Fifteen years in, The Head and the Coronary heart are nonetheless evolving – and with ‘Aperture,’ they discover readability via connection, creating their most emotionally expansive and sonically adventurous album but. Atwood Journal spoke to the band concerning the creation and catharsis, the hope and humanity of their sixth studio album – a document that appears like each a homecoming and a brand new starting.
‘Aperture’ – The Head and the Coronary heart
Open your ears, open your eyes, open your coronary heart, and take all of it in: The nice, the dangerous, the enjoyment, the ache, the love – every thing this unimaginable life has to supply.
I’ll have many extra phrases to say about sixth studio album over time, however what I’ll say for now could be this:
Fifteen years into their storied profession, The Head and the Coronary heart’s folk-laced music continues to be as contemporary and enjoyable as it’s free-spirited and philosophically profound. Launched on Might ninth by way of Verve Forecast, their sixth studio album Aperture is “an invite to get up within the current second recognizing that it’s all we’ve got, in all its contradictions of magnificence and ache, pleasure and despair, unfathomable vastness and impermanence,” per band member Matty Gervais.
In observe, that interprets to wealthy, heat harmonies, radiant melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, invigorating instrumentals, and immediately memorable singalongs – all delivered with the eagerness and seasoned power of pros who, regardless of their years of doing this, proceed to search out inspiration in themselves and of their on a regular basis.
“It felt like LP1 yet again,” Gervais tells Atwood Journal. “We weren’t occupied with outcomes or expectations. We simply adopted the second and let the songs present us what they wished to be.”
What’s maybe most placing about Aperture is its vary: Whereas songs like “After the Setting Solar,” “Time With My Sins,” and “Arrow” unpack intimate reflections on id, objective, and life’s higher that means via a well-recognized, sun-kissed sound, The Head and the Coronary heart spend a substantial amount of this document making an attempt on new garments – each musical and topical.
“I feel our followers didn’t see this document coming – and actually, I didn’t both,” lead singer Jonathan Russell displays. “It stunned me in the easiest way.”
From observe to trace, Aperture radiates with moments of musical, emotional, and lyrical influence.
The pressing and emotionally charged “Cop Automotive” is an apparent standout: Russell’s voice is at its rawest as he sings from the again of a police cruiser, offended and scared, not sure of his current and fearful for his future: “I’m using in a cop automobile tonight, trying outdoors because the blinks go by, questioning how we gonna die.” Not solely do The Head and the Coronary heart deliver a flicker of humanity and empathy to these whom society so usually turns a blind eye, however they achieve this with grace, tact, allure, angst, and a lovely center finger to the boys in blue.
“I didn’t write that music. It simply… got here out of me,” Russell says of “Cop Automotive,” which was recorded in a single take. “I didn’t even know if I may sing like that once more. It was one thing that needed to come out – like a wrecking ball inside me.”
Take me on a ship experience, babe
Drop me within the middlе of the ocean
Make mе swim dwelling, inform me I’m incorrect
Not less than I’ll be clear for every week
Using in a cop automobile tonight
Lotta time to assume what’s proper
Oh, my spouse, one other in time
I’m wondering how she’ll stick via the experience?
– “Cop Automotive,” The Head and the Coronary heart
And that’s removed from Aperture‘s solely shiny spot: From the plush, hypnotic, and heartrending “Pool Break” and the euphoric, life-affirming “Jubilee” to the feel-good reverie “Fireplace Escape” (a really traditional THATH tune) and the hopeful “Beg, Steal, Borrow,” The Head and the Coronary heart’s sixth studio album proves to be a significant, memorable, altogether transferring ray of sunshine in 2025’s musical panorama.
In reality, it’s songs like “Pool Break” and “Jubilee” that show to be a number of the album’s greatest highlights – two particular songs that discover The Head and the Coronary heart increasing the sonic world longtime followers and listeners have come to know and love via daring vocal harmonies and emotionally potent subjects that hit laborious and go away a long-lasting impression.
“I stored imagining this picture of a little bit boy sitting alone in an enormous discipline, carrying a big ache,” Russell says of “Pool Break.” “Ready for somebody – a father determine – to return put a hand on his shoulder and say, ‘I’ve received you.’ However that by no means occurs, and so the world stays massive and scary. That feeling has lived in me without end.”
