Fifteen years in, The Head and the Coronary heart are nonetheless evolving – and with ‘Aperture,’ they discover readability by means of 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 great, the dangerous, the enjoyment, the ache, the love – every part 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 through 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 follow, that interprets to wealthy, heat harmonies, radiant melodies, thought-provoking lyrics, invigorating instrumentals, and immediately memorable singalongs – all delivered with the fervour and seasoned energy of pros who, regardless of their years of doing this, proceed to seek out inspiration in themselves and of their on a regular basis.
“It felt like LP1 another time,” Gervais tells Atwood Journal. “We weren’t eager about outcomes or expectations. We simply adopted the second and let the songs present us what they wished to be.”
What’s maybe most hanging 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 which means by means of a well-known, sun-kissed sound, The Head and the Coronary heart spend quite a lot of this document making an attempt on new garments – each musical and topical.
“I believe our followers didn’t see this document coming – and truthfully, I didn’t both,” lead singer Jonathan Russell displays. “It shocked me in one of the simplest ways.”
From monitor 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, indignant and scared, not sure of his current and fearful for his future: “I’m using in a cop automobile tonight, wanting outdoors because the blinks go by, questioning how we gonna die.” Not solely do The Head and the Coronary heart convey a flicker of humanity and empathy to these whom society so usually turns a blind eye, however they achieve this with grace, tact, appeal, angst, and a ravishing center finger to the boys in blue.
“I didn’t write that tune. 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 might 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 journey, babe
Drop me within the middlе of the ocean
Make mе swim house, inform me I’m improper
At the very least I’ll be clear for every week
Driving in a cop automobile tonight
Lotta time to suppose what’s proper
Oh, my spouse, one other in time
I ponder how she’ll stick by means of the journey?
– “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 “Hearth Escape” (a very basic 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 shifting ray of sunshine in 2025’s musical panorama.
In actual fact, it’s songs like “Pool Break” and “Jubilee” that show to be among the album’s largest 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 by means of daring vocal harmonies and emotionally potent subjects that hit arduous and depart a long-lasting impression.
“I stored imagining this picture of a bit boy sitting alone in an enormous subject, carrying a big ache,” Russell says of “Pool Break.” “Ready for somebody – a father determine – to come back 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 eternally.”
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 scent of the rain
Thunder, and the lightning is available in
Maintain me again, don’t maintain me beneath this ache
I can’t maintain from falling
Maintain me again, out on an countless monitor
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 acceptable tuning for this document!”
The monitor “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 tune takes the air out of the room,” Russell says. “It simply makes you cease and pay attention. Charity has such a presence, and when she decides to step out entrance like that, it actually grabs your consideration.”
Thielen feels the same affection towards it. “It’s positively a tune 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 tune approached every other means.”
Pink rain on the ground
Falling down, flooding these halls
Ink cracks by means of 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 these halls and beneath 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 susceptible and fantastically uncooked tune written by Gervais along with the band’s keyboardist Kenny Hensley, who additionally sings lead vocals for the primary time. “He has an excellent voice, nevertheless it’s not normally his function. 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 all my favourite songs, interval.”
The tune’s lyrics constantly 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 100%,” Gervais says, with Russell calling it “essentially the most profound phrase on the document.”
We’re each dwelling on the west coast
However you’re dreaming of the east coast
Does it actually even matter?
La da da
I used to be dwelling in a junkyard
Might’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 mild
La da da
It’s getting tougher to confess it
I do know we will’t stop but
Central Park and the boat journey
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, persistence, 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 rationale it labored at first is similar motive it nonetheless works now – if we belief it,” Russell says. “That’s what I hope folks 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 by means of grief and pleasure, reckoning and renewal, presence and risk. 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 occasions, 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 quite a lot of what every of those songs is grappling with in some kind and what we’ve collectively gone by means of as a band. It’s about selecting hope many times, irrespective of what number of occasions it could really feel that you’ve got misplaced it.”
True to their identify as soon as once more, The Head and the Coronary heart have used each their heads and their hearts to create one in all 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 fashion – once you let issues unfold as a substitute of forcing them – there’s no backside,” Matty Gervais displays. “You may 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 stay on tour this summer time – dates and extra information at theheadandtheheart.com!
