It’s shaping up to be a pretty great week (month?) for new music, if a little overwhelming… there’s a new Maggie Rogers track in my inbox for starters (yep, I could cry) but today I’m ready to get excited over this gem (you’re welcome) from Jemima Coulter. One half of Hailaker, and a collaborator of Novo Amor, S Carey and more, this is their first solo outing and I am thrilled!!! Debut single SST arrives alongside news of the album Grace After A Party, due via Hand In Hive on 29th July. You can pre-save/pre-order the record here.
SST sees Jemima telling the story of somebody who has a fever and, in their ill haze, joins the circus – introducing what is to be the basis of the record, the circus and the clown. They explain “the character I sing about in ‘SST’ leaves their old life with the clarity that the illness gave them, suddenly free from all of the reason that says that it’s a stupid and dangerous idea.”
“I wanted to capture the feeling of someone wandering unburdened by the expectations of traditional society and escaping to another kind of life and yet also only doing that because they’re out of their mind – crazy enough to know what they really want. It’s like the classic ‘leaving home to achieve my dreams with nothin but a dime’ storyline but I guess pointing out how unsafe that is in this financially-orientated world that doesn’t give a f-ck about your dreams so you’d only really do it if you were ill.”