Tower by Hermitess

Tower is a three song EP by Hermitess. It was recorded in the fall of 2019 with producer Elisa Pangsaeng during an artist residency at the National Music Centre. This new EP explores a somewhat different territory from that of Hermitess’s previous release. Modern pop sensibilities have been mixed into the latticework of harp, strings and voices with the addition of programmed beats and swelling string arrangements to suggest the distorted fantasies of social media and the marching rhythms of the city.

Now more than ever, we’re living in cities, and we’re interacting online, all of our interactions are mediated, including the platform through which this music is set to be released. The Tower speaks to that tipping point where we have found that the lofty aims of society are not as stable as we thought they were. In a tarot tarot deck this card depicts an elaborate structure built to fulfil lofty aims, but resting precariously on a foundation that has proven unstable, from which characters will fall in a fiery conflagration. The interpretation of the card is the moment of epiphany precipitated by a crisis, or critical shift in perspective that exposes an underlying instability of one’s elevated ideals.

This suite of songs was written as a natural follow up to the Hermitess’s self titled debut release. If the first full length was about the desire to run into the forest and disappear, then Tower’s narrative is about coming to terms with the clamorous reality of modern life. The three songs each ask a different question about the times we are living in; how we spend our time, why we live in the city, and what beliefs we hold onto or fall away from.

Hermitess is the project of an aging and slightly reclusive witch, dreaming simultaneously in music and images. Sonically, layered orchestral textures, harmonic voices, and pedal driven magic, all conjuring a fleeting fever dream.

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