Campus returned last month with “Kick In The Teeth,” from their forthcoming Wasteland EP due in April, the twang caught a few folks by surprise. The band’s cowboy era continues on new single “Yippie Ki Yay,” less indebted to folk & country songwriting than the tune that preceeded it and more a return to the cathartic roots of their early material.

The single is accompanied by a vivid, stop-motion style visualizer directed by Julian Gross. Of the release, Hippo Campus says, “we initially started writing this song 6 years ago. it’s a story within a story. the narrative follows a character who has been outlawed but zooms out in each chorus to the perspective of the characters writing the story. it deals with “giddying up” in the sense that we gotta keep on keeping on despite not knowing what the fuck we’re doing a lot of the time.

imposter syndrome. the etymology of the word “yippie” is not commonly agreed upon, but in the 1936 song “I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)” written by Johnny Mercer about a changing landscape of the traditional cowboy portrait, the lyrics seem applicable to our current state of affairs, perhaps the human condition; the constant observation and resistance to social change. the ugly reflection of a faux cowboy not knowing how to actually, really, truly rope a steer.”

Hippo will be heading out on the road later this year. Tickets in the tour section.

To celebrate the second leg of Earth Worship US touring now under way, Rubblebucket have shared two demos that became songs you know – each presented in collaboration with their respective solo sideprojects. Listen to “Cherry Blossom (Alex’s Version)” courtesy of Rubblebucket and Toth & “Truth in the Air (Kal’s Version)” courtesy of Rubblebucket and Kalbells everywhere now.

And if the Earth Worship tour has yet to hit your city, grab tickets now over in the tour section. 

Today TOLEDO offer up another glimpse into the new material added to their deluxe edition reiusse of last year’s How It Ends. “Shirley” is brief but potent. Little more than the voice of Jordan Dunn-Pilz, an acoustic guitar, and some background coos from a child, the track is in and out in under a minute and a half, but it packs the emotional wallop of a much bigger proceeding. The track comes only a few days ahead of the band’s tour alongside Philly’s Another Michael. Tickets available in the tour section now.

Hippo Campus return today with “Kick In The Teeth,” the first new music since last year’s LP3. It comes from a new digital-only EP titled Wasteland, set for release on April 14th. The comeback single plants a stylistic flag for the band: there’s a noticably more freewheeling, twangier edge to the sound and a startlingly straight forward approach to the songwriting. Cowboy era? Maybe? The five song EP comes paired with beautiful creative from Julian Gross, who directed the video above and the art for the project, both horse-forward affairs befitting of this dustier sound. Tracklist and pre-save link below.

Wasteland EP

01 Moonshine
02 Yippie Kai Yay
03 Honeysuckle
04 Probably
05 Kick In The Teeth
Pre-Save Now

The EP arrives only a few short weeks before the band embarks on a headline tour of some of the biggest venues they’ve ever graced. The iconic Red Rocks is already sold out. The brand new Salt Shed in Chicago is too. Tickets are going fast, so grab them while you still can here.

Jordana & Inner Wave are hitting the road later this week. But it would seem 20 dates just wasn’t enough for them. That’s right, today they’ve come together with a little Valentine’s love letter called “Baby.” A gooey psych-pop duet of the sweetest variety.

Get it wherever you stream your music now. All dates in the tour section and listed below.

TOLEDO’s debut album How It Ends was an accomplished collection of songs about family – a divorce record, a friendship record, an album about those who make us who we are. A heavy subject, indeed, so it’s no wonder the band is back with an addendum in the form of How It Ends [UNRATED EDITION], a deluxe version of the album featuring seven additional tracks. Some are wholly new songs, like the sweeping and gently beautiful “Oak Hill” that arrives today.

“’Oak Hill’ came at a point in our lives when we were both finally able to look back at past relationships and see our own mistakes; not just the faults of others that we typically fixated on,” says the band.”Young men in particular get away with using people under the guise of personal growth. It’s sort of a pathetic plea for forgiveness for being a shithead in your early years.“

Others are revamped or stripped down version of songs from the record and beyond – there’s an old iteration of “Beach Coma,” a lo-fi take on “Hideout,” and a few voice memo moments that encapsulate some of the more magical moments in TOLEDO’s songwriting process.

Tracklist below.

1. Soda Can
2. Boxcutter
3. Hideout
4. Keep It Down!
5. How It Ends
6. Climber
7. Flake
8. L-Train
9. Leopard Skin
10. What Happened to the Menorah?
11. Ghosty
12. Fixing Up the Back Room
13. Oak Hill
14. Shirley
15. Flake (Demo)
16. Snow Day
17. Hideout (Lo-Fi Version)
18. Beach Coma (Demo)
19. Patch

In other news, the band is hitting the road for their first proper headline run in support of How It Ends and in celebration of the upcoming digital deluxe edition. Tickets available over in the tour section.

Sophomore albums are never easy, but they’re especially difficult when your debut makes the kind of lasting mark Samia’s 2020 outing The Baby made. So Honey arrives today with more than a bit of expectation.

In many ways it’s a totally different animal than The Baby – less rough around the edges, more lyrically direct, content to dwell in quieter passages. But it’s also a record about perspective, and as such interrogates some of the same ideas (even some of the same stories) that Samia tackled on The Baby, only from a new, more assured vantage. The Baby and its songs’ protagonists wanted approval. Honey doesn’t need it because it exclusively traffics in the sort of unvarnished truths that render approval irrelevant.

It’s Samia at her most bare, brave & beautiful. Filled with the courage of hindsight.

Listen deep wherever you stream music. Or own a copy below. The record deserves it.

Honey is out on Friday (pre-save or pre-order here), but there’s one more double single before we get to the finish line. A linked pair like “Pink Balloon” & “Sea Lions” before it, “Honey” & “Breathing Song” are both deeply sad. Only one of them does its best to convince itself that’s not true. The video for “Honey,” which also arrived this morning, was directed by Jacq Justice and features several versions of Samia all doing their best to keep it together, to varying degrees of success.

“To me Honey is the saddest song I’ve ever written, because it’s mocking my attempt to convince people I was good,” says Samia. “Caleb [Wright] turned it into a campfire song, though, and I love that it can be interpreted as fun too.”

Pre-orders are still available, with the final sweetart swirl variant arriving on Bandcamp earlier this month. Limited to 500 copies, and nearly sold out already. All pre-order options below.

Next month, Samia kicks off her US tour in support of Honey. She’ll be joined on the road by Tommy Lefroy. Brooklyn Steel is already sold out. Tickets to the rest of the dates available over in the tour section. All dates below.