Last year, "Porcupine Tattoo," a single from XL Recordings head Richard Russell's project Everything Is Recorded, featured the unlikely pairing of grizzled, elliptical singer-songwriter and indie rock icon Bill Callahan and alt-country-ish aspiring pop star Noah Cyrus. Supposedly, when Russell asked Callahan who he'd like to write a song for, Callahan replied, "Noah Cyrus." And so it was.
Friday, Cyrus released her new album I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME, and wouldn't you know it, it ends with another Bill Callahan collab. Closing track "XXX" is a duet with Callahan, and both Cyrus and Callahan are credited as writers. This is the same album with the Fleet Foxes collab "Don't Put It All On Me." It also has duets with country stars Blake Shelton and Ella Langley, which adds up to quite the assortment of features.
Cyrus worked with Ben Gibbard a few years ago, too. These indie rock team-ups are more interesting on paper than on record, but they're at least a little interesting on record. Hear "XXX" below, where you can also find the whole Noah Cyrus album because why not.
I WANT MY LOVED ONES TO GO WITH ME is out now via Records Label/Columbia. By the way, the recent Richard Russell episode of How Long Gone was really interesting.