A bit of boy’s story, speaking to his father
Telling him the issues that he want he would’ve taught him
Like pleasure and ache, the odor of the rain
Thunder, and the lightning is available in
Maintain me again, don’t maintain me below this ache
I can’t maintain from falling
Maintain me again, out on an countless observe
I’ve by no means gotten over
– “Pool Break,” The Head and the Coronary heart
As for “Jubilee,” Gervais laughs as he describes the guitar tuning they stumbled into throughout that session: “D-A-D-A-A-F#. And all of us are “da-das” now – it was a really applicable tuning for this document!”
The observe “Lastly Free,” written and sung by band member Charity Rose Thielen – and one of many album’s softest, most soul-stirring moments – is a private favourite of each Russell and Gervais. “That music takes the air out of the room,” Russell says. “It simply makes you cease and hear. Charity has such a presence, and when she decides to step out entrance like that, it actually grabs your consideration.”
Thielen feels an analogous affection towards it. “It’s positively a music that felt cathartic to compose – to me, in that second of creation, it felt courageous to even utter the phrase of feeling ‘lastly free,’ which in some ways the act of utterance was personally therapeutic,” she shares. “The meditative mono and minimalist manufacturing and melody was instinctive and sonically extremely distinctive to the remainder of Aperture, and I couldn’t think about the music approached some other method.”
Pink rain on the ground
Falling down, flooding these halls
Ink cracks via these holes
Crumbling down throughout these partitions
It’s actually simply you and me
Pink paint on this flooring
Lookup excessive, feeling small
Faint coronary heart haunting me
By way of these halls and below these eaves
It’s actually simply you and me
Lastly free
Don’t run away
I couldn’t take the ache
Thundering down on me
– “Lastly Free,” The Head and the Coronary heart
Russell and Gervais additionally make point out of “West Coast,” an achingly weak and fantastically uncooked music written by Gervais along with the band’s keyboardist Kenny Hensley, who additionally sings lead vocals for the primary time. “He has an important voice, however it’s not normally his position. Simply the truth that he felt comfy sufficient to step into that area says so much,” Russell smiles. “I’m so pleased with him. And past all that, it’s simply one in every of my favourite songs, interval.”
The music’s lyrics repeatedly path off, with Hensley singing “la-da-da” on the ends of his sentences – a reminder of all we’ve got left to specific when phrases fail us. It’s profound in its poetic simplicity, and one other reminder of our shared humanity “We’ve all felt that la-da-da a hundred percent,” Gervais says, with Russell calling it “probably the most profound phrase on the document.”
We’re each residing on the west coast
However you’re dreaming of the east coast
Does it actually even matter?
La da da
I used to be residing in a junkyard
May’ve been a graveyard
If I solely had a courageous coronary heart
La da da
Been occurring the crash course
Looking for the street indicators
Nonetheless ready on the crimson gentle
La da da
It’s getting tougher to confess it
I do know we will’t give up but
Central Park and the boat experience
Ferris wheel within the moonlight
– “West Coast,” The Head and the Coronary heart
Aperture is a deeply human album – not simply in what it says, however in the way it was made: With intention, endurance, presence, and belief.
It’s The Head and the Coronary heart’s intentional – and unintentional – reconnection with their roots, embracing their love for every one other and for songcraft. “We confirmed ourselves that the explanation it labored at first is similar motive it nonetheless works now – if we belief it,” Russell says. “That’s what I hope individuals really feel from it. That sense of grounding, and in addition of development.”
There’s a fluidity to Aperture that displays each the band’s private development and their creative evolution: It’s cohesive with out being confined, wide-reaching with out feeling scattered. The album’s sequencing invitations listeners on an emotional arc – not a strict narrative, however a motion via grief and pleasure, reckoning and renewal, presence and chance. Songs bleed into one another like moments in actual life, formed much less by style boundaries than by intestine, intuition, and collective belief. In doing so, The Head and the Coronary heart handle to sound each acquainted and revitalized – a band not reinventing themselves, however re-rooting themselves in what issues most.
