Acclaimed Newfoundland folk duo Rube & Rake share “Somewhere,“ a pining new single from their forthcoming LP, Leaving With Nothing.

“Somewhere,” their third offering this year, oscillates between Rube & Rake songwriter Joshua Sandu‘s hometown of Prince George, BC and his adopted home in Newfoundland on the opposite end of the country: “Alberta in the fall to keep me fed / Winter in the east to wet my lips.”

“My partner and I bought a house, and the first song written in it was about leaving,” says Sandu. “After moving from one coast to the other, I found myself finally settling down. Still, Canada’s eastern shore hasn’t brought the peace that it was thought to provide. Though I will remain in Newfoundland, my heart will always yearn to be back home.”

Session players Maria Cherwick (fiddle), Josh Ward (bass), and Andrew Sneddon (dobro) lend the song a bluegrass charm, softening the edges of Sandu’s lyrical restlessness: “Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere there’s a place to lay my head / Oh lover will this burden be unshed / There has to be a place to lay my head.”

“Somewhere” comes on the heels of two preview singles, “Fleeting Moment” and “What Will,” as well as an extensive tour of Newfoundland undertaken with Home Routes, a not-for-profit organization that creates new performance opportunities for musicians and audiences in rural, remote and urban, communities across Canada. An extensive spring tour throughout Western Canada to promote the release was cancelled due to the global pandemic.

These new tracks mark the first new music from Rube & Rake’s 2017 debut album Back and Forth, which garnered the St. John’s, NL-based duo multiple Music NL Awards, national charting, and appearances at events such as Folk Alliance International, Lawnya Vawnya, and the Stan Rogers Folk Festival.