Superchunk surprise-release new winter EP featuring Wham, Magnetic Fields covers

The EP is available digitally right now. It includes “The Shortest Day of the Year (No Tinsel Mix)”, accompanied by a lyric video featuring a bunch of dogs named Birdy, Stevie, and Bart. It was shot by the band's Mac McCaughan, Laura Ballance, and Laura King, and edited by Csenge Balazs. The record also features covers of Wham!’s “Last Christmas”, The Magnetic Fields’ “The Blizzard of ’78”, and Galaxie 500’s “Snowstorm”, alongside “Have You Seen It in the Snow?”.

A limited-edition double seven-inch is available to pre-order via Superchunk’s Bandcamp page and Merge Records. Pressed on white vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket, it is limited to 500 hand-numbered copies and is scheduled to ship on 4 December 2026. The release notes also tease a different version of “The Shortest Day of the Year”, with Merge set to reveal details on 11 November.

McCaughan said the band sees seasonal songs as “a fun puzzle to solve” – writing a song or finding a cover in the same theme that many artists have explored, and finding a way to put their own stamp on it. (Let's not forget their 2020 Halloween single “There’s a Ghost” and all the Misfits covers over the years!) He added that recording five songs for the EP gave them “more room than usual to stretch out... light a fire and crank it up!”