Islands has announced the release of their new single, “Boll Weevil,” alongside a visual which is directed by the band’s Evan Gordon. The song, not attributed to any single author, has been passed around in the folk and blues tradition for many years and has existed in American recorded music for more than a century, starting with Ma Rainey’s “Bo Weavil Blues,” which was recorded in 1923.

Charley Patton and Lead Belly recorded their own “Boll Weevil” songs in 1929  and 1934, the latter of which became quite well known and inspired various  renditions from Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Eddie Cochran, Tex Ritter and many others.

Commenting on the creative process behind “Boll Weevil,” Nick Thorburn of Islands says: “As a rare formalist exercise, I tried my hand at writing a ‘boll weevil’ song, using the motif not  to write a song about agricultural scarcities, but about another great device of rock & roll, blues, and R&B romantic courtship. We aimed to capture something trashy and bluesy in the R&B garage rock tradition of bands from the 1960s, so I knew this song had to be recorded completely  live. We did it in one take without headphones, as the band played together in a room, letting the drums and amps bleed into each other.”