Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Alice Rezende of Canberra, Australia based group, Olivia’s World.
With a blend of twee antiquity and garage rock grit, Olivia’s World exists within an escapist reality, one rooted in perspective and endearing absurdity. Along with Alice, the original trio consists of Joe Saxby on bass and Rose Melberg (Tiger Trap, The Softies, Go Sailor, Knife Pleats) on drums, but as they continue to grow, touring across Australia, Olivia’s World now functions with open collaborations, reeling in indie-pop charmers from all over. With two EPs out, Olivia’s World EP and Tuff 2B Tender, Alice and co. are preparing to release their debut full length album early next year.
Along with the playlist, Alice shared a blurb;
As you can tell by the title, I’ve been maxx-dosing on those Carl Jung pills. It all happened after we recorded the Olivia’s World album this year. I had to reckon pretty hard with the chasm between my waking life and my dream life and start thinking of more productive ways to integrate my shadow which is actually my fun rock ‘n’ roll side.
Initially when putting the playlist together I was thinking of the subjective projections we cast over songs. How indulgent!! These songs resonate with my shadow 110%!! There’s lots of new stuff and some vintage stuff, like the sexy ‘Slammer’ by Tuff Love. There’s a heap of dreamcore songs, like ‘Holden’ by nara’s room and the dream recount in ‘River Valley Road’ by The Drivers. There’s heaps of songs made by my Vancouver and Vancouver-adjacent friends whom I love and miss. And sick Aussie bands like Sylvia and Dumbells. Enjoy! Olivia’s World debut album Greedy and gorgeous will be out in early 2025!!
Earlier this year, the Philadelphia instrumental ensemble Hour released their latest album, Ease the Work, a collection that soars with dynamism and passion, striking both communal and critical acclaim across the board. Made up of ten multi-instrumentalist who perform and record live, Hour is composed and produced by leader Michael Cormier-O’Leary (Friendship, 2nd Grade, Dear Life Records). Today, the group returns with two new songs “Saturday After Payday” and “Absence is a Heady Spice”.
Photo by Michael Cormier-O’Leary
These two songs were recorded as part of the Ease the Work recording session at the Greenwood Playhouse on Peaks Island, off the coast of Portland, Maine, in which the group had to take a ferry to get to with an entire studios worth of equipment. The songs were ultimately left off of the album, yet remained a solid pairing to be released at a separate time.
Playing with a tempered progression, “Saturday After Payday” begins with a steady piano, undeterred with its direction as a string quartet and an electric bass add a firm, yet suave voicing. The track was recorded live by an eight piece iteration, and is “indebted to the work of some classic French pop arrangers, most notedly Jean-Claude Vannier.”
Like the old family heirloom pianos, “Absence is a Heady Spice” holds weight within the simplicity and unevenness, each note played is met by a release – the tension of the sticky keys relieving pressure from the years of use on the piano’s inner workings. “Being the only solo piano piece in a collection of compositions for large ensemble,” Cormier-O’Leary says, “I thought it was funny to name the piece “Absence is a Heady Spice”. Like, ‘where’d the band go?’”
“Saturday After Payday” and “Absence is a Heady Spice” are now available to stream on all platforms. Purchase the two songs here.
Hour is made up of Jason Calhoun (synth), Michael Cormier-O’Leary (guitar, percussion), Em Downing (violin), Matt Fox (viola), Elisabeth Fuchsia (violin), Peter Gill (bass), Lucas Knapp (radio effects, field recordings, piano), Evan McGonagill (cello), Peter McLaughlin (drums), Keith J. Nelson (bass clarinet, clarinet), Erika Nininger (piano, rhodes) and Abi Reimold (electric guitar).
Today, New York’s Toadstool Records has shared Let’s Be Friends: A Tribute to the Beach Boys, a 28-song compilation album of beloved Beach Boys songs benefiting the Billion Oyster Project and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
In a statement, Toadstool’s founder, Caroline Gay, shared, “In the lead up to the United States presidential election, climate change has become a hard reality. The United States’ support of Israel’s military assault on Palestine is not only a humanitarian disaster, but has had an immense effect on the climate. Combined with Donald Trump’s outright denial of climate change and rollback of over 100 environmental regulations during his presidency, the United States’ hand in the global climate catastrophe cannot be ignored.”
