Jenny Lewis – “Under The Supermoon” (Feat. Habib Koité)

Last year, Jenny Lewis released her excellent all-star album On The Line, played a whole lot live shows, and launched her own strain weed. We can’t possibly expect her to be that busy in 2020, but she’s starting things f well enough. Today, Lewis unveils the video for “Under The Supermoon,” a new song that she wrote and recorded for a benefit compilation.

“Under The Supermoon” starts out the way a whole lot Jenny Lewis songs start out: An intimately picked guitar, a crystalline voice, and a few eloquently relatable lyrics: “I never had such a fright / I gasped on election night / The whole world thinks we’re insane.” But from there, the song adapts a lilting beat that’s far afield from Lewis’ usual classically Californian singer-songwriter music. The song is a collaboration with the Malian singer and guitarist Habib Koité, who interpolates the Malian traditional “Mama Donguilo” into the song. It’s a cool fusion from an artist who always sounds like she’s in her comfort zone. Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Lewis calls the song “a travelogue sorts processed in real time… It’s a love song that was] written in Jacmel floating in the Caribbean Sea under the supermoon November 2016.”

There’s a video, too. Lewis starts it f sitting in a staircase. By the time it ends, she and Koité are partying around a bonfire. The track will appear on the new benefit compilation Let The Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1, alongside songs from people like Jackson Browne and Jonathan Wilson. We’ve already heard Lewis team up with Wilson, Browne, and Sanba Zao on the song “Lapé, Lanmou.” Check out the video for “Under The Supermoon” below, Entertainment Weekly.

Let The Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1 is out 1/31.