“For me, Aperture represents the selection all of us should make between resigning ourselves to darkness, or letting the sunshine in and recognizing our personal company to take action,” Gervais shares. “It feels related to the instances, in that we’re actually selecting between authoritarianism vs. democracy. Ignorance vs. enlightenment on a macro scale, and complacency/cynicism vs. hope, empathy and perseverance on the micro scale. To me, it sums up a whole lot of what every of those songs is grappling with in some type and what we’ve collectively gone via as a band. It’s about selecting hope many times, irrespective of what number of instances it could really feel that you’ve misplaced it.”
True to their title as soon as once more, The Head and the Coronary heart have used each their heads and their hearts to create one in every of this yr’s finest albums –
– an electrifying, exhilarating people rock journey into our shared humanity that meets the current second with ardour, tenacity, vulnerability, and above all else, hope.
Meet up with the band in our intimate interview beneath, and take heed to Aperture wherever you stream music.
“While you create this manner – if you let issues unfold as an alternative of forcing them – there’s no backside,” Matty Gervais displays. “You’ll be able to maintain exploring and discovering. That lesson took us a very long time to relearn as a band, however now that we’ve got, it’s actually hopeful. This album is the beginning of one thing… it’s a brand new starting.”
And that sentiment has by no means rung more true for The Head and the Coronary heart.
Zoom in on the complete image of Aperture, out now, and catch the band dwell on tour this summer season – dates and extra information at theheadandtheheart.com!
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:: stream/buy Aperture right here ::
:: join with The Head and the Coronary heart right here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH THE HEAD AND THE HEART
Atwood Journal: It’s been a pair years since Each Shade of Blue, and a minute since we final talked. I’d like to reconnect by going again to the very starting of Aperture. The place have been you, creatively and personally, when this album began to take form?
Jonathan Russell: I feel the largest factor was the response to how we made Each Shade of Blue, and the way that course of rippled out as soon as we began touring it. That album got here collectively in such a fragmented method, and I feel it left us actually wanting the other. We wished to do what we initially got down to do with Aperture, which was get again in a room collectively and write as a band – like we used to within the early days.
So we made these intentional journeys to Seattle and Richmond. One other factor we discovered from the previous was to maintain the writing journeys quick, like 5 to seven days. After that you simply begin to burn out. We additionally had fewer deadlines and fewer individuals concerned. We have been out of our document take care of Warner, and out of the blue we had the liberty to design this nonetheless we wished. It’s humorous the way you overlook you will have that energy – that there actually aren’t any guidelines. It’s nearly what you give your self permission to do.
We circled again to that consciousness. We began writing in Richmond in small teams, and it will definitely turned full-band classes. That unfolded over a yr and a half. We’d go on tour, take a break, then meet up once more. We didn’t drive something. We gave the music time to marinate. A whole lot of songs have been written musically first, after which we’d take these demos dwelling, sit with them, and write lyrics slowly. It gave us the area to actually think about the world we wished to create.
Matty Gervais: Yeah, an enormous a part of it was studying from our previous errors. While you’re on the hamster wheel of being in a band and making an attempt to maintain a profession, you don’t at all times have time to self-assess. You find yourself making the identical choices, repeating the identical patterns. This was the primary time we had a breath of contemporary air.
There was some extent the place we had no label, no administration, no timeline. And unusually, that felt like being a brand-new band once more. All of the stuff you’re supposed to search around for if you begin out – we out of the blue didn’t have them. And that freed up this inventive area. We weren’t caught up within the end result. It was nearly what the six of us have been making collectively in that second.
It’s humorous what ten further minutes and three or 4 further songs can do. Each Shade of Blue felt like a behemoth of a document – it was your longest so far. Jon, you and I had a extremely intimate dialog about that album a few years in the past. And looking out again now, that was your final launch on a serious label. It was an enormous document, and a few of these songs actually popped. What’s your relationship with that album like now?
Gervais: Like Jon talked about, the ripple impact of touring that document performed an enormous half. I hardly ever return and take heed to our albums after we’ve made them. My expertise is formed by performing these songs and seeing how audiences interact with them.
So if you’ve been on the street taking part in the identical materials for 2 years, you begin to assume, okay, we’ve performed that. There are issues about that manufacturing that have been actually enjoyable, however there have been additionally sure efficiency parts that have been tied to these manufacturing decisions. We have been cognizant of making an attempt to maneuver again to one thing that seemed like six individuals in a room.
