The Key Studio Sessions: Friendship

Since we stumbled across Maine-to-Philly transplants Friendship earlier this year, we’ve been hooked. The band’s simmering, tempered take on meditative Americana struck a huge chord – Dan Wriggins’ emotive vocals and vivid lyrics about companionship and disconnection, Michael Cormier’s restrained drums, Peter Gill’s expressive pedal steel. Like I said in our feature profile of Friendship earlier this fall, “it’s reminiscent of Pedro the Lion and Jason Molina, but also of Gram Parsons and George Jones.”

With that rich tapestry of influence, the band released its excellent debut LP You’re Going to Have to Trust Me in October on Burst and Bloom Records and embarked on a short fall tour with Abi Reimold. Back in town, they’re gearing up for a gig at West Philly’s All Night Diner on Monday, December 14th, and stopped by WXPN Studios to record a Key Sessions Set featuring highlights from the album as well as a couple surprises. Alongside moving performances of “The New Normal,” “He Said ‘You Seemed So Much in Luv'” and the aching solo acoustic “EL,” they dug into their back catalog (aka the home-recorded YouTube-only EP The Further You Kick, The Bigger It Gets) for the simmering “Darla” and opened the set with a rousing new number called “Familiar.”

Stream the set below, grab a free download at our Soundcloud page and get more information about their December 14th gig at its Facebook event page.