"at 23 I was dead asleep / barely working / barely brushing my teeth / bud I had dreams, ya know / ...but did they happen?"
Last year decompressing and caught in the spider's web stickiness of Apple TV+ "The Changeling" series I was utterly surprised to see Samuel T. Herring's beautiful mug, as he was acting his ass off. Always an intriguing artist in my mind, I felt ecstatic that he had stealthily landed himself in such an acting role, a pivotal part of the story too. For me, as such a multi-layered artist, frontman of Future Islands and as rapper Hemlock Ernst, I figure Sam has reached Renaissance Man status. It is funny too because Hemlock Ernst is always considered a side project to Future Islands and while the latter might be better known, I recall that these two artistic outlets always co-existed at the same time, that maybe Hemlock Ernst may even (really) proceeded FI. The first time I experienced Sam's magnetism was when I saw Future Islands (sans real drums) back in 2011 at a funky bar, Alex's Bar, in Long Beach, California. This was pretty much right before they blew up and as they played to an absolutely packed house with everyone in it absolutely knowing every song, I, as a Future Islands newbie, was absolutely enthralled at the connection that their fans have with Sam and vice versa. The man has a magnetic gaze and presence as a live performer and now on film as well.
I thought about all this as I listened to two cuts from the upcoming "Studying Absence"collaborative album between Hemlock Ernst (aka Samuel T. Herring) and longtime Beans collaborator Icky Reels. The album set to drop on October 16th (2024) is being released via Beans’ Tygr Rawwk Records, and was carefully orchestrated by the label’s CEO. Herring initially caught the attention of Beans after his rhymes appeared on the 2022 R.A.P. Ferreira single “mythsysizer instinct.”
"Remains" (feat. Elucid of Armand Hammer) has Icky Reels' tension filled musical bed, synth like rushed heart beats, clanging beats, fluttering synths that fly like butterflies but fall out of the sky and electronic barks that feel almost like some kind of signalling or siren like. All this with Herring and Elucid take turns spitting equally tension filled flows that feel more like slam poetry, like spoken word improv than trope saddled rap. Very evocative.
I thought about all this as I listened to two cuts from the upcoming "Studying Absence"collaborative album between Hemlock Ernst (aka Samuel T. Herring) and longtime Beans collaborator Icky Reels. The album set to drop on October 16th (2024) is being released via Beans’ Tygr Rawwk Records, and was carefully orchestrated by the label’s CEO. Herring initially caught the attention of Beans after his rhymes appeared on the 2022 R.A.P. Ferreira single “mythsysizer instinct.”
"Remains" (feat. Elucid of Armand Hammer) has Icky Reels' tension filled musical bed, synth like rushed heart beats, clanging beats, fluttering synths that fly like butterflies but fall out of the sky and electronic barks that feel almost like some kind of signalling or siren like. All this with Herring and Elucid take turns spitting equally tension filled flows that feel more like slam poetry, like spoken word improv than trope saddled rap. Very evocative.
"Raised in the South" features Icky Reels' inventive industrialized urban soundscapes as sort of glitch meets trash punk meets acid jazz turned on its head while Herring's stabbing vocal prose gets real and personal about his familial ties and collective connections.
I started my words / thoughts / review here focusing first on the Apple TV+ series "The Changeling" and while it was about a lot of things like iterations of postpartum psychosis, it was also about immigrant experience in America. I bring that up because Hemlock Ernst's collaborative album is also, in part, about familial ties as it is tethered to the Herring's immigrant experience and what that means, what it feels like.
Of the album’s wide-ranging inspirations, Herring says: “Studying Absence is about my lost histories, my Southern South Pacific ancestry, my first relationships, physical abuse, drug addiction and the ghosts of the south — the roadkill on a long winter night. I was all these things but not one of them. The stories I don't know, I can only imagine, but the same can be said for the stories that I know too well. The stories that I lived and made me who I am are now so far away that remembering them is like a dream. Did it happen? But I feel now like I felt then, like I've always felt looking into a mirror. This is potential and what was lost. This is technology and how it failed. This is imperialism and who it gained. A religion, an organized crime. All the people scattered.”
And from LINER NOTES:
[Herring claims that this is the most dense and complex Hemlock Ernst outing yet. He pushed the limits of his voice, capturing sounds he’s never before laid to tape. He aimed to contrast Icky Reels’ machine-like production, offsetting it with human emotion. From front to back, Studying Absence finds Herring uncovering stories and memories that had been buried for decades. After two decades of grinding, Studying Absence is some of the most honest Hemlock Ernst output yet.]
-Robb Donker Curtius
+ + +
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/hemlock_ernst/
https://alphapup.bandcamp.com/album/the-fall-collection
Studying Absence is a collaboration between Hemlock Ernst — a side-project of Future Islands member Samuel T. Herring — and longtime Beans collaborator Icky Reels. It arrives via Beans’ Tygr Rawwk Rcords, and was carefully orchestrated by the label’s CEO. Herring initially caught the attention of Beans after his rhymes appeared on the 2022 R.A.P. Ferreira single “mythsysizer instinct.” The new album is out October 16th.
Herring had been a longtime fan of Beans and his group Anti-Pop Consortium. After initially connecting, Beans eventually coordinated a Herring vocal appearance on the Venga track “Anti-Star System.” Beans later encouraged Herring to make a record with Icky Reels, in an effort to push artistic boundaries. “With Hemlock Ernst, I tend to work over soul and jazz break type beats. Icky Reels' production was a far more industrial and acidic landscape. I knew this would be more of a cerebral process, breaking down the beats, challenging the rhythms, finding the voices. But I decided to accept the challenge,” Herring says. Beans was pleased with the end result, and Studying Absence is the most ambitious record in the Hemlock Ernst discography to date.
The synergy between Herring and Icky Reels is undeniable, and the entirety of Studying Absence thrums with seamless chemistry. Herring has spent the last 25 years using intimate dissections of his own life to question the overall human experience. While he has pondered hard as an artist, he has still to find the answers he seeks. “Studying Absence is what I see when I look in the mirror,” Herring says. The record explores the magic that can arise when people are brought together by fate, and the poignant absence that underlines the human experience. The record evokes oblong antennae pressed against living dirt, glass rippled pink with amplified howling.
Hemlock Ernst, conscious rap, spoken word, slam poetry, collaborative album "Studying Absence", "Remains" (feat. Elucid of Armand Hammer), "Raised in the South" Icky Reels, Samuel T. Herring,
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