The enjoyable half now could be reassessing the older songs and seeing which of them dwell in the identical emotional and artistic area because the Aperture materials. You begin to acknowledge patterns – even ones you didn’t notice have been there. That’s if you begin to perceive the story you’re telling, whether or not you knew it or not. Every tour reshapes our relationship with the music.
Russell: Yeah. I used to be listening again to a whole lot of Each Shade of Blue whereas we have been rehearsing for this tour. Songs like “Love We Make,” which we hadn’t performed a lot earlier than, after which “Starstruck,” “Love Me Nonetheless.” I used to be like, wow, these are literally a few of my favourite songs.
However I additionally really feel like that album might need been extra of a Jon document than a band document. And that’s not at all times the perfect factor. If I’m the one who loves it probably the most, that doesn’t actually serve the entire band.
You are feeling like your fingerprints have been throughout it in a method that possibly you wished to step again from this time?
Russell: Yeah. It doesn’t do anyone any good if the ultimate product solely feels fulfilling to at least one particular person. That’s type of the other of what this band is about.
That brings us to Aperture, which from the bounce appears like a collective effort. Matty, you’ve mentioned this document is about selecting hope many times, even when it feels such as you’ve misplaced it. Can we go deeper into that? What does this assortment of songs imply to you?
Gervais: That line is rooted within the expertise of being on this band. A lot of your life turns into intertwined with these individuals. And over time, you hit roadblocks. We’ve needed to overcome so much simply to maintain doing what we do and to maintain sharing music with individuals. That has worth. You see it each time you step onstage.
After we have been making this document, we have been every going via large life adjustments. The complete spectrum – beginning, loss of life, and every thing in between. It felt like we have been all going via some type of crucible, each individually and collectively. That poured into the music.
The way in which we created Aperture allowed for that. There weren’t expectations. We gave ourselves room to observe the second. Even a music like “Beg, Steal, Borrow,” which sounds upbeat, got here from a meditative place. It was about being current and tuning into what others have been doing, slightly than pushing one thing. The lyrics weren’t prewritten – they have been revealed via the music.
I keep in mind listening to this Neil Younger interview the place he talked about strolling in nature, whistling melodies right into a recorder, after which letting the lyrics come later. That caught with me. I approached my contributions to this document the identical method. I wasn’t pressuring myself to be a songwriter – I simply let it are available drips and assembled the items. That may sound esoteric, however it’s what occurred.
It makes good sense. And I feel it exhibits within the songs. There’s a looseness to them – but additionally one thing deeply felt. I wish to dive into a number of the particular person tracks subsequent, beginning with what could be my favourite on the album – which I didn’t count on it to be, however I maintain coming again to it: “Pool Break.” I simply love this music. It feels each acquainted and new. Who’s doing the falsetto on that? You, Jon?
Russell: That’s me.
It’s attractive. That observe appears like new territory for The Head and the Coronary heart, including contemporary coloration and texture to the band’s oeuvre – and but it’s unmistakably you. The place did it come from?
Russell: That one got here out of a extremely attention-grabbing second. We have been in Richmond, and we had booked a writing journey – however simply since you’ve proven up doesn’t imply you’re in the correct headspace to put in writing. We have been all within the studio, type of beating our heads towards the wall. Nothing real was popping out. So we made the choice to cease forcing it and took a break. Tyler lives proper throughout the gravel street from the studio, and he has a pool. So we actually took a pool break.
We went over, received some solar, relaxed, laughed a little bit. That stress of “we’re right here, we must be creating” began to carry. And after we got here again to the studio, I don’t know why, however that music simply got here out. It wasn’t prewritten. I hadn’t been engaged on it. However I had this little guitar riff, after which the melody got here, and every thing adopted from there.
For me, the vocal tone and guitar tone virtually turned one instrument. You’ll be able to’t fairly inform which one is main. It’s this layered impact – like taking part in organ and guitar on the similar time. That’s what I like about singing in that falsetto; it melts into the feel.
Lyrically, it felt like a mantra. Simply subtly altering phrases, repeating this core feeling. I stored imagining this picture of a little bit boy sitting alone in an enormous discipline, carrying a big ache. Ready for somebody – a father determine – to return put a hand on his shoulder and say, “I’ve received you.” However that by no means occurs. And so the world stays massive and scary. That feeling has lived in me without end. The daddy-son relationship remains to be, and doubtless at all times will probably be, a piece in progress. That kind of ache is usually at all times in my physique.
