Cooper Smith was born in Mobile, AL and raised in Tennessee; Ayako Okano was born in Tokyo, and lived there as a child before relocating to Seattle. Besides their shared shine towards music at a very young age- Smith started his first band when he was ten, Okano started training on classical piano at age five- the two could hardly have been raised in more different geographical and cultural circumstances. Yet fate, it seems, brought them together at an instrument shop in Seattle, where they shared their love of music and their knowledge of instruments, swapping tales about the highs and lows of working as a gigging musician. A collaboration felt inevitable, and after some trial and error, the two formed Vicious Petals. With the help of a talented team, the duo is gearing up to release their first album, Main Street Lights, which they recorded with producer Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers) and engineer Jerry Streeter (Brandi Carlile) on a two-inch tape at Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, WA.

Today, Elmore is premiering “Treachery,” a sexy, soulful track from the upcoming release. Beginning with a vampy, 60s pop-chart style piano intro and easing into gently paced doo-wop swing, the song feels playful from the first note to the last, but Cooper’s ragged croon drives home the emotional backbone of the track. “This song means so very much to me,” Okano says, “it was the first song that Cooper and I worked on actually writing together, we’d worked primarily on arranging old jazz and soul tunes together in the past. It was the beginning of a different kind of musical relationship for us.” Smith shares a similar sentiment, recalling those first, electric moments of creative collaboration. “Treachery is the first song we wrote as VP,” he shares with Elmore. “It’s also the first song we tracked at Bear Creek Studio for this record. It’s a defiant love song. It’s not a plea to a lover. It’s more of an anthem. Like a fuck you to things that stand in the way of something so important.”

Listen to “Treachery” below.