Raleigh-based singer-songwriter Canon Pence, who records as Twilark, has shared a new single, "Prettiest Way to Die," premiering through Under the Radar ahead of his sophomore album, Never Learned the Tide, out September 11.
The song continues the lush, tender indie folk sound Pence introduced on his debut album, The Taming Ties Create, last year, built around contributions from pedal steel player Spencer Cullum and Maya De Vitry on banjo and fiddle, with production from Dominic Billett and harmonies from fellow singer-songwriter Erin Rae.
Pence said the song grew out of a drive through North Carolina in the spring of 2024. "I started noticing these beautiful purple flowers climbing up trees alongside roadways," he said. "I hadn't remembered seeing them in NC as a kid, so I looked it up." What he found was that the wisteria was slowly choking the plants it grew on. "There's something darkly poetic about being smothered by something beautiful until you succumb, so slowly that you hardly even notice," he said.
Singer Hannah Wyatt, whose gothic folk music Pence said he became "obsessed" with over the past year, joins him on the track's haunting harmonies, a style he called "perfectly fitting for this one."
"Prettiest Way to Die" follows two earlier singles from the album, "No Cowboy Song" and "Tired to Sleep," and joins a run of new indie folk releases tracked on the release calendar ahead of Never Learned the Tide's September 11 arrival.
The facts
- New single 'Prettiest Way to Die' premiered via Under the Radar
- Sophomore album Never Learned the Tide out September 11
- Features Spencer Cullum on pedal steel and Maya De Vitry on banjo and fiddle
- Singer Hannah Wyatt provides harmonies on the track
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