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Listen To A New Song By Mates Of State

Mates Of State's new EP, <em>You're Going To Make It</em>, comes out June 16.
Shervin Lainez
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Courtesy of the artist
Mates Of State's new EP, You're Going To Make It, comes out June 16.

Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel aren't the first married couple to write songs about the challenges and celebrations inherent to lifelong love, but few focus more intently on a sense of play. Still, there's nothing naive or unrealistic about their songs: When they sing, "Love loud / Don't lose loud" in 2008's "The Re-Arranger," they're taking care to package a sweet little two-word slogan with a subtle but potent reminder that loving loudly is a job of endless maintenance.

"Staring Contest" opens a new five-song Mates Of State EP with a June 16 release date and the characteristically optimistic title You're Going To Make It. Casting the heady swoon of courtship as a game of intense focus ("It's all about you / I'm wild about you"), "Staring Contest" practically bursts with the giddy excitement of new love. But, taken in the context of Mates Of State's long history — nearly two decades as a couple, complete with two children and seven full-length albums together — newness is a state of mind rather than a reality. Like loudness, it never needs to fade.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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