The comp includes contributions from artists like Joe Fox, The Fruit Trees, ghost crab, ebb, orbiting, djdj, Billy Plastered, Gavin Serafini, Luca Vincent, Bill Hagan and Friends, Luke Lowrance, Cephalid Breakfast, Daniel Um and many more.
All profits will be split between Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, a grassroots mutual aid network whose mission is to provide crisis relief based on the principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and autonomous direct action, and Billion Oyster Project who works with local communities to restore oyster reefs in New York City. Oyster reefs provide habitat for many species, and can protect New York from storm damage — lessening the impact of large waves, while aiding with flood and erosion control.
About the comp’s album cover, Caroline also shares, “Beach Boys fans will appreciate the artwork for this compilation, a custom piece by Matthew Durkin. It contains references to Smiley Smile (the house, plant on the backside of the album) and Friends (using a very similar typeface as seen on the album cover) all combined to make an original piece for this compilation.”
You can purchase Let’s Be Friends: A Tribute to the Beach Boys exclusively on bandcamp.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Brooklyn-based group Nara’s Room.
Through the deliberation of sifting noise and strong lyrical intuitions, Nara’s Room has always circulated around the production of dreams and the reverie towards real life environments that front-person Nara Avakian so vividly samples from the day to day. Gearing up for their new EP, Glassy star, Nara’s Room has become a standout group here at the ugly hug, leaving your soul crunched and your ears tender, but in no way deterred by the experimental spirit and sincerity of the artists at hand.
About the playlist, Nara shared;
This is essentially what is playing in my room when people are over, or when I’m in the passenger seat of the car. The songs I added to the playlist are songs that have stuck with me for a long time. My bandmates Brendan and Ethan and our producer James added some songs too because they inspired the sound of the record as much as I did. I asked them to add songs that they found themselves referencing when we were writing and recording. Stuff they’d play in their rooms that made them want to pick up their instruments.
Glassy star is set to be released this Friday October 18 via Mtn. Laurel Recording Co. Nara’s Room will be playing an EP release show at Baby’s All Right on November 4th along with Mtn. Laurel label mates Sister. as well as Told Slant. Get tickets here.
Written by Shea Roney | Cyanotype by mamie heldman
If you have ever experienced the rich communal impact of the Chicago music scene, there is a chance that you have caught a performance by guitarist and pedal-steel player, Andy “red” PK, who has become a substantial player in countless Chicago acts such as Free Range, hemlock, Tobacco City and other touring groups. Although PK’s presence in the scene feels matured, established and highly influential, their skills as a songwriter are a new endeavor for them, as last week saw their debut singles as a songwriter, “Bedroom” and “Moving Off the Line”, added to streaming platforms for the first time, marking the start of a new talent that stands out on its own with such sincerity and contextual instinct.
Stemming from immediate inspiration and recorded directly to tape, these singles are brief, yet dense with intention and clarity. “Bedroom” plays within a confined space, a collective exhale – a rummaging of thoughts that plunder our consciousness when the latch of your bedroom door comes to its purposeful resting spot. “And I heard you driving / I looked away too long and I missed you,” PK sings in a hushed whisper, lingering amongst layers of guitars that create a comfort of stringed textures underneath. In a more eager push towards folk-pop, “Moving Off the Line” so cleanly plays to both of PK’s skills as a melody maker and compositional instrumentalist. Progressing with a lively and nostalgic drum track that holsters an array of off-beat accent points, the track still leaves room for the underlying bass to speak for itself as PK’s established guitar voicings kick in. “If anybody told you / That I’m moving off the line / You’d listen close for warnings / But you’d hold on to the signs,” is noted by anyone who lives in Chicago; bustling, pragmatic and essential to navigating a complex city, let alone navigating your own placement on an individual level. Balanced with a string of harmonies that are performed with familiarity in influence, PK’s debut singles already feel timeless at their core.
You can listen to “Bedroom” and “Moving Off the Line” on all streaming platforms now, as well as purchase them at Red PK’s bandcamp.
dog eyes is the lo-fi duo of Hailey Firstman and Davis Leach, who, as of signing to Grand Jury Music, released their sophomore album holy friend last month. This marked an exciting next step for the Oakland-based duo, as they continue to expand their range as well as evolve into their own endearing sound and conceptual vision as a homegrown project.
holy friend is a sonic reverie that flows through full, vibrant and admirable lo-fi production. It is not an album that rejects minimalism, playing amongst a multitude of layered harmonies and textured instrumental tinkerings, but rather one that embraces a process of both trust in the duos collaborative strengths as well as the simplicity in writing what you know best.
