Austin TX’s Sun June share “Mixed Bag,” the Tom Petty-inspired dynamic new single from their anticipated new album, Bad Dream Jaguar, out October 20th via Run For Cover. Of the song, the band says “‘Mixed Bag” is about the comforts and frustrations of well-worn relationships with people and places. It focuses on the harsh realities of living in Texas, being in a long distance relationship, and becoming irritable with the people you love.

“In some ways this song allowed us to reflect and become more aware of how dumb our arguments are. ‘You were searching for a reason to be mad,’ and ‘I know every single fight we’ve ever had,’ are accusations and boasts that made us laugh. Each chorus expands on the last, as we acknowledge the ways we’re repeating the past but try to keep score regardless.

We recorded ‘Mixed Bag both in Texas and North Carolina — Dan Duszynski, Alli Rogers, Danny Reisch, Max Lorenson, and Chad Doriocourt all had a hand in trying to shape this into a dusty Petty-esque song. The song is about struggling to stay hopeful about the future, but we hope the bop outweighs the sadness.

For the video, we asked Vanessa Pla to help capture some of the rural outskirts of Austin on Super 8 film. We took inspiration from some old 1940s PSAs and Texas corporate films. She and her crew found themselves in the middle of cow pastures off of brand new highways, face to face with some friendly longhorns.”

Sun June’s music often feels like a shared memory – the details so close to the edge of a song that you can touch them. And as an Austin-based project, their music has also always felt strangely and specifically Texan – unhurried, long drives across an impossible expanse of openness, refractions shimmering off the pavement in the heat.

But on Bad Dream Jaguar, Sun June is unmoored. The backdrop of Texas is replaced by longing, by distance, by transience, and a quiet fear. The only sense of certainty comes from the murky past. It’s a dispatch from aging, when you’re in the strange in-between of yourself: there’s a clear image of the person you once were and the places you inhabited, generational curses and our families, but the future feels vast, unclear – and the present can’t help but slip through your fingers.

Colwell has an ear for restraint, for editing it down and embracing emptiness; Sun June’s records have always been deceptively airy sounding in the face of melancholia, belying its densely textured foundation in a sense of ease. The layers on Bad Dream Jaguar don’t tangle they float, sheaths of divergent and luminescent sonics hanging together as the sun goes down, darkness seeping in.

Sun June is hitting the road this fall and winter in support of Bad Dream Jaguar. The tours include dates with Slaughter Beach, Dog and labelmates Runnner. All dates below.