Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson, and Josette Maskin—a.k.a. MUNA—announced earlier this year that their self-titled album is coming on June 24 via Saddest Factory Records. They shared the news with the second single following last year's Phoebe Bridgers–featuring "Silk Chiffon" titled "Anything But Me," and today they've returned with another new track: the self-acceptance country slow-burner "Kind of Girl."
"This song is the album’s country moment, and in some ways we feel it is the heart of the record," Gavin explained. "This song explores the power of language and the words we use to describe who we are and who we want to be. Even though it is a happy, hopeful song, I shed the most tears of the record in the vocal booth recording this chorus. I think there’s something very vulnerable about plainly expressing my desire to be kinder to myself and comfortable receiving love (and my desire to garden even though I kill everything I plant).”
In video directed by Taylor James, the trio is found in a country house wearing cowboy hats and various forms of facial hair. “The video for this song highlights another layer of meaning that we feel the song holds, which is that we as queer people are particularly vulnerable when we are sharing how we identify and how we would like to be perceived," Gavin added in regards to the visual. "We wanted to play with the gendered nature of this song because we all three have different relationships to girlhood (and Naomi is non-binary, so not a girl at all!)... The experience brought home the fact that it’s not enough for queer and trans people to be clear about who we are—we also need a community around us that hears us, believes us, honors us, and supports us.“
Watch the video below, and revisit our cover story on the full Saddest Factory roster here.
