How To Dress Well has contributed a cover of Xiu Xiu’s  ‘Clowne Towne’ to a fundraiser compilation for start-up publication Ad Hoc, the new venture from Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander, creators of the late Altered Zones.

“Xiu Xiu is one of my all-time favorites,” says HTDW, aka Tom Krell. “I want to hang with Jamie Stewart so badly! Fabulous Muscles is one of my all-time fave records, and ‘Clowne Towne’ is definitely in my top 10 all-time songs. I love the musical composition so much, but I’m especially attracted to the story, the openness of it, the way it treats incredibly complex emotions in a language that is deeply sad but not falsely heavy – very straightforward and almost trite but never cliché, and never totally transparent.

“I was going to do something else until like two minutes before recording…I was in Sydney to play a show and right before I went on the radio to sing I was going to do my song ‘Decisions’ – but I was tired, a bit worn down, and ‘Clowne Towne’ just felt right…I actually hadn’t listened to the song for maybe three or four months when I sang it!”

Read the full interview with Krell, in which he talks about his upcoming sophomore album, here.