Ducks Ltd. and Martin Courtney Team Up for a Gorgeous Go-Betweens Cover Ahead of Tour With Yumi Zouma

There is a direct line from the Go-Betweens to Ducks Ltd., and today they're making that connection explicit. The Toronto indie-pop duo have teamed up with Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney for a cover of "Easy Come, Easy Go," a deep-catalog gem from the late Grant McLennan's 1991 solo debut Watershed. The track is out now on Carpark Records.

The pairing makes too much sense. Both Ducks Ltd. and Real Estate deal in the kind of chiming, sun-streaked guitar pop that traces its DNA back through decades of jangle: the Go-Betweens, Felt, the Pastels, the Clean. McLennan, who died in 2006, was one of the finest songwriters in that tradition, and "Easy Come, Easy Go" is a characteristically effortless piece of writing, the kind of song that sounds like it wrote itself but probably didn't.

Ducks Ltd. singer and guitarist Tom McGreevy explained the choice in a statement: "We're on the record as being big Go-Betweens fans, and this song is from my favorite Go-Between Grant McLennan's first solo record from right after the band broke up. I think it's one of his best songs. It uses figurative language in a way that feels plain spoken and direct, and it incorporates contemporary imagery in a way that feels timeless. If it had been on a Go-Betweens album, it would have been one of their classics."

The collaboration came together in a single day at Courtney's studio in Beacon, New York, during a break in touring. McGreevy noted the ease of working with someone whose instincts run parallel to their own: "Our overall processes and instincts were super similar, but he had some insights and ideas we would never have arrived at on our own."

It's the latest in a run of collaborative releases from Ducks Ltd. since their 2024 album Harm's Way. They've put out tracks with Ratboys' Julia Steiner and Moontype's Margaret McCarthy, and covered Camera Obscura's "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" with Lunar Vacation's Gep Repasky. The pattern suggests a band that's happiest when the circle widens, pulling in friends and fellow travelers from the same jangle-adjacent orbit.

Starting this Wednesday, Ducks Ltd. head out on a 12-date tour with New Zealand dream-pop group Yumi Zouma. The run opens in Washington, D.C. at Black Cat on April 30 and winds through Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Cambridge, Toronto, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego before wrapping May 20 at Belly Up Tavern. Good rooms, good routing, good company.