(Peacedale Records, vinyl, digital)
How long does it take to get over a person? Some say one week for every month of the relationship. Others say half the time a couple were together. Indie-folk artist Rachel Baiman of Nashville, Tenn., and Durham, N.C., duo Viv (Leva) & Riley (Calcagno) posit a much more reasonable and poetic metric. It’s right there in the title track of their collaborative new album, a collection of covers that includes a twangy take on Canadian singer-songwriter Lennon Stella’s “Kissing Other People.”
“That’s how I know that your love is gone / That’s how I know I’m really moving on / ‘Cause I don’t feel guilty kissing other people,” the group sings in striking harmony. Warm and imbued with a sense of hard-won wisdom, the acoustic interpretation converts a distinctly modern pop anthem into something rural, spacious and timeless.
The supergroup formed after the singers bonded over their shared love of all things folk and country while on a joint tour in 2022. They soon teamed up with producer Greg Griffith to explore a smattering of songs from artists known for various amounts of folksiness. The trio transforms them into the eight solidly countrified reinventions that compose Kissing Other PPL.
For example, it turns “Ashes of American Flags,” the Beatles-esque emotional core of Wilco’s magnum opus, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, into a homespun fiddle fest with not-so-subtle experimental flourishes. Their take on Dr. Dog’s “Where’d All the Time Go” slows and strips the psychedelic rock song to its studs, building it back up with heaps of banjo and fiddle.
Other interpretations are more faithful, such as their version of eclectic Kittitian English artist Joan Armatrading’s “Woncha Come on Home.” The trio keeps the “Love and Affection” singer’s economical production and turns her subtle harmonies into a central feature.
One of the group’s cleverest renditions, of Dottie West’s “A Lesson in Leavin’,” travels back in time. Like many artists who got started in the 1960s and endured into the new-wave era, the Grand Ole Opry singer had added quite a bit of sheen and sharpness to her sound by the time she released Special Delivery in 1979. Dusty and forlorn, the new track sounds like West might have written it for one of her mid-’60s LPs.
The biggest takeaway from Kissing Other PPL is that most songs have a lot more to say than their original versions can communicate. Baiman, Leva and Calcagno have a knack for tuning disparate material to their particular wavelength and for making their new versions feel genuinely lived-in.
Kissing Other PPL is available at kissingotherppl.bandcamp.com and on major streaming services. The artists perform on Wednesday, August 20, 7 p.m., at Radio Bean in Burlington.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2025.
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