The single title translates from Japanese to “country music”, as a tribute to experimental pop folk legend Haruomi Hosono, a founding member of the influential electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra. It is an indie-folk mellow song accompanied by a surrealist video directed by Giraffe Studios.

It features a miniature horse, guest cameos and a brief infomercial requesting donations to the I Love Venezuela Foundation.

Banhart’s first album since 2016’s Ape in Pink Marble, MA, is intended to be stripped-back: less experimental and more intimate, it reflects on autobiographical anecdotes and a wide range of emotions. According to a press release, it is charged in powerful lyrics, addressing the “unconditional nature of maternal love, the desire to nurture, the passing down of wisdom, the longing to establish the relationship of mother to child, and the consequences of that bond being broken.”

While Banhart alludes to his own contemplations of life and death, the concerns he evokes on this new album are meant to be not only personal but also global, since the record is also said to contain ruminations about the precarious state of the world. Because he spent most of his childhood in Venezuela, the Texas-native has witnessed despair and misery first hand, leading him to really worry about the situation over there.

“My brother is in Venezuela, my cousins, my aunts and uncles. They are just holding their breath, in gridlock standstill. There’s this helplessness," he said. "This place that has been a mother to you, that you’re a mother to as well, and it’s suffering so much. There is nothing you can do but send out love and remain in that sorrowful state.”

Done in collaboration with producer Noah Georgeso, the album was first recorded in an old temple in Kyoto, before both of them headed back to Los Angeles studios.

The artists' voice and guitar are supported by organic sounding instruments such as brass, woodwinds and keyboards while the overall atmosphere oscillate between lighthearted and melancholic. Three tracks are in Spanish, which Banhart speaks fluently, and one in Portuguese.

MA is available to pre-order here.

Nonesuch Store pre-orders include an exclusive, limited-edition print, created and signed by Banhart.