Whitney have announced a new covers album called Candid, due out August 14 via Secretly Canadian. The 10-track LP will feature covers of David Byrne and Brian Eno, John Denver, Kelela, Damien Jurado, and more. The indie rock band also shared their take on The Roches’ ‘Hammond Song’, which you can check out below.
Speaking of the album, drummer and singer Julian Ehrlich said in a statement: “This could’ve been as simple as saying we really love these songs and we love our bandmates and making a covers record just felt right but it truly became an exploration into how we can evolve as a band going forward.”
Candid also includes previously released covers of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ featuring Waxahatchee, as well as SWV’s ‘Rain’.
According to Ehrlich, the band discovered The Roches’ 1979 tune through producer Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio), who “sent it to us years ago as a reference for recording when we were making the last Smith Westerns record.”
“It became a song that was always around for us and then we showed it to the rest of the band,” he continued. “This cover is the longest Whitney recording ever and pretty much everything you hear on it is totally live, save for the horns and the slide solo. For a five minute song, if you mess up one part you have to do the whole thing live all over again.”
Whitney’s last album, Forever Turned Around, was released in 2019.
