It’s a Drive-By Truckers kind of day. Former Trucker Jason Isbell announced his first solo acoustic album this morning, and now Patterson Hood, the Trucker most often behind the wheel, has shared the latest single from his own forthcoming solo album.

Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams is the first solo full-length from Hood in 12 years. He’s already released the Lydia Loveless duet “A Werewolf And A Girl,” and today he adds a spooky, string-laden track called “The Pool House.”

Hood offered this statement:

“The Pool House” was originally inspired by a night I spent at a creepy rental. A literal pool house for an apartment complex that I rented cheap for the night during a solo tour. It was off-season and the pool was dark green and filled with algae. The whole thing was creepy and as I’d had a couple of drinks, my mind was definitely wandering, conjuring up some macabre shit.

I wrote most of it during lockdown and demoed it then on my home rig.

I later recorded it with Nate Query (The Decemberists) playing upright bass and Dan Hunt (Neko Case) on drums. I played piano, guitar, vocals, and a trashcan as percussion on the bridge. Then I had Kyleen King do her magic adding viola and layers of strings (from her own arrangement) to it and the great Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) played flute, which he knocked out of the park. He had come by the studio to put some sax parts on some songs and I mentioned wanting a flute for this song. He asked me what kind of flute part I was thinking of and I said, “something like what Christ Wood would play in Traffic.” He just smiled and said he’d see what he could do.

It’s one of the weirdest and most twisted tracks I have ever recorded and I’m really thrilled with how it all turned out.

Frances Thrasher (Heaven4TheYoung), who painted the album cover, also does incredible and creepy stop-motion animation and has made me a super cool video for the release using a vintage dollhouse and her own amazing skills and talents.

Watch that video below.

Exploding Trees & Airplane Screams is out 2/21 via ATO.