Kacey Musgraves announces ‘Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes,’ out January 15, and shares two new songs
Kacey Musgraves is not finished with the middle of nowhere. The country auteur has announced Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes, a 16-track companion to her 2026 album, arriving January 15, 2027. To mark the reveal, she shared two new songs, “Weekend In Texas” and “Mi Tesoro,” and laid out a project that leans hard into the Tex-Mex and Mexican musical traditions that hummed beneath the parent record.
The framing matters. Where a standard deluxe edition tends to function as leftovers repackaged, Tex Mex Tapes is positioned as a deliberate second chapter. The 16 tracks split into 11 originals and five covers, and crucially, four of them are sung entirely in Spanish. For an artist of Musgraves’ stature, that is a creative statement, not a bonus-disc afterthought.
A Companion That Crosses the Border
The Spanish-language material is the heart of the project’s identity. It includes a version of “Uncertain, TX” reworked with Mexican-American band Intocable, previously issued as a standalone collaboration, and a cover of the Norteño classic “Mi Tesoro,” rendered here in a patient, reverb-heavy arrangement. The tracklist also features “Tú Solo Tú,” recorded live in Mexico City with Mariachi Oro De América, deepening the record’s dialogue between Texas and Mexico.
The other new song pulls in the opposite direction, geographically speaking. “Weekend In Texas” is a love letter to Musgraves’ home state and the particular pleasure of partying in it, a reminder that the Tex in Tex-Mex is as much a part of her DNA as the Mex. Together, the two releases sketch the record’s thesis: these sounds are not separate traditions she is visiting, but a single cultural geography she comes from.
That lineage gives the companion a weight beyond novelty. Country music’s relationship with Mexican and regional Mexican music has become one of the more compelling conversations in the genre, and Musgraves, a Texan with deep roots in that border culture, is well placed to explore it without the whiff of tourism. Tex Mex Tapes reads as an artist following a thread she has always carried rather than chasing a trend.
Extending a Standout Album
The companion builds on an original that was already one of Musgraves’ most acclaimed. Middle of Nowhere, her seventh studio album, arrived May 1, 2026 on Lost Highway Records and found her leaning into solitude and what she called “liminal space, both geographical and emotional.” Being alone, she said, felt “incredible,” and she described the record as “existing in a space not defined by anyone else.”
It was also a collaborator-rich affair, featuring Miranda Lambert on “Horses and Divorces,” Willie Nelson on “Uncertain, TX,” Gregory Alan Isakov on “Coyote,” and Billy Strings on “Everybody Wants to Be a Cowboy.” Tex Mex Tapes extends that spirit of partnership outward, swapping some of Nashville and Americana’s marquee names for the regional Mexican and Norteño acts who inform the sound at its root.
The announcement also caps a banner touring cycle. Musgraves’ 2026 Middle of Nowhere Tour wraps with West Coast shows in Oakland and Seattle, and she has already mapped a 2027 UK run with dates in Glasgow on February 22, Manchester on February 24, and London on February 26, giving the new material a stage soon after release.
For a songwriter who has spent her career resisting the expected move, a companion album that doubles as a bilingual, border-crossing statement feels entirely on brand. Middle of Nowhere Vol. 2: Tex Mex Tapes arrives January 15, 2027, with “Weekend In Texas” and “Mi Tesoro” out now as its first taste.
