KING TUFF - MOO - MUP / THIRTY TIGERS

Following the release of 2023’s Smalltown Stardust, King Tuff, the moniker of Burlington, Vermont artist Kyle Thomas, found himself a bit lost. He had felt lost since 2016. Both Smalltown Stardust and 2018’s The Other had been departures from his sound, and while they were both new sonic places that he needed to explore, neither album felt all that fun to perform live. Every show he would just be looking forward to playing his older, wilder material. So when he decided to make a new record, it only seemed right to go back to what has always brought him the most joy, Rock & Roll music.

MOO, King Tuff’s sixth full-length album, due March 27 via his new label MUP Records via Thirty Tigers, is a return to form for Thomas in many ways. He moved back to Vermont, used the same tape machine, a Tascam 388, that he used to record his debut album, King Tuff Was Dead, and played his old, blue, Gibson SG. He even made a physical newspaper that comes with every copy of the album, The Daily Moo.

The first song he recorded for it was “Twisted On A Train”, the album’s opening track and lead single released alongside a video directed, shot and edited by Thomas himself. The track is about taking an overnight train from Tucson to Los Angeles, eating a weed gummy, freaking out and staying up all night in the observation car.

“I wrote and recorded the whole dang song in the span of a few hours, which was basically the opposite of how I had been working in the computer. Spending hours moving waveforms around like a zombie, comping vocals, second guessing, trying to make things sound not lifeless, trying to make anything sound good at all, took months. But here on the tape it was so much more alive. More like painting or collaging. More like making actual music. Every move I made stuck like super glue. It was effortless. It was pure joy,” he says.

All in all, MOO is a full circle moment. A return to form. A return to rock. A return to Vermont. A return to himself. Reconnecting the dots. Restarting the engine. Plugging in the stack. Finally letting King Tuff be King. F*cking. Tuff.

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Now please enjoy this poem which further highlights the various uses and features of MOO:

MOO by KING TUFF is an album that’s new

A MOO of pure joy, an album called MOO

MOO means I love you, in the language of Cow

I MOO when I see you, I’m MOOing right now

I MOO when I miss you, MOO when I dream

MOO when I’m with you, will you MOO for me?

A personal motto, a general rule

For any occasion, a MOO multitool

MOO in the morning, MOO in your car

MOO like a madman, and wish on a star

MOO when you’re happy, or if you’ve got the flu

MOO isn’t boring, that’s why it’s MOO

MOO is a record, an energy stew

MOO is forever, an infinite MOO

MOO calls your landline, and makes you miss home

MOO makes you mutate straight into a gnome

MOO with your lover, MOO like a freak

MOO at the movies, MOO ‘tween the sheets

The past couple years were a little less MOO

A little more tender, a little more blue

But MOO, it turns out, is like riding a bike

Once you learn how, you can MOO your whole life

So when it came time to sing a new song

The MOO that emerged was steady and strong

MOO on my 8 track, MOO on the tape

MOO like Was Dead, Tascam 388

20 years later, a beauMOOtiful sound

Guitars with phaser, and MOOs all around

MOO out on LP, CD and cassette

MOO on your boombox, best KING TUFF yet

MOO made in LA, twenty-twenty-four

A house in Mt. Washington, ‘pon the second floor

Produced by myself, and engineered too

I played most of the instruments, made all of them MOO

And after years of confusion I felt like myself again

MOO made the conclusion that I was an elf again

Now back in Vermont, we all speak in MOO

You can MOO all you want, that can be all you do

MOO for the maple, straight from the tree

MOO in the stable, MOO to be free

For sometimes you just have to MOO for no reason

Yes, a MOO is in order for every season

What else can I say? Nothing but MOO

MOO is myself, MOO is my truth

So MOO if you want, and take a big puff

And thank you for listening, to MOO by KING TUFF.

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King Tuff, 2026