John Ross is already teasing the follow-up to last fall’s Wild Pink album ILYSM, but he’s never let that band’s relatively prolific output stop him from starting side projects. He’s released a few ambient records under the name Eerie Gaits, and now he’s teamed with Laura Wolf, whose voice appeared on ILYSM, for a new band called Lilts.

Lilts is a collaboration between Ross and Wolf, with Wolf singing lead on everything and both musicians developing the music together. As Wolf explains in her statement about Lilts’ debut single “Dodge Street,” their process sounds extremely collaborative:

“Dodge Street” was written as a game of telephone. John sent me a voice memo called “Dodge Street” after the name of the street where he happened to be parked. I chopped up the recording of his guitar strumming, reimagined the chord progression and sent him back a song structure with a vocal melody. He interpreted my demo with added bass and drums and from there I built a lyrical scenario originally intended to rhyme with “Dodge Street.” Though the title didn’t make it into the song, the heart of the title remained. “Dodge Street” is about the disappointment of living for someone else’s dreams.

“Dodge Street” delves into a sort of shoegazey, slowcore-ish sound that reminds me of Wild Pink’s self-titled album. Wolf’s vocals are soft yet powerful, and they sound fantastic over the steady churn. And when the keyboards enter the mix, some of that latter-day Wild Pink sound slips into the music too. (It’s generally tacky to quote press releases, but the idea that this sounds like “a long lost Jesu-produced Cranberries single” is too good not to share.) “Dodge Street” is the lead single from a Lilts EP called Waiting Around, and you can hear it below.

Waiting Around is out 10/13 on Better Company.