The intimacy at which Firstman and Leach perform from feels like the weight of a large and colorful comforter. Hiding underneath one was often what sleepovers were resorted to as a kid – flash light in hand, accidentally blinding one eye at a time, only to keep the party going in forcefully hushed secrecy because you know you were supposed to be asleep an hour ago. Those are the moments that stick to you and dog eyes knows it. As a collection, holy friend is an embodiment of memories like that, the small things; uncontrollable fits of cry-laughing, awkward relational firsts, finally knowing that your roommate’s dog loves you, the last drive in a cherished old car, or simply just making music with your best friend.
We recently got to catch up with the duo, discussing their strengths as collaborators and friends, articulating relationships through unique lenses, defining all goodness through the ‘holy friend’ and obviously, dogs.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Photo by Tyler Hentges
Shea Roney: Congrats on the release! How has it been going since the rollout?
Hailey Firstman: It’s been great! It feels really good to have it out there.
Davis Leach: It’s definitely the most exciting release that we’ve ever done. It’s just been really cool connecting with random people who reach out because they listened to it.
SR: Having worked closely together before on Mr. Marigold and your dog eyes debut, good, proper send off, were there any shifts, not only in your style, but the way you two collaborated that you saw stand out on holy friend?
HL: Well, we initially started working together on my project Mr. Marigold when Davis offered to help me record it and that’s when we first became friends. I feel like with each new thing we’ve done it’s been a progression of our tastes together, and also a progression of what we like when we’re making stuff together. It’s just really fun.
DL: I mean, all of it is just fun. I feel like, at least right now, this is just kind of our hobby. So you know, we both have jobs and whatnot. But with holy friend, [speaking to Hailey] were you living in the Bay Area at that point?
HF: I was probably halfway through moving.
DL: Okay yeah, so that first album, [Hailey] was living like three hours south, so she would come up, and we would just have weekend-long benders of recording music, and that kind of formed our habits. We’d be up really late every night and on Sunday night she would leave at like 2 AM. But when recording holy friend, there was part of it where she was actually living up here.
HF: So it was a little slightly healthier. Maybe a little [laughs].
SR: The album comes together in such a beautiful collage of sounds and textures that still feel cohesive as an overall project. I am wondering where this collective idea came from. Was it brought out with each individual song to match meanings and expressions or was it decided on prior to recording?
HF: I think that we do something where we both get really into specific albums at the same time, where we can’t stop listening to them. We had a couple like that. So it’s definitely some of those albums mixed with what we feel in the song.
DL: Essentially it comes down to everything we can do to rip off this album [laughs]. But then the thing is, it never sounds like it, just because, you know, we’re doing home recording with a synthesizer and like a weird loop pedal that makes weird sounds, so we try and then something else happens and we end up chasing that.
HF: There were definitely some songs where we knew what we wanted them to sound like. The song ‘fair’ was all on GarageBand and my vocals are on my laptop microphone and I recorded them when I was laying in my bed. True bedroom pop [laughs].
SR: I find ‘fair’ to be such a lovely song that holds a lot of nostalgic value in the way it was recorded and produced. Where do you experience auditory nostalgia, and in the case of this song, how did you manage to capture the expressions involved?
DL: I was gonna say adding the voice memo stuff is so easy to achieve that nostalgic feel. And I mean, it’s overused a lot, but I like when it’s just barely in there. If you listen really hard to ‘fair’, you can hear Hailey saying, ‘okay, we’re gonna start on…’ and it makes me think of blowing out birthday candles or something. And then I think just trying your best to go either hyper digital to where it starts to sound messed up and robotic, that is a very nostalgic auditory sound for me. Or going the complete opposite direction, fully analog, like we have this busted up tape machine that we use a lot that is an easy way to make those emotions come out a little more too.
HF: Actually, the recording under ‘fair’ is from a completely other song that me and my friend made, and I just autotuned it to be in the key of the song. But I feel like there’s always nostalgia in hearing a random conversation with a good friend, and I also sped up my voice to be a little higher which kind of sounds like I’m a kid.
SR: I like how the song ‘moment’ feels to be given its very own standout moment on the album, living in this standard pop sound, but also continuing that emotional throughline of nostalgia as well.