— —
:: stream/buy Aperture right here ::
:: join with The Head and the Coronary heart right here ::
— —
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 believe 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 means, and I believe it left us actually wanting the alternative. 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 brief, like 5 to seven days. After that you just begin to burn out. We additionally had fewer deadlines and fewer folks concerned. We have been out of our document cope with Warner, and out of the blue we had the liberty to design this nonetheless we wished. It’s humorous the way you overlook you’ve got 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 grew to become 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. Numerous songs have been written musically first, after which we’d take these demos house, 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, a giant 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 all the time 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 once 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 final 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 up to now. Jon, you and I had a very intimate dialog about that album a few years in the past. And searching again now, that was your final launch on a serious label. It was a giant 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 a giant 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 have interaction with them.
So once you’ve been on the street enjoying the identical materials for 2 years, you begin to suppose, okay, we’ve completed 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 selections. We have been cognizant of making an attempt to maneuver again to one thing that appeared like six folks in a room.
The enjoyable half now could be reassessing the older songs and seeing which of them stay in the identical emotional and artistic area because the Aperture materials. You begin to acknowledge patterns – even ones you didn’t understand have been there. That’s once 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 quite a 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 all the time the perfect factor. If I’m the one who loves it essentially the most, that doesn’t actually serve the entire band.
You are feeling like your fingerprints have been throughout it in a means that perhaps 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 1 individual. That’s sort of the alternative 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 folks. 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 folks. That has worth. You see it each time you step onstage.
Once we have been making this document, we have been every going by means of huge life adjustments. The complete spectrum – start, dying, and every part in between. It felt like we have been all going by means of some sort of crucible, each individually and collectively. That poured into the music.
The best way we created Aperture allowed for that. There weren’t expectations. We gave ourselves room to comply with the second. Even a tune 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, moderately than pushing one thing. The lyrics weren’t prewritten – they have been revealed by means of 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 means. I wasn’t pressuring myself to be a songwriter – I simply let it are available in drips and assembled the items. Which may sound esoteric, nevertheless it’s what occurred.
It makes excellent sense. And I believe it exhibits within the songs. There’s a looseness to them – but additionally one thing deeply felt. I wish to dive into among the particular person tracks subsequent, beginning with what is perhaps 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 tune. It feels each acquainted and new. Who’s doing the falsetto on that? You, Jon?
Russell: That’s me.
It’s beautiful. That monitor 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 very fascinating 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 appropriate headspace to jot down. We have been all within the studio, sort of beating our heads in opposition to 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 bit. That stress of “we’re right here, we must be creating” began to elevate. And after we got here again to the studio, I don’t know why, however that tune 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 part adopted from there.
For me, the vocal tone and guitar tone nearly grew to become one instrument. You may’t fairly inform which one is main. It’s this layered impact – like enjoying organ and guitar on the identical time. That’s what I really 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 bit boy sitting alone in an enormous subject, carrying a big ache. Ready for somebody – a father determine – to come back 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 eternally. The daddy-son relationship continues to be, and doubtless all the time will likely be, a piece in progress. That sort of ache is mostly all the time 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 understand what it was and what you wanted.
Russell: Yeah. I’m 40 and I nonetheless really feel that worry. It’s wild. However I didn’t wish to identify the tune one thing heavy-handed. We stored it as “Pool Break” on objective. That was the within joke – but additionally, in a means, a reminder to not make the emotion too treasured. Sure, that sort of ache is actual, nevertheless it doesn’t make me particular. Everybody feels that sort of factor sooner or later. Leaving the title as-is helped deflate among the self-importance round it. Like, right here’s the reality, but additionally, we’re simply little blips within the universe.
Gervais: I really like that. And it jogs my memory of one thing I’ve been eager about. For some time, writing songs felt like banging my head in opposition to the wall. And what helped me break by means of for this document was letting go. Identical to Jon mentioned, not being hooked up to the result. As soon as I finished making an attempt so arduous, the stuff that wanted to come back up lastly got here by means of. 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 jot down one thing, let’s simply get it completed.” 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 considering, “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’d 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 need to, and I believe 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 stay in. The place did “Jubilee” come from?
Russell: That one got here extra from the group. It began with a distinct instrumental – I had these opening traces and melody, nevertheless it was over music that didn’t make the ultimate lower. In a while, Kenny got here in with this piano half that felt actually heroic. Like basic Springsteen.
