While 11 months out of the year it likely comes across as flattering, the thought of hearing your own name mentioned in someone else’s song in the dead of October may send chills down your spine. Such was the case with indie-folk mainstay Matt Pond PA upon hearing Alexa Rose’s 2021 single “Wild Peppermint”—though, based on context clues, it doesn’t seem like it was the eerie type of spine-tingling that Pond was experiencing. “I couldn’t believe that a wildly talented musician would mention my name in a song,” he recalls. “It was almost spooky. Hearing her music flipped the switch on the low-level self-hatred I had humming in the back of my head. There’s nothing greater than being appreciated by someone you admire.”
Fast-forward to the present day and the two songwriters have teamed up on an actual Halloween-themed single, although it isn’t quite as scary as that may sound. “Halloween Two” is a brief duet calmly peddling in horror-film clichés and other Halloween-y imagery applied to interpersonal relationships. Embellished by cello and a viscerally autumnal music video, the track exhibits the strength—and ease—of collaboration between the two artists.
“A couple of years [after hearing ‘Wild Peppermint’], I asked Alexa if she’d like to sing on a song I’d written,” Pond continues regarding the collaboration before seemingly unintentionally returning to seasonally appropriate language. “Then I started sending her tons and tons of music. Which can be scary—you don’t want to frighten your new friends off by being a psycho. But she listened to it all, and the demo she pulled out of the dustbin was ‘Halloween Two,’ a little duet about being the source of our own fears—the monster is me/us.”
While the track only clocks in at two minutes, Pond notes that a full EP is on the way, along with a joint tour. For now, check out the Jesse Dufualt–directed video below.
