Glass Heart String Choir, New Release "California" with Bruce Hilliard
Friends-in-arms reveling at the intersection of classical virtuosity, existential poetics, and art-film surrealism, Seattle art-pop duo Glass Heart String Choir weaves golden lyrical threads of haute-art into their achingly beautiful orchestral tapestry.
Always ambitious in their quest to create unique compositions that stand out from other string-heavy chamber-pop, their latest release California is a beautiful art-song reminiscent of Damien Rice or Joanna Newsom.
The song begins in warm orchestral depths, with Williams delivering the song’s hook, “Do you remember?” in delicate yet sanguine tones, setting us up for the tug-of-war between fond recollection, consolation, and sorrow that permeates the compact 2:30 song, floating upon multi-instrumentalist and producer Katie Mosehauer’s elegant violin melodies and choral soundscapes suggestive of contemporary soundtrack composers Yann Tiersen and Jocelyn Pook.
The 100+ string-sections and near-operatic highs of previous releases are replaced with an airy, Enya-esque choir that haunts the piano-driven bridge, and boldly carries the song forward in its latter half, bringing a soft new dimension to the traditional repertoire.
The video, conceived and directed by Mosehauer, finds Glass Heart String Choir unraveling the complexities of memories and dreams, where the borders of the real world and the mythical one of our recollections are intertwined, slipping between remembrance and history. Filmed with specialty lenses that accentuate light and refract and reflect the edges of our visual field, the video serves as a metaphor for myth, hallucination, mirage; a cognate of the heart imagined, speculated, remembered, both in stunning detail and hazy, alluring beauty.
