Du Blonde shares "Mind is on My Mind" featuring Future Islands' Samuel T. Herring -- listen

Ben Kaye

March 31, 2015 | 1:45pm ET

The British musician formerly known as Beth Jeans Houghton will make her debut as Du Blonde on May 19th with Welcome Back to Milk (via Mute). She gave an early peek at her new persona back in February with “Black Flag”, and now she’s released another advanced listen of the record in the form of “Mind is on My Mind”, featuring none other than Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands.

“Mind is on My Mind” is a fun trip down a twisted mind, part psychedelic freakout, part breezy pop number. “I wrote ‘Mind Is On My Mind’ on the back of a motorbike riding down the Pacific Coast Highway in LA,” Houghton said in a press release, “and had to remember it all the way from Topanga to Malibu. I was interested at the time in writing songs with no repeating sections, but rather a succession of acts.”

Herring comes in at the midway point, delivering lines like “What’s love?/ It breaks just like an egg/ When I’m with you” in his trademark baritone alternating between melodic highs and guttural growls. “I played him the track and he got in the booth and ad-libbed his lyrics over the instrumentation,” Houghton recalled, saying the pair had just returned from a trip to the desert. “He was done in like one or two takes. When I was back in London I’d become obsessed with these Middle Eastern and Greek guitar scales and I added the lead guitar in the outro as a contrast to Sam’s vocals.”