Afie Jurvanen isn’t from the Bahamas. He’s a Finnish-Canadian from Barrie - a working class town in rural Ontario. But his chosen epithet is fitting. Since 2009, he’s been making music under the name Bahamas - writing songs about sunsets, love affairs, and making out with crooked smiles. Through simple arrangements, he charts an escape route from the snow belt to the coral reefs.

As the studio follow-up to 2020’s Sad Hunk — an album beloved by the Juno Awards and Ted Lasso music supervisors alike — Bahamas’ sixth full-length, BOOTCUT, sees Jurvanen emerge from the pandemic fog to fully embrace the joys of IRL interaction and the ability to travel freely once again. Produced by Grammy-Nominated Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Jack Johnson, Peach Pit, Alvvays) and Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Rodney Crowell), BOOTCUT was recorded in Nashville’s Sound Emporium. It features Jurvanen backed by a veritable Murderer’s Row of Music City pros, including guitar legend (and current Eagle) Vince Gill, pedal-steel maestro Russ Pahl (Kenny Rogers, Don Williams, Kacey Musgraves), bassist Dave Roe (Sturgill Simpson, Dwight Yoakam, Johnny Cash), harmonica player Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson), and bluegrass legend Sam Bush. So yes, you could call this Bahamas’ “country” album, full of songs rooted in familiar Nashville topics like love, death, and automotive vehicles, and topped with extra dollops of teary twang, mandolin-pluckin’, and saloon-door-swinging rhythm. But BOOTCUT isn’t simply a Bahamas interpretation of country music, it’s a country-music interpretation of Bahamas that puts a sepia-toned spin on Jurvanen’s signature moves using a genre-less blend of Americana, Bluegrass, and all that Bahamas has been known to embody: the funky finesse, the bizarro guitar solos that sound like they’re beaming in from Mars, and the ever-so-sly storytelling that filters timeless themes through a distinctly modern lens.