smush have announced their new album i’ll always wish, will arrive on January 22nd, 2027 via DSPs. Along with the news, the Brooklyn band have shared the LP’s single “milkweed butterfly,” paired with a Henry Nelson-directed video. “Written from the perspective of a child experiencing anxiety and depression with no way to understand or contextualize those feelings, creating ‘milkweed butterfly’ was a way for Emily to make sense of the instability of immigrating to the United States,” explains Atley. “Beginning as a stripped down demo with midi drums, it was honed through multiple lineups of band members and finally came together in the studio with Jackson Baker (witches exist). smush Emily Borrowman (bass/vocals) and Atley King (guitars), joined by the newly expanded lineup of Rudi Neubrander (drums) and Wilson Woods (keys) The band are currently on a North American tour supporting She’s Green and will embark on headlining shows across the West Coast and Midwest in November.

The process of making standards encouraged Emily and Atley to examine the work of songwriters they admired, allowing them to push their songcraft to new heights while writing the new album. Following advice from their friend Richard Orofino of Sex Week, the duo wrote full songs on guitar only and kept early production as limited as possible, tracking demos in Garageband or to tape. “That’s been inspirational for me for the last several years, just to realize how far something can go in a really limited environment,” Atley notes. The band recorded with Jackson Baker of witches exist in Austin, Texas. “The writing was uncomplicated and streamlined, but the final product was raised as high as it could go on the production side,” adds Atley. The resultant record features some of the band’s catchiest material to date.

Emily was prompted by her and Atley’s move from Vancouver, BC to Brooklyn to reflect on the chapter of her life that was closing; across the album, she grapples with girlhood, grief, and lost innocence. On “mourning dove” she mournfully examines the pressure placed on girls to grow up quickly and the trauma that can come from it (“Big girls don’t cry / I’ll be big tonight / Dry my own eyes”). Through their vulnerable songwriting, the band aims to create community and connection, particularly with other young women. “That’s something that I am pretty intentional with in our music: singing to a girl audience and singing about my experience,” Emily says. It’s a priority inspired by her day job as a tattoo artist, in which she regularly meets and has life-affirming conversations with female clients: “I’m always in these beautiful situations where I’m having these connections with these girls. It’s really art-driven, and very meaningful and deep, and I think that can’t help but bleed into the music that we make.”

i’ll always wish,, serves as a reminder that, in everything they do, smush are singularly passionate and unapologetically ambitious. “I feel like in all art, there’s a pressure to seem like you got here without trying, or that your art was just so good that it just would have happened no matter what. And that’s a very cool story for one to have, but it invalidates some of the hard work that it takes to have something be successful,” Emily notes. “The recording process involved many people in a room who cared deeply about what we were making. It was a really beautiful time of just stepping into a room and being like, okay, we need to make something perfect.”

smush
I’ll always wish
Tracklist

1. mourning dove
2. john dearly
3. you’d stay
4. scissors
5. is this why
6. milkweed butterfly
7. u too
8. dog song
9. true

smush 2026 North American Tour Dates

09/29 – Iowa City, IA – Gabe’s %
09/30 – Indianapolis, IN – The HiFi %
10/01 – Detroit, MI – Crypt at Sanctuary %
10/02 – Windsor, ON – Meteor %
10/03 – Toronto, ON – Hard Luck %
10/04 – Montreal, QC – Bar Le Ritz %
10/06 – Somerville, MA – The Rockwell %
10/07 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right %
10/08 – Philadelphia, PA – Warehouse on Watts %
10/09 – Washington, D.C. – DC9 %
10/10 – Charlotte, NC – Snug Harbor %
10/12 – Nashville, TN – DRKMTTR %
10/13 – Atlanta, GA – Purgatory %
10/14 – New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa %
10/16 – Houston, TX – Moon Tower Inn %
10/17 – Austin, TX – Brushy St. Commons %
10/18 – Dallas, TX – Club Dada %
10/20 – Albuquerque, NM – Launchpad %
10/21 – Mesa, AZ – Rosetta Room %
10/22 – Indio, CA – Dune Room %
10/23 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy %
10/25 – San Francisco, CA – Neck of The Woods
10/27 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre
10/29 – Seattle, WA – Black Lodge
11/01 – Vancouver, BC – Green Auto
11/04 – Saskatoon, SK – Back Cat Tavern
11/05 – Regina, SK – The Exchange
11/08 – Chicago, IL – Cobra Lounge
11/09 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups
11/11 – Pittsburgh, PA – Bottlerocket
11/12 – Cleveland, OH – The Foundry
11/14 – Syracuse, NY – The Song and Dance

% supporting She’s Green

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