HF: Well at first we were very into the idea of our second album being a pop album, like a true pop album. I feel like ‘moment’ is kind of the only actual pop song that came out of our making a pop album [laughs].
DL: But we did try a couple of other ones, but they just didn’t work as well as ‘moment’. That was probably the hardest song for me because it was kind of a pain getting that one done. And then at the end, I feel like we weren’t super happy with it until my roommate Cameron actually started mixing it.
HF: We have certain songs that we call “Hailey GarageBand songs” at first, where I just kind of get crazy with GarageBand or Logic. I wrote ‘moment’ while I was also producing it, which is kind of unlike a lot of other songs I write. But I just remember being very excited when I wrote, “if I could hold this moment in my hands”, and I had to check to make sure no one else has written that yet [laughs]. It can go both ways, it’s earnest and could not be earnest as well, and yeah, kind of hearkens to that early 2000’s cheesy love song, but it’s truly how I felt.
SR: More often than not, when we think of a relationship album, we are prone to think of romantic love or heartbreak. But what I admire so much about holy friend is I can jump from a song about losing a childhood friend to losing a cherished car, and yet it’s still a universal and relatable feeling that is just put through a different and unique lens.Can you tell me about your experience repurposing what a ‘relationship’ album can be?
HF: I think I am just very interested in relationships of all kinds in general and how people fall into patterns. Sometimes even when I am writing a song to understand an experience, even if it’s not an experience I’ve necessarily had before, it’s something I enjoy. Almost like writing a book about something that you’ve never done and putting yourself into a character or experience. You can feel it and you know it. It helps to process my own things.
DL: Yeah, I guess writing a breakup album, you know, happens a lot, but while recording holy friend I was really into thinking about platonic friendships and a lot of the rights and wrongs that can happen in those relationships as well. You can have a love song about a friend or a breakup song about a friend too, and that’s kind of what I was thinking about the whole time.
HF: That’s true, I mean, Nora my car, that’s also a relationship I had. I actually want to make a playlist with all the songs that I’ve written about my car now. But Nora had moss growing inside because there was a little leak in it, so when it rained, the fabric on the top would get wet and it started growing moss, like a free filtration system. But there is something about a big old car that is very emotional, and now I have my mother’s cube car, which is nameless, because it’s just not as cool.
SR: When expressing the idea of the ‘holy friend’, you described it as a perfect being. Can you tell me a bit about where the holy friend comes from and did its presence shift at all while the album was coming together?
DL: At the time I had a lot of friends and people close to me that I either felt I was wronging them or vice versa. I kind of struggle socially sometimes, so I was just thinking about all these different relationships that I have and friendships that I have and I guess I was just kind of combining them all into one person.
HF: [To Davis] I remember when you were first telling me about it, you said it combines the best qualities of them, so it creates an ideal being.
DL: Yeah, now that I think about it, it’s kind of religious. I’m not religious at all, but it is kind of like a God thing. I don’t know.
HF: Like Jesus [laughs].
DL: Yeah, like Jesus [laughs]. I can’t really speak much about religion or anything, but it was kind of like the goodness in all of my friends, and thinking about that makes me feel really good.
SR: Did constructing the holy friend through writing these songs help put your own personal relationships more into perspective? Especially when walking thisfine line with such nuance and consideration when writing about them.
DL: Actually, yes, like majorly. When I would start thinking about all of my friends, I’m like, ‘man, how can I be like that?’ I know my friend would always do this, why don’t I do that for this other person and just try to be positive and work on my relationships and actually be intentional. I feel like, right now, I’m kind of in a place where my closest friends are my housemates and we’re all actually moving out at the end of this month, so now I’m having to learn how to be an actual active participant in a friendship, which sounds insane, but that’s where I’m at.
Photo by Hector Franco
SR: Were there any types of relationships or emotional connections that you found were particularly difficult to articulate?
HF: For songwriting, I’ve realized over the years that there’s kind of a sweet spot with timing with where I’m at emotionally about a situation. If there’s too much emotion, it becomes kind of muddy, like if you’re thinking about painting and there’s too many colors, it can all start blending together. Sometimes it feels good, and I need it to happen to write a song, but it doesn’t always make my favorite songs. The romantic ideal, the romanticism, or the powerful emotions recollected in tranquility, I feel like the sweet spot is once I’m at peace with a person or a situation is when I’m able to collect the nuance, like as you were talking about, and even make it kind of funny, too.
