As Fiver, songwriter, vocalist, researcher, and guitarist Simone Schmidt continues to innovate in the Country and Folk music traditions with humour and gravity. Cleaning House arrives after a period of loss, of friends and paradigms and metaphor. The singer had all but given up on song. But after consulting a psychic who gave them a ritual for purging their apartment of stuck energy, Schmidt applied the same process to Cleaning House. Suddenly the nagging melodies and unfinished phrases that littered the mind came into focus, some molten feelings that had hardened called to be enshrined, and some wilting tunes were reinvigorated by new players. Here they introduce the Fiver Trois: drummer Nate Doucet, bassist Jeremy Costello, and steel player Dani Crowther, balancing tight songs with sprawling improvisational passages, delivered with dynamic energy and palpable affection. Fiver's lyrics refuse sloganeering but remain political, deploying wit and poetry to detangle the knot of our human condition under late-stage capitalism. Cleaning House joins Fiver's impressive discography, critically acclaimed for it's warmth and rigour and spanning collaborations with old-time musicians Lonesome Ace String Band on Audible Songs From Rockwood (2017) to free music improvisers in Fiver with the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition (named best music of 2021 by the Guardian UK). Despite evading the logic of the commercial music industry, their presence is felt. Their songs are covered widely, most notably by U.S. Girls and Stripmall Ballads. Most recently, their collaboration with Destroyer, the song Bologna, was named one of the Top 100 songs of 2025 by Pitchfork.