And as a child, you don’t have the language for that. It’s solely later, after sitting with it for years, that you realize what it was and what you wanted.
Russell: Yeah. I’m 40 and I nonetheless really feel that concern. It’s wild. However I didn’t wish to title the music one thing heavy-handed. We stored it as “Pool Break” on objective. That was the within joke – but additionally, in a method, a reminder to not make the emotion too treasured. Sure, that type of ache is actual, however it doesn’t make me particular. Everybody feels that type of factor sooner or later. Leaving the title as-is helped deflate a number of the self-importance round it. Like, right here’s the reality, but additionally, we’re simply little blips within the universe.
Gervais: I like that. And it jogs my memory of one thing I’ve been occupied with. For some time, writing songs felt like banging my head towards the wall. And what helped me break via for this document was letting go. Similar to Jon mentioned, not being connected to the result. As soon as I finished making an attempt so laborious, the stuff that wanted to return up lastly got here via. You make area, and the poignant stuff rises to the floor.
Russell: There’s positively a model of songwriting that appears like, “Okay, I’m on deadline, I would like to put in writing one thing, let’s simply get it performed.” After which there’s one other model the place you cease pushing and one thing important emerges. That was the shift. Earlier than the pool break, we have been all pondering, “We confirmed up, so we must be writing one thing.” However that mindset wasn’t producing something actual. As soon as we relaxed into it – even accepted that we would not write something that day – that’s when one thing stunning occurred.
It’s that distinction between scratching a inventive itch versus doing it since you really feel like you must, and I feel that exhibits on this album. “Pool Break” flows straight into “Jubilee,” and whereas it’s not a tonal whiplash, it’s a massive emotional swing. There’s this stunning falsetto once more, and this sonic world the 2 songs appear to dwell in. The place did “Jubilee” come from?
Russell: That one got here extra from the group. It began with a special instrumental – I had these opening traces and melody, however it was over music that didn’t make the ultimate reduce. In a while, Kenny got here in with this piano half that felt actually heroic. Like traditional Springsteen.
Gervais: Yeah, and we performed it with this type of early 2000s emo-pop punk edge. However as an alternative of electrical guitars, I used to be taking part in acoustic on this bizarre tuning. Jon had left one of many guitars within the studio tuned a sure method, and I simply picked it up and was like, what the hell is that this? That tuning ended up on a bunch of songs: “After the Setting Solar,” “Lastly Free,” “Aperture.”
It’s D-A-D-A-A-F#, which is hilarious as a result of Jon had simply grow to be a da-da, I’m a da-da twice over – we joked that everybody within the band was in dad mode. So it’s actually DA-DA-A-F#, probably the most applicable tuning ever.
Russell: It gave the music this stunning melancholic vibe, which paired rather well with that upbeat vitality. It’s like disappointment and pleasure braided collectively.
Gervais: And I simply keep in mind Jon within the studio, late at evening, doing what he does finest – throwing concepts on the wall. Everybody was within the management room, he was within the sales space, simply riffing. It was playful and messy, and the music revealed itself that method. That very same ethos you talked about earlier – not taking it too significantly – that’s what formed “Jubilee.” It got here from pleasure.
I can’t not discuss “Cop Automotive.” Discuss a intestine punch. I feel it’d maintain extra uncooked emotion than something you’ve put out earlier than. The place did that come from?
Russell: That one was particular. It type of simply erupted. Our bass participant had recorded this strumming sample at dwelling – I feel he was actually watching Walker, Texas Ranger on the time. It was one thing tremendous easy, however it was a sample I by no means would have performed. We looped it and simply began constructing off of it. Tyler was on drums, I used to be taking part in a drum machine. Everybody was simply vibing, including components.
We ended up with this lengthy instrumental demo, simply looping for a couple of minutes. And I went into the vocal sales space and did one single take – that’s what you hear on the document. It simply got here out of me. I wasn’t consciously writing it. I had this one phrase I preferred, “Take me on a ship experience,” and I knew I wished to work it in, so I dropped it into the center of a verse. However every thing else simply flowed.