DL: I feel like there’s a lot of humor in some of your songs [to Hailey]. Like ‘firsts’, some of those lines are really funny.
HF: Yeah, and letting it sit for a little bit, or sometimes I’ll write half of a song and then months and months later I’ll finish it and get even more tranquility from it.
SR: You guys do manage to combine humor with sincerity very well. I especially like the line “I don’t exist outside of his big ears” from ‘rusty, my dog’ because it deals with this universal sense of placement and belonging that many different types of relationships have, but so adorably told through the eyes of a dog.
DL: Being perceived by a dog just melts me completely. I’m specifically singing about my roommate’s dog. His name isn’t actually rusty, but you know, that’s off the record [laughs]. I love him so much and I find myself just wondering, ‘what does he think of me?’ I always read these articles of people talking about how you need to pay attention to your dog because you are their ‘everything’, so I was thinking what would it be like to only exist to my dog, and nothing else. It’s a funny song, and it’s cute and sweet because I got my housemates involved, but it can be weird the more you think about it. I mean, we do have a lot of dog related stuff, I mean the name dog eyes, but there is so much beauty in dogs.
SR: Do you have a dog, Hailey?
HF: I don’t. I actually didn’t grow up with any animals because my mom is allergic. But I’ve lived with a dog and that’s when I started thinking about dog’s eyes. I was gonna say that one time I was Googling dog eyes, as one does, and this article popped up that was titled something like “Seeing God in your beloved dog’s eyes”. I didn’t read it, but I really liked the title [laughs].
Photo by Hector Franco
SR: Do you guys have anything coming up that you are looking forward to?
HF: We have a lot of songs we are looking forward to recording! We have a shared notes folder of the songs that we’ve each written or songs we’re writing together, and we just keep them all there for a while and simmer with them. It’s pretty giant, which is a cool problem to have, but this is the longest pause we’ve ever taken between albums and I think that’s good.
DL: Yeah and again, at least for right now, this is just a hobby for us. But with the signing to Grand Jury and having a lot of people listening, like way more than ever before, we’re definitely thinking about recording our next record, playing a lot of shows, or maybe doing a small tour. But at the end of the day we just really enjoy making music because it is just very foundational to our friendship.
holy friend is out on all platforms now as well as a limited edition deluxe cassette of holy friend and dog eyes’ first record good, proper send off.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Hector Franco
Today, the Philly-based project Thank You Thank You has shared a new music video for their latest single, “Watching the Cyclones” which was released earlier this month via Glamour Gowns. As an ever expanding project brought out by the artistic stamina of Tyler Bussey, Thank You Thank You is an imprint of the people who pass through – an articulation of the souls that make a moment long lasting.
“Watching The Cyclones / Not long ago / The diamond gleamed in the sun / The great illusion that’s on my mind / Time standing still on the field for us / It’s going, it’s going, it’s gone.” Oftentimes, the heavy air of summer can be indistinguishable from underlying heartache and impressionable worries, but on the contrary, can be just as easily defined by the vitamin D and the chance to engage with its picturesque revelries. “Watching the Cyclones” thrives in that very tenderness of life, where momentary feelings blend together to form a brand new experience. It’s a patient song, allowing time and energy for the folky groove to exude its charm and make for an enjoyable experience – a chance to look around and see how good things can be.
Shot by Ty, Jesse Gagne and Sam Skinner along with animations by Julia Sutton, the music video for “Watching the Cyclones” becomes a misty morning excursion, a preservation of friendship, and an exploratory of goofing around in empty public places.
About the video, Ty shares, “In September 2022 I went to Coney Island with Jess and Sam, and on a whim on Monday, July 15th, I reached out to both of them to see if they’d like to go there with me at sunrise to make a music video. With nothing but iPhones and apples, this is what we made. We didn’t check the weather forecast and had no idea it was going to be so foggy. The video is a fun testament to making things with your friends and not overthinking it.”
You can watch the video below and stream “Watching the Cyclones” on all platforms now.
look below for some behind the scenes photos taken by Jesse Gagne and Sam Skinner that morning at Coney Island.
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by Toronto-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Eliza Niemi.