Gervais: Yeah, and we performed it with this sort of early 2000s emo-pop punk edge. However as a substitute of electrical guitars, I used to be enjoying acoustic on this bizarre tuning. Jon had left one of many guitars within the studio tuned a sure means, 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 turn out 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#, essentially the most acceptable tuning ever.
Russell: It gave the tune this stunning melancholic vibe, which paired rather well with that upbeat vitality. It’s like unhappiness and pleasure braided collectively.
Gervais: And I simply keep in mind Jon within the studio, late at night time, 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 tune revealed itself that means. That very same ethos you talked about earlier – not taking it too critically – that’s what formed “Jubilee.” It got here from pleasure.
I can’t not discuss “Cop Automotive.” Discuss a intestine punch. I believe it would maintain extra uncooked emotion than something you’ve put out earlier than. The place did that come from?
Russell: That one was particular. It sort of simply erupted. Our bass participant had recorded this strumming sample at house – I believe he was actually watching Walker, Texas Ranger on the time. It was one thing tremendous easy, nevertheless 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 enjoying 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 favored, “Take me on a ship journey,” and I knew I wished to work it in, so I dropped it into the center of a verse. However every part else simply flowed.
I normally wrestle with linear storytelling in my lyrics. I get too summary. However in some way this tune had a starting, center, and finish. And I used to be sort of shocked by that. All I knew was that I beloved it. However I used to be scared to confess how a lot I beloved it as a result of I believed folks would ask me to repair it or polish it. Re-sing it. That will’ve devastated me, as a result of the emotion in that efficiency – it was fully uncooked. Unrepeatable.
That comes by means of. It doesn’t really feel carried out. It feels lived.
Russell: Yeah. I didn’t even know if I might sing like that once more. It was like I exorcised one thing. Fortunately, we came upon I can nonetheless sing it – we do it stay now. However nonetheless, it was lightning in a bottle. That tune might by no means have come from “working” on a tune. 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 house 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 totally different, they usually made me wish to dive again in. I keep in mind listening to them and considering, “Okay, that is the vibe. That is the path.” 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 “Hearth Escape.” In case you instructed me it was off Let’s Be Nonetheless and even the debut, I’d imagine you. It’s received that nostalgic, free-flowing really feel, a bit camaraderie, a bit self-reflection. It nearly appears like a tune 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 enjoying that piano line – it was a bit dissonant at first, then resolved into one thing tremendous heat and main – all of us simply jumped in. Chris was enjoying a sitar bass. We have been all smiling, enjoying stay, feeding off one another. It was joyful.
The construction got here collectively rapidly, and so did the lyrics. I do not forget 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 part. That was the emotional core. I took the instrumental house and began reflecting on what it made me really feel.
It took me proper again to the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Being on the hearth escape after a present, smoking a cigarette, watching the gang file out. You don’t understand it on the time, however you’re younger and on this particular second. After which ten, fifteen years later, you look again and suppose, “Wow, these have been good occasions.”
Every time I begin feeling nostalgic like that, it snowballs. The tune grew to become 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 continues to be shared.
Russell: It’s most likely my favourite tune to play stay proper now. Even when I’m having a tricky night time onstage – which occurs greater than I’d prefer to admit – that tune cracks a smile out of me. It’s a time machine. I can keep in mind precisely what footwear I used to be sporting in 2009. That one hits deep in one of the simplest ways.
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 identical time. How did it turn out to be the primary monitor?
Gervais: Good query. I’m unsure when it was determined precisely, nevertheless it simply felt proper. Tracklisting is all the time a course of, however this one – it simply made sense. That tune 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 shedding 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 identical time, you’re giving your self permission to think about they’re not fully gone. What comes after the setting solar? Perhaps one thing. It’s not nothing. That thought might be comforting.
Russell: And what I really like about that tune is that, despite the fact that 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 really like. It appears like somebody exhibiting up at a celebration ten years later, tapping you on the shoulder, like, “Hey, I’m right here.”
Once I hear that tune, 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 distinct angle. And that’s what makes it such an ideal opening monitor – it’s mild, but additionally stunning. It units up this entire album as one thing that wasn’t anticipated. I didn’t see this document coming. I don’t suppose our followers did both.
The closing monitor, “Aperture,” brings every part full circle. That final line – “Time was made for working out / don’t know why it took so lengthy / Solar was made for popping out / despite the fact that the night time is lengthy” – it’s such a ravishing remaining thought. Why finish with that tune, and why identify the album after it?