I normally wrestle with linear storytelling in my lyrics. I get too summary. However one way or the other this music had a starting, center, and finish. And I used to be type of shocked by that. All I knew was that I liked it. However I used to be scared to confess how a lot I liked it as a result of I believed individuals would ask me to repair it or polish it. Re-sing it. That may’ve devastated me, as a result of the emotion in that efficiency – it was utterly uncooked. Unrepeatable.
That comes via. It doesn’t really feel carried out. It feels lived.
Russell: Yeah. I didn’t even know if I may sing like that once more. It was like I exorcised one thing. Fortunately, we came upon I can nonetheless sing it – we do it dwell now. However nonetheless, it was lightning in a bottle. That music may by no means have come from “working” on a music. It needed to come from a wrecking ball inside me.
What was it like listening to that, Matty? Being within the room?
Gervais: I really wasn’t there. Charity and I have been dwelling having our second youngster. So I first skilled “Cop Automotive” as a demo, similar to you. I had the identical response. It felt alive. Like one thing completely new. Similar with “Pool Break.” They have been thrilling and completely different, and so they made me wish to dive again in. I keep in mind listening to them and pondering, “Okay, that is the vibe. That is the course.” These songs have been a North Star for the remainder of the classes.
One which feels so classically The Head and the Coronary heart to me is “Fireplace Escape.” For those who instructed me it was off Let’s Be Nonetheless and even the debut, I would consider you. It’s received that nostalgic, free-flowing really feel, a little bit camaraderie, a little bit self-reflection. It virtually appears like a music about being within the band. The place did that come from?
Russell: I agree with all of that. Completely.
Gervais: You nailed it. From the second Kenny began taking part in that piano line – it was a little bit dissonant at first, then resolved into one thing tremendous heat and main – all of us simply jumped in. Chris was taking part in a sitar bass. We have been all smiling, taking part in dwell, feeding off one another. It was joyful.
The construction got here collectively rapidly, and so did the lyrics. I keep in mind that line, “I believed I had my head on straight,” simply popped out. After which, “It’s so rattling good to see you / it’s unusual the way in which the time flies” – that one stored coming again, and it grounded every thing. That was the emotional core. I took the instrumental dwelling and began reflecting on what it made me really feel.
It took me proper again to the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Being on the fireplace escape after a present, smoking a cigarette, watching the group file out. You don’t notice it on the time, however you’re younger and on this particular second. After which ten, fifteen years later, you look again and assume, “Wow, these have been good instances.”
Each time I begin feeling nostalgic like that, it snowballs. The music turned this story of reconnecting with somebody in spite of everything that point, and realizing simply how a lot has modified – but additionally how a lot remains to be shared.
Russell: It’s most likely my favourite music to play dwell proper now. Even when I’m having a troublesome evening onstage – which occurs greater than I’d prefer to admit – that music cracks a smile out of me. It’s a time machine. I can keep in mind precisely what sneakers I used to be sporting in 2009. That one hits deep in the easiest way.
Let’s discuss how the album opens and closes. “After the Setting Solar” appears like such a heat invitation – a delicate opener, but additionally one which hits on grief and hope from the bounce. It feels nostalgic and forward-looking on the similar time. How did it grow to be the primary observe?
Gervais: Good query. I’m unsure when it was determined precisely, however it simply felt proper. Tracklisting is at all times a course of, however this one – it simply made sense. That music appears like a welcome. It says: That is the place we at the moment are.
And proper off the bat, it’s processing grief. It’s about dropping somebody you really liked deeply, and out of the blue they’re simply… gone. You’re left making an attempt to make sense of that. However on the similar time, you’re giving your self permission to think about they’re not utterly gone. What comes after the setting solar? Possibly one thing. It’s not nothing. That thought will be comforting.
Russell: And what I like about that music is that, though Matty simply defined precisely what it means to him, it nonetheless leaves room for interpretation. That’s good songwriting. The primary line of the entire document is “While you least count on it,” which I like. It appears like somebody exhibiting up at a celebration ten years later, tapping you on the shoulder, like, “Hey, I’m right here.”