With intimate and collective soundscapes, Niemi’s anti-folk world is one built with articulated blunders, soggy admiration and precious observational harmony – taking the time to colorfully animate the tricky moments of glee, love, anxiety and loss in her life. Coming up to the two year anniversary of her remarkable debut full-length, Staying Mellow Blows, we asked Niemi to curate a playlist for the ugly hug, in which she shares;
“I made a playlist for my new friend recently of a bunch of my favourite songs that I thought he’d like. I soon realized that most of them boasted prominent shaker! I guess I love shaker. So I decided to make a shaker-themed playlist. Auxiliary percussion really adds so much to a groove, and I find shaker in particular to be very magnetic. A bunch of my own music has shaker too so I shamelessly included one of my songs on here. My friend Eli played the shaker on it — he’s awesome.”
Featured Photo by Ben Mike | Written by Shea Roney
“There’s such a specific feeling you get from living in an attic,” Hobson laughs. “I feel like a little doll shuffling around up here.”
There has always been a layer of separation in Jane Hobson’s writing, a practice in creating an honest and reflective version of herself, so detailed that she can physically hold it in her hands. Last month, the Chicago-based singer-songwriter shared her newest album, Attic Days – a collection of songs that document her transition into adulthood, and the many paths she took to get there.
Originally from Madison, WI, Hobson became a staple in the scene with her powerful and enduring live performances. Attic Days found her returning to her hometown to record with her band (composed of other beloved Madison musicians) in the home studio of guitarist and songwriter, Bronson Taalbi (Please!).
Currently living in an attic, these new songs aren’t restricted within the tight, slanted and poorly insulated quarters of attic living, as Hobson’s storytelling and rock n roll catharsis mark a big breakthrough for the young artist. We recently caught up with Hobson to discuss the new record, as she reflects on writing with distance, the joy of playing live and reconnecting with her younger self through music.
Photo Courtesy of Jane Hobson
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Shea Roney: Attic Days marked a return to Madison for you. Can you tell me a bit of how the project came to be and the people you worked with?
Jane Hobson: I would say Attic Days is the culmination of a few years of songwriting for me. It started at the end of my college experience and then I wrote the other half once I moved to Chicago. The actual record was recorded in Madison with my band. Bronson [Taalbi], who is one of my guitarist, was also my producer and my engineer and he really brought it to life for me. It was really awesome working with him, and also really convenient to be back in Madison and stay with my family. I’m working in Chicago now, but I would still bounce back to Madison quite a lot to play a show or two over the weekend and then wake up early the next morning and go record in Bronson’s studio.
SR: Attic Days is a brutally honest project, as you grapple with more mature and heavier topics revolving around big transitions. When you began to write these songs, where were you at in life and how did the collective themes come to be?
JH: I feel like it’s an eclectic smattering and does really feel like an album that’s reflecting on a ton of different transitions that were happening in my life. I went to Oberlin College in Ohio and songs like “Time to Kill” and “Where the Fuck Am I?” are about feeling stuck in a very rural place. It’s such a small town and I felt lonely and isolated and really wanted to get out. But after graduating college, moving home and just trying to be an adult and reflect on the relationships I’d had in college, I think that’s where a lot of the big themes came from. Honestly, a lot of the stuff that I wrote, I’m not gonna say it’s random, but it pulls from all different parts of my life.
SR: A lot of these songs grapple with distance, whether that be your proximity to home, drifting relationships or even the gap between you and your younger self. Did writing these songs help bring these large concepts more into view for you?
JH: I think a part of why I write songs is to understand my feelings and my internal-self better. A lot of the time when I sit down with my guitar, it’s because I need a little emotional catharsis. It’s so corny to say that my guitar is my therapist, but it is kind of true. I feel like it helps me come to understand a lot of different stuff. The concept of distance is definitely present throughout these songs. A lot of them are about growing up and changing and feeling a lot of distance from my past self. “Cold Song” is really all about growing up and feeling separate from my childhood. And I mean, a lot of the songs that are about relationships on this album are about old relationships that I have. A lot of the stuff that I write about is more retrospective. I’m not necessarily someone who understands my feelings as they’re happening. I like to have some space and reflection or else my brain is just a massive confusion.
SR: Were there any specific ways that you found yourself connecting to, or reaching out, to your younger self in Attic Days?
JH: I mean, I feel like when I start playing music, it always feels like I’m communicating with a younger version of myself, because it’s something I started doing when I was pretty young. It also feels like one of those moments that is just so private, where a lot of the time, those childish feelings can come through a little bit more honestly. Then it becomes a question of if you want to lift it off the page and into the real world at a certain point. But I feel like when you really tap into your creativity, there is a lot of your childish energy within it and you have to give yourself some license to use that. A lot of the time when I write songs I just genuinely feel like a teenager, like I’m sixteen again or something, as I’m often like ‘this is so dramatic, what am I talking about?’
