Second solo album from Au Revoir Simone's Annie Hart, FFO Mitski, Broadcast, Carla dal Forno, Caroline Polachek
ANNIE HART
Announces new solo album, A Softer Offering
due 13th December
Watch the video for new single, "Wilderness Hill"
Photo Credit: Sebastian Kim [Larger Image]
"sumptuous synth-pop" - Vogue
"her glossy DIY pop has an infectious charm and dazzling hooks" - The Line of Best Fit
A Softer Offering, Annie Hart’s latest solo record, is an elegant and gentle selection of songs that make magic from sparse and powerful ingredients. Noted for her film composition work and being a third of indie synthesizer pioneers, Au Revoir Simone, Annie again takes the reins on her own to create a spare, sophisticated album, celebrating the quiet moments in life that listeners will come back to time and again.
The songs create a world of effortless beauty that evokes being outdoors in warm rain or that particular nostalgia that comes from staring out a train window on an overcast day. The ingredients are nothing new for Hart: she deftly combines her powerfully emotive voice with electric piano and synthesizer and drum samples, but on this record, she spaces out the loveliness of the songs and sounds to guide the listener into a meditative soundscape. Her voice moves from intimate and hushed to a plaintive cry, at times intentionally disturbing, but always expertly balanced by gorgeous keyboard and guitar.
Along with the announcement, Hart shares new single and video, "Wilderness Hill", saying: I wrote the song when I was doing Stephen Bass' PRAH Foundation in Margate last January. I was staying alone in a great big Victorian row house, recording alone in a studio, and spending my breaks wandering about going from the studio up to Cliff’s for a coffee or Peter’s near the sea for fish and chips. Everything was grey and filled with that particular brand of English winter cold, the damp chill that really sinks into your bones. I wrote the bass guitar and piano in the day, and on my afternoon walk to think of lyrics, I noticed the street sign for Wilderness HIll and was overcome with this feeling of solitude and missing love across the Atlantic.
"That’s how I started thinking of the story behind the song that I echoed in the video. It’s about being in one place in one time zone and not being able to communicate with someone in another one far away. The thoughts of them, and the geographical or emotional distance that lies between you, rattle around inside you like an unshakable thirst."
Annie Hart - "Wilderness Hill"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLwH2BFR_g
Hart says of A Softer Offering, “I wanted to give listeners that chance to breathe, to relax. A soundtrack for painting or lying in the grass. I thought a lot about what music I play for myself when I want to make a moment feel complete. There’s just something different when you play soft music during these ordinary spaces in life, and I wanted to make a soundtrack for that. Sounds that undulate in minimal movement, that you can pay very close attention to, or leave space around if you need to have your own thoughts. I hope this record helps stretch those unfortunately rare times in our lives when we have moments to be peaceful.”
With vocals contributed by Madeline Kenney, and mixed in parts by Jorge Elbrect (Sky Ferreira, Japanese Breakfast, Ariel Pink) and Justin Pizzoferrato (Sebadoh, Pixies, J Mascis) and mastered by April Golden (Sharon Jones, Antibalas) A Softer Offering is sure to give you a soundtrack for winter that you will revisit over and over.
Known for her electric live concerts, she will be playing an intentionally intimate album release show at Union Pool in New York on December 13th (tickets). The evocative and unique cover art of her album also features a detail from New York City’s notable cutting-edge painter, Jenna Gribbon.
Preorder the album here: https://anniehart.bandcamp.com/album/a-softer-offering
About Annie Hart:
Annie Hart is a New York City-based composer, songwriter, and performer. She made her name with David Lynch favorites and Twin Peaks alums, synth trio Au Revoir Simone, and has since branched into a swift-moving solo career.
After the critically-acclaimed release of her first solo album, Impossible Accomplice, Hart embarked on several world tours and opened for the likes of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, Torres, Slow Club, Porches, Girl Ray, and more. The minimal album explored the fringes of new wave, pop, and drone-core, and has been called "sumptuous synth-pop" by Vogue.
Her reputation developed from the record as a unique master of composition on analog synthesizers and led her to compose the score for two feature films coming to wide release in 2020: Olympic Dreams, starring Nick Kroll and Alexi Pappas, and Banana Split, featuring Dylan Sprouse, Hannah Marks, and Liana Liberto.
Annie continues to break boundaries by composing music for patient listeners in her own distinctive self-taught style. Her new album, A Softer Offering, explores deep emotional content with a paradoxically lush spareness in sound that is the perfect winter warmer.
A Softer Offering Tracklist:
1. Wilderness Hill
2. Longing To Care Less
3. Wandering Free
4. Don’t Breathe For Me
5. Stillness
6. Clean Floors
7. Phoenicia No Coffee
8. Embrace The New Age
9. The Paper Pull
Artwork:
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For all press enquiries
Please contact Liv Willars at One Beat PR on liv@onebeatpr.com