Gervais: That tune 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 – shifting too quick to see the surroundings, all the time falling from an excellent 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 can we do with it?
That tune 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 part’s okay. However there’s nonetheless magnificence. And lightweight.
Aperture as a phrase simply captures all of that. It’s about letting mild in, but additionally about readability. Seeing what’s actually there, even when it’s arduous to take a look at. You may’t management what’s within the body. However you can select to take a look at it.
Russell: That duality is all around the document. That rigidity between mild and darkish, grief and wonder. 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 just’d wish to spotlight?
Russell: “Lastly Free,” for positive. That tune takes the air out of the room. It simply makes you cease and pay attention. 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 enormous. You possibly can really feel the shift in vitality. She knew precisely what she wished, and he or she communicated it gently, clearly. It was simply a type of uncommon moments when every part aligns.
Gervais: The best way she did it was so swish. Lighthearted, however nonetheless grounded in one thing deep. And that’s what I really like about “Lastly Free.” A few of my favourite songs, I do not 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 – nevertheless it additionally carries grief and depth. That’s what she does on “Rivers and Roads” each night time. 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 tune too and what it means to you?
Charity Rose Thielen: The creation of “Lastly Free” was truthfully a really releasing and flow-state type of a course of the place I fell right into a producer’s function performing on impulse in a short time. The melodic cadence got here to thoughts and mouth very quickly too, as if the tune was writing itself amongst us in actual time. It’s positively a tune 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 tune approached every other means.
Do every 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 completed within the band earlier than. He has an excellent voice, nevertheless it’s not normally his function.
Simply the truth that he felt comfy sufficient to step into that area says so much. He’s been by means of so much the previous few years. And to go from not singing in any respect to singing lead on a Head and the Coronary heart monitor – that takes guts. I’m so pleased with him. And past all that, it’s simply one in all 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 folks suppose the Eagles weren’t cool, however I don’t care – these are among 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 one of the simplest ways.
I’m so pleased with Kenny for that one, and pleased with all of us for making an surroundings that enables folks to really feel that assured, and be that susceptible. I believe it says so much about the place we’re at as folks, 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, hearth going, and we have been buying and selling traces, shaping the tune. For him, lyric writing is new. So it was this second of pure collaboration. Weak, uncooked. And that positively comes by means of within the tune.
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: Nicely famous and effectively heard. He grappled with that line. I really feel like deep down he knew he favored it, however was considering, ‘certainly I can’t get away with saying la-da-da.’ And I used to be similar to, ‘dude, it feels excellent.’ I agree totally 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 quite a lot of stuff. And so, the la-da-da is like… rattling, we’ve all felt that la-da-da 100%.
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 shocked by this album. What do you hope listeners take away from Aperture, and what did it offer you?
Russell: For me, it gave me confidence. We confirmed ourselves that the rationale it labored at first is similar motive it nonetheless works now – if we belief it. That’s what I hope folks really feel from it. That sense of grounding, and in addition of development.
Gervais: Yeah. It appears like a effectively we will maintain drawing from. While you create this fashion – once you let issues unfold as a substitute of forcing them – there’s no backside. You may 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 believe this album is the beginning of one thing, not the tip.
The place do you suppose 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 folks understand 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 just a few methods. You may taper off, or you possibly can 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 another time. Like a contemporary begin.
Within the spirit of paying it ahead, who’re you listening to nowadays? Any artists you’d suggest to our readers?
Gervais: Futurebirds and Anna Graves, for positive. 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, basic rock–indie hybrid. Anna’s unimaginable too. Lovely voice, nice songwriter.
Aldous Harding is somebody I really like. It’s been a minute since her final document, however she’s phenomenal. And Dean Johnson – he’s a Seattle man, and truthfully a musical genius. I noticed him carry out solo at a 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 all my songs and performed it for me backstage. That was some of the particular moments of my profession.
Russell: I’ll throw in Landon Elliott. His new document Aftermath is superb. He’s somebody who’s been by means of 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 pay attention.
Additionally, this is perhaps 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 shifting 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!
— —
:: stream/buy Aperture right here ::
:: join with The Head and the Coronary heart right here ::
— —
“Beg, Steal, Borrow” – The Head and the Coronary heart
— — — —
Hook up with The Head and the Coronary heart on
Fb, 𝕏, TikTok, Instagram
Uncover new music on Atwood Journal
© Jasper Graham
an album by The Head and the Coronary heart