SR: Songs like “Eat Me Up” and “Know Thyself” are very observational of yourself, but at the hands of someone else. You do allow little moments of grace, like on “Not My Medicine”, to define your worth as your own person. Was this conflict something you wanted to highlight or did it come out naturally through writing?
JH: I don’t think it’s something I necessarily intended. I think a lot of the stuff that’s in my music is not always something I intended in terms of, especially when putting together an album, being thematic in certain ways. For me, it sometimes feels random, to put a bunch of things together and see the patterns that might emerge, but it wasn’t necessarily intentional. “Eat Me Up” and “Not My Medicine” are both about someone consuming you and exploiting you a little bit and are both based off of feeling bad in a relationship, but again I wrote them pretty far removed from those feelings that I still carry around.
Photo by Max Glazer
SR: Is it easy for you to tap into and relive these old unsavory feelings?
JH: Yeah, I think a lot of what those songs are written about is gonna feel visceral, and it is easy for me to remember how that feels. But yeah, “Eat Me Up”, my mom hates that song. There’s definitely some metaphors in there that she finds unsavory for sure. “Not My Medicine” is supposed to feel more empowering in the message, like you don’t understand what I am apart from you, but at the end of the day, I’m my own person, and I can separate myself from you.
SR: You are known for having a really rockin’ live show, and that rawness translates into such a fun record to listen to as it feels like a step forward in your band’s recorded sound. How involved was the band when fleshing out these songs?
JH: Generally, I write my songs in a pretty solitary way, but I feel very blessed to have found a group of people who just get it, they hear it so fast. It’s really the most rewarding feeling. I’m primarily a singer, so I’m not a super well trained guitarist. I was an English major in college, and my songs are really lyric driven. I sometimes have ideas for guitar leads that I hear in the song, but I’m not someone who shreds necessarily. But James [Strelow] and Bronson, they shred. I do play acoustic sets sometimes where it’s literally just me and my acoustic guitar and it’s a really different sound than the full fleshed out band. Playing with them is something I’ve started to become really addicted to.
SR: Have you been playing these Attic Days songs live for awhile now?
JH: That’s the funny part, when it comes to recording, it takes such a long time that I’ve been playing almost all the songs on this album for at least a year. I think it’s kind of funny to release it, especially to the people who come to a lot of my shows, because I’m like, ‘it’s finally out!’ I think a lot of people expect that it’s all brand new stuff and I’m like, ‘no guys, like this is old.’ I’ve already lapped myself in my songwriting and I have a few more albums in me that are not recorded yet.
Jane Hobson will be playing the McPike Sessions in Madison on June 15 and then back in Chicago at Gman Tavern on July 19.
Written by Shea Roney | Feature Photo by Maha Hemingway
Today, Durham-based singer-songwriter, Alycia Lang, shares her third and final single, “In Circles”, from her forthcoming debut full-length, Speak the World to Hear the Sound (due 6/14) via Mtn. Laurel Recording Co. Produced by Adrian Olsen (Lucy Dacus, The Killers), “In Circles” follows a rumination of self compassion as Lang learns to allow herself some grace.
In its most subtle moments, “In Circles” grazes amongst different timbers of plucked strings, patient and gentle harmonies and light atmospheric pieces that create a lush landscape of composure. But following a desirable chromatic fall, the song’s weight becomes strikingly clear, as Lang’s newfound empathy leads the chorus to its emotional and vibrant height; “but oh, my sweet mind why don’t you slow down”, she sings, putting a pure emphasis on perspective and presence.
Taking inspiration from a conversation with a friend, in which she compartmentalized her personal challenges as a separate entity than herself, Lang was struck by this outlook, saying:
“If we could all just make that one small shift from punishing ourselves for not thriving in an over-stimulating, impossible set of circumstances and grant ourselves permission to slow down, maybe everything would be ok.”
Along with the single, Lang is sharing the official music video for “In Circles”, made by Spencer Kelly and herself.
You can stream “In Circles” on all platforms now. Speak the World to Hear the Sound is set to be released on June 14 via Mtn. Laurel Recording Co. Lang is currently on tour with Samia playing in her touring band.
the ugly hug 