After I hear that music, I don’t take into consideration grief the way in which Matty described it. However I nonetheless really feel one thing. I enter into it from a special angle. And that’s what makes it such an ideal opening observe – it’s mild, but additionally stunning. It units up this complete album as one thing that wasn’t anticipated. I didn’t see this document coming. I don’t assume our followers did both.
The closing observe, “Aperture,” brings every thing full circle. That final line – “Time was made for operating out / don’t know why it took so lengthy / Solar was made for popping out / though the evening is lengthy” – it’s such a lovely remaining thought. Why finish with that music, and why title the album after it?
Gervais: That music has this cinematic finality to it. It appears like the tip of a film. It’s making an attempt to make sense of the chaos of life – transferring too quick to see the surroundings, at all times falling from an important top. There’s that line, “I don’t keep in mind asking for any of this.” I take into consideration that so much. We don’t select to be right here. And life is overwhelming. However we’re right here. So what will we do with it?
That music is about confronting that query. It’s saying, “That is what I’ve received, and that is what I can do with it now.” That’s the place the company is. And pairing that with the solar popping out on the finish – that’s hope. There’s no pretending every thing’s okay. However there’s nonetheless magnificence. And lightweight.
Aperture as a phrase simply captures all of that. It’s about letting gentle in, but additionally about readability. Seeing what’s actually there, even when it’s laborious to have a look at. You’ll be able to’t management what’s within the body. However you can select to have a look at it.
Russell: That duality is everywhere in the document. That rigidity between gentle and darkish, grief and sweetness. The phrase Aperture holds all of it. That’s why it made sense to call the album after it.
I didn’t spend a lot time on the singles, however are there any private favorites or particular moments we haven’t touched on but that you simply’d wish to spotlight?
Russell: “Lastly Free,” for certain. That music takes the air out of the room. It simply makes you cease and hear. Charity has such a presence, and when she decides to step out entrance like that, it actually grabs your consideration.
There’s a complete backstory behind the way it got here collectively. She felt assured and comfy sufficient in that second to direct all of us within the room to get what she wanted. And that was big. You would really feel the shift in vitality. She knew precisely what she wished, and she or he communicated it gently, clearly. It was simply a type of uncommon moments when every thing aligns.
Gervais: The way in which she did it was so sleek. Lighthearted, however nonetheless grounded in one thing deep. And that’s what I like about “Lastly Free.” A few of my favourite songs, I don’t know what they’re about – however you really feel what they’re about. You get it on an intrinsic degree.
With Charity’s voice particularly, she creates this area that feels sacred. It’s open, loving, nurturing – crammed with empathy and compassion – however it additionally carries grief and depth. That’s what she does on “Rivers and Roads” each evening. And “Lastly Free” is sort of a sound bathtub in that very same spirit. It’s her at her most expressive.
Charity, would you thoughts sharing a bit about that music too and what it means to you?
Charity Rose Thielen: The creation of “Lastly Free” was actually a really liberating and flow-state kind of a course of the place I fell right into a producer’s position performing on impulse in a short time. The melodic cadence got here to thoughts and mouth very quickly too, as if the music was writing itself amongst us in actual time. It’s positively a music that felt cathartic to compose – to me, in that second of creation, it felt courageous to even utter the phrase of feeling ‘lastly free’, which in some ways the act of utterance was personally therapeutic. The meditative mono and minimalist manufacturing and melody was instinctive and sonically extremely distinctive to the remainder of ‘Aperture’ and I couldn’t think about the music approached some other method.
Do some other songs stand out that we have not but touched on?
Russell: One other one which means so much to me is “West Coast,” which Matty and Kenny wrote collectively. Kenny sings the verses, and that’s not one thing he’s ever actually performed within the band earlier than. He has an important voice, however it’s not normally his position.
Simply the truth that he felt comfy sufficient to step into that area says so much. He’s been via so much the previous couple of years. And to go from not singing in any respect to singing lead on a Head and the Coronary heart observe – that takes guts. I’m so pleased with him. And past all that, it’s simply one in every of my favourite songs, interval.
I grew up in Florida, using round in my dad’s truck, listening to the Hell Freezes Over CD by the Eagles. I do know The Massive Lebowski made individuals assume the Eagles weren’t cool, however I don’t care – these are a number of the finest songwriters and singers on the market. “West Coast” places me proper again in that truck. It’s received that really feel. There’s an actual Eagles vibe to it, in the easiest way.
I’m so pleased with Kenny for that one, and pleased with all of us for making an atmosphere that enables individuals to really feel that assured, and be that weak. I feel it says so much about the place we’re at as individuals, proper now, which feels good.
Gervais: That one’s actually particular. I keep in mind sitting round a campfire with Kenny. It was nonetheless daylight, fireplace going, and we have been buying and selling traces, shaping the music. For him, lyric writing is new. So it was this second of pure collaboration. Susceptible, uncooked. And that positively comes via within the music.
That “la-da-da” line says a lot with so little. When phrases fail, we sing these sounds – and there’s a lot emotion in that second.
Russell: Properly famous and nicely heard. He grappled with that line. I really feel like deep down he knew he preferred it, however was pondering, ‘absolutely I can’t get away with saying la-da-da.’ And I used to be similar to, ‘dude, it feels good.’ I agree completely with what you simply mentioned, Mitch.
Matty Gervais: All of the traces that lead as much as it are clearly a relationship that’s grappling with a whole lot of stuff. And so, the la-da-da is like… rattling, we’ve all felt that la-da-da a hundred percent.
Jonathan Russell: Essentially the most profound phrase on the document, “la-da-da.”
So good. And as a longtime fan, it’s been superb to listen to these new sides of all of you. Jon, you mentioned earlier that even you have been stunned by this album. What do you hope listeners take away from Aperture, and what did it provide you with?
Russell: For me, it gave me confidence. We confirmed ourselves that the explanation it labored at first is similar motive it nonetheless works now – if we belief it. That’s what I hope individuals really feel from it. That sense of grounding, and in addition of development.
Gervais: Yeah. It appears like a nicely we will maintain drawing from. While you create this manner – if you let issues unfold as an alternative of forcing them – there’s no backside. You’ll be able to maintain exploring and discovering. That lesson took us a very long time to relearn as a band. However now that we’ve got, it’s actually hopeful. I feel this album is the beginning of one thing, not the tip.
The place do you assume Aperture stands within the Head and the Coronary heart discography?
Russell: For me, it’s Wildflowers. Like what that album did for Tom Petty. It made individuals notice there was nonetheless extra to say. That there have been new sides of him to find. Not that we’re Tom Petty – however in our little world, it appears like that. A second of revelation.
Gervais: Yeah. We discuss that so much. Mid-career data can go a couple of methods. You’ll be able to taper off, or you may reset. Reconnect. Reinvigorate. That’s what this appears like. Charity even joked about calling it The Head and the Coronary heart 2, prefer it’s the sequel or reboot. As a result of it does really feel like LP1 yet again. Like a contemporary begin.
Within the spirit of paying it ahead, who’re you listening to lately? Any artists you’d advocate to our readers?
Gervais: Futurebirds and Anna Graves, for certain. They’re touring with us proper now and each are superb. Futurebirds have been round so long as we’ve got. Their catalog is so good – this rootsy, traditional rock–indie hybrid. Anna’s unimaginable too. Lovely voice, nice songwriter.
Aldous Harding is somebody I like. It’s been a minute since her final document, however she’s phenomenal. And Dean Johnson – he’s a Seattle man, and actually a musical genius. I noticed him carry out solo at a little bit bar in Ballard. Simply me and a pair others. It was jaw-dropping. His falsetto is unreal. And he’s the kindest man. He lately lined one in every of my songs and performed it for me backstage. That was probably the most particular moments of my profession.
Russell: I’ll throw in Landon Elliott. His new document Aftermath is superb. He’s somebody who’s been via a serious private transformation – id, relationships, the entire thing. And he did all of it publicly, with a lot honesty and bravado. The music displays that. It’s a strong hear.
Additionally, this could be random, however I’ve been diving into George Michael recently. Hear With out Prejudice Vol. 1. I’d by no means actually lived along with his music earlier than, however now I really feel like I’m transferring in. It’s unimaginable.
That’s superb. Thanks each a lot. Jon, what you simply mentioned offers me hope for a future ‘80s-inspired The Head and the Coronary heart album. So I’ll be right here for that period. Till then, I’ve received Aperture on repeat, and wishing you each the perfect with the remainder of the tour!
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an album by The Head and the Coronary heart
