Shearwater love their friends. The next album from Jonathan Meiburg’s grandly clanging indie-prog project is Fellow Travelers, on which Shearwater will cover songs from bands with whom they’ve played shows. The first song we’ve heard from the album is “I Luv The Valley Oh!,” the epically passionate bug-out from the art-pop group Xiu Xiu and the centerpiece of Xiu Xiu’s 2004 album Fabulous Muscles. Meiburg and Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart are bandmates in the side project Blue Water White Death, so it’s not exactly a surprise to see that mutual-admiration society continuing. Still, it’s a trip to hear Shearwater turning the messy original into something so smooth and sweeping. Hear the cover below.

Fellow Travelers is coming soon from Sub Pop. Here’s the tracklist:

01 “Our Only Sun” (Jesca Hoop Cover)
02 “I Luv the Valley OH!!” (Xiu Xiu Cover)
03 “Hurts Like Heaven” (Coldplay Cover)
04 “To Be Of Use” (Smog Cover)
05 “Natural One” (Folk Implosion Cover)
06 “Ambiguity” (David Thomas Broughton Cover)
07 “Cheerleader” (St. Vincent Cover)
08 “Tomorrow” (Clinic Cover)
09 “A Wake For The Minotaur” (Shearwater & Sharon Van Etten Cover)
10 “Mary Is Mary” (Wye Oak)
11 “Fucked Up Life” (The Baptist Generals)