Kacey Musgraves Announces Tex Mex Companion Album, Due January 15
Kacey Musgraves has announced a new album, Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes, due for release on January 15 through the label Lost Highway. Pitchfork reported the reveal, which came on 22 October. The record is a companion album, meaning a follow-up that sits alongside an earlier release, to Middle of Nowhere, which is Musgraves' sixth studio album.
The new set runs to 16 tracks. Eleven are new songs and five are covers, which are versions of songs first recorded by other artists. Four songs are sung entirely in Spanish, according to the official Musgraves store.
The tracklist includes "Pretty Horses," "Weekend in Texas," "Hard Conversations," "Denim on Denim," "Figure Out My Life," "Caballero," "The Vacation Song," "(Hey Baby) Qué Pasó?," "Mi Tesoro," "Rodeo," "Tú Solo Tú," "All My Exes (Kacey's Version)," "Desert Eyes," "Pity Party" and "Before the Next Teardrop Falls." One of the highlights for listeners who know the original is a Spanish version of "Uncertain, TX," recorded with the Mexican band Intocable.
The announcement came with a plan for two songs. Musgraves was set to release "Weekend in Texas" and her version of "Mi Tesoro" at midnight Eastern Daylight Time, the US East Coast clock, on the night of the announcement.
The album continues a thread from the first record. Rolling Stone reported in October that the project explores the history of the Texas borderland, the region along the US-Mexico line, by drawing on música mexicana, which means Mexican regional music. Earlier in the year, Musgraves had shared a video for "Mexico Honey," a track from Middle of Nowhere, in July. Her tour for that album started in Chicago in August. In April, the brothers Antonio, Caleb and Joshua Gámez-Cuéllar, who play mariachi, the trumpet-and-guitar ensemble style from Mexico, were announced to perform at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas, as part of the tour.
Fans can buy the album in several formats. The official store lists a signed CD at $17.00 and a signed Classic Black vinyl at $38.00, both in US dollars. It also lists an unsigned Classic Black vinyl, a standard CD and a digital album.
The January date gives listeners a few months to sort out which format suits them. For now, the songs that have been shared are the best guide to what the record sounds like.
