Photo credit: Si Moore
Today Holly Arrowsmith reveals a slow-burning musical meditation in her third new single ‘Every Kingdom’, accompanied by a gorgeous, panoramic visual story that unfolds around the juxtaposition of when the dark meets the light; when the cold succumbs to eventual warmth – a continuous cycle.
“Winding down the Californian coast, I first penned what would become a verse of this meditative song,” Arrowsmith says of the song.
Though the space in between now seems too far to reach,
at times I’ve imagined a bridge in between.
And if I could be water that’s what I would be,
stretch my arms out to reach both shores beyond me.
Get immersed in the quiet magic of A Dawn I Remember in this latest offering from one of New Zealand’s most intriguing folk singer-songwriters of the last decade.
“I wanted to try a new approach to my usual style of writing, and let my mind skip from idea to idea, without them necessarily needing to correlate. It is a cycling, ambient song – quite different to my other work. We played with these qualities in the recording process, hoping people would get pleasantly lost in the song’s cyclical nature. Loss and regeneration.”
The video was filmed and directed by Andrew Hewson in the tranquil wilderness of Arthur’s Pass, while the song itself was recorded by Ben Edwards (The Sitting Room) and Steve Roberts, and produced by Edwards and Tom Lynch.
“The album was written over a very difficult but experientially rich time of life,” the young New Mexico-born singer-songwriter tells us.
“I was grappling with loss of identity, as I left a place which is so deeply ‘home’ for me and as I found, more intertwined in so many levels of my beingthan I knew.
I still feel like I am recovering from the losses that ensued, and slowly finding ways to repurpose those spaces again.”
A self-written volume, A Dawn I Remember would slowly take shape over two years. The vast majority of the songs being written in New Zealand, though one was penned in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Slow Train Creek).
Last year, she was able to raise $24,678 through Kickstarter to fund the recording, production and output of the new album (well above her goal of $21,000) thanks to the support of 335 backers.
The songs that would soon band together to create an album, were then recorded in the small southern New Zealand town of Colac Bay with Steve Roberts and Tom Lynch, and finished off at The Sitting Room with widely acclaimed, award-winning engineer and producer Ben Edwards (Julia Jacklin, Tami Neilson, Marlon Williams, Delaney Davidson).
Over nine tracks, Arrowsmith addresses homesickness, experiencing loss and painful growth, and finding renewed hope in the dim places. These are experiences documented and compiled over her journey north and back south again, intertwining references to nature and the mountains around Lake Wakatipu that raised her. She cites the dark forests hidden along the sweeping, stretching southern roads, along with characters she met along the way in a gorgeous collection of songs – each with their own engaging, observational tale.
Holly Arrowsmith – A Dawn I Remember
The Gardener
Winter Moon
Farewell
Love Together
A View From Above
Every Kingdom
Crying Woman
Autumn
Slow Train Creek
Out Friday 22nd June, 2018
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