Following 2023’s Split with Chad VanGaalen, discordant art-pop songwriter Astral Swans (Calgary’s Matthew Swann) is back with Split 2 – a 7’’ with garage legend Julie Doiron to be released on June 14th via Swann’s own Stoner Bird Records and on lathe cut vinyl via Red Spade Records. Ahead of that, Astral Swans is sharing “The Coward,” one of his two experimental tracks on the EP. 

“The Coward” is a “weird one” for Swann, playing on different valences of what the word means, contrasting synthesized and live recorded instruments in a rumination on – among other things – suicide; how those that go through with it are often labelled with the term.

Split 2 also features two raw, off-the-floor tracks by Julie Doiron, for whom Astral Swans owes a strong musical debt dating back to her seminal indie band Eric’s Trip. The two first crossed paths in the ‘00s when they were both signed to the same label with Swann’s then-band Hot Little Rocket. This created a longstanding mutual appreciation that led to Doiron lending vocals to the 2021 self-titled Astral Swans release.