After a five-year hiatus, British folk rock band Mumford & Sons have finally returned with their new single ‘Good People’ in an unlikely collaboration with musical all-rounder Pharrell. The surprise single marks their first original release since ‘Blind Leading The Blind’ in 2019.

Celebrating over a decade of friendship and sporadic conversations while touring festivals, band members Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett and Ted Dwane reconnected with the iconic producer turned fashion creative last summer during his Something In The Water Festival at Virginia Beach in North America.

After multiple songwriting sessions, the two camps went on to record the song together in New York and Paris. The track also features haunting backing vocals from a talented six-piece choir known as Native Vocalists, whose origins hail from Native American Tribes within the Great Northern Plains.

The uplifting, gospel-inspired track had its debut performance at Paris Fashion Week during Pharrell’s Louis Vuitton Menswear Autumn/Winter 2024 runway show on January 16. The band was joined by Pharrell and the Native Vocalists in a special, one-off live set for all 1,300 attendees.

Proving to be a powerful tool for showcasing new music, the runway performance lies in situ with other live debuts curated by the producer. ‘Joy (Unspeakable)’, a collaboration between Williams and gospel choir Voices of Fire, was performed at his first Paris show last June, followed by a performance of ‘Airplane Tickets’ alongside Swae Lee and Rauw Alejandro at his pre-fall 2024 show in Hong Kong last November.

Although some fans might be surprised by the collaboration with the British trio, this isn’t the first time Williams has teamed up with artists from opposite ends of the spectrum, working with the likes of Daft Punk, Calvin Harris, Beck, and Tame Impala.

Williams has also been informally credited as one of the driving forces behind Maggie Rogers’ career, as seen in a viral video of him listening to and praising her song ‘Alaska’ during a music majors’ workshop and masterclass at The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University (NYU).

The renowned London band seem to be choosing their partnerships wisely, honing in on other artists who share a clear mutual respect for music. In October last year, the group teased unsuspecting fans at the Austin City Limits Music Festival by bringing on surprise guest Noah Kahan to perform a simplified rendition of unreleased track ‘Maybe’, another of what appears to be many impressive features on their upcoming album, their first since ‘Delta’ in 2018.

You can listen to the new single ‘Good People’ here.