Listen: Twisted Pine shows its sassy side on 'Chanel Perfume'

This is an exclusive song premiere, part of WBUR's effort to highlight New England musicians.

When Twisted Pine fiddler Kathleen Parks was growing up, her mother developed a bar that Parks’ dating prospects had to clear. “She’d say ‘Well, is he good enough to send you a bottle of Chanel perfume?’ It became a family joke,” laughs Parks.

That memory came back when the Boston-based, internationally touring acoustic quartet was writing “Chanel Perfume,” a funky song about moving on from a bad situation. “Just because I’ll take it/ Don’t mean I’ll keep taking it from you,” Parks and guest background vocalist Ali McGuirk assert. Underneath them, bassist Chris Sartori and mandolinist Dan Bui keep a hard groove while Anh Phung takes a fiery flute solo. Like much of Twisted Pine’s music, it’s a successful experiment as it bridges the passion of R&B with stellar acoustic musicianship.

When the band was writing material for its third album, “Love Your Mind” (out Oct. 18 on Northampton’s Signature Sounds label), Bui came up with the original verse. While toying with it, he thought his parts would work for “a song about someone who feels unappreciated, and that their partner needs to be pulling their weight a little bit.”

Some parts of the song developed over text messages. While touring in Sisters, Oregon, Bui and Parks sat on a porch and worked out what Parks calls the “sassy parts.” The song’s title comes from a verse where the newly independent protagonist bemoans the times they got ready for a night on the town, only to be disappointed at how they were “wasting my Chanel perfume.”

The song’s classic soul vibe came naturally to a band that has progressed from a bluegrass-leaning group to a groove-oriented string and flute unit, says Sartori. “We coalesced all of those ingredients that we've been stirring together over the past eight years to create this texture,” he says.

As the song progresses, McGuirk calls and responds to Parks. The idea to include the Boston R&B/folk favorite came about because “it’s such a vocally dense and vocal forward song,” explains Sartori, a longtime friend and collaborator of McGuirk.

“It was like a really nice vocal blend because where my range starts to end, Ali can keep going.,” says Parks. “And we thought about how with older [soul] recordings, the singers in the background bring so much strength to what the lead is doing. They really solidify the vocal arrangement.”

With no guitar in the band, Phung says she and Bui have learned how to trade off keeping a song’s rhythm with flute and mandolin. “And then I felt like it deserved a ripping solo in the middle,” she says, “because it’s so sassy, and it just felt like the time to have this wild, seemingly uncontrolled solo, and then Kathleen comes back ad-libbing the chorus, which also gives it this wild vibe.”

Like many of the soul classics that inspired it, “Chanel Perfume” is on the surface a song about a relationship, but it’s also about the need to assert independence and stand up for oneself in any facet of life.

And just like the message of the song, the perfume's namesake also emulates that independence. “Coco Chanel wanted to make clothes and fragrances that women could wear and feel both strong and elegant. I feel like she embodied that sense of independence, strength, and taking your power back.”

“Chanel Perfume” will be released on Aug. 20. Twisted Pine celebrates the release of its album “Love Your Mind” on Nov. 30 at The Sinclair in Cambridge with Damn Tall Buildings.

Note: The audio for WBUR's music premieres comes down after the track is released. You could still listen to the track via the streaming service embed above.