The San Francisco-based alt-rock group have announced a digital deluxe version of their 2020 album, Temple. 

The re-release, out October 29, features acoustic renditions of ‘How Could I’, ‘Marauders’, ‘Marrow’, and ‘Temple’.

Scheduled for release on October 29, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down are re-visiting their latest album from last year with Temple – Deluxe Edition.

The forthcoming digital release will feature acoustic versions of ‘How Could I’, ‘Marauders’, ‘Marrow’, and ‘Temple’.

To help promote the announcement, the five-member band shared the ‘Strings Version’ of ‘Marrow’ as well as a music video for the original track.

Directed by Linda Green, the video tells the story of a woman in love learning to heal herself to become a better partner.

Leading member Thao comments,

“‘Marrow’ is a declaration, an apology, a release, and a love song. Until the album Temple, I had not explored nor cultivated the gift and the right of the pure love song, due to many external and internal barriers to me being fully out in my career. I wrote it just before my partner and I got married in late 2019. I knew from the beginning that “Marrow” would close the album; I knew I would need it to punctuate an end and more importantly, a beginning. I am so thrilled for “Marrow” to have its own visual life. Shooting this video helped anchor me even more in the love and resolve that propelled “Marrow.” Endless thanks to director Linda Mai Green and her fantastic team for giving me the opportunity to physically do what I have been trying to figuratively get at for so long: destroy artifice and defense and false altars, tear away shame and guilt strip by strip, and to be light and free enough to join my life and love, already in progress.” 

Last year, the group performed a session for NPR’s Tiny Desk, which served as the basis in developing the deluxe edition for Temple.

Thao is currently touring in the US as a supporting act for singer-songwriter Julien Baker. She is slated to perform on The Lantern Tour next month, joining the likes of Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle, among others.

The proceeds from the tour will benefit the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Temple, the fifth studio album released by the band last year in May, is a significant record for Thao. The album takes pride in the singer being Vietnamese, but also explores the story of her coming out as queer.

She says,

“One evening in Saigon, after a family gathering, my mother said to me, quite out of nowhere: ‘You have to understand for yourself what it means to be free. You have to learn for yourself why a million people would risk dying at sea. What is it about freedom. I can’t do that for you. You have to learn for yourself.’…I remember wondering what that would mean for me, if I’d ever have the occasion to truly consider and learn what it meant to be free. This moment, four years later, became the heart and bones of the lead single ‘Temple,’ and thus, the entire album.”

The music video for ‘Phenom’ earned praised from The Washington Post, declaring it as “the first great Zoom music video.” Variety shared the sentiment, complimenting the video as “brilliantly creative use of technology and choreography.”

Listen to Temple via Spotify below.