Days before beginning their first-ever tour as The A’s, Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath and Daughter of Swords’ Alexandra Sauser-Monnig have released a serene and ruminative rendition of the stoner country classic, “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy.” The single arrives on the heels of the duo’s debut album Fruit. Similar to their take on “Lonesome L.A. Cowboy,” or their fantastical reimagining of Harry Nilsson and Shelley Duvall’s “He Needs Me,” Fruit featured new interpretations of traditional folk music, lullabies, cosmic cowboy songs and multiple standards about ponies, each song uniquely filled with arrangements of high lonesome harmonies, stunt yodeling and a ghost orchestra of hair, nylon shorts, shoes, ice chunk, gravel, frog samples and other makeshift instruments.

While Amelia Meath and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig have been yodeling together for upwards of 15 years, it wasn’t until summer of 2021 that they thought seriously about making Fruit. For two weeks they decamped to Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Betty’s, where they recorded under the candle-lit night. Produced by Meath, Sauser-Monnig and Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso, Made of Oak), Fruit also features backing vocals from Fruit engineer and mixer Alli Rogers, string arrangements from Gabriel Kahane, saxophone from Sam Gendel, guitar from Alan Good Parker, and vocals from Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes, Wye Oak) on “When I Die.”

Photo Courtesy: Kendall